Snowflake Challenge, part two

[sophia_sol]

DAY FIVE: "share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends."

DUDE. I have trouble even PARSING that, mentally! That is just NOT HOW MY BRAIN WORKS. Really. Seriously: anything I do that involves my brain, me getting passionate about it means me getting fannish about it. Even if I am a fandom of one and never do anything about it! So my only possible answers to this question would be for physical things, where the important thing is my body and not my brain. But, see, even that doesn't work, because I go rummaging through my mind to try to come up with stuff and everything I come up with is something that...yeah, I get fannish over. Like. Going on canoe trips. I wrote up a post about how awesome canoe trips can be and everything! Except that I also have a semi-abandoned SGA wip about canoe tripping, and I wrote that Hark! A Vagrant ficlet about canoeing. Or like making music! (playing trumpet, singing, et cetera) Except that AS I HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHING for a while now, I am fannish about music too -- in a different way, maybe, but the feelings involved are the same.

I guess maybe the problem I have with this question is one of terminology? Like, what defines "fannish" and what separates it from "passionate"? Because the way I do fannishness, there is no real distinction. Fannishness is about... thinking critically from a place of love, and about the joy of creating, and about being squeeful-happy over things that are awesome. And that is just HOW I APPROACH LIFE; it is nothing specific to the way I approach traditional fandom! I know other people are different, of course. But that is my experience.

DAY SIX: "rec at least 3 fanworks you thought you wouldn't like."

Werewolf Roleplay, by lalejandra
bandom; Spencer/Ryan/Brendon; ~2k words
"'Ryan and I are werewolves sometimes,' Spencer explains."

So werewolves are not my thing, right? AND YET. Okay, this is a not!fic where there are no actual werewolves, just people roleplaying as werewolves, and somehow it is really good. *hands*

Hi, I'm Captain Jack Harkness, by frostfire_17
Torchwood/Star Wars; Captain Jack/Chewbacca; ~3k words
"So here, everybody! HAVE SOME WOOKIEE SEX."

Just sit there a moment and stare at that. Yeah, there was a good reason I very nearly didn't read this fic. But the thing is! The thing is that Captain Jack makes any pairing plausible! And this one, in the hands of Frostfire, becomes hella plausible and even wonderful. No seriously, this is actually a really heartwarming fic, and all manner of true. You should read it. Even if you're unfamiliar with one (or both) of the fandoms.

the best luck I had was you, by meretricula
Football RPF; Xavi/Andres; ~7k words
"The year is 2004 and the setting is Camp Nou: the coach is Frank Rijkaard, the president is Joan Laporta, and the midfielders are just a little bit psychic."

The only reason I clicked this one is because I really really love the soulbonding trope, but I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be something I'd actually end up liking, because, well, it's about SPORTS, and about people I know absolutely zilch about. And then it turned out to actually be a really excellent and thoroughly enjoyable fic!

Comments

[tei]

"Right. I know how that works. Get caught up in something, meet this guy, suddenly you're flying around with him in his ship, doing what he does, except whoops, by the way, he's fucking crazy."

How did I not realize that I wanted Jack/Chewbacca so badly?

[sophia_sol]

I KNOW, RIGHT? It's sheer genius!

[verity]

wow, that Captain Jack/Chewbacca story was... delightful!

And HELL TO THE YES about your first paragraph. Basically every classics paper I ever wrote in college has this palpable sense of barely reined-in squee about it.

Homer, of all the renowned authors of antiquity, has been best-explored and examined by scholars throughout the ages. What stones, one might reasonably wonder, still lie unturned after all this time? However, there has been surprising tardiness shown towards the examination of the role of fiber arts in Homer, and there is much to gain from this unusual approach and hands-on, so to speak, analysis.

(First semester of college! AND THIS TOPIC IS STILL OMG PUKING RAINBOWS TO ME <3)

[sophia_sol]

I know! I was so surprised by how delightful that fic is!

And omg fibre-arts in Homer PUKING RAINBOWS YES. So now you've got me curious: what IS the role of fibre arts in Homer?

I don't think I was ever very good at conveying my enthusiasm in my academic papers, because I'm used to my squee being in fanspeak and academese being all about the seriousness. *sigh* Oh well.

[verity]

Fiber arts are all over the place! If you want, I can send you the paper. It talks about Athena, Nausicaa, Penelope, Helen, and Calypso...

While I'm perfectly capable of dry academic prose, when I'm writing about a topic I really, really like, my enthusiasm tends to bleed into the footnotes and prose and sometimes leads me to make a comic book instead of actually writing a paper. (N.b.: that is a lot more work.)

[sophia_sol]

Oh, PLEASE DO send me the paper! I would read the hell out of it.

When a topic really makes me happy the enthusiasm bleeds into my real life, not into the paper. So all my friends start getting treated to impromptu enthusiastic lectures on, like, translations of the Thousand and One Nights or whatever. (writing a comic book! BEST LIFE PLAN obviously!)