schneefink, posts by tag: fandom - LiveJournal

I signed up for fandom_stocking again, in a victory against self-doubt. My stocking is here.
And I reminded myself that even if I don't finish even half the treats I wanted to write, I'm sure people will still be happy to receive gift fic months later. Also I try to remember the two cakes principle. I almost finished completely rewriting my Yuletide fic and I like it better than the first version.

I didn't request Hockey RPF, not because I don't still enjoy reading hockey RPF fic but because I signed up late and in that moment I couldn't think of (not-angst) requests. (Of course I thought of things afterwards, it always works like that.) I still enjoy following the Penguins, and it's always especially fun when they're on a win streak. Sometimes it's harder than other times to focus on the narratives that I enjoy (like Sid's incredible goal-scoring, last year's rookies doing well, next year's rookies looking good) and not those that make me sad (Fleury), but the memory of the Cup win last season makes everything better. Also nice feel-good pieces like this one about how happy Schultz is in Pittsburgh and how well he is doing and how much Gonch is helping the defensemen.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

I haven't written anything in weeks and I really hoped I'd manage to pick it up again today, but instead I spent hours reading fans' reactions to the latest Yuri!!! on Ice episode with a huge smile on my face. I don't even watch the show! I watched I think three episodes total and concluded that while it's cute, the skating is very pretty, and the opening song catchy, it hits my embarrassment squick too often for me to truly enjoy it. (How sensitive I am about that tends to come in phases, so maybe I'll try again in a few months.) I vaguely followed what was happening via reactions and Tumblr gifs, just enough to appreciate the newest plot twist. Not as much as the fans though. They're so happy! This is the best. The last time I saw an entire fandom be so happy about something… maybe YoI fans after episode 7, or Young Justice fans when season 3 was confirmed, and definitely Pens fandom after the Cup win in June, but it's a rare and beautiful thing. I'm not in the fandom but this cheers me up.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

Every time I get into a new fandom I'm a bit worried about annoying everyone with how much I talk about it, on- and offline. By now, after several years, I assume everyone got used to me talking about hockey a lot. Now I've started talking about D&D a lot - I've already explained the game to my mom, told LB and DD about my odd familiars, and I enjoy making "best of last week" posts on DW. Another fandom of a type I'm unfamiliar with, but I'll figure it out.

Things that happened last D&D session:( Collapse )

Tomorrow I'm going on vacation visiting my grandparents for a week with LB. We'd talked about it for a while but never specified a date because LB's summer plans were so fluid, so when he called me on Friday (right after I came back from grocery shopping) and suggested next week, it was a surprise. I'm looking forward to seeing my relatives, but I don't think I'll stay long because I currently feel comfortable in Vienna and like there's a lot of stuff I want to do here. How is it already the middle of July? Weird.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

Follow-up to my post from yesterday about quitting fandoms and hockey (rpf) in particular: there is yet another in a long list of shitty incidents. This time, an AHL prospect was charged with a revenge porn felony, and even though he was arrested and charged over a month ago the team let him keep playing until it became public on social media. UGH.

There were some good responses and comments on being a woman in hockey sports fandom on Twitter:
Hannah Stuart
@Puckologist
Jen LC
Megan Richardson
Sarah Connors
Sasky Stewart
Hockey Babbler
And not on Twitter:
"The NHL's problem with women", by Julie Di Caro
Women in hockey being heard, but not loud enough, by Scott Wheeler (Pension Plan Puppets)

One that feels unfortunately familiar:
m g: "Hockey has brought me a lot of fun and many friendships, but when I see the decisions made by @Puckologist @acciohockey @butyoucarlotta ... amongst many others, I know that's my future. That I'm just waiting for the scales to tip. For the negative to outweigh the positive."

Every time someone leaves the sports fandom feels lonelier/scarier afterwards. Fandom should not feel like a fight.

To sum up, Casey:
"To the women who stay and push back: thank you.
To the women who need a break: You deserve to feel safe & happy, not trapped."

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

I wanted to post this yesterday, but then I got distracted by the Pens-Caps game. It was a fantastic hockey game, except for when the Caps got frustrated and started taking it out on Pens players: Weber started punching Rust who was just lying in the ice, Oshie punched Sid in the head while Sid was lying down pinned without his helmet, Weber boarded Rust, ugh. I hate that part of the sport. (I expected something like this against Philly, not the Caps!) I only watched two periods before I decided my nerves had enough (and also I was very tired) and was very happy and relieved to wake up to a 6-2 win. The Rust-Cullen-Kuhnhackl line was fantastic.
What a weekend, decisive wins against the Flyers and Caps and giving up 35 shots total. Fingers crossed Dumo is not too badly injured, fucking injuries.


March posting meme: What makes you stop being fannish about something or have you ever just quit, cold turkey, a fandom? If you haven't, what do you think would make you quit?
I've never, that I can recall, suddenly quit a fandom. In every case it was because I gradually lost interest. Sometimes because there were fewer people to talk to, sometimes because canon became worse, sometimes because I ran out of canon and fanworks, sometimes I discovered something else I liked better, sometimes I didn't even know why.

The question is currently particularly relevant for hockey (rpf) fandom. If something like what happened with Patrick Kane this summer – he was accused of rape and his team, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the league handled the situation terribly – happened with my team, could I continue being a fan of them? On the one hand I don't think so, but I'm not sure where I'd draw the line. If it's just one guy, I think I could deal with it. After all I already do my best to ignore Mario Lemieux. But what if the management & the organization support him, is that a deal-breaker, or only if my favorite players support him too?
And I don't think it will happen, but what if Patrick Kane gets the Masterton trophy this season, awarded to the player "who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey"? Would that be a league I could support? On the one hand I wouldn't want to, but it'd be hard because I'd still be attached to my team, and the hockey is so pretty; and it'd likely be possible to rationalize away because the league already does many shitty things -.- I'd probably try not to give them any more money, at least.
(Hm, would also be interesting how that would affect the hockey/hockey rpf fandom overlap/line. I'll get into that some other time maybe.)

Things other current canons could do to stop my interest (apart from stupid things I can't foresee):
- The 100: I'm already less interested than I was now that they ( Collapse ) There are fewer characters that I like and am interested in than there used to be, and when the number goes down to zero I'll stop watching. Currently it's at around 5, if I add up some halves.
- Killjoys: I'm very curious what the second season of Killjoys will look like, they basically changed the entire premise. If Dutch and Johnny die I'm not interested anymore, but that won't happen. If Dutch and Johnny's friendship is permanently ruined in a bad way, that would also be a dealbreaker.
- MCU: I'm already only watching the movies people are saying are good, Age of Ultron killed a lot of my enthusiasm. If CA:CW is as bad as Age of Ultron I probably won't bother watching the next few movies.

Fandom reasons that would make me quit a fandom: Fortunately that hasn't happened yet, because in several instances I've been lucky to be a corner of fandom that's less wanky. (Now especially because I'm not really involved in fandom on Tumblr or Twitter.) I've heard several stories that if they happened in a fandom that I was very involved in I would probably have quit that fandom, often coinciding with questionable canon developments. I'm not sure how much, but bad fandom wanks definitely would affect my interest in canon, especially since interest in canon & interest in fandom are usually related.
(I thought about examining that more closely and playing through a few scenarios, but it always came back to how glad I am that I was never in Blackhawks fandom and could mostly avoid that mess in fannish spaces. No need to relive that mess.)

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

Pens win 4-1 against the Flyers! It was BEAUTIFUL. This is what this team should look like. (Except the PP, that was terrible.) And they don't even have Geno right now, so this isn't even the final form.

For the March posting meme, what does it take for you to get fannish about something?
Good question.

There are different degrees of "being fannish about something". If I had to classify it, maybe like this:
1, I watch/read canon but don't read fic, OR I read fic but don't watch/read canon. (The latter happens surprisingly often.)
2, I watch/read canon and read fic, but don't feel inclined to write fic myself or get involved in fandom discussions or seek out further information, or
3, I only do so for a short time/occasionally.
4, I watch/read canon, read fic, want or do write fic myself, seek out further information and communities and discussions to participate in, and it lasts for a longer time, let's say at least several months.

Type 1 fandoms can be anything. Type 4 fandoms, my "main" fandoms, I've only really had two, SGA and Hockey RPF. With both of them it was a surprise to me that I got so involved: with SGA the fantastic fandom played a huge role and with Hockey RPF that I started enjoying the sport itself so much.

Looking at a few past fandoms that fell in category 2&3, it seems requirements are (among others):
- at the very least one character that I like, ideally more than one
- for this/these character(s) to have interesting relationships with other people
- either an interesting world or interesting circumstances
- it's hitting some of my kinks, h/c and/or loyalty and/or found family etc.
- canon should have a place for more stories to fit in, not be perfectly self-contained and satisfying, there should be something left to build on/with
- at least one person, preferably more, to talk with about the fandom. I have a ton of respect for people who try, and sometimes even succeed, in starting fandoms, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it. I need the conversation. For example, "Steerswoman" is the smallest fandom I've found myself in for longer than a few weeks, it's pretty much inactive but at least I know that a few people on my flist have read&liked it, there's an audience for fic (even if it's small) and if I started a conversation it wouldn't go into nothing. (And even then I probably wouldn't still be as interested if the timing with Yuletide wasn't so convenient.)
- and then there's a random element. Often I can't explain why one thing grabs me and one doesn't. Or maybe I could if I took a very close look at both, and it'd be different details each time. Often it'd just be "that's not what I was in the mood for at that moment."

I like that there's a random element. Makes it a pleasant surprise every time something does grab me.
(Like hockey (rpf.) That was a huge surprise and showed me that it's impossible to predict.)

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

Favorite quote of the day:

"Isn't fandom economy a weird thing? I can rub my hands with glee and say yesssss, I have caused these people pain, it was so mutually satisfying."

hansbekhart, in the comments to their excellent fic The Dead Forest, which is about Steve waking up in the future.

Sums it up pretty well. Similar things happen with books and movies, but in fandom you have much more immediate feedback. You have authors being called terrible monsters in comments and being proud of it, lately there's a lot of fans calling themselves trash for whatever reason, and if you're not familiar with the culture it may seem a bit weird. Fandom's the best.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

Over four hours choir practice tonight because our first concert is in a week. Tiiired. I still have a few pieces to learn by heart and a few passages I sometimes get wrong. This was the first practice after the holidays, for that it wasn't bad. I love choir singing, but I think it'll be a bit too much the next two weeks. Especially because it's the whole weekend again. (Plus I have doctor's appointments coming up, ugh.)

Yesterday evening I read a fic that was described as dark, so I expected things like rape and murder. It had those things, but also an extremely dysfunctional relationship with two people who care about each other but keep hurting each other, and a hopeful ending at best. It was very well written and also very disturbing, so I stayed up way longer than I had planned to get it out of my head before I went to sleep. It's still not out of my head. This is the third time something like this has happened to me (that I can recall), and every time it was a bandom fic. I should probably start being more careful with bandom fics.

DD is back from the US and she brought me a souvenir! I now have my very own Geno Malkin shirt ))))
She watched the Pens-Lightning game before Christmas live, I'm envious. She also stayed on the same hotel floor as the Pens, so she got to see hockey players running around half-naked with only towels on and met Kuni and Tanger in the elevator. Sadly not half-naked.

Simon Despres is playing very well this season, which is great. Two days ago there was a new article about him and I found out that I got some details wrong in Losing Down. That was inevitable; what's annoying is that it gave me a few interesting ideas for things I could have added to the story or changed, but it's too late now. Or maybe it would just have become more complicated.
Maybe I should write a Despres primer. But my only attempt to write a primer so far (Tommy Shepherd) stalled in the middle because wow is that a lot of work. And I doubt it would actually lead to more Despres fic being written. Put it on the "maybe one day if I'm bored and have time" project list.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

I watched "The Maze Runner" yesterday and I enjoyed it. ( Collapse ) I want to write so many Yuletide treats for the movie now but there's not enough time, dammit. Maybe next year.


For the December meme, a question by theladyscribe: what was your first fandom and do you still read/watch/write it?

I'm not sure what my first fandom was, it depends on the criteria. I started making up my own characters and stories to worlds from books very early, and with many of these old fandoms I can't remember in which order I started them. I think my Karl May phase was pretty early?

Some early fandoms that I wrote fic in were Star Trek (only the tie-in novels, I didn't see an episode or a movie until years later) and Beyblade, I started writing self-insert fic for these two in 2004. I also wrote One Piece fic, but I can't find it anymore and I think that was a bit later.

Two of the earliest fandoms that I found online were Lord of the Rings (I never wrote fic for it though), Beyblade, and One Piece (but more discussion and less fic.) And I think the next one might have already been SGA? I think I first saw SGA in 2006/2007, then I read a lot on ff.net and on people's author websites, then I started stalking LJ, and I created my own LJ account in 2009.

So the answer's mostly no. I only read Star Trek when a fic is recced, same with LotR; I still follow One Piece but I've never read much fic and at the moment pretty much none, and I haven't read Beyblade in years. (Wow, thinking of Beyblade makes me feel nostalgic.)

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.

I met new people! Hi! I love meeting new people :)

I thought I could maybe post a short "about me" intro, but this is harder than I thought.

Me: I'm 23, female, from and currently living in Vienna. I still live with my parents, in a small house with a small garden in an outer district, but I'm planning to move out in the next few months. I have a little brother, LB, who I get along with very well (mostly.) No pets: we had two mice once, but they started fighting all the time.

I used to read a ton of books - I'm a very fast reader -, nowadays I mostly read fic. I'm a member of a debating society, I sing in a choir, and I volunteer for the OTW. I wouldn't describe myself as an especially athletic person, but I started playing hockey three weeks ago and it's very exciting. I like baking, worldbuilding, spaceships, and sleeping in. I know some Russian, but I should practice more.

I'm currently finishing my bachelor's degree in socioeconomics. I've been trying to do that for over a year, but I'm currently recovering from depression so it took longer. I still have a huge procrastination problem, but I'm getting better.

My fannish history: I started writing self-insert Star Trek, One Piece, and Beyblade fanfic when I was quite young, and in hindsight I'm glad I didn't know you could post stuff like that on the internet. (But I'm happy I wrote it! Yay idfic.) I discovered there's such a thing as online fandom via sites like animexx.de. Later I found ff.net, through that personal fic sites, and then Lj. That was - wow, over five years ago.

My first big fandom was SGA. It set my standard for crackfic, after that every other fandom has been disappointing in that regard ;) (Ketchup/pea. How to even top that.) Then I flirted with many fandoms, most of them I was only "active" in for a few months or only follow passively. Some of the latest are Young Avengers, Vorkosigan Saga, and Babylon 5.
To my great surprise, during the NHL lockout 2012 I somehow fell into Hockey RPF as my new "main" fandom. Now I'm probably even more a fan of the game itself than of the fic, but the fic is a great bonus. The Pens are my team, but I'm fond of a few more players, especially Habs.

I have many story ideas, many that I don't write down, or only write down an outline or a scene and never finish. You can find most of the finished ones on AO3. I want to write more: currently I'm writing my Yuletide fic and it's going well, so I'll see :)

I consider dreamwidth my main platform at the moment, it's certainly my favorite. I try to post regularly, at least once a week, and most times I succeed. I'm still on Lj for my flist, and I'm on Tumblr for the pretty pictures and sometimes the links.
While I love the feature, I still don't know how best to use access lists. I mostly post personal stuff under lock, like health or family stuff or rants, and I'm not sure if people are interested: if you want to read that kind of stuff I'd be happy to give you access.

If you have any questions you can ask here or on the December posting meme.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. comments there.