And here's the fannish and personal updates post. I think I'm also going to use this as my last Snowflake Challenge post this year too.

For February/March/April, I've been taking it pretty easy in terms of fanworks, focusing more of my time on nonfiction writing and trying to prioritize pushing out overdue Dreamwidth posts. Most of my efforts the past couple of months have gone into ( running events and modding stuff )
( Current creative projects )
( Reading )



Challenge #11: In your own space, create a fanwork.

I'm going to count this as checked off. I've made some art for Quodo Mini-fest and also for phoenixdown_ex, I wrote a Quodo fic, I made a Quodo vid, and I've also been making graphics for the various events I'm running, so yeah, I'm tired. XD

( Vid and graphics under the cut )

Challenge #12: Tell Us about a Personal Win.

My personal win I'd like to talk about is that I have already been doing really well on the goals I made this year (friendslocked).

( More on this )


Challenge #13: Make a rec list of fanworks!

I'm going to skip this one. I AM intending to make a Quodo or DS9 rec list once I'm caught up on the tag, but I'm still very behind and I don't think I'll catch up anytime soon to want this challenge hanging over me.


Challenge #14: Try something new.

Done. As I mentioned above, some things I've tried out for the first time this year include:

- Making a vid.
- Making a Carrd website.
- Writing an HTML-scraping script (it's the first time I've done this!). Also, trying out a lot of Excel and/or Google Sheets functions I've never used before like XLOOKUP, FILTER, and IMPORTRANGE.

Hell yeah.


Challenge #15: Fandom Snowflake Challenge's 2023 Fandom Wrapped!

I'm skipping this one because I've basically already done this / already do this each year independently. Friendslocked: 2023 Fandom Retrospective and 2023 Writing/Fanworks Roundup.

I'm skipping Challenge #1 for now because I don't really want to do blog maintenance at the moment.

Challenge #2: In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year.

Already done 🔒here (friendslocked).


Challenge #4(a): IceBreaker Challenge! Tell us about yourself.

( Intro + icebreaker activity )


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.

( My fandom wishlist )

So I've been using DeviantArt a lot recently for a personal project. This combined with my Snowflake Challenge musings (where I pondered what is now the best site for posting adult art in the wake of Twitter's struggles) inspired me to write up a long comparison of how DeviantArt and Tumblr compare as sites for posting fanart. n = 4546 words.

( Table of contents and preliminary notes )
( Pages vs. posts )
( Post creation )
( Site performance and loading times )
( Creating an art gallery )
( Userbase activity )
( Browsing experience )
( Summary diagram )

Challenge #13 - In your own space, rec three fanworks that you did not create.

Some random recs (all art) that are NOT Quodo (I might post a Quodo recs round-up in quodo later if I have time):

• I found this series of Disney princesses wearing furisode by Sunnypoppy -- I like the way the original colors have been incorporated in the kimono and how heavy/winter-appropriate the getup looks. The Elsa and Anna ones look great, and I'm also a fan of the short skirt and long sleeves on the Tinker Bell one, and the Pocahontas design just looks really nice/classy.

• This series of (watercolor + color pencil + digital, I'm guessing?) pieces featuring Star Trek characters as mermaids by Mackoonzie (mostly Enterprise characters but some DS9 and TOS as well) -- I really like the coloring and sea lighting, and the various designs/choices of sea creatures to use as the tails are great!

• Some belated Multifandom Doodle recs?? There was so much good stuff in the last round's collection, but in particular, I loved these ink portraits of Spock and Lando Calrissian by cherryontop, and the fantastic (animated!) pixel art by ElAurianBarkeep, especially Gotham at night and Trucy and Phoenix Wright on a bridge at sunset.


Challenge #14 - In your own space, do the Fandom Wrap Challenge.

( Top 5 lists )

Challenge #15 - In your own space, opine on the future of fandom.

The prompt here focused on the Twitter explosion, so I guess I'll talk about platforms in a kind of rambling, disorganized sort of way.

( What platforms to use for fandom in the future )

I've decided to write up a guide how to request art in exchanges, since this is a question that has come up multiple times on fail_fandomanon, and various anonymous users will crowdsource some advice, which promptly gets lost in post turnover and is not easily linked when a new person comes by asking the same question. So I've decided to collect some advice in an easily accessible place to answer the questions of How do I make good art requests in an exchange? and What details are artists looking for in an exchange request/letter? and What should I say in my requests/letters to encourage artists to treat me?

Note that every artist is going to have their own preferences and opinions on art requests: ways they would like information to be presented, things that excite them, things that are a turn-off, etc. This guide is just one artist's thoughts, and other artists may completely disagree, or not care about the things I've written, or care about things that I personally don't mind. I speak for myself as a single artist, not for all artists, but I hope what I write here is useful nevertheless.

( A guide for requesting art in exchanges )

I have updates to give but ANYWAY, I'm participating in fluffbingo. I have had huge difficulties completing bingo cards in the past, so this time I'm trying to lasso my friends into giving me pairings that work well with the prompts.

( Card under the cut )

To request, give me a pairing + a prompt from above.

Here is an incomplete list of fandoms I probably am able to write for:
A Song of Ice and Fire (book canon only; I'm not up to date on GOT and absolutely won't be compliant with its canon), Bravely Default, Disney (I've watched basically every movie; familiar with various non-Disney animated movies as well), Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Kingdom Hearts, Miraculous Ladybug, Revenge, Seiken Densetsu 3, Soulcalibur, Sword of Mana

More iffy but would be willing to try:
Avatar: The Last Airbender, Final Fantasy crossovers, Final Fantasy IX, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Old Kingdom series, Puyo Puyo, Steven Universe, various CLAMP works

In addition to romantic pairings / OT3s / moresomes, I also accept prompts centered around platonic relationships because fluff works with platonic stuff too.

You can prompt the Free Space, by filling in a prompt of your own design not found anywhere else on the table. In fact, please do because I hate free spaces in bingos.

To make things simple, let's say one person can give me 1-3 prompts. These are requests, meaning that there is no guarantee they'll be filled.

EDIT: I'm going to keep the table above updated with number of pairings received for each prompt.