Countdown to small gifts 1/7: Introductions!

[smallgiftsmods]

Welcome, folks! Every year at small gifts, we start off the holiday season with a week's worth of discussion posts. It's a chance to get to know other participants (or say hi again), meet our readers (hi, readers! we love you!), and while away the hours before December 1. We'll have one topic per day until November 30.

Today: introductions!

1) Leave a comment letting us know who you are as a fan. (Leave your Tumblr name/AO3 name as well as your DW name, if they're different.) How long have you shipped R/S? Are you a reader? Writer? Artist? Crafter? Do you participate in any other parts of Harry Potter fandom? Are you active in any other fandoms right now?

2) Say hi to someone else!

Comments

[mindabbles]

Welcome back!!! It’s funny how times flies, isn’t it? Percy/Oliver is a great pairing. Love it. I do also love Harry/Draco. I never thought I would, but there’s also so much potential there. I guess that’s part of what I love about this stuff — rising to the challenges in the books. I can imagine that being in a smaller fandom would be fun. I would think there might even be more interaction. Although, HP fandom is certainly smaller than it used to be. :)

[mindabbles]

Hello and welcome!!! Wow, I didn’t know the word ‘fandom’ when I was 12. :) I am so glad you joined us!

[mindabbles]

You are participating! You are most welcome to be here. We’ll post regular updates on LJ, but please keep check in here when you can. I am sorry about the health issues. I am sending good wishes and healing thoughts. You’d be most welcome to participate in the bonus round if that works for you. No pressure and no word requirement.

[aurelie_saintjuste]

I tried really hard to get back into the RPG scene a few years back, but a combination of not finding the right partners and just LOATHING Tumblr for that kind of writing scares me off. We wrote so so so much in some of those games, they really were like co-writing fic. I miss that - it was a challenging and different form of writing and I crossed paths with so many talented writers. Ah well, maybe one day!!

[rj31]

I came back after real life woes and I needed something good to keep me occupied! Books and In particular HP are my happy place, so I was very glad to dive back in.

What made you come back?

[rj31]

Hello! Thank you :)

I came back because no one in rl knows anything about my fandom activities, and I needed something that was just mine to cheer me up a bit. Which it has!

In the days of old what I remember is that everything was on lj, and now everything seems to be a bit more spread out. It has also meant having to get my head round tumblr, I feel like such a dinosaur sometimes. AO3 is a wonderful place, I don’t ever remember interacting much with ffn before, everything was just on lj and I chatted with people on aim or msn. But yes, change is good :)

[nerakrose]

i think so, yeah! when i joined fandom it was mostly on national (danish) message boards (this was around 2003 lol) and i didn't write fic as i was still writing original stories at the time, i did fanart and graphics and discussions and off-topic discussions, etc. (i didn't start writing fic until 2006 when i was...18? math is hard). shortly before i joined fandom at large i'd finished writing my first ever novel. it was terrible for many reasons but i was unhappy with it for one reason exactly: it was a love triangle because i didn't know at the time that one could be poly and that not having to choose was allowed. you can have both! so i felt i had to kill off the girl so the two boys could be together, when what i REALLY wanted was for the main character to have BOTH. but it wasn't allowed! etc. i struggled with that a lot. (i ended up deleting the novel off my harddrive a year later because i couldn't stand knowing it existed. :'D) at the time i was also a closeted trans gay boy and struggling with it because at the time i also didn't know that gender could be fluid + i was dealing with a lot of the 'compulsory heterosexuality' that comes with being socialised as a woman etc etc.

joining fandom at that age meant i suddenly had access to all kinds of queer stories, made friends (all of whom turned out to be queer), unlearned a lot of toxic bullshit (not all at once, mind), and also, over time, managed to slot the pieces of my identity together in a way that made sense, and that i'm comfortable with. so yeah, i'm about to turn 30 so i have spent half my life as an active participant in fandom at this point, and i honestly wouldn't trade it for the world. it's given me SO much.

puremuslin sounds like something a dedicated housewife whose favourite novels are jane austen might choose as a username :'D they wear a lot of muslin dresses in those novels, is my impression :'''D i like your meaning for it! though my brain still can't let go of the impossibility of a plumage of ruins... XD

[nerakrose]

if you like gay magicians and metal dragons you'll love it! that's how we usually lure readers in ;D i came for the gay magicians and metal dragons and stayed for the characters, all of whom are wonderful. my two all-time favourite characters (and ship) are pov characters in the second book. ♥

[nerakrose]

*high five* :D

[nerakrose]

time certainly flies :'''D I never thought i'd be into H/D much either, and in a way I still don't really ship them...i don't see any basis in canon for it (unlike with R/S!), but...at the same time it's much easier for me to accept whichever scenario or reason or AU or what have you, for them, than for R/S. probably because i'm less emotionally invested and don't have firm headcanons for what happened during lie low at lupin's or at hogwarts or during the war, but also because for H/D it's just open-ended enough that there's more room to play. :) (and some of it is definitely spite because seriously fuck that epilogue.)

volstovic cycle is just small enough that i think most of us know each other :'D though i wouldn't mind if the fandom got a renaissance and an influx of active participants. :)

[shaggydogstail]

I think a lot of us have drifted back and forth, to some extent. That's why it's so lovely to have something like small_gifts for us to keep coming back to, whether it's every year or after a longer break.

TY! ♥ Although, ten years, eep! ;D

[shaggydogstail]

I think your beta was exaggerating, because there was never a universal hostility to f/f amongst m/m readers and there's always been multishippers, but it was definitely a thing. Not just being awful about f/f, with women's sexuality generally, and presenting women as being less sexual. I read a lot of fics where male chars are all "no women had ever done that for him" the first time his bf swallows or something or, in R/S particular, they're having frequent and kinky sex in contract to L/J's vanilla or no sex. It made ZERO SENSE and I'm so glad it's largely passed.

Yeah, definitely. AO3 is better for long fic than LJ was, which probably helps.

[shaggydogstail]

Dogging = people meet up in laybys/carparks/woods to have sex while being watched by strangers and/or watch strangers having sex. It's common enough that lots of people could tell you where the nearest dogging spot is, although I've yet to meet anyone he will admit to doing it! ;D wikipedia has more.

I honestly identify with "shaggy" more strongly than my own given name!

[rj31]

Hello! I like your icon :)

[rj31]

I agree with Ruinsplume, your r/s games fic was amazing :) That was my first HP fest as well, I like fests too, they're good motivation! Particularly this one as you get to write it for someone too. Anyway, hello!

[rj31]

Hi sostrata, thank you for reading! Readers are the most important part :) Hope you keep well and and continue to stay healthy.

[wild_flame]

Thank you for the lovely welcome! Looking forward to all the discussions and getting to know everyone!

[wild_flame]

Yes! Fest are my new favourite thing with all the camraderie and people to cheer you on!

Nice to meet you too!

[ruinsplume]

I love snakeowls--both very resonant animals in so many ways.

[ruinsplume]

Ooh, I love learning a new thing. Especially this thing. I promise that if I ever get the chance to do it (as a watcher) I will absolutely admit it to you. Just have to find the nearest dogging spot!

shaggy is a great nickname. are you shaggy (haircut-wise) in person?

[shaggydogstail]

Yay! Please do keep me updated on your dogging adventures!

Sadly, my hair is not shaggy. This is a grave disappointment to me, but we all have our cross to bear.

[maraudersaffair]

Yep! RL woes. I recently moved across the country and started a new job, and I really need something to distract me from all the scary changes. I just started writing a shit ton of fic lololol

[maraudersaffair]

Thank you!! It's great to see you too! :D

It totally feels like fandom is having a renaissance lolol . . . especially on Tumblr

You should do Big Bang as well! They give you months and months.

[maraudersaffair]

omg yes @ depicting women as being prudes or uninterested in sex

For me, I think the problem was that so many m/m shippers just didn't care about f/f, like it wasn't even on their radar, which is kinda understandable in the HP fandom bc men got most of the attention in the books

[maraudersaffair]

Yeah . . . I def remember people refusing to read fics if there was explicit sex involving women. It was sooo strange

I dunno if fics are a lot longer. I remember a lot of entries to holiday fic exchanges were pretty long . . .