rogueslayer452 | Entries tagged with meme

Challenge #13: TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.

I'm going to actually say Dreamwidth.

As someone who joined online fandom via LiveJournal ages ago and have seen the shifts and changes of the online fandom community over the years, from the fandom migration to other platforms and how things have altered with the presence of social media, I think Dreamwidth has kept up what I once enjoyed about the LJ fandom community. I do use Tumblr for the pretty graphics and visit Reddit every now and then for updates on things, but ultimately when I think about fannish community I think of something that is more interactive, more personable, and less judgmental. And that's what Dreamwidth is for me. It reminds me of the times when online journaling offered something for everyone, fandom related or not, and was a place to express your thoughts and opinions clearly on your own journal and in community discussions, engage in conversations with others. I participate in fannish conversations and challenges, such as

snowflake_challenge as an obvious example, even going onto different people's journals to talk and squee about fannish interests. It's something that I miss when it comes to the fandom community interaction as a whole, the engagement of just talking with people about things, having back and forth civil discussion in comment threads. Dreamwidth offers that to me in ways that other places cannot.

That's not to say that other fandom places online I visit don't have value and aspects that I enjoy, it's just that I think I feel more comfortable and safer in the controlled environment that Dreamwidth provides. It may be smaller in comparison to what LJ used to be, it's definitely not on the same wavelength as Tumblr and I do wish more people would join/return to DW, although I must admit to liking how quiet it is here compared to the social media reactionary drivel you often see. Plus, it's challenges like this that get me off my ass to actually write and participate, and I like that kind of push. I don't have to do it, but I want to. Because I miss this kind of thing in fandom, y'know?

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Sleep Token - Hypnosis

Challenge #06: Top 10 Challenge. The category(ies) you choose are up to you.

( Top Ten OTPs. )

( Top Ten Favorite Pieces of Underrated/Less Talked About Media )

This got way longer than I had intended. I tried to be concise with the second category but, y'know, when you're a fan of something you want to be thorough.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: XG - ROCK THE BOAT

Challenge #05: In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts.

01. Icons Of: Huo Wensi and/or Huo Wensi/Luo Fei from the cdrama Detective L.

02. Recommendations of programs to create fanwork. This is quite a specific one because I've been itching for years to create something, from icons and graphics to fanvids because I have ideas. I used to have a program ages ago (Microsoft's Picture It!) which I created various things including graphics for the fanmixes I did way back when, but that was on an old computer and that program has long since been discontinued and defunct. I've been attempting to look for comparable programs, however my findings lead me to being confused and overwhelmed and a bit apprehensive on the legitimacy since some places are websites only instead of a program you download onto your computer, and even then I don't want to download anything that is going to take forever to load or cause problems, which I know is a risk for anything these days anyway.

So, my request is mainly for the graphic makers and vidders in fandom: what programs do you use, your pros and cons for them, how much of a learning curve there is and if there is good tutorial out there. Note that I mainly use my laptop, I don't do anything on mobile.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: XLOV - Scent

Challenge #09: Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

I'm skipping around the challenge a bit since I'm still constructing my answers for the other ones as I'm way behind at the moment, but this one is one that I know I can answer easily since I definitely have a lot of favorite tropes. I answered last years trope challenge with only one specific trope which I still maintain is a top favorite in recent years, but this will be a more extensive list. Mind you, not all my favorites as that would take forever, just a handful.

( Tropes, tropes, glorious tropes.... )

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Savage Garden - Break Me, Shake Me

Challenge #03: Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.

( My love letter to fandom. )

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: XG - Hypnotize

Challenge #02: Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

After thinking on this one, I decided to tweak this prompt a bit and focus on animal companions from fictional stories that I love.

( My favorite fictional animal companions. )

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Babymetal - Metal Kingdom

Challenge #01: The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

I'm a fangirl who has been involved with fandom for a very long time, started my online fandom journey on LJ in 2003 and I haven't stopped since. As one can see on my profile just a taste of the various fandoms and interests that I'm into.

When it comes to

snowflake_challenge, I have participated in the challenge itself for some years because, ultimately, it's just fun. I like being given prompts where I can give insightful answers to, I like the level of engagement it provides with interacting with others with fannish interests, from just those on your friendslist to others who participated in this challenge. Which is another thing, last year was the first time I actively participated in the challenge by linking my posts to the community and reading/commenting on others who also participated in the challenge, as well. I miss fandom engagement like that, and that's why I like doing this challenge every year.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: XLOV - Rizz

++ We had rainstorms from Christmas all through New Years, which was a great present for me because, yay rain and thunder! Unfortunately, our backyard did get a little flooded because of how intense the downpour was (it cleared up within hours, don't worry) and a lot of stuff did get blown around the backyard....one item actually flew out from our backyard and across the street. So, that was fun to retrieve. With that being said, it was a pretty chill Christmas and we welcomed 2026 with minimal fireworks due to the rain.

++ There is a New Years friending meme currently up and active.

++ I will be participating in this years

snowflake_challenge, something I've enjoyed doing in previous years and last year was one that I was very active in commenting on other people's posts on various challenges which was fun. I'll be doing that again this year, I just need to find the right moment to do so because I've been kind of stressed this week alone with some personal things that I truly haven't had enough time to actually sit down and write something.

++ VERY IMPORTANT NEWS: I don't know how widespread this is at the moment, but it seems that LiveJournal is undergoing a recent change that will drastically affect all users, including Russian users.

denise has already made a post welcoming Russian users who are importing their journals from LJ to DW due to this situation, but she has also appeared in various individual places in fandom communities imploring all people who still have access to their LJ accounts (personal journals or communities) to backup/import them to DW immediately. This is quite literally an LJ Exodus 2.0, but this does seem like this could really be final for many people, especially if they're attempting to gatekeep the website from anyone who isn't Russian or complies with Russian law, which isn't surprising considering the way things have been going since the ownership change years ago but it's still devastating to witness all the same. The fact that LJ used to be incredibly lively and has, gradually overtime, turned into a virtual graveyard of what once was a rich and thriving website featuring various communities (fandom, personal, other subcultures) is heartbreaking, and to lose all of that history would be even more so.

If you still have an LJ account please back it up, and if you know someone who does still have access to their account(s) also please notify them of this so they can also back up their information while they still can. Either importing to DW, saving and transporting fanfic to AO3, using the Wayback Machine, whatever possibility is available to preserve LJ/fandom history.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: XLOV - 1&Only