2020 Friending Meme

[st_aurafina]

This helped me a lot in early 2017 when Trump had just been elected, and I am hoping we can get the same feeling going again, after the UK election was such a shock.

Connections are important when it feels like the world is getting darker. Fandom is a huge and strong network of people. We don't always get along, but we're stronger together.

Make new friends, reconnect with those who have drifted, enlarge your circle, and know you are not alone.

To play, cut and paste this text into a comment, fill out the details and tell us about yourself. Then go find new people to add.

<strong>DW username</strong>: <strong>Preferred pronouns:</strong> <strong>Other platforms (tumblr, twitter, etc)</strong>: <strong>Active/primary interests or fandoms</strong>: (keep this fairly short, so people will read it!) <strong>If you've seen me around, it's probably because</strong>: (how might people have seen you online / in fandom?) <strong>I post about</strong>: (fandom, real life, or a combination) <strong>I post/check my feed</strong>: (daily, weekly, twice a year, etc) <strong>I want to find people that post about</strong>: (specific fandoms, fandom in general, books, RL, SJ, etc) <strong>I am most interested in interacting with people on:</strong> (DW, Twitter, Tumblr, etc) <strong>My blog is</strong>: (public, selectively public, friends-only) <strong>Anything else you need to know about me:</strong> (A good place to talk about your fandom shipping preferences, characters, type of fic/art/etc you like. Or link to your intro post. Or put a cute photo of your cat.)

If you don't have a Dreamwidth account, you can sign up for one here.
If you're new to Dreamwidth and you've left OpenID comments on DW before, you can link your IDs here: How can I claim my OpenID account with my Dreamwidth account?

Play nice.

And feel free to promote wherever you like with this handy box of linkage:

<a href="https://st-aurafina.dreamwidth.org/287751.html"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ooqK0gK.png" alt="Let's Stick Together: a friending meme for a new year. Image is two giraffes, one leaning almost at right angles to put their head on their friend's neck."></a>

ETA on Sat morning AEST: This text box was functionally busted a few hours ago, so if you grabbed the code then, you might have an image with no link. It's fixed now, with all new alt text for screen readers. If your promo link is just an image, please replace the code with what's in the box now. Thanks for all the posts, btw! Giraffes popping up everywhere.

Comments

[paulamcg]

Oh yes, that’s where it was. At least on The Last Glimpse of Winter, and I hope you’ll find more fics to enjoy there.

I didn’t care about the last two books so much partly because my fanfic was bound to contradict them, and I didn’t care for JKR offering facts about the fictional world and characters outside the story because of my death-of-the-author attitude. But I suppose I must care about and criticise what she says about the real world.

[notreallystars]

I've read quite a few of them I'm just shy about commenting most of the time!

I cared about the last two books at the time they came out, but when I started thinking about them beyond 'yay, Harry Potter!' I realised they didn't really click with me so I've mostly discarded them from my personal canon. Death of the author is definitely the way to go with JKR! As much as I love the world she created, as a trans person I find her difficult to respect.

[paulamcg]

The way to go… that’s it, exactly! Just discarding her as any kind of an idol whom we should follow in social media!

I’m thrilled there are others whose personal canon doesn’t include HBP and DH. I suppose I was more critical when reading those books because I was deep in my extrapolation of the first five. But I seriously disliked the whole idea of dehumanising enemies by making the main villain split his soul and by letting werewolves be represented by a thoroughly (up to the smell) disgusting character (besides an out-of-character version of our beloved Marauder and Defence teacher), and not fulfilling the hopes of caring about other non-human and part-human characters’ rights. Huh, why haven’t I erased that from my mind?

Anyway, now I label my fanfic first-five-books-compliant and cherish some hope that I can still have readers. This year (returning to the quiet live journal and posting new fic for myself to read) I’ve proved to myself that I can go on without any, but I still stick to my idealistic belief that fiction, like all art, is finalised in an active recipient’s interpretation.

Put more simply, I hope you’ll get less shy. I’m sure every writer and artist on Small Gifts loves comments. That community is proud to be very friendly and we all crave more interaction.

[notreallystars]

I was very confused by what she did with Remus. Obviously she's entitled to do what she wants with her characters, but I don't understand that at all.

I'm getting better with leaving comments! I think it's just about breaking the habit of not commenting, since I know most people appreciate interaction with their fics.

[paulamcg]

I didn’t understand it at all. At first I thought it was just me feeling that she wasted his potential as a character, although he was bound to stay a minor character for her. But I remember some other people, too, calling her portrayal of him as OOC compared with what we’d seen in PoA and OotP.

Great! I’ll be looking forward to your comments :) Don’t you write Remus fic yourself?

[notreallystars]

I haven't done for a while. The only thing I've written under this name is a Sirius fic, though I'm pretty sure Remus fic figured in my teenage fanfic writer incarnation. I keep meaning to write more, including Remus fics, but somehow never find the time.

[paulamcg]

Where could I find your Sirius fic? I thought your name implied that you’d written so much in Remus’s (first-person) pov that there could be some misunderstanding as to your identity! :)

[notreallystars]

Ah right! No, my username is because a friend of mine kept telling me I'm very like Remus - at least partly because I usually have chocolate close to hand - and I was struggling to think of something! My Sirius fic is pretty short but can be found here. I need to start writing more.

[paulamcg]

And now I guess I need to comment over on AO3.