amberdreams | Reading

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Current Mood: insomniac

Quotes:

"Anything you can imagine you can make real."

"Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth."

"I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through."

~ Jules Verne

Crossposts: https://fairyniamh.insanejournal.com/430589.html

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: exhausted

olivermoss

Earlier today I decided to gently, carefully, with references, talk to some people in my local discord - as in, these are people I know IRL - that ConformityGate is not real. It's easy to debunk ConformityGate because some of their 'proof' are claims that certain things happened on the show, but those things did not happen. You can just screepcap or clip and 'no, that is not what happened, they literally made shit up, here is what actually happened.'

If you have remained blissfully unaware, it's Byler Truther bullshit. Unhinged Stranger Things fans who learned nothing from being humiliated in Scriptgate.

Don't ask me what Scriptgate is, because I will explain and you will take 1d4 psychic damage

Now, it's being covered by MoistCr1TiKaL, a very prominent youtuber. 17.6 million subscribers. Their collective meltdown is big enough to be covered by Charlie of all people. jfc....

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: anxious

olivermoss

A bar across town had a Heated Rivalry trivia contest tonight. So, of course I headed out. I arrived later that I'd hoped. I grabbed dinner on the way and that took too long because they didn't realize that soybeans have soy in them. So, my food had to get remade.

Anyway, by the time I got there the venue was at capacity, so I had to turn around and go home. I should have gone like an hour earlier and just had a protein bar for dinner. No bar full of fans for me.

So, I went home and turned on the Kraken game, just in time to hear the announcers talking about a Melanson goal? Babygirl got his first NHL goal? And I just barely missed seeing it live?

It was a good game, even if I missed the first part.

fairyniamh

Quotes:

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."

"Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten."

"Yesterday is done. Tomorrow never comes. Today is here. If you don't know what to do, sit still and listen. You may hear something. Nobody knows."

~ Carl Sandburg

Crossposts: https://fairyniamh.insanejournal.com/430298.html

fairyniamh

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

Challenge #3: Love Letter

Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all!

( Hidden Answer )

Crossposts: https://fairyniamh.insanejournal.com/429934.html

mekare

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dizzojay

Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.

I’ve often waxed lyrical about the joys of fandom at my journal, and I never need another excuse to do that, because there’s so much to love about fandom!

Fandom isn’t just a group of people who happen to like the same TV show or film, or book. We’re a family; a community. We’re a community of like-minded people who all love the same thing and who can openly share their likes, loves, and passions with each other.

And like any community, we interact, we have fun, we take care of the more vulnerable members of our community, we support each other’s dreams and cheerlead each other’s challenges.

But fandom isn’t just an abstract thing; to me it’s a place. It’s a place with no borders, where us fans, regardless of or race or sexuality or whatever other characteristics we may have can go to belong, to be welcomed into the arms of a community that is accepting and fun; a community that GETS us.

Somehow, friendships made through fandom are easy; easier than friendships forged in real life through work, or school or location. Real life friendships have to form and evolve. When you start out, you’re just two disparate strangers working for the same organisation, or living in the same street. Friendships made through fandom, on the other hand, begin with you both knowing something about each other - what you love and what you have in common. And although those friendships may start out as something as simple and superficial as a shared love of the same TV show, or the same book, they quickly grow into something far more meaningful.

Many of my fandom friendships have outgrown the computer screen and crossed over into real life, and those friendships have given me more joy than I could ever put into a simple post like this.

Members of fandom are often those of us that society thinks of as ‘weird’ or a bit odd, or on the edge of ‘normal’. A lot of us probably had a rough time at school and have never been regarded as 'cool' or in with the ‘in’ crowd; but in fandom, ‘weirdness’ is embraced, individuality is celebrated, imagination is admired. Fandom is where you can be yourself, where you can be all that you can be, and more.

And that is why I will always love fandom!

minoanmiss

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minoanmiss

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Current Mood: curious

scribblemoose posting in

snowflake_challenge

Introduction Post*
Meet the Mods Post
Challenge #1 * Challenge #2

Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.

( Challenge #3 )

And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.

And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

sfbbmod posting in

smallfandombang

If you missed the post when it went up, it’s time for our third author check-in and first artist check-in. The check-in period will be open through Wednesday, January 7. Please remember that these check-ins are mandatory and that there are now penalties for disappearing without a word, therefore if you need to drop out please contact me, do not just skip checking-in.

So, if you haven’t yet checked-in, please head on over to the check-in posts and do so now:

Author Check-In No. 3 Post | Artist Check-In No. 1 Post

Don’t forget to watch or track the community so you see important posts!

Thank you!

(If you can't see the post, then I ask you to remember the first rule of Small Fandoms Bang, which is 'join the community!')

mekare

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fairyniamh

Quotes:

"If you want to be sad, no one in the world can make you happy. But if you make up your mind to be happy, no one and nothing on earth can take that happiness from you."

"Realize that enough hidden strength lies within you to overcome all obstacles and temptations. Bring forth that indomitable power and energy."

"Be kind to others, so that you may learn the secret art of being kind to yourself."

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Crossposts: https://fairyniamh.insanejournal.com/429706.html

olivermoss

ESPN did an amazing podcast on Hobey Baker, an early hockey star who was queer. The research is really well done and the problems of researching historical queer figures is well handled.

Also, I a tumblr post that is very short, but a primer on looking into queer hockey. Basically, a quick overview of who Hobey Baker, Brock McGillis and Luke Prokop are. It's a starting point for people wanting to look into things.

I wrote it a while back, if I was writing it now I'd include Brendan Burke who did not play pro hockey and died young in a car accident. His father is Brian Burke was President of the Maple Leafs at the time and helped launch the You Can Play initiative in honor of his son, and did other things aimed at ending homophobia in the sport. He is now the Executive Director of the PWHL (top level women's league currently growing at a rapid pace in the US. Go Torrent! No, I mean, Torrent is the name of a team, you can watch the games on youtube. No need to torrent.)

Anyway, the PWHL has lots of lesbians, and one of the Seattle goalies is non-binary. There's going to be TWO expansion drafts this summer so IDK if we can keep them, we'll see. After the next expansion draft they aren't doing any new teams for a whole so we wont have players constantly jumbled around. It looks like Dallas and Denver are getting the last two teams. It's not confirmed, but most people are assuming those are the places.

olivermoss

Just in case you were wondering how much early-internet-culture brainrot I have, I got stupidly excited to see that the 11+8 bridge is still hungry:

Watch on YouTube

olivermoss

* I am a big fan of shows being weekly. I powered through Stranger Things like it was my job yesterday to avoid being more spoiled. I want media that respects my time. It's also better for fandom.

Interestingly, in his second What Chaos interview Jacob Tierney said it's better for him as a creator. He can better tell what is hitting and what is not when the shows come out weekly. The feedback he wants to polish his craft doesn't exist in the binge model.

* Fandom has had top/bottom discourse forever. 99% of it is bad faith. First off all, yes, some gay people *do* identify as tops and bottoms. It was more common in the 80s and 90s, but it's still a thing that happens and is part of North American gay culture. (And elsewhere, but I am talking about NA here) Also, tagging a character as a top or bottom in a fic isn't a big fucking deal, it's telling people what type of smut to expect.

So, anyway, neither Shane or Ilya have top or bottom as part of their identity, but they have clear roles sexually. When the books were adapted by a gay man he didn't soften that, he leaned into it. I am shattered that my mind isn't dirty enough to have picked up on team logos being either phallic or.... peach-tastic. He assigned whole teams as tops and bottoms. Boston and Dallas? Tops. Montreal and ~~San Jose~~ San Francisco? Bottoms.

He's not being serious. It's a joke, a joke that works because, yes, tops and bottoms are things in NA-based gay culture. Even though, yes, a significant percentage of gay men don't actually engage in that.

It's a really bad sign of how much long-term fannish discourse has gotten into my head that seeing a gay man divide the entire NHL into tops and bottoms as a joke feels so good. I've been hearing people scream online that the concept of tops and bottoms doesn't exist outside of women fetishizing gay men, but that bullshit take only works online. There is a section of people in fandom who spend all day online and post a lot who really need to crack a window. I've known multiple gay men who ID this way, and it's usually a bit tongue in cheek. But yeah, me tagging who tops in a fic is not that big of a fucking deal, people need to settle down.

* Related to my last point about the section of online fandom that needs to crack a window... Before Heated Rivalry came out there was a creator whose deep dives on the books were the top google and youtube search results. He's had to private those videos and most of his content because when the show blew up the most detached-from-reality online discourses latched onto his videos and spewed comments that don't even make sense. It's just concentrated, fermented discourse that some people have made their entire personality. They were telling him his experiences and identity as a gay man weren't valid over and over again to the point where he mostly erased his entire foray into content creation because he couldn't handle the sheer volume of people saying the same things to him over and over.

dizzojay

Now that Christmas is over and done, and life is getting back to normal, it's time for me to say a big thank you to all you lovely peeps who made my Christmas so special.

I received all these wonderful cards from my fandom buddies. A big thank you to: