
Challenge #12
Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life. Appreciate them in bullet points, prose, poetry, a moodboard, a song... whatever moves you!
Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.
Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.
If you've read any of my
snowflake_challenge posts by now, you'll know I'm a huge
Final Fantasy in particular, and a video gamer in general. Therefore, my #1 thanks
has to go to
lassarina, who's been doing a weekly "What Are You Playing?" post on Wednesdays. I've been commenting (long, I can't write short about my passions) nearly weekly there for years now, and I really enjoy it. It gives me a chance to blurble happily about a topic that well, my family doesn't understand in any way but HERE IS SOMEONE WHO DOES.
lassarina and her dear friend
seventhe have run a Final Fantasy Kiss Battle in the past (and Rina and Sev, if you're reading this and need help this year, let me know, I'd be glad to help out in any way!) and really, that was my first step into producing fanworks. Well okay, no it wasn't, my crafts were, but that feels less real and valid than writing fanfic, which is silly because I know there's people out there who really like my fandom crafts! But I think the crafts are more solitary pursuits, whereas fanfic--especially for a prompt challenge!--is more of a community thing. I'm forever grateful that they graciously allowed me to prompt one year, which led to me
reading a prompt and Getting Inspired and writing a fic.
I'm grateful for everyone in the Final Fantasy Old Folks' Home. We don't get a ton of activity, but there's usually talk about fanfic writing at least a few times a week, and that alone makes me feel more connected to the fandom, even if I'm not really participating in the conversation myself.
I'm grateful for R51, who runs
Caves of Narshe, a Final Fantasy fan site. I became a member there years ago and am one of the few who still posts on the forums there (remember forums?). I hang out in their Discord, too, and have helped out with the site itself. That makes me feel connected as well!
I don't know if crafts can be considered a fandom, but I'm also grateful to
badly_knitted for running
get_knitted, a community for creative types to post daily status updates. I haven't been posting there in a while because I'm currently going through a fallow period, but I still love the community and how supportive everyone is there.
I would not be me with Nerdopolis on Ravelry, so I'm grateful to blackpebble, LisaJedi and the rest of the Council of Nerds for keeping the challenge running all these years. They'd probably say, "And we can't do it without you!" because I captain a team, am Rogue Leader, and do other things for the community. It is definitely my home on Ravelry, and I love it.
I still feel mostly on the outskirts of fandom, but I've got a small circle who GETS IT, and for that, I'm really grateful.