elrhiarhodan

akamine_chan is running a wonderful fifteen day meme/challenge, and in the main post she makes the heartfelt argument:

I think fandom is a wonderful creation, a society of people who feel passionate about so much—art, music, sports, theater, cinema, television, writing, crafts, social justice, the world, etc. The people in fandom are creative and beautiful and feel strongly about the myriad things they love.

The point of the Fandom Snowflake Challenge, seems to me (and please let me know if I am misreading it) is to give fanworks creators the opportunity to share their creations, and the love they have for them.

I find this resonates with me on so many levels. As a child, my mother (who was a richly loving person) gently taught me that I should never talk about my creations, I should never seek praise - it was unseemly and rude. Her comment would be "I love me, who do you love." This was the way she was raised, and it was how she raised her children. To this day (and I am now firmly ensconced in middle age), I have a difficult time talking about my creations and while I relish feedback, I get uneasy when someone tells me how much they like my work and how talented they think I am. I try to be gracious when accepting compliments, but I feel I often come off as arrogant.

Hopefully, this challenge will help me change that.

Day 1

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Drop a link to your post in the comments.

1. A Favor for Gloriana (Two Parts) I'm not sure why I'm rec'ing this story, in which I've taken White Collar into Elizabethan England. It didn't get a lot of traction when it was posted, which was sort of a downer, since I worked on it for nearly a year (on and off).

2. Take a Seat, Mr. Caffrey The first time I wrote hot and heavy, no-holds-barred porn. A year and a half later, I still think this is the hottest story I've ever written.

3. Don't Ask, Don't Tell/Don't Ask, Don't Care. This was, due to the subject matter, one of the hardest pieces of fic I've written. And one of the most satisfying. It's a modern military A/U, set on the cusp of the repeal of DADT.