The Ramblings Of A Creature Of Hobbit

Challenge #12 Create a Rec Countdown.

My 5 favourite shows of all time:

1. Lost
2. Dark
3. From
4. Yellowjackets
5. I'm going to cheat because I'm torn between The Wilds, Fringe and School Spirits.

4 favourite authors:

1. Riley Sager
2. John Marrs
3. Ruth Ware
4. JD Robb

3 ships:

1. Sayid/Desmond (Lost)
2. George/Mitchell (Being Human UK)
3. Rumple/Rowena (Once Upon a Time and Supernatural)

2 celebs I'd like to meet:

1. Nathaniel Hall (Donald from It's a Sin) - the character was a prat, but the actor comes across as a good guy, makes the effort to interact with his fans, he's a good advocate for HIV awareness. Plus he's from a similar part of the country to where my family originally came from, so we'd have that common ground.
2. Douglas E. Hughes - From's latest villain who's only appeared at the end of season 3, who in real life comes across as a very funny guy on his socials (one fan made a crochet figure of his character and he does these funny poses with it).

1 self rec fic:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/963730 - Chaff and Haymitch's last night of drinking before the Quarter Quell and the story of Chaff's Games.

Challenge #10

In your own space, talk about one of your fandom firsts. This could be your first fandom, your first fandom friend, the first fanwork you created, the first fanwork you interacted with... The options are endless!


My first ever fic was written for Lost, the first fandom to ever get me thinking that I could play an active role in it, the first to get me wanting to fill in the missing pieces, the first to give me an OTP (for those who don't know me, that is Sayid/Desmond), the first character to be Dead To Me (says she who has just written that same person - make that smoke thing - for the 3 sentence fiacthon). If you do know me, you won't be surprised to hear that the first fic I attempted was about the less often written characters (it was one about the family members of the crash survivors and their first Christmas following the crash).

Challenge #8

In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for a beloved character, relationship or fandom.


One I'm really into at the moment is From, about a town that traps anyone who happens to arrive there (this usually happens after seeing a fallen tree in the road). It's a horror (the characters are also faced with creatures that are kind of like vampires who come out at night, their origin story is mentioned in season 3 although there's going to be more to it I'm sure), a good cast - I first became aware of the show via its leading man Harold Perrineau (Michael from Lost) and went on to recognise August from Once Upon a Time and then Professor Shane from Vampire Diaries (even if I did spend the first episode looking at that guy and thinking "I know you, why do I know you?"). There's family dynamics to explore (Boyd and Ellis's initial estrangement and the story behind that), the hope of possibly finding a way out versus those who are reconciled to their fate. And for anyone worried about the idea of another Lost (this comparison has been made, and yes there are similarities) we are starting to get answers now!

Challenge #6

Share your favourite piece of original canon.

The year was 2002, I was in my second year at university, had just come out of a bad relationship, but as we were part of the same friendship group he was in my face all the time, a lot of them proved themselves to be really more his friends...I'll leave that bit there because it's getting off topic and this is a public post. That was just added as context for where my head was when someone had put on the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I had some very vague familiarity with Buffy at that point, but this is the episode that really drew me into it. From relating to Buffy's Going Through the Motions, to feeling cheered up by the Bunnies song and I'll Never Tell. This episode was what encouraged me to watch the rest of the series, and it's remained a favourite ever since. It's inspired some of my later Vampire Diaries fics (Rest in Peace totally fits Klaus/Caroline, for one example, but there were a few) and also inspired some of my icons.

Challenge #4

Since this is the start of a new year, this challenge will be to set your own goals! Of course we can all make large or ambitious goals, remember that small and/or short goals are also good!

Well, where do I start?

I'll start by trying to get some of my series finished. One of them is heading close to a conclusion now, and I know where I'm going with it, even though I had the exact opposite intention in mind when I started that fic as what I thought would be a one-shot. (Let's just say I tried to alter the timeline of Dark, at a time when I was still on Season 1 and didn't have the full context of the complexities of the timeline. For those who don't know, it's...a lot. The show comes with family trees to keep track of how they're all related, and since lots of people are related through time travel, it gets complicated. If Mikkel really had been restored to his own timeline, what would actually happen would have been that the whole Nielsen family line would have been erased from existence, but that wasn't a route I wanted to go down.) At the moment, it's looking possible that it'll end up being 13 chapters, and while I'm probably the least superstitious out of my family, I can just hear their reactions to that now.

I've also been saying for years that I'll go back to the Lost series where Sun went back to 1977 with the others (I got about 3 chapters in back in 2010 and then lost heart after Sun and Jin were killed off. I'm not sure where I'll take it now without killing them off, because this time I can more easily make that choice. But I'll get there.)

Another is to get my book bingo achieved and get my TBR list down. Every so often I say I'll stop buying new books for Lent, or between my birthday and Christmas (my birthday's in August), and never stick to it. Maybe this year I'll be able to make my TBR list manageable.

Another is to get my to-watch list down a bit as well (although the new season of Yellowjackets is coming soon and will take priority at that point).

To get more done with my 100fandoms table.

And I'll keep the one about knowing when it's sometimes easier to let go of goals or modify them if I come to the conclusion that they may not be achievable.

Challenge #2

In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Whether you've been in fandom for a while or just discovered fandom, we'd love to know how you came to fandom! Was it that one book or a TV show or movie or anime/manga or a band/song that gave you that first spark? Or a character or characters that you wanted more of but the canon material just didn't have enough of them? Or were you introduced to fandom by someone?

You can be as brief or detailed as you like: timeline, narrative, bullet points, etc. :D

In the past, whenever I've answered this, I've usually started with the point where I first became aware of online fandom's existence. But having read through some of the other entries to this, I wonder if I should try and go earlier. So if I did, I guess I would start with when I got into Babysitters Club in primary school. Since I'm in the UK, we were a couple of years behind the US, and this became more noticeable once the Mysteries got out of sync with the rest of the series - for example, through the Mysteries I knew that Stacey had briefly quit the club to spend more time with Robert, then rejoined again, before that happened in the ordinary series, and Abby just suddenly seemed to be there with no explanation. Then as time went on I moved on towards Sweet Valley High (although I still have no interest in reading the Confidential - I remember I found out some of what happens and honestly thinking it was a joke at first.)

Those who know me well will know that I have a pet peeve when it comes to the same characters getting too much attention while some barely get any. (Jack and his tattoos, I'm looking at you. My frustration at the amount of Jack episodes on Lost is not about Jack as a character, I'd feel the same way had it been any other character who got an excessive amount of centric episodes, including one about their tattoos, while other characters got nothing at all. Libby, Charlotte, Ilana and Frank should have had their own episodes, and I'd have enjoyed more Ben. I would even have liked more development of the Others. Just don't get me started.) Anyway, that little ramble got a bit off topic, because what I was getting at was the origins of this pet peeve when I was 13. At that time, I'd got into the Making Out series by Katherine Applegate, and there were far too many books centred on the character Zoey. Zoey was a character I ended up wanting to shake by the end of it because I found it irritating how her response to everything was a big dramatic run away. But even without that, there were plenty of other characters who deserved more attention. Christopher never gets his own book at all. Kate doesn't get any POV time in what is technically her first book. The diary entries always began with Zoey regardless of whose book it was. I wasn't aware of the term Mary Sue when I was 13, but if I had been, I would have applied it to her. And the peeve has remained with me ever since, through Jack's tattoos to Once Upon a Time's Regina vs Snow episodes which definitely got into I Think This Flashback's Mostly Filler territory by the end.

Apologies to those who have known me quite a while, because you probably heard this. I first became aware of the existence of online fandom back in 2001, when I was in my second year at university, and some of my ex's friends were writing Harry Potter fic. They were mainly into the porn, (again if you know me well you'll know that I'd rather explore backstory or alternate timelines) and once that particular situation had exploded (without getting into the whole saga, this was an "ex keeps the friends in the breakup" situation) I didn't really want to get too actively involved in that fandom because I didn't want to cross paths with 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.) and friends. As time went on, I did participate in it a little bit more even if I'm not super active. However, those who know me will know the sagas of how my ex-managers ended up being nicknamed Fudge and Umbridge (I have a Lupin right now who is unfortunately leaving - please don't let me get a Lockhart next), or my uncle's excessive requests for extra Christmas and birthday presents led to him being known as Dudley Dursley to his face, so you will know that this fandom has continued to have some influence on me.

The first fandom I ever started writing in was Lost - I've since private locked (I don't do deleting, but those should not see the light of day) some of my very early ideas about trying to fix the end of S2 where Michael was prevented from boarding the flight and couldn't shoot Ana Lucia and Libby, but I found myself with lots of material for the underdeveloped characters (seriously, the Others have enough potential for a spinoff). Over time, I started picking up other shows through people's recommendations - Fringe was my next big fandom after Lost finished, then I got into Once Upon a Time, Vampire Diaries, How To Get Away With Murder, Arrowverse, Revenge, Hunger Games - it's a pretty long list. A couple of my favourites now are ones that I knew about via the actors who'd been in my other shows, Yellowjackets through Steven Krueger (Ben) promoting it on his social media, From because Harold Perrineau was starring.

Aside from Lost which has always been my main, my other main fandoms right now are Yellowjackets, The Wilds, Dark and From - anyone familiar with those might have noticed that some of them have very similar themes, or characters, even lines (Yellowjackets' Jeff telling Shauna she's not Rambo is totally Rose and Bernard. Just removed one character comparison for From and Lost to avoid spoiling said new character for anyone who's not up to 3.04.) Fringe and Lost have a lot of crossover potential (my headcanon is that Daniel was in St Claire's with Walter and Miles was a Cortexiphan kid), Once Upon a Time has the same format and some actors. So I guess my first fandom experience has had some impact on my more recent ones.

Challenge #3

Create a wish list of fandom things (podfic, graphics, playlists, canon recs translations, research help, vids, sky's the limit!) that you'd like to receive. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


General wishes: any kind of fic, fic recs or icons (any character at all) from the following fandoms: Lost (no smoke monster), Once Upon A Time, Supernatural, Pretty Little Liars, Arrowverse, Vampire Diaries-verse, How To Get Away With Murder, Gotham, Fringe, Buffy, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Riverdale, iZombie, Game of Thrones, The 100, Harper's Island, Scream, American Horror Story, Dead of Summer, Bitten, Teen Wolf, Shadowhunters, Manifest, Light as a Feather, Roswell New Mexico, The A List, The OC, Gossip Girl, Smallville, The Big Bang Theory, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, 13 Reasons Why, Orphan Black, The Wilds, Elite (no Malik), The Crossing, Veronica Mars, Alias, Merlin, Revenge, Slasher, Katy Keene, The Secret Circle, V, The Gifted, Lucifer, Heroes, Being Human UK, Cruel Summer, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Fate: The Winx Saga, Locke & Key, It's A Sin, 1899, Dark, From, Yellowjackets, One Of Us Is Lying

CAT icons.

More specific requests:

Anything Sayid/Desmond from Lost.

Crossovers with Rumple from Once Upon a Time and Rowena from Supernatural.

Anything post-s2 The Wilds, because that deserved a continuation.

I know I keep requesting this every time this challenge comes up, but I still haven't given up the hope for some iZombie at around that time period where Liv had been on romance writer brain and Zombie High actor brain in quick succession, started writing Zombie High slash fanfiction and made Ravi read it.

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

I'll start with the one I'm working on right now to get as many of my WIPs finished as I can. This is helped by the fact that there's a WIP push at 1_million_words which is helping me make some progress on that. Still need to find a way of screwing up the timeline of English history for the old Legends of Tomorrow idea for restoring the Princes in the Tower to 1483, but I will get there!

Getting my excessively long list of Lost fics from 2008-2012 (the point at which I joined AO3) copied across to AO3 - this is a work in progress, and apologies to anyone who's subscribed to me because you'll keep getting notifications about old fics from ages ago!

Getting caught up on my excessively long to-watch list - anything that was on my poll earlier in the challenge is something I intend to watch at some point, and I actually forgot some shows as well, still also open to recommendations (nothing gory involving cats please).

Getting my book bingo done, including the additional challenge I set myself to read from the list of substitutions as well, even tempted to pick up the one on LJ as well.

This is a more non-fannish one, but I did go back to my post from last year where I'd talked about knowing when to let go of goals, and I think I'm going to keep it for this year, applying it to the same thing that prompted it last year which was needing to stop worrying too much about setting myself tasks of finishing all my no-worker's backlog. I don't think at this point that I'll need to let go of fannish goals, but will keep it in mind in case it does get to that.

Challenge #9

In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, time you spent in the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well.


Well, I haven't yet murdered phone dodger the no-worker, does that count as a win? Possibly not since a big part of that is the fact that we're mostly in the office on different days.

Okay, a serious answer. I managed to finally finish the Fringe fic that had been an idea in progress for about 10 years, turning the season 3 finale on its head by imagining Walternate had succeeded and it was Redverse that survived. I'd posted the first part back in 2014 after having been working out the Henry Dunham!Verse for a couple of years before that, then let it lapse for ages. I eventually got inspired to go back to it last year - it had come up somehow in last year's Snowflake, then in Sunshine I'd suggested Amber as one of the prompts with Fringe having been the inspiration for that, even answered that prompt with something else in the Henry Dunham!verse, and finally finished it before Christmas.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803634/chapters/6294041

Also making some progress on getting my excessive amount of Lost fics pre-2012 backed up to AO3 (I'd been intending to do that ever since that article that conveyed the impression that we wouldn't be able to access LJ following X date after Russia invaded Ukraine, and people were having trouble backing LJ up to DW. As it turned out, I did manage to do the backup and LJ remains available, but I still want to get it done.

Also finally getting some work done on WIPs and writing in new fandoms, watch this space.

Challenge #6

In your own space, post the results of your fandom scavenger hunt. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Search in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture or description of something that is or represents:
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