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

[aurelie_saintjuste]

Good afternoon! I'm Aurelie and I am also new to the festivities. I found out about them after a binge reading festival last year on AO3 when I noticed a trend that many of my favorite Wolfstar fics were created for the exchange, and made it my mission to not miss them this year!

I'm a Slytherin who lives in sunny Central Florida. I spend a disproportionate amount of time in the Wizarding World - sometimes just strolling in to read and drink Butterbeer on my own. I'm best described as an extroverted introvert and I'm happy to say that many of my friends have come from a mutual love of Harry Potter.

I grew up with Harry, starting with the first book about twenty years ago. My favorite characters were always members of the Order and Remus always stood out amongst them as my most loved. I share a lot of the same personality traits and quirks with him, including a love of Sirius Black (oops), so to be a Wolfstar shipper seemed fairly natural for me.

My background is in performing, so I was always drawn to stories through strong characters. As a result, my fandom beginnings came from a RPG writing and worldbuilding background and have only just started writing standalone fics. (Okay. Drabbles/one-shots.) I'm "agent-aurelie" on Tumblr and I can talk a lot, so feel free to reach out to me there. <3

Happy to be here and very excited to read.

[llaeyro]

Hi Aurelie! Welcome to the fest =)

[rj31]

Hi Aurelie! That's brilliant that you get to spend so much time at the Wizarding World, it's definitely somewhere that I want to visit! I'm jealous, but in a nice way :) Also, Remus is very special, I agree.

[aurelie_saintjuste]

Thank you! It's a bit surreal to me, even after a few years of living and working in this industry, that I can just pop into Diagon Alley whenever I feel like it, but it's pretty great and occasionally inspirational to write, too. Come visit!! :)

[wild_flame]

Wowowow! Super jealous of this too!!

Hi by the way 👋

[aurelie_saintjuste]

Come play! :)

[mindabbles]

Welcome. I’m tickled to learn that so many of your favorites came from here. I can say, humbly, that I do think lots of great things are created for this fest. I think that it might be at least partly the small gift aspect — I hope the pressure is low so people can think creatively and let themselves have fun. :) Getting to go to WWoHP so often sounds amazing. I have been once, to the one on the other coast and it was lots of fun. There used to be several RPGs in HP fandom. Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen any around for a while.

[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!!