The Ramblings Of A Creature Of Hobbit

Challenge #1

In your own space, update your fandom information!

Well, if you're taking part in this challenge you'll know that I already did this as my intro post was one of the ones linked to as an example for anyone who wasn't sure what to post, but hey, posting anyway to promote the challenge. And I am working on rejigging some of my icons to reflect shows that weren't represented - if you know me well, you will know that I like to have as many characters as possible represented, and if you don't, well, you'll get to know more over the course of Snowflake. So it's not been easy and still being worked on, but getting there!

In your own space, talk about an idea you wish you had the time / talent / energy to do.

I'm actually feeling a little annoyed with myself right now, because I know there have been many times over the years when I've said that "There's a fic out there to be written about X, but I'm not sure I'm the one with the talent to do it", and when it comes to answering the question, so much of it has gone out of my head. Maybe it's ideas that became irrelevant when canon contradicted and I just never thought of again, but I know I have said this several times.

Having said that, there are some things I can ramble about. A few years back, when I was reading the Game of Thrones books, I got to where Daenerys was cursed by Mizzi Maz Duur, “When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves, when your womb quickens again and you bear a living child, then he will return and not before.” and Jon manages to persuade her that she was just messing with her head, and then when Daenerys eventually finds out she is pregnant Drogo has returned. It was only ever intended as a short fic, but when it was posted people started requesting a continuation (well, one person just commented a rant on how much they hate Drogo, but I don't engage with comments that are just "I hate Character X"), but I don't know if I have the talent to really take that on.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111504 is the original fic.

Another is from years and years ago, an old Lost community had a challenge to take a character who hadn't ended up in DHARMA era in season 5 and imagine the storyline if they were there after all, and I chose Sun. I got three chapters in to this fic, and started trying to write a fourth...I will have to be careful how I word this here as I know I have someone on my list who has S6 to watch, but let's just say that season 6 caused me to lose heart and feel I couldn't carry on with the fic. Recently I've been regretting that and wishing I had continued, but I don't know if I ever can. Still thinking about that one.

If you know me well, you can probably guess this one, but if I had the right plot, or if I had any more than the basic art skills, I would love to create something RUMPLE/ROWENA!

Also if you know me, you will know that if I have one pet peeve, it's when the same characters get all the attention while others get little or no development despite there being so much potential there. I could rant for hours on this subject when it comes to Lost, but since that is something I have tried to rectify many times over the years e.g. more backstory for the Others, I won't get into that one here for this post. The one I will bring up is It's A Sin, where the character Ash was the least developed of the flatmates. While we see Ritchie's small town family and their bullshit like asking Jill where she was "really from" rather than accepting Woking as the answer, Roscoe's family's lack of acceptance leading him to walk away from them and tell them his forwarding address was 23 Piss Off Avenue, London W Fuck, and Colin's awesome accepting mammy who puts the whole lot of them to shame, but we never see the background Ash comes from. He gets that bit of story where he starts working at the school and is expected to censor the school library to fit in with Section 28, but apart from that he really doesn't get a lot of his own story, and that has always bugged me. Part of me would like to see more of his background, but I'm not sure I'm the one who could create that when there's really not that much to work with on the original show.

Slightly tangentially, I realised there was a line I couldn't cross when there was an episode of Legends of Tomorrow once where the Legends met a young Barack Obama. I found myself briefly imagining what could have happened if they had instead met a young Trump, and managed to break the timeline in such a way that meant he didn't become president...then realised that the one line I can't cross is writing Donald Trump.

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

Okay, well, in terms of fannish goals, I'm going to go back to one I had last year about getting a few more fandoms done for the 100fandomschallenge, which I started in 2019 and still have a long way to go. Also planning on getting as many of my WIPs as possible finished - still need to find a way of completely screwing up the history of England (for context, that story is a Legends of Tomorrow fic set in season 3 where the Princes in the Tower are pulled into the present day, it's decided that they can't be restored to 1483 because in the original timeline they were never seen after that and returning them would change history, but Nate and Zari decide to try anyway, I now need to decide how that screws up the timeline.)

Also planning to try and make some progress with my increasingly longer list of shows to check out.

In terms of non-fannish goals, I realised recently that what I sometimes need to do is acknowledge when it's time to let go of or scale back on some goals - my last but one manager, not so affectionately known as "Cornelius Fudge" (she had the same trick of burying her head in the sand, forming her own conclusions about what was happening and acting on that and then only realising they were wrong when the evidence smacked her in the face, and not investigating anything properly. The whole time I worked for her felt like living in the world of Voldemort's return). Anyway, one issue with Fudge was that because she didn't spend enough time with the staff she managed (I understand now, but didn't then, that the structure in place was a part of the problem - she managed lots of people, based at about five different sites, while she worked from another one altogether and never spent any time with the teams), she had no idea what actually went on on a day to day basis, and was trying to set us goals without understanding that what she was setting wasn't really achievable, and not working with us to try and understand the reasons why they might not be and trying to help us work out what might be. And for a long time, I would try as hard as I could to still meet those goals anyway, and I realised recently that there's still a part of me that tries to live up to that even now, long after that manager's gone. So I'm setting myself the goal of knowing when it's time to let go of goals.

Promote at least one canon that you adore (old, new, forever fandom)

I'm conscious of the fact that I have probably shared a lot of these in previous posts. However, I'm going to do it anyway, I figured it doesn't have to be a big deal because a lot of people either won't remember it or won't have seen it in the first place.

My forever fandom always has been and always will be Lost, the one that got me into the world of fandom in the first place. I think it was the "Locke in the wheelchair suddenly able to walk" flashback that really drew me in and got me hooked on the mysteries, and I loved being able to fill in the backstories of all those like the Others who we only really learned bits about (do not get me started on this, you will never shut me up).

A few months ago, the show The A List was recommended to me, and that's a canon I will promote (I'm literally aware of only two fics about this show, one of which I wrote myself. That's not counting my current work in progress for the Rare Pairs challenge at 1_million_words.) In some ways, the story did remind me of Lost, from the "smoke monster noises in the woods" heard by Alex and Harry and later Kayleigh to the labs Mia, Alex and Harry found that had been abandoned for about 20 years (totally the Peregrine station of the DHARMA Initiative, and Mags was totally typing 4 8 15 16 23 42 to summon her mysterious employer). And Harry and Petal's attempts to escape the island are totally just going to end up in their getting stuck there as per Desmond's "bloody snowglobe" quote! While the story of Midge, generally ignored at a summer camp until a near fatal fall leads her to become the new persona queen bee Amber and using it to mind control all her former campmates, becoming the new queen bee herself, isn't exactly Lost I have enjoyed having this substitute.

My favourite for celeb spotting is always Harper's Island. Seriously, the CASTING. Imagine Laurel from Arrow marrying Walsh from Once Upon A Time, with OUAT's Granny as their wedding planner, Smee from OUAT, Aleister from Bitten and Dylan from Slasher S1 as the best men, "Bobby Singer" as the town sheriff, Logan's father from Veronica Mars as uncle of the groom, "Ben from Point Pleasant" as father of the bride and "Paula" as a bridesmaid along with "Agent Liberty's wife from Supergirl", and "one of the Tweedles from OUAT in Wonderland" as the town's resident bad boy, seriously there are so many times now when I'll be watching a show and think "There's X from Harper's Island" (doing exactly the kind of thing I used to laugh at Grandad for doing years ago).

Buffy the musical is always going to be a favourite of mine. I'd never really watched the show before I saw that episode, but some of my ex's friends were really into it and had happened to put it on, and that immediately had me hooked. From relating to Buffy "going through the motions" to laughing at Anya singing about Bunnies, the episode managed to make me smile when I needed it, and it set the bar for all musical episodes.

And my ramble from last time about my all time favourite The Fandom book series:


So, for anyone who didn't see my first post on this, The Fandom was about a group of friends attending Comic Con for their favourite book, The Gallows Dance (think The Hunger Games and you're on the right lines. In the future, the "Panem" equivalent is a London filled with Genetically Enhanced Men (Gems), who are the equivalent of Hunger Games Capitol, while the Imperfects (Imps) are the society outcasts, and the story is that of their rebellion.)

The villain of The Gallows Dance, President Stoneback, wants an ending where the villains win, so he was trying to influence the original author to write such an ending to the sequel, eventually leading her to jump from her balcony. His next tactic, on seeing how the "loop" of the story going round and round again was being slightly changed by the creations of fanfiction, was to try and recruit the fanfic writer "AnimeAlice" to write a pro-Gem sequel, and ended up pulling in the entire group by mistake. They then had to complete the story in order to get home.


The next one in the series picks up the year after the end of The Fandom. Alice and Violet have written the sequel, but it's not the one President Stoneback wanted. Violet's brother Nate, shot by the president's nephew in the fandom world and stuck in a coma for a year in the regular world, is about to have his life support switched off, so Violet and Katie try to get themselves sent back to Gallows Dance canon to bring him home. Alice, stuck in the regular world, discovers that some rogue writer called Fanboy is writing the pro-Gem uprising that Stoneback originally wanted, so she then has to try and rescue things from here.

Without revealing too many spoilers, including the identity of Fanboy, I will say that a dispute running through the second book about whether to write another sequel is resolved when Alice and Violet decide to give the characters over to the fandom: they set up their own fansite where anyone can contribute, where writing about all characters is welcome, and anyone trying another Fanboy stunt will be removed.

And much as I think there is scope for more (I personally would have liked to see the characters of Ash and Nate get more of a voice, and I know how I would personally do that), I do like the idea of giving it to the fandom. I like the way that all characters are welcome, and if someone does want to give the villains a happy ending they can. Anyone who knows me at all well knows how much I love to write any possible character, especially those who don't get much fandom attention. I've said before that Ben Linus from Lost would have likely recruited me for a pro Others fic, and I would have happily worked for him because I did feel that the Others had so much untapped potential. Instead of main character PWP, I was fleshing out their backstories. And the message at the end of The Fandom Rising was that it's not only okay, but encouraged, to be That Writer, the one who spends time on minor characters, the one who sometimes lets the villains win.

So the latest challenge is to share some goals, be they fannish or otherwise.

I'm planning on getting as many prompts for 100fandoms done as I can, especially trying out some shows I haven't written before. Since there's no time limit, it doesn't matter if I don't set a target to do all 85 I have left this year, so I won't put the pressure on myself to commit to that. But I will do as much as I can.

Also going to try and clear out as many WIPs as I can. (Of course, if there's something that's only about 33 words and is about a theory that's long since been disproved by canon, I will probably just get rid of those. But things like the Legends of Tomorrow one where the Princes in the Tower in 2018 are an anachronism they can't fix without cocking up the timeline even more...that one will be finished for sure. And don't get me started on the alternate ending to S3 Fringe where Over There was the universe that survived...guess I know what 2 of my 100fandoms will be, there are prompts those ideas fit with.)

Also looking to get to know more people in fandom.

So today's challenge is to promote our favourite communities and challenges.

I will nominate 1_million_words - always has lots of writing and graphics challenges and is a lot of fun.

I also started doing the 100 fandoms challenge at DW last year, https://100fandoms.dreamwidth.org/ - so far I have made it to 14 and it has got me into writing shows I never thought I would. Currently in the middle of my 15th which is about How To Get Away With Murder.

So the latest prompt is to discuss our fannish history. Some of you will have seen some of this before, so apologies for that.

I first really became aware of the existence of fandom when I was in my second year at St Andrews and my then-boyfriend persuaded me to see the first Harry Potter film, after which I started reading all the books. Even though I don't speak to the guy any more, the fandom has stayed with me. A couple of the girls in his friendship group were into writing slash fanfiction, mainly about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship Of The Ring having been released not that long afterwards). After I split up with the ex and ended up cutting that friendship group off completely, I tended to stay away from the whole fandom community in the hope of avoiding The Piss Artist Formerly Known As Xander (my ex's friend Sal, who had this kind of alter ego Alexander, posted her fics under that name, and when people assumed that was her real name she went along with it and created this whole Xander persona for herself, ended up getting engaged to this Australian woman she met in the fandom and didn't come clean to her for ages...all very odd.) But Harry Potter is still one of my favourite fandoms, and if you have ever read any of my RL posts (an uncle who makes so many requests for Christmas and birthday presents that I call him Dudley Dursley to his face, a job that had such high turnover it became known as the Defence Against the Dark Arts job - Voldemort was the safe character to blame that on; the real problem was my ex manager who was a "Professor Umbridge" - which was her way of avoiding the "Cornelius Fudge" style of her predecessor and didn't understand that could itself be a mistake) you will know it still has an influence on me!

A few years later, I discovered Lost, and that was the show that really got me into trying out online fandom for myself. If you know me at all, you will know that I love to write fics about characters that are less well developed in the shows, don't get as much love in the fandom, and Lost gave me lots of material to work with there. Seriously, don't ever get me started on backstories of the Others because you won't be able to shut me up. That was the first fandom I really stuck my toe in, and it will always be my favourite one.

As time went on, and I was getting to know people in the Lost fandom, other shows were gradually recommended to me. Fringe was the next show I really got into after Lost, then over time on other people's recommendations I started picking up other shows, Once Upon a Time, Revenge, Vampire Diaries-verse, Arrowverse, Game of Thrones, How To Get Away With Murder, iZombie, The 100, Hunger Games, Gotham, Supernatural, Shadowhunters, Scream, AHS, Riverdale, Pretty Little Liars, Teen Wolf, Manifest, Smallville, the list's quite a long one and gets longer all the time (and will no doubt be covered in other questions on this challenge!)

Yeah, I've had my times that were more active than others - 2013 is still referred to as "zombie year" after Grandad died (that's the incoherent ones on Walking Dead, not the ones on iZombie who can pass as human) because I went through that year pretty much on autopilot and wasn't being very active. But I plan on remaining more active this year, and even now I still take on quite a lot of new shows, even ones that aired ages ago (I recently took up Lucifer and Veronica Mars).