dray

(Updated Jan. 1 2025)

Hello! My name is Dray, or Cherreh ("chair-eh", not "Cherry") and I create original fiction and art set in a variety of homebrew fantasy and sci-fi settings. I'm part of the LGBTQ community and most of my characters and ships are queer and poly in some way. I like to play in spaces that shift between cozy found-families and explorations of shared trauma. Some of my worlds have some very dead dove content. I usually choose not to warn on an individual story basis, but will keep tags on higher-level organizational posts.

I also post day-to-day happenings here, so please check my tags for links to more specific work.

Much of my work is SFW, but I do occasionally write and draw NSFW material. I've created a filter for it, and lock and warn for it. Please shoot me a note if you want to be added to the filter.

( more under the cut )

This week's

thefridayfive questions, just for funsies:

1. What chores did you have to do, growing up?
- It varied, but was not strictly regimented. Generally, so long as I left spaces roughly as clean as I found them and didn't leave anything on the floor, it was considered acceptable.

2. Which chore do you hate doing the most?
- Emptying the cat's litter box was an overwhelming sense-sensation, and pulling stuff out of the kitchen sink drain similarly gave me such a case of the 'yucks' as a kid that I usually tried to escape doing them. I had a distinct moment in my early teens when I was able to confront the kitchen sink gunk with a certain level of equanimity and felt like a 'real adult' for a moment.

3. Which chore do you actually enjoy doing?
- During winter, I'd shovel our section of the walkway, and I loved it so much that I'd shovel out the neighbours' too, energy permitting. One year when a neighbour got a snow blower, he was peeved that his sidewalk had already been cleared before he could play with his new toy! Woops!

4. Did you receive an allowance when you were growing up?
- Not in any regimented way. I'd occasionally get some money, but usually very little (we're talking loonies and those old paper two-dollar bills with the robins on them!) Once, my grandfather told me that if I could tell what bird was on our then $50 bills, I could have the bill. I turned around and told him "snowy owl" on the spot and he looked at the back of the bill, looked at me, and gave it over so regretfully. Sir: I loved birds, I loved money, and I didn't realize you didn't think I'd know the answer! You should have been more prepared!

5. What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?
- I didn't really enjoy much of anything in school, looking back on it with fresher eyes. I tolerated a lot, but while I got good grades, I did not excel-- It was more like I shotgunned all the classes to 'get through them' faster. (I was a pretty miserable kiddo, but that's another can of worms.)
- The first class I remember really enjoying was the stoichiometry unit in Chemistry 20 or 30. The equivalence and balance in chemical reactions, really learning and understanding how something could change from one compound into another and still retain its mass (or if it didn't, where did the remainder go, or how did the new stuff accrete?), that stuff fascinated me in a way that no other science could. Even though I loved biology, zoology, and prehistoric creatures, those were never taught in a way that caught my mind like stoichiometry was taught. Later, in my first year of university (before I pivoted into the arts) I ate up organic chemistry in the same way. I loved learning about chirality and organic compounds, and that was probably the first place that I started being very curious about where real life and theory danced together to produce new and cool molecules. (I was terrible at the maths, calculus, etc. that would be needed to really excel in organic chem, and I also hated the thought of going into oil or pharma, so in terms of IRL capitalistic pursuits it was a dead end... but it sure did stoke my imagination!)

It's been a busy week on Dreamwidth, but mostly because I added quite a few folks from

addme a few weeks ago and suddenly have lots of interesting things to talk about!

In any case, here's my plug for DW Communities via interactions.

seasonsofdrabbles - I wrote and submitted my person's request! Just waiting for the reveal now.

weekendwritingmarathon - Chatting with the admin and folks in the discord for this community to help get the oomph to write! They got me through both my drabble quest and helping to set up an X-Files Casefic I'm writing for some friends.

itsabattlefield - Commented on the latest theme, 'combinations' as a nice way to get ideas for making icons! Unfortunately I haven't been drawing enough to make good use of these yet.

naarmamo - I updated the 4th week (nearly wrapped, wooh!) and shared some sketches I'd done. Unfortunately, Dreamwidth continues to be a little dodgy about image sharing: imgur.com won't show up for folks in the UK!

addme - Chatted with a few new folks! Lots of cool people using this site!

enablemeplz - Daydreaming about my old RP days and wishing I both had the oomph to commit to RP, and the lack of complexity and baggage to just jump into something new. (I suppose that would be my 'impulsiveness' from the ADHD, because I have not yet resolved the baggage in any meaningful way and I know I'd wind up ghosting or hurting someone's feelings once the urge to respond died down again, so I'm only window shopping and renewing my need to resolve some of my bad behaviours)

iconcolors - I managed to get one icon in for the previous palette, one after the deadline, and have a sketch mostly done being inked that I would use to complete the set!

(These are for Cyrrin, an NB dragon who's spent so much time in human form that they're really conflicted about what feels 'real' and what is a 'front'. They're for jkatkina, who writes this character in a delectably complex manner.)

nexticon - I posted an icon following inspiration from the previous!

A dreamlike image for Ryan in 'Hellgary', which really is still just the working title for a comic that I'd started in 2010 about two friends going through eldritch end-of-the-world shit together.

everykindofcraft - commented on the latest necklaces being shared, which continue to slap!

thankfulthursday - Joined and posted here, as I like a good gratitude community!

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week I posted to these...

-

naarmamo: Hosting weekly prompts to share art that's been made this month! I even posted some work that I'd finished up in the latest round.
-

nexticon: Voting and commenting on the latest batch of icons that have been made; the folks who keep this community active have a really nice flow of "the last icon inspired me to do this!" that's fun to see placed all together. One day I need to get back to drawing art for icons again... needs more DWRP as an excuse, though.
-

seasonsofdrabbles: Iiiii joined the Autumn round of a drabblefic exchange. I've never done fandom exchange writing before (at least not in the formalized way that yuletide fic and other AO3 Organized Institutions of fandom have worked) and I have always been really nervous about it, but drabbles are so succinct that, even if I fuck myself over with anxiety or aversion over having a deadline, I know I could write something decent within a limited timeline. So we'll see! I'm also (so as not to emphasize just the negative side) very excited to try something new? I've limited myself to fandoms that I know very well and would love to write for and receive for, so I'm hoping that will serve as encouragement!
-

addme: I stuck my toe in the water and wrote a post here, and managed to find some very cool DW users who have enriched my days quite a bit with their thoughtful posts. Yay!
-

newcomers: I shared my image hosting issue in hopes of finding a fix that doesn't require me to move my image hosting elsewhere and/or migrate my entire website from an http to an https format!
-

rainbowlounge: First time in a while that I've seen someone post here as a 'hi I'm new!' hand-wave. Waved back, encouraged some participation. (Whistling with my hands in my pockets as I distinctly avoid doing any creative writing of my own, even if I have about 7 different nearly complete ficlets to post. Who has an ADHD diagnosis? Noooo, not me!)

I am forever looking over my community list and wondering if there are ways to help burnish them up. I'm so on-and-off of Dreamwidth, but I enjoy the fact that this place allows me to conglomerate all sorts of different friends-groups into one reading list!

Current Mood: wiggly

So Dreamwidth doesn't generally do excellently with image hosting, that's fine. However, my personal hosting is not working for some reason. Example:

This extremely shiny bird should show up in my post as an [img src=http://www.nexusofdragons.com/dray/Adoptions/EVENTS/RainbowGlitz/EstidaxTaichi08-Malitherii.png"] tag (replacing the square brackets for the pointed, obviously) if I insert it directly via html. What happens is this:

In other words, the images from my website are not supported for some reason. Does Dreamwidth guard against websites that don't have "https" in their title or is something else going on? My hosting is old, but it's not compromised. I'm not sure why I can't use it here!

Per

vriddy's great reminder! Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week...

Committed to setting up weekly round-up posts for

naarmamo, a month in August of posting new art each day. (Though in my case, likely to be more like each week, or maybe progress each day, lol!) Also likely to set up the end-of-August "post a conglomerate of your work this month to make a badge for participation")

Commented on

everykindofcraft posts, with some extremely talented bookbinders and jewelry makers this week!

Commented on

comicbook_icons as it's nice to see some 'best off' thumbnail-sized images of folks' current favs.

Commented on

dreamwidthlayouts where an extremely talented community member posted a super handy GUI for the otherwise basic Tabula Rasa journal style to help juj that style up.

Spruced up my friends-locked DWRP community sandbox

afterthejump, as the next time I get a burst of inspiration I want to make some prompts and organize some of my character journals. I doubt I'll get into a full roleplay game any time soon, but every so often the bug to write bites and this time it leant towards wishing for RP.

Hallo, hope everyone's been well! January was a rough year, but at least February's proving to be a shorter one.

Like usual, I fall off of Dreamwidth about midway through January for whatever reason and then come and go like a hummingbird too jacked-up on sugar-water to remember where its roost went.

I have been resolving for months to do the

weekendwritingmarathon weekend challenge (to do it every weekend, in fact!) but I keep being extremely burnt out by Saturday, and then use Sunday to get all my chores done, and then suddenly Capitalism has shoved me back into its little hamster wheel and off I go again for another week! I've been also documenting my travels with ADHD for the last three quarters of a year, and there's a very specific and hefty amount of that which blocks my ability to focus, both on creative habits and self-care. So it's been pretty rough.

However, I managed to wangle myself back into my WIP's doc for

everwood ficlets and

rainbowfic prompts, and managed to tidy up two shorts which are now up on both communities.

The first, Creature Comforts, follows a short blurb about the dryad Daphne and the lumberjack Boyce, from Daphne's point of view. (I love writing from her perspective because Boyce is not a small man, but she is just as big as he is and probably is twice as strong. It's fun trying to get into the heads of the POV characters as I go through each of these ficlets!)

The second, Blood Siblings, was posted nearly a year ago in Everwood, but I hadn't popped it over onto Rainbowfic yet. It's about Brandili's misuse by her political-marriage, her escape from that, and her burning desire for revenge when she realizes that her husband knew of her hiding place all along and had in fact been allowing her to think she'd escaped him. If everything else lines up, I'm looking forward to when she can slice him up with her badass old pirate's sword or have her real beau shoot him through the heart with a cursed arrow. Forgiveness for past wrongs? Nahhhh.

Everwood is composed of many characters over about a decade or so and it's got a sort of ensemble, episodic bent to it, but I do have an overarching plot and message that I'm trying to weave through it all: Found family and found community are stronger in their day-to-day moments than the unceasing sprawl of colonization... and working through the everyday poison of the effects of colonization can in fact be what makes those bonds stronger. It's meant to be hopeful, in the end. Every one of the characters in this story are weird in some way and a lot of them are on the ropes. There's something about writing them recovering from all the blows they've taken that makes me a little happier.

Good morning everyone! Happy New Year (soooo belatedly, haha!)

If you're not already aware,

snowflake_challenge is underway for the month! It's a community to stoke up some activity every January, then goes dormant for another year. You don't have to follow it along directly, but if you're looking to participate in creative and fandom spaces it's worth seeing who's around (and participating, yourself!)

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintry forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #1
The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

Every year I endeavour to complete the whole month's worth of challenges and every year I fail, but heck, I want to be more active on Dreamwidth overall, and I want to find my creative streak and get back to writing! Engaging with communities and other creators (and with people who are encouraging in general) has been the best way I've found to stay inspired, so here I am again.

I've working on a (often NSFW, so beware to any new followers) series following an ensemble of characters in a fantasy setting, called

everwood. I've about half a dozen half-finished stories that I want to jump back into finishing, polishing, and posting! I also want to clear up my timeline for that story so that I can better track things chronologically and by character. In my ideal world, readers could follow each character over the years to see what they've been up to and how their lives braid with the others and change one another for better or worse!

I do bits and pieces of fandom things. Right now I'm watching Farscape with friends after they watched the latest Battlestar series with my spouse and I! I enjoy sharing new content (for a very certain definition of 'new', lol) and we're all on a sci fi tear. So in terms of Snowflake Challenge fannish answers, 90's sci-fi is probably going to be my go-to this year!

Has it already been a full week?! Why does this always keep happening? Here's this week's prompts from

thefridayfive.

1. What is one thing about you that you hate?

Ooh, tough! I dislike that I have a tough time making decisions. I'd say that I've gone so far as to 'hate' that about myself, but I'm trying to be more forgiving.

2. What is one thing about you that you love?

Also tough! Damn, this week's too hard! I usually can live my values: compassion, kindness and care mean a lot to me and I'd love receiving them, so I try to keep that available for others in case they're in the same boat.

3. If you had to change one thing about you what would it be and why?

Probably my ability to socialize. I wear out very quickly around people and wind up being pretty lonely for it, because I don't have the ability to make connections that are all that deep before everything feels exhausting.

4. What is one word that you would use to define yourself?

"Infodesk", lol— when we got out, it's not unusual to have strangers go so far as to cross streets to ask me where something is or how to get from X to Y. It's like there's a big ? hanging out over my head because strangers think I can answer any questions!

5. Imagine what you would look like in a perfect world...what do you look like?

Physically look like? Externiality of the world around me? Interniality? My neurodivergence might be getting the better of me but I don't know how specific this question wants to be answered. I would say that a perfect world would be less about changing myself, and more about changing our culture. A perfect world would be deeply socialist, with lots of community and support available to all. In that world, I'd be working a lot less, affording better food, and spending more of my time helping friends and family with little errands and tasks between doing art and writing. So, I think I'd probably be just as tired, but for very different reasons. Maybe I'd dye my hair some funky colours, but otherwise I'm happy with how I look, given the circumstances, lol!

Welcome back to Dray's edition of Community Thursday (which I recently learned from

vriddy was started all the way back in 2021 by

goodbyebird in a

snowflake_challenge post from 2022! Talk about keeping it going strong!)

I've jumped both heels into

ocrealm! Popped a long ramble about my OC's and introductions in my own journal, here.

Joined

holiday_wishes just recently (better late than never) and I'll likely be looking for ways to help build out my reading page with more community content. I feel so out of the loop with everyone and everything, and kind of genuinely just want to find ways to get looped into a healthy community, so I'll be working on thinking up how to ask those wishes.

I've been cheering folks on in

iconcolors! What I really want is a place to draw OC icons with other artists that has semi-regular prompts, but I would need resources to stay on top of the community-making if I wound up having to be in charge of it. In the meantime, fannish communities based around icon making have been really nice!

bookheaven seems to have a dedicated poster reviewing recent reads. I'd be curious to see more people posting there; I like that format for recommendations.

I remembered that

bakerstreet exists and have followed it just to see what shenanigans are going on. I have'd RP'd here in a while (barring a test drive or two with my tiefling OC,

vegalthon, who I'd love to play again some day! Memes used to be my home base before I joined my first DWRP game. They're their own little unique community.

voiceinmyear had a recommendation for Parkdale Haunt, a spooky podcast that sounds as though it quickly devolves into something much more horror-based. It's set in Toronto, Canada, which is neat (so rarely do I get to see Canadian content!) and the first season's been a delight, so far. I'm looking forward to more.

Let's get this party started!

ocrealm's first discussion prompt is this:

What inspired you to make your OC(s)?

Now, I believe we're supposed to reply to that comment with our own replies, but I wanted to ramble! So, below are several settings with several OC's origins. If you'd like to learn a bit about where my blorbos come from, ( hop past the link with me! )

Okay! That was a lot! These are the main boatload of characters that I'll be playing with over at

ocrealm so I figured I'd share them all now and use this as a point of reference for later... but if you've managed to read this far, thank you for staying with me! ^_^ I love writing, and it gets hard sometimes to break through that thick wall of creative block... but playing is such a crucial part of... I don't know. Feeling safe? Feeling human? That I'm glad to be dabbling again.

vriddy is doing, I figure a weekly post about neat communities I've been active in or eyeballing might be nice to share, especially since Dreamwidth does not have the now-familiar algorithmic sorting that otherwise lofts interests to our spoil't eyeballs.

Last week, I stumbled on

ocrealm and they have some nice and easy prompts to chat about original characters. Worth a look if you want to spin some blorbos (original flavour) with one another at a slower speed than on discord.

ph_memes has put out a new test drive! If you haven't participated in DWRP before, DWRP stands for "Dreamwidth Roleplay", which is often fandom or panfandom based. This one is hosted by

pumpkinhollow, and is themed around spooky (and sometimes silly) horror themes. Like more oldschool DWRP games, the game's themes and prompts shift over time, allowing a sandbox for you to interact with other players' characters in order for your blorbos to develop friendships, hateships, and of course relationships over time.

I've been looking at

comment_bingo as a way to seek out specific things to read and a little bonus box to tick for having left comments, but we'll see. My bingo track record is historically 'get one box ticked, then walk away', lol! I need a bingo game for finishing my bingo cards.

I really want to see more activity in

thelockedtomb (a Locked Tomb fan community) but I have no idea where to get started! I don't tend to write fanfic, though I could potentially pick up a character to roleplay? I wish for more queerfandom where the predominant ships are femme (trans or cis) or genderqueer-dominant... and this seems like a good one for it. Maybe I should ask for good fic recs over there? I don't know, I'm a newbie here.

We probably all know about

getyourwordsout but if anyone knows of a smaller stress community that is similarly motivating and mostly filled with tips and tricks? I'd love that, if anyone has recommendations.

GetYourWordsOut: Year Eighteen!
Pledges & Requirements | getyourwordsout.net

I've tossed some listening recommendations over on

voiceinmyear, which is a community focused on sharing podcasts and good listens!

Any communities that you've been enjoying lately? I'm currently in the 'squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter' phase of exploring Dreamwidth and would love your recommendations!

Thanks to

thefridayfive for another batch of questions to mull on while I'm between creative projects!

1. Did you get an allowance as a kid, and if so, how much was it?

Intermittently, though it was only ever a couple of bucks at a go! I had an uncanny knack for finding spare change, and my grandparents would gift me a delightful amount of cash on my birthday, but we weren't really a regular-allowance kind of household.

2. How old were you when you had your first job, and what was it?

I was thirteen or fourteen, delivering papers in the freezing Albertan winter (when papers were still a thing) in order to be able to afford the first Pokemon game (Red!) for my gameboy. I was very proud to be able to field the cost by myself.

3. Which do you do better: save money or spend money?

Used to be 'save money' and kind of still feel that way, but since I've been making more money, I have found a lot more enrichment in spending it now and again.

4. Are people more likely to borrow money from you, or are you more likely to borrow from them?

I try my very hardest to stay out of owing or being owed. I used to foot the house bills in a roommate situation, but when I wound up with roomies owing me over $500 and then ruining a friendship over needing to chase for it, I decided never again. It's always either gifts or just staying out of it, now!

5. What's the most expensive thing you've ever bought?

A townhouse, which we're still paying off (and will be for quite a while)! Kat and I bought it in 2021 on a 30-year mortgage, just managing to squeak into the homeowner market. We now live in BC where it's very very difficult to break in (townhouses are now 900K to well over a million, and detached homes are about twice that!) but there was a dip during the pandemic that allowed us to move.

Looks like a little community focusing on original characters is booting up on Dreamwidth, called

ocrealm! If you have any characters you want to chat about, this looks like a nice little haven for them.

I've tossed up an introduction post here and I'm thinking of popping the occasional prompt in from time to time. Want to join me to play in a slower-paced space than discord tends to be?

Hi all, I've been under a rock for most of the year and I hope you've been alright! Things have been very up and down for me, but I'm chugging along.

thefridayfive has posted this week's questions already, so why not sneak in some participation?

1. If you had to participate in one Olympic event, what would it be and why?

Biathalon! Not that I would be any good at it, but I like the idea of cross country skiing and target practice combined into one. There's something very prairies in it for me that calls to some of the more positive thoughts of my heritage.

2. What is the one song you always sing along to?

I have to pick only one? Alright, let's see. I think that "Your Song" from Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge would probably be my #1. Kat and I sang it a lot together when we were first dating and it's been lodged in my head as one of those 'most romantic ever' ditties that lifts my heart and makes me smile.

3. Do you wear a seatbelt in the car?

Yep! I'm generally law-abiding if I have proof that it's sensible to be so, and I have second-hand accounts from coworkers who experienced trauma due to friends and family not wearing seatbelts, so I'm taking their word for it.

4. Car, SUV or truck and why?

Car! I like being low to the ground and being able to sense where the corners of my vehicle are. I also like having more maneuverability than either an SUV or truck can offer. I currently have an SUV right now and am having to relearn how to drive it, but I'm looking forward to understanding the new proportions a lot better.

5. Are you a good/bad driver? Explain.

I'm an inexperienced driver. For 40 years I have managed to get away with living as a pedestrian and a transit user, but a semi-recent move out to the boonies has required the use of a vehicle, so I've been working my way through getting learners and then new driver licenses, and practicing. In fact, I'm going to purchase some new driving lessons before my current work contract is over so that I can replenish some guided experience, because inexperience is worse than simply being a 'bad' driver, you know?

Anyways, sending lots of good vibes to y'all! I hope your holidays go well and that we all get a good break in the months and year ahead.

These are for the community,

snowflake_challenge. Feel free to sign up; it's still active until the 31st, and then will come around again next January if our mods are gracious enough to return.

Snowflake Challenge #6
Share your favourite piece of original canon.

( Challenge #6 )

Snowflake Challenge #7
In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a wishlist of sorts. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish.

( Challenge #7 )

Current Mood: thoughtful

For

snowflake_challenge:

Challenge #4

Since this is the start of a new year, this challenge will be to set your own goals! Of course we can all make large or ambitious goals, remember that small and/or short goals are also good!

( Snowflake Challenge #4 )

Challenge #5

Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.

( Snowflake Challenge #5 )

I'm sure that if you've been reading my journal for as long as I've had it, you know that I've been a huge fan of

rainbowfic! The basic thrust is that this community has an infinite amount of ways to mix-and-match your writing prompts in order to motivate you to continue your story, one short fic at a time. Your basic set-up is that each colour (based loosely on Crayola colours) comes with a prompt list based on things like quotes, songs, vibes, etc. etc. When you've written something for every prompt within that colour, you 'win' that colour.

Now, there are more complicated ways to play in that community-- there are palettes, where you aim to complete a certain grouping of colours (or even hues, like "complete five pink colour prompt lists"). There are other 'craft supplies' that offer even more complexity and specificity. The point is to combine as many of these prompts as you want (and as you can) into one short story, in order to get to those larger goals. Mind you, it's not directly competitive, unless you're competing with yourself.

But it is a lot of work to track which stories you've written using which prompts.

silvercat17 recently announced a tracking system for rainbowfic that you can use to do that for you! WHAT?! OMG!

If you're into writing original fic (or fanfic, let's be real) and you thrive on combining prompts and achieving long-term goals through short, delightful little steps, please check out

rainbowfic's steez. (This is where you share your work, where you can read others' work, too.) You can see the many many MANY prompts over at

rainbowlists, and keep abreast of what's new in

rainbowlounge.

I wound up writing so much fic that I created my own community to stash it, over at

everwood. (Much smut, very NSFW)

Guys I am vibrating. No more complicated google docs listing every colour and prompt and going "UHHHHH did I finish this?!" I can just write, now, lol.

Current Mood: happy

snowflake_challenge is still going strong for those who would like to participate! There is no deadline, just fun.

Challenge #3

In your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time.

Despite society's insistence otherwise, the beliefs and opinions that we hold about things change over time. We thought it was important that we reflect that (and perhaps laugh at our previously ill-considered opinions) with this challenge.

( cw for conservative upbringing and lackadaisical mention of abusive behaviour )

Challenge #1

Hi all, I've updated my info this year here and encourage folks to read it who are new to my journal.

Challenge #2

In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm tangentially related to fannish spaces in the sense that I like to parallel play-- and I think that I got all of that from my start back in the very early 2000's, when there were still only webrings and emails for communication.

As a youngish highschooler, I'd made friends with another net denizen who'd written a bunch of gundam wing/pokemon cross-overs... and while I had no idea what gundam wing was about, I was very much hyperfixated on pokemon. The idea of writing fanfic appealed to me immensely, like as a young creative that liked to riff off of existing media and change it to help me imagine my own worlds, it was key!

I wound up writing my first fanfic about Red, her rivalry with Blue, and the pokemon they befriended along the way. I then went and wrote a massive novel about my homebrew Pernese Weyr kitbashed with second-hand Gundam knowledge, just for that internet friend. I don't have access to either anymore, alas.

Ever since, I've bounced back and forth between fandom and original writing, and I find that while I don't get the same depth of hyperfixation on a piece of media that I used to (most of the time at least) it's so good to share spaces with those who do... my favourite activity since those days has been jamming with friends on an idea and extrapolating between worlds and characters, creating AU's, and otherwise really exploring what a character is about when put in different situations. Chef's kiss!

an ice snowflake against a blue background text snowflake challenge near the top in blended text

It's that time again!

snowflake_challenge is starting up tomorrow on Dreamwidth! They also have mirrors on other accounts. I'm following the Pillowfort version of the snowflake challenge as well, but will be posting here most predominantly because I love you, Dreamwidth!

ysabetwordsmith is, as always an incomparable help to folks across the fannish community. There's a goals post here that can help you, too, get started.

I have updated my Intro Post for 2025, including recs to my favourite book series and a few non-fandom hobbies that I'd like to make more friends around.

With regards to goals for this upcoming month, here's my breakdown from Ysabet's organizational post.

My primary goal is:
* You like structured events. because they give you something to blog about and other participants to read it.

Aim to do all the Snowflake challenges. You don't have to invest a huge amount of time in any given one, just try to respond on each of the odd-numbered days.
- ☐ Challenge 1
- ☐ Challenge 2
- ☐ Challenge 3
- ☐ Challenge 4
- ☐ Challenge 5
- ☐ Challenge 6
- ☐ Challenge 7
- ☐ Challenge 8
- ☐ Challenge 9
- ☐ Challenge 10
- ☐ Challenge 11
- ☐ Challenge 12
- ☐ Challenge 13
- ☐ Challenge 14
- ☐ Challenge 15

Watch for challenges that can create structure, especially Make Your Own Challenge. Sometimes people come up with long-running suggestions, like Community Thursdays, which started this way.
- (My subscription list contains a plethora of new story prompts, but I haven't seen much journal entry structure challenges like Snowflake!)

There are many other things you can use as a framework, like Fannish Fifty. Two later events that offer structure include Three Weeks for Dreamwidth (April 25-May 15) and sunshine_challenge (July). You may see folks doing or recommending these during Snowflake season.
- (These are now noted in my desk calendar! Let's goooo!

Use recurring posts to frame the major topic(s) of your blog or community and create structure. You can pick any topic(s) and posting schedule that appeals to you.
- Saving this for post Snowflake Challenge, but earmarking it for February

Any list of questions can be used to create structure for a set of posts. Check out some friending memes for inspiration, or look for lists of blog post prompts.
- Also earmarking this!

My secondary goals are:
* You want to meet more people and/or make new friends.

Emphasize the interactive challenges like Introduction and Friending Meme. Spend plenty of time crafting your challenge posts, then browsing and commenting on other people's posts.

Make sure your profile, sticky post, introduction, or other self-descriptive entries list what kind of people you hope to make friends with.

See also "How to Do Online Profiles or Introductions with Less Stress."

Visit the "Meet the Mods" page to see who is volunteering to host challenges in snowflake_challenge this year. These are all active, enthusiastic people and most of them have a big audience. Thank them for their hard work. Explore their blogs and leave comments. Think about whether you'd like to subscribe to their blogs. Also look at the other folks commenting there and see if any of them appeal too.

Specify that you are seeking new friends, which encourages people to interact with you. Also watch for anyone else who says they're looking for friends too.

When people respond to your challenge posts or comments, reply to them and strike up a conversation.

Watch for friending memes. These are very popular at this time of year, not just in the Snowflake itself, but elsewhere in Dreamwidth to capitalize on the higher traffic.

Watch for anyone who says "This is my first Snowflake" and/or "I'm new to Dreamwidth." Helping them get started is a good way to make friends.

Swing by the Add Me communities. They often see a spike in activity during Snowflake season. Leave posts about yourself and/or browse other people's posts looking for possible friends.

* You want to attract more readers to your blog and/or communities.

Emphasize the interactive challenges like Introduction and Friending Meme; and the recommendation or community oriented challenges. Spend plenty of time crafting your posts for those challenges, then browsing and commenting on other people's posts.

Make sure your profile, sticky post, introduction, or other self-descriptive entries list your blog and/or communities, the main topic(s), and what kind of readers you'd like to attract. This helps everyone gauge whether they're a good fit.

To identify your main topics: In the sidebar of your blog, click Most Popular Tags. Scroll to the bottom and click Manage Tags. Under the tags, in tiny print, it says Sort: alphabetically or by usage. Click usage. The top 10-12 things on that list are the ones you tag in posts the most frequently. People who like those things will probably like your blog. So this is a useful list to mention in a post during Snowflake season and/or in your profile.

Use recurring posts to frame the main topic(s) of your blog or community. This makes it easier for people to identify common interests. Also, most folks consider a blog "active" if it has at least one post a week, and a community if it has at least one post every month or few. Setting up a few recurring posts on main topics for different days or weeks helps maintain activity and encourage regular readers.

Make anchor posts during snowflake_challenge when activity is high, so more people will see them. These are longer posts with substantial subjects that are good for sparking discussions, especially if you add a question or two at the end to encourage audience responses. You can do this in advance during a quieter time and save them to post during the busier season of Snowflake.

"How to Boost Your Audience" was written for crowdfunding but generalizes well to other topics, with tips on various types of interaction.

Watch for folks who say, "I'm looking for active blogs to read," because some bloggers post (or make public posts) only during Snowflake season, so you can distinguish yourself from the January-only crowd. Check whether the person lists what kind of fandoms, other topics, or blog styles they want to read; and if yours matches, comment to point invite them over. If they don't mention a target, just tell them your topic(s) and posting frequency. As a general rule, most readers consider a blog "active" if it posts at least once a week, or a community if it posts at least once a month.

Good luck to everyone this year who's picking up the posting challenge (for the first time, or once again!) I know I'll need it! :D

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