Countdown to Small Gifts 1/3: Introductions

[smallgiftsmods]

Welcome, folks! Every year at small gifts, we start off the holiday season with a series of discussion posts. It's a chance to get to know other participants (or say hi to old friends), meet our readers (hi, readers! we love you!), and while away the hours before the fest begins. We'll have three topics this week, posted Monday, November 25; Wednesday, November 27; and Friday, November 29. Posting begins Sunday, December 1.

Discussion is not limited to participants! Please introduce yourself if you're a reader, too.

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 been in HP fandom? How long have you shipped R/S? Are you a reader? Writer? Artist? Crafter? Do you participate in any other parts of HP fandom? Are you active in any other fandoms right now?

2) Say hi to someone else! We're friendly around here like that.

Comments

[magnetic_pole]

Hi, folks! I'll get us started.

My name is Maggie, and I'm magnetic_pole here and on AO3 and notquitepetworth on tumblr. I stumbled across HP fandom and discovered fanfic at the end of 2005, and R/S was one of my first ships. Fellow R/S fan busaikko and I created Small Gifts back in 2006 because it seemed like every other popular pairing had its own year-end fest, and the comm has run every year since. mindabbles had been my faithful co-mod--and the real genius behind this event--for more than a decade.

I used to much more active as a writer in both HP (R/S, any combination of characters of the Marauder generation or older, any femslash) and, to a lesser extent, in Sherlock Holmes fandom, but life has been too busy and I've slowed down. I always look forward to Small Gifts, which gives me a gentle nudge to create something every year.

Looking forward to meeting the new folks and catching with some of you who've been to this party before! M.

[paulamcg]

Maggie, I remember getting to know you and your fascinating stories in 2006. I’m happy you’ve remained active in this particular part of the fandom, and grateful to you for creating and continuing to run the fest, since some of my best memories of sharing are from Small Gifts in 2007 – 2010.

[chromat1cs]

Hiya, Maggie, thank you so much for creating and continuing this beautiful fest! <3

[pteropoda]

Thanks for creating the fest, and to both you and mindabbles for running it! Exchanges can be so much work so running one for this long is amazing.

[luminousgloom]

hello Maggie, this remains one of my favourite fests, thank you so much for keeping it going for so long!

[starfishstar]

Just wanted to say, I recognize your name from Sherlock Holmes fandom, too... it's always so nice to see familiar names across different fandoms!

And as I was thinking about this a memory pinged; I went back to check and: yes, indeed, your fic "The Mystery of the Human Heart (The Encounter at St Pancras Station)" was one of my absolute, absolute favorites from a Holmestice round a couple of years ago. I still feel warm and fond and moved just thinking about it.

[mindabbles]

It’s really amazing that people still want to join us! I was thinking about your writing that drew me in early on. What it was about your stories for me was the subtlety. I remember one moment in a story where Remus and Sirius acknowledged their feelings for each other with a touch of fingers and a look. I remember thinking that it was the most understated, romantic thing I had ever read. I can remember what story it was, but I remember that moment.

[aryastark_valarmorghulis]

Hello Maggie, and thank you so much for running this awesome fest. It's always interesting to hear stories from the older fandom days.

[chromat1cs]

Hello hello! I'm Isa, Chromat1cs on AO3 and Tumblr (and, clearly here) ^^ I've been in the HP fandom since finding my go-to chat forums in 2003, and I've been tangled up in R/S since 2008 or so — first just casually as a sort of "oh, that could be really sweet" and then full-tilt adoration set in as I started reading fic pretty soon after then.

I'm a reader, writer, one-time (but hopefully much more often in the future!) podficcer, and in a addition to R/S I hold a couple HP rarepairs very close to my heart: Dorcas/Marlene, Percy/Oliver, and the indomitable Lily/James. I've circled in a couple other fandoms over the years (ACoTaR, Good Omens, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Star Wars, LotR — Gimli/Legolas and Arwen/Aragorn forever, cries my adolescent heart)

I absolutely love the vibe with this fest and community so far, I'm so happy to have decided on taking part this year <3

[paulamcg]

Hello, Isa! Lovely to meet you! Particularly after I didn’t expect to meet anyone who’s come to the fandom just as early as I have.

I haven’t written much James/Lily – except as a side-pairing in R/S centric fics, just a couple of James-pov and Lily-pov fics. Your favourite rarepairs remind me of how I’ve preferred slash as well as gen to het, and I used to enjoy reading about characters who are very minor in canon. If I ever read or wrote in LotR fandon, I guess I’d prefer Gimli/Legolas to Arwen/Aragorn.

I hope to meet your Remus and Sirius soon, too!

[magnetic_pole]

Welcome, Isa!

You and PaulaMcG are such old hands in this fandom!

first just casually as a sort of "oh, that could be really sweet" and then full-tilt adoration set in as I started reading fic pretty soon after then

Funny how that happens, isn't it? One day the whole world seems open, lots of characters, so many options for pairings, and then suddenly you're down an OTP hole that takes more than a decade to come out of.

Dorcas/Marlene ftw! M.

[mindabbles]

Hi! Very nice to meet you! :) That ‘oh, that’s sweet’ feeling is the gateway. I am also really impressed that you were involved in and could follow so many different fandoms. I was never able to really hold more than one in my head at once! I’m glad you joined us this year, too.

[paulamcg]

Hello! My name’s always been the same everywhere in the HP fandom (my only fandom). On AO3 I’ve written it PaulaMcG, just as I did in my first fandom home, The Snitch Forums, and soon after on FictionAlley.

I’ve been an R/S fan since the first chapter of my very first fanfic, which I started in September 2003, before reading any fic, and which I completed as a big Remus-pov novel in 2010. The short stories I wrote during those years are almost without exception in Remus’s or Sirius’s pov, and all set in my canon-compliant-until-end-of-OotP universe, all part of the same big story, although each of them can be read separately. I used to read and review a lot of HP fic of different kinds, too, but some of my very best memories of interaction in the fandom are from participating in R/S Small Gifts in 2007 – 2010.

To my surprise, in February this year I started feeling I still had a lot to say about my Remus and Sirius (and about James, Lily, Peter and some others, too). After a break of eight years I’ve now written twenty new short stories, set in the pre-Azkaban years. I’ve posted them on my lj, even though I realised that the R/S fandom had got quieter or shifted elsewhere.

I was thrilled to find this lovely event again here, and I’m looking forward to gift-giving among old and new friends.

[pteropoda]

Welcome back! And congrats on finding the new inspiration.

[pteropoda]

Hey, I'm ptero. I don't use dreamwidth too much, but I'm semi-around on tumblr at ptarmiganlettercarrier for HP fandom stuff and silentletterwords for my main. I've also got fic on AO3 (SilentP) though not much of it is Harry Potter related yet. I only started actively poking around in the fandom a few months ago, and it's still so big that I haven't branched out much beyond Sirius/Remus content. My fandom tastes have been... uh, eclectic, prior to this, and definitely not as big as Harry Potter. It's been unique, but fun so far. Eventually I'm going to start getting my grubby AI/android loving fingers into some scifi AUs.

I've got a bunch of plans for stories, but fests and gift exchanges are one of my favorite kinds of fandom events, so I'm glad I found out about this one!

[magnetic_pole]

Hi, Ptero!

Eventually I'm going to start getting my grubby AI/android loving fingers into some scifi AUs.

Oooh! There's something you don't see much in this fandom. (Or something I haven't seen much. Sometimes I can't keep up with fandom!) I'd read that in a heartbeat.

Glad you're joining the party this year! Hope you have fun. M.

[luminousgloom]

Hello, I'm gloom - luminousgloom on ao3, theluminousgloom on tumblr. I think I've been writing fic for about 6 years, though only sporadically, and have a bit of a soft spot for this particular fest, it's always been a lot of fun! I think it's the gift exchange angle - getting quite specific prompts, and the fact there's usually an early winter vibe to them... Sadly the timing couldn't be any worse for me this year, but couldn't not do it!

[magnetic_pole]

Welcome back, Gloom! I remember your Christmas feast story from a few years back.

Gah, it's never a good time of year right about now, isn't it? And then in January and February, we're all desperate for a fest or a party or some excitement.

Glad to see you again! M.

[starfishstar]

Hi! I’ve never participated directly in the fest before (though I’ve been a beta a couple times for a friend who did) but this year I was feeling nostalgic, Small Gifts popped into my head, and I was *delighted* to come here and see that it’s still going strong! I was too late to sign up, but I’m hoping to treat and/or pinch hit.

I’m starfishstar everywhere (AO3, DW/LJ, though not Tumblr). I discovered fanfic (and the very concept of online fandom) pretty late – sometime in 2010 (like, literally I’m not sure I knew fanfic was a thing that existed before then!) and wrote my first fic around early 2011. I think Remus/Sirius may have been the first pairing I ever read, and it was definitely the bulk of what I read those first years, but somehow I didn’t end up writing R/S myself until a few years later.

I’m a multi-shipper & have spent years of my life writing Remus/Tonks, but Remus/Sirius is one I always come back to, too. If pushed, I might say it’s my OTP? I was thinking recently that if I had to be stuck on a desert island and could only write one pairing for the rest of my life (if somehow that were a thing?), I would probably choose Remus/Sirius. I never get tired of their endless possibilities.

I’ve written Harry Potter fic steadily through the years (lots of different pairings, and lots of genfic) but also dabble in a bunch of other fandoms. (At the moment: Call Me By Your Name, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, maybe The Raven Cycle, occasionally Torchwood, and all the delightful obscure “More Holmes” versions of Sherlock Holmes fandom.) HP is my One True Fandom, though. ;-)

Really delighted to find this R/S fandom still going! :)

[magnetic_pole]

Aha! There's nothing that endears you more to a mod than the suggestion you might be up for a pinch hit. Hurrah! I'll mention to Min you might be interested.

How had you discovered fanfic? I'd run across by accident a few years earlier--I'd had no idea fandom existed, much less this whole thing. Talk about a lucky coincidence.

I was thinking recently that if I had to be stuck on a desert island and could only write one pairing for the rest of my life (if somehow that were a thing?)

That's such an interesting question! Different pairings and different fandoms really address different themes and different part of you, don't they? M.

Hey guys!

[thefinalfront]

Hi all, my name is Rals (JamieBenn on AO3), and I've been in the HP fandom for quite a while but I'm looking to delve into my first Harry Potter fanfics. I have dabbled in many fandoms, including RPF (Hockey, Swimming, Bands), Supernatural, Star Trek, and Pacific Rim. I am an avid reader of many fandoms of fics, and look forward to reading everyones all this year, as well as posting my own!

Re: Hey guys!

[paulamcg]

Hi, Rals! I’m glad this is where you’ve chosen to come to post your first HP fic (if I understood you correctly). And I hope we’ll all have time for and interest in reading each other's fic and sharing all this R/S love.

Years ago I got so addicted to this fandom and my R/S universe that I’ve never been to other fandoms, and I admire people like you who are more diverse in their fan activities.

[gimmethatnightfever]

Hello all, this is seriously the most exciting thing I've done since the kicking off of my fanfic writing journey (first year, actually.) I'm gimmethatnightfever on dreamwidth and FanFiction and EverybodyWantsToRuleTheWorld on ao3 and till date I've posted 4 fanfics (including one for Wolfstar Games 2019).
Wolfstar is the first topic I'm exploring and I've read some great fan fictions about this ship- absolutely astounding and amazing ones. I'm trying to engage in more such fests to get to know fellow members of the Wolfstar fanfic community.
So yes, please check me out, I'm all for feedback and positive evaluation.
EverybodyWantsToRuleTheWorld(ao3)

[paulamcg]

Hello gimmethatnightfever/EverybodyWantsToRuleTheWorld and welcome to the R/S fandom! I think I’ve already seen your name somewhere recently, perhaps in Sirius Black Fest, in which I participated, finally interacting with other writers again, after I’d been absent from the fandom for years.

Taking part in this event in 2007 – 2010, I particularly enjoyed the generous commenting. In my early fandom years I experienced the culture of loyal and mutual feedback and even long reviews. I hope you’ll enjoy all the gift-giving here.

[maraudersaffair]

I'm Maraudersaffair on all platforms! I'm trying to be more active on Tumblr so new friends would be great! Also, does anyone regularly update their dreamwidth? If so, I want to follow you!

I've been in fandom since like 2005 oh lord lol. I've shipped R/S just as long. I also ship Remus/Severus, Severus/Sirius ... I've been meaning to write a Sirius/Remus/Severus fic! I'm a writer and a reader, but my fic reading has plummeted lately. I've been reading a TON of published books this year ... Let me know if you've read some good books lately!

I'm also a big Drarry shipper. I also really like Harry/Severus, Harry/Teddy, Pansy/Hermione ... okay, I ship a lot of pairings! I've been getting into writing more het pairings since I think HP female characters need more love! And of course I've been writing femslash ;D Ginny/Pansy and Ginny/Cho and ALL the femslash pairings are criminally underrated.

[magnetic_pole]

Hi, M! Welcome back! I love to find other folks who read Snape pairings (do you remember there was a time when Snupin and Remus/Sirius folks didn't mix)? And femslash, hurrah!

What blogs do you follow over on Tumblr? I'm also trying to get some more fannish content over there (Tumblr is currently my main source of cute animals). I've really enjoyed femslashrevolution, which has given a sense of femslash fandom outside HP.

Glad to have you at the party again! M.

[mindabbles]

Hi! I’m Min, or mindabbles, everywhere. I was dragged into HP fandom, and specifically R/S by a friend in about 2006. I lurked for a while and then I felt like a new come for ten years. I remember reading the seasonal fests and so many wonderful writers who pulled me in even more (Maggie and paulamcg and liseuse and shaggydogstail, all here this year, among them). They made me want to try writing too and I discovered a hobby I never imagined I’d have — certainly not this long! I don’t write as much as I used to because life has changed in ways that make my time to write very limited, but I love popping back in here and seeing old friends and meeting new.

Goodness, more than a decade?? It’s hard to believe. I love this fest that Maggie and busaikko created because it’s always friendly and supportive and it’s always low-stress. And because I get to work with Maggie, who is too modest and is the best co-mod ever. It humbles me and makes me happy that people still want to join us.

[coriaria]

It's awesome to see people with such a long connection to these fests (and, Merlin help me, your post has made me realise I'm writing for someone who has been doing this stuff for more than a decade).

Thank you for being a mod for this fest and allowing it to happen (and accomodating my time zone issue when it came to the claiming).

[coriaria]

I'm Coriaria on all platforms. I've never done R/S small gifts before and had been taking a break from fests as I was struggling with deadlines but I got grabbed by a prompt and even ended up submitting early. It's exciting to be part of a larger fest too, because I've only been reading HP fanfic for about 5 years and writing for 4, and by the time I started writing all the characters I liked had been killed off and weren't so popular. I haven't read any other fandoms, this one's kept me happy.

I write non-fiction as a hobby, but it takes quite a bit of research to write the stuff I like to do and it can be too much effort when my life is spiralling out of control. So I write fanfic to relax, because I can do 90% of my research on the Harry Potter wiki etc (except when I end up requiring something obscure like a couple of phrases in the Kurdish language...). I also write HP fanfic for the discipline of writing every day.

Currently I'm mainly reading and writing Remus/ Sirius. I also write Remus/ Severus and the odd rarepair like Snape/ Moody and even a bit of the canon but rare Andromeda/ Ted. I like the older characters in the HP books because as someone who read HP as an adult, I identified more with the adults. I love to work with their character flaws as well as good points. I also enjoy writing these characters as friends (e.g. Sirius & Severus as enemies to friends) in fics where one or both is a part of a main pairing.

[starfishstar]

Andromeda!! Sorry, my ears perked up at that... She's my second favorite character (and probably the one I've written the second most about) after Remus. Yes, even though in canon she appears on only one single page out of all those thousands. :D

And same, by the time the last book of the Harry Potter series was published, I was an adult (more or less) so the fic I was drawn to write was mostly about the adults – what were they doing while the narrative was off at Hogwarts with Harry? What was the war like for them?

But even with that being said, it's been interesting to me to watch how my attachment to the series has changed over these couple of decades(!) since its start – how at first I identified with Harry and his cohort, and had kind of a teacher-crush on Remus, but now I'm Remus' age and identify so much more with him. I wonder where a couple more decades will take us!

[aryastark_valarmorghulis]

Hi :)
I'm (late) aryastark_valarmorghulis on every platform (huge Asoiaf lover but not a GoT fan).
I've started writing in English only a couple of years ago but I've been writing in my first language since... 2011-ish? And I've shipped R/S even earlier - I remember reading Shoebox Project when it was huge and being drawn to this pairing during the early days.
I'm still relatively new to the English-language fandom and I'm quite fond of canon-compliant stories and Magic AUs.
I think I've read almost every fic written for this fest throughout the years - I believe end of the year fics are perfectly suited for R/S... (in fact, 3 of my 14 fics are Christmassy-themed!)

[coriaria]

Hi. I'm impressed that you are writing in a language which isn't your first, that's a big thing to do.

[maraudorable]

I’m late, but better late than never, right?
I’ve only joined the wolfstar fandom recently (late last year or early this year), but I’ve been a big Harry Potter fan since I was a child. I think I shipped R/S low-key before too? I’d see some art and think, yes, this is nice, this makes sense. But then about a year ago I started reading fanfiction and... Yeah, here I am, with a full-blown obsession.
I watch/read/play a lot of other stuff (mostly watch - god, I watch SO much), but I’m not as invested in anything as I am in wolfstar. I have other, low-key HP ships too - Dorcas/Marlene, Percy/Oliver, Luna/Ginny, Fleur/Tonks.
I’m not really active on dreamwidth (as you can tell by my late reply), but you can find me on tumblr under the same name practically 24/7.
Wow, this has been one boring introduction :) I’m not very good at that, apparently.

[magnetic_pole]

No, not boring! I for one love seeing all those femslash pairings. Fleur/Tonks has always attracted me because they've both got such a complicated relationship to gender identity and sexuality--Fleur got stuck with a conventional kind of femininity and more male attention than she could possible want (do queer women find her attractive, too? we never learn), and Tonks has deliberately developed her own alternatives.

I think your story is similar to a lot of ours--a character or a pairing is interesting, you think hmmmm, you read a bit, and WHAM! you've got a full-blown obsession, as you say. Sometimes you never recover. :) M.

[secretsolitaire]

Hi, I'm secretsolitaire here and on LJ/IJ (I don't have a Tumblr). I believe I've been in and out of HP fandom since about 2005, and R/S was my first ship. I don't write or draw; I used to read and rec pretty voraciously, but now I mostly wander in around holiday fest time or whenever I have a fresh wave of nostalgia for the HP world.

I'm a multishipper and will read a wide variety of pairings if they're well written. I've participated in various other fandoms but am not really in one right now (other than watching a lot of tennis!).

[magnetic_pole]

Hi, S! *hugs* M.