I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

One of the most horrible headgames a villain could inflict on a hero is as follows:

The villain captures two of the hero's loved ones. He says to the hero, "Normally I'd just kill both of them in front of you, but today I'm feeling generous. I'll spare one of them if you tell me which one to spare. But if you don't choose, I'll rescind my offer, and kill both of them."

The hero hesitates, of course.

"Choose!" the villain says. "It will be YOUR FAULT if both of them die!"

So the hero reluctantly chooses which one to spare.

And the villain spares the other one.

I know I've asked this before, and not gotten very many answers, but I'll ask again, because I don't know how else to find out (googling was not helpful).

I like making fannish craft, I do. And I like participating in fests where I can make fannish craft (to prompts, for people, whatever). However, Harry Potter fandom (in specific, Severus Snape fandom) is the only place where I've found fests/exchanges where craft is welcome. And I'd like to do stuff besides Harry Potter, y'know? But 95% of fests are fic-only, and the remaining ones that accept art (or do an art + fic combo), most of them don't accept craft. But I figure it would be easier to persuade a moderator to accept craft when they already accept art, than for a ficathon which doesn't accept art at all. Or I could be sneaky and do craft and call it "art" - after all, I'd be sending an image anyway. It would just be in a different medium: craft plus photography. Which is itself an Art.

So I've been poking around, and come across a few of the "Reverse Big Bang" fests, which start with the art and finish with the fic. Which is cool, I'd like to do that. Unfortunately, the ones I've looked at appear to have died (like, last post a couple of years ago). Argh!

So please, does anybody know of any currently-not-dead fests, ficathons, bangs (big or otherwise) which are at least art-friendly? In fandoms that I know? Particularly Doctor Who.

Maybe you could ask your flists?

Awesome post: You can check my credentials if I can check yours.

I just realized that my attitude towards geekishness is the same as my attitude towards Christians: if someone identifies as one, they ARE one. They may not be the same flavour of geek or Christian as I am, but if they wear the (metaphorical) badge, then I will treat them as a brother/sister in that circle. Mind you, that includes calling them out on bad behaviour, but if you wear the badge, you have a responsibility towards that badge, too.

This whole "fake geek girl" thing - the "testing" especially - reminds me of the attitude in certain conservative Christian circles: that if one does not give the "correct" (i.e. approved) answer to some given question about Doctrine (i.e. dogma) then one is deemed to be "unsound". My father got that more than once in his early career (being an Old Testament scholar). He tended to be too conservative for the liberals and too liberal for the conservatives.

This sour exclusivity is an attitude I simply cannot comprehend.

I've never been subjected to a "fake geek girl" test, probably because I'm not in comics fandom, where this particular form of misogyny runs rampant. If anyone ever did try to do that, I'd give them a piece of my mind. I am very confident in my geek cred. If Saint Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews, I'm a geek of geeks.

Let me turn a geekish spin onto Philippians 3:2-7 here...

Beware of the dogs, beware of the evildoers, beware of the fake geeks; for we are the true geeks, who are enthusiastic and welcoming, and rejoice in the things we love, and put no confidence in geek tests, although I myself might have confidence even in geek tests. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in geek tests, I far more: I listened to The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia stories before I could read, and can quote whole swathes of them; as to technical prowess, a professional programmer for more than twenty years(*); as to fannishness, a convention goer, a convention panellist, a costume maker, a fan writer, a reviewer, a fan artist, a fanzine editor, an owner of mailing lists, an organizer of ficathons. But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss for the sake of being welcoming to newbies and making fandom a fun place to be.

So there.

(*) A line I would love to use: "I've been programming since BEFORE YOU WERE BORN!"

Gacked from settiai:
Inspired by Doctor Who's "Turn Left:" Pick one of my stories and tell me a point in the tale that you'd change. Something tiny (e.g. "and then Fay chose silver glitter instead of gold") or big (e.g. "and then Rose was arrested instead of Jack") and I'll tell you how that one difference would have altered the course of the entire story.

My fic is on my website