Day 7

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or check out some fanworks that are new to you.

I keep thinking about making fanart and sometimes I even mumble about making making fanart, but I haven't made the commitment and, tbh, fan art of video game characters using digital tools (rather than traditional art tools) leaves me in a state of  O_O:   ...it is pretty much the exact opposite in every way imaginable of the kind of art I am competent at.

THEREFORE IT IS PERFECT FOR TRYING SOMETHING NEW. And flailing wildly until I get the hang of it.

To put pressure on me, I am open to prompts that I will work on during my (lol) copious "free time" throughout 2019.  That gives me ample time to complete ten prompts. 

I'll take up to ten prompts requests. Here are the rules: 

1.  Valid fandoms are limited to:  
---- Final Fantasy VII / Compilation of VII
---- Final Fantasy XII & FFXII:Revenant Wings
---- Dragon Age: Origins (and DLCs)
---- Dragon Age II (and DLCs)
---- Dragon Age Inquisition (base game only)
---- Persona 5 

2.  Prompt in the format:  "Fandom; Characters-or-pairing (list up to 3 characters); short prompt"

3.  One prompt per person. 

4.  Do not leave prompts that require an explicit sexual interpretation. 

5.  Please prompt something different from what other people have already prompted.  

6.  AU prompts are allowed! 


Warning/disclaimer/facts-of-life:  I will work on these prompts over the coming months (and perhaps throughout 2019 depending on how little time I have). No guarentees about what my style will look like or what will actually occur because OMFG I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT WILL HAPPEN. WE ARE ON THIS JOURNEY TOGETHER AND .... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

NOTE: I am going to reserve a 0th prompt for myself (a prompt I create for myself) that gives me a warmup for just figuring out how I even want to start doing digital fan art**. BECAUSE THIS IS A JOURNEY FULL OF ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[** I am a traditional/analog artist but I also know how to use photoshop and sketchbook pro for a variety of things, mostly design related work, and my digital illustration experience is limited ... thus this pledge to do something new]

Prompt Slots to be filled during 2019 (approx 1 per month minus my travel/vacation month): 

0.  Artists Choice (TBD)
1.  Final Fantasy VII (any): Barret/Tifa: In the snow. wallwalker
2.  Dragon Age 2 - Fenris, Hawke, Anders (happy for you to interpret their relationship as you see fit) - after the Chantry boom. breakfastdragon
3.  Dragon Age: Origins; the Warden's mabari; joy. aubergion
4.  FFVII; Yuffie, Vincent, and possibly Red XIII; "Pancakes." sepdet
5.  FFVII, Vincent, Yuffie, amusement park. and/or Vincent, Lucretia, amusement park. renegadefolkhero
6.  Final Fantasy XII; Penelo & Larsa; genealogy. suzume
7.  OPEN FOR YOU TO CLAIM
8.  OPEN FOR YOU TO CLAIM
9.  OPEN FOR YOU TO CLAIM
10.  OPEN FOR YOU TO CLAIM

Day 5 In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them.

Given that I have hardly ventured beyond my tiny little circle of fandom friends for the past year+, I am promoting three seven DW writing communities that I want to spend more time on during 2019. Below the list I'll explain why these communities intrigue me and hopefully others might feel inspired.

( Seven active DW communities for drabbles, double drabbles, flashfic, and short stories )

Day 1

Talk about your Happy Place—the things that give you joy, calms you or keeps you sane.

.

City skyline glowing across the water.
The distant sound of a train’s horn during the middle of the night.
A lazy afternoon reading while sipping coffee in a cafe.
The downpour of rain on the roof and the wet lush green world beyond the window.
A leisurely dinner out with my longtime partner in crime.
Working on a painting that takes countless hours to finish.
RPG video games and visual novels that suck me in because of the characters’ stories.
Cities that are or that could be city-states, both real or imagined.
Writing on my laptop while sitting in bed in my pajamas and drinking tea.
Modern or unexpected takes on botanical art and scientific illustration.
The seductive flow of ink onto creamy smooth paper.
A sleepy cat stretching and spreading its fat round toes.
Descriptive prose that is terribly, painfully human yet nonetheless beautiful.
Online fandom interactions that are fun, a bit “thinky,” and all around good natured.
Finding happy fanworks of my current fave OTP.

Regarding fandom specific happy places, Persona 5 is downright magical for me. I can wander around virtual Tokyo doing absolutely mundane things and feel completely engulfed in the goodness of being exactly where I want to be. The characters’ personalities and stories are A+ (note: not yet finished with the game — still avoiding hardcore spoilers). When I am away from my gaming console, the P5 Anime, Manga, and soundtrack are guaranteed good feels and I find it so relaxing to hunt for P5 fan art that I can add to my Pinterest collection.

The Final Fantasy series has provided decades of happy place goodness. The music instantly transports me to a happy place. Same for the official art, the environments, and many fanworks. There are easily two dozen FFVII fanartists whose work I return to repeatedly whenever I need that moment of “aaaaahhhhhhhhh. yes. this.” I need to organize a fanfic reco/happyplace collection one of these days. Writing my current fic WIP (FFVII-based) is instant happy place even when everything is going to shit for the characters.

.

Given other thinking that am doing at this point in the year, being challenged to name my happy place is very relevant.

Thinking about two challenges I need to give to myself:

1. Regularly creating moodboards/image collections of my happy place things.

2. Organizing / reorganizing my collections of fannish Happy Place fan works (made by other people) such that they are easy to find rather than somewhere out there in one of my messy Pinterest boards or 20 pages back under a half-forgotten Tumblr tag. Or, somewhere deep inside AO3 or Fanfic.net or pixiv.

If anyone has good suggestions for organizing #2, please feel free to share.

Snowflake Challenge

Day 1 - In your own space, talk about why you're participating in Snowflake and, if you’ve participated in the past, how the challenge has affected you. What drew you to it? What did you take away from it? What do you hope to accomplish this year? 

I don't think I have done this challenge in the past but I have read other people's posts in prior years. Participating will be touch and go for me because the first half of January overlaps with the tail end of annual travel but this year I am giving it a try, posting in batches whenever I can.

Fandom nudged me into the habit of spending time in early January assessing goals and planning writing projects, so why not add a little bit of fandom positivity into the mix too by participating in this challenge?  This challenge seems like a good way to meet new people and reaffirm connections with fandom friends.

Last year I dove back into one of my original Old School fandoms -- Final Fantasy VII -- which inspired me to write and post a novella and a bunch of short fiction, do a lot of headcanoning, and partially draft a fanfic novel plus other in-draft stories, all FFVII. This year I want to organize the partial novel draft, write the chapters, and start posting it. Also want to finish and post some of the shorter stories that I started last year. Time allowing, I want to organize my various FFVII fannish stuff (headcanon, inspo, recs, etc.) somewhere on the web AND finally do my Dirge of Cerberus Metapalooza.

Mostly this year I look forward to more sharing of headcanon and co-worldbuilding with other FFVII fans *and* with people who have decided to take a peak at FFVII canon merely because they find the discussion/brainstorming/creativity/characters interesting. 


Day 2 - Share a fandom memory.

One of my favorite things about fandom is how fandom harnesses our collective creativity and makes fictional worlds feel a little more real and a little more lived in. I love the collective approach to world building that occurs when people in fandom share headcanon about a canon's characters and world. Many of my best fannish memories center around conversations with other people in which headcanon is swapped, canon extensions are co-built, and character motivations are picked apart collectively. The collective creativity is what keeps me here.