Snowflake Challenge #9: The past is in the past?

[aquietjune]

I'm back. I made a commitment to this journal for the next months, but I admit I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with all the things. Sometimes everything is so incredible that I can't even understand how it can exist in this universe, with me being a witness; some other times I feel that everything is futile. I want to rewire my brain into remembering that fandom -- and many things in life -- can be done just for fun, but heh, we live here.

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. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

One thing that regularly happens at the start of the new year is that I renounce every single thing that I've done in the past 12 months. Not necessarily because I hate those things now, but because I feel that since those things are in the past, they no longer matter, or they do not matter enough. Recency bias, I guess.

This mindset, however, hurts me in many ways--when I'm feeling down it's very easy for me not to remember any of the things I should be happy about, the things I know I can do even if I'm not doing them now, because what I learned to do is not lost, nor what I experienced.

So, let this post be a reminder of some of the things I did in 2022 that are valuable, even now. Even those things that are just "fandom" or creative things done "just for fun" (and not to open an Etsy shop or anything of the sort).

• the multi-chapter fic I'm writing is the longest and the most complex piece of fiction I've ever committed to: to write it, to plan it, to world build. No, it's not complete yet, and I gather that I'm somewhere in the middle of the first draft, but I still started writing it in 2022, working regularly on it (full immersion in the first months and now at about 1 chapter per month advancement, although right now I'm in a new planning phase). I'm worried because time is limited and sometimes motivation falters, but I still consider it a win.

• I learned how to sew tridimensional plushie toys. Highly recommended patterns & video tutorials: TSMinibears

• I had the realization that not just fandom, but the Internet as a whole cannot be lost in the sea of privately-owned social media. It's not just about having control of my data & the way I want to present them, but also of the quality of conversations and the approach to dialogue. The IndieWeb and Yesterweb movements really made me reflect on this and now I want to have a website. It's also the reason I decided to try to be on Dreamwidth. A lot of the disconnect I felt on fandom twitter is due to the lack of engagement with valuable discussions because of the search for the other type of "engagement". I want to go back to the former. (Project: go back to the good old HTML and CSS and make a website).

• About this, I participated in three fandom events and also in some RPG events and I learned that I cannot just do things to please others--that will not give me satisfaction or happiness. At most I get a burnout. Be mindful of the things I choose to occupy my (very limited) time with.

• However I also ran a fan event for a very minor character -- Mrs. Kirstein Week -- and I was amazed by the participation. Sometimes twitter fandom is also good.

• Also I took part in other RPG or RPG-related events that were meaningful, satisfying and fun.

• I've done my first cosplay this year and I did it in a group with my BFF -- I went as Anya from Spy x Family and my friend went as Yor. It was really fun and I want to do more now!

• I have published many fics last year. If I need to choose one I'm proud about, I'll go with Princess and Prince of the Great Escape, a quiet story about a first (accidental?) date between Armin and Annie (Shingeki no Kyojin). It's a story that gave me several headaches, and many scenes I've rewritten multiple times. It's not perfect, but I'm glad I managed to complete it, even if it was so difficult.

And that's it, from what I could recall. Let's see what I will make this year :)

Thanks for reading.

Comments

[flamingsword]

That’s a fair bit of fic there, congrats! And cosplay is a difficult and time consuming hobby as well!

[facethestrange]

Congrats on all the things! :D ♡

I think things done "just for fun" can be and are some of the most valuable things you can do for yourself. Enjoying things and resting, people in general don't get enough of that, and it's really important for mental health. So I hope you get a lot of fun out of fandom! :)

And OMG, I miss the old internet so much. SO MUCH. I never got into fandom anywhere on social media, which means that after forums disappeared and lj died down (after 2012-ish) for a DECADE I never got into any conversations about fandom and I never made any new friends in fandom (when before this was ALL I did for approximately another decade, since 2002). I only made and consumed fanworks without human contact. This is also why I came back to dreamwidth, I thought it was my last chance to meet any people online. And it is indeed the best option, and I'm happy I did, but also the forms of interaction I really, really miss (one fandom forums ♡) might actually be gone for good. *sigh* (I also used to have more than 100 websites YES NOT A TYPO; more than 120 actually in the early 2000s, I don't really want to go back to that, but I did really enjoy it. :D)

[enchantedsleeper]

Project: go back to the good old HTML and CSS and make a website).

I want to do this too! I discovered indieweb/web 1.0 stuff on Tumblr originally and I was so taken by it; I really want to get on Neocities and make a little site of my own. I haven't decided yet whether it would be a topic-focused site (e.g. a character or fandom site) or just a place for my Stuff. I also follow some people on Mastodon who make shrines (fansites, usually focused on a character, but can be about a fandom or other topic) and they're really cool. What would your site be?