I've been doing a bit casually dreadful at keeping up with snowflake_challenge, but fortunately it doesn't have a time limit so here's a chance to try and catch up a little! Plus I'm feeling completely drained today, which is no good at all, so let's try and spin some energy up and share some words with y'all!

Today's challenge is to recommend three fanworks by someone other than myself, which immediately trips me up in a way that makes me feel a little bit ashamed! I write fanwork fairly regularly, and I read things written by friends of mine. Outside of those specific confines? I guess I don't actually engage that much, oop.

But I've given this a bit of thought, and landed on a few things!

WELL, this has gotten off to a terrible start, because there was a specific Final Fantasy VIII fan fiction series I wanted to recommend and it appears to be deleted now! What a bummer. Now I'll never find out what happens after Squall's ex-wife is killed in a drunk-driving incident! (YES, REALLY.) Moving on, I guess!

1. I'm pretty confident recommending anything that riona has written, honestly. I never think of myself as someone who reads a ton of fanfic, but whenever Riona posts something new I always go to read it even when I'm canon blind. Her dialogue is always really snappy and evocative, and her writing style is really simple and accessible but in a way that just makes the sucker punches hit all the harder. Whenever I think about how I should write more fic, and be more confident in just writing whatever I want regardless of anything else, Riona is the person I think of.

Right now I'll especially recommend her Last Of Us 2 fics, especially If Nowhere Else and In Fainter Ink. The comments on In Fainter Ink are also a good example of how not to review, but that's a whole OTHER conversation.

(On that note, goal for this year: do better at leaving reviews when you read things!)

2. If you're on the prowl for some DUBIOUS INCEST, check out windian. I love what Nina's been writing lately (Half Light is going places, man, and I am here for it), but the huge variety of content and ideas on display in her work is super inspiring. I love her willingness to explore different tenses! I love her dedication to deeply damaged sibling relationships!

And just to call out one fic in particular, I love her Zestiria fic that touches on the aftermath of Dezel's actions in Pendrago and what was going on between him and Rose. Consequences sums up something I love about Nina's stories—she digs into canon, finds loose ends or points of interest, and sees them to fruition. As someone obsessed with Canon Divergence AU's, THIS SPEAKS TO ME.

3. When Fel linked me this Hanneman/Seteth non-con fic I read the tags and angrily proclaimed, "No, Hanneman would never--!", and then I read it and...



(It's actually great. It's porn, and it's nonsense, and it's fantastically in-character and weirdly easy to buy into and 10/10 would be mortified again.)

Challenge #7 is to design our own challenge! It kind of throws me back to the days when I used to be a mod at Colors TCG, an online trading card game. Every year for the game's anniversary we used to make a bunch of themed challenges and discussion posts for people to get to know one another and win some cards and whatnot. It was always a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed trying to come up with topics!

I think one of my favourite ones of those was (un)favourite characters, but that's probably because I'm a little bit contrary and enjoy finding the fun in negativity! I think there's plenty that can be enjoyable and constructive in chatting about characters you particularly dislike, seeing the patterns in what we respond to and different things like that, you know? So for something at least a little bit in that vein, I guess my challenge would be something like...

Tell us a GOOD thing about a character you dislike, and/or a BAD thing about a character you love.

Nothing like getting people chatting about things they're passionate for!

For a different idea, though, and something that perhaps involves a little bit more interaction or creativity, how about something like...

Tell us about one piece of fan content you know you will NEVER create. You like the idea, but for whatever reason you're just not the person to bring it to life. It could be wanting to make a whole rock-opera album about Digimon Adventure but having no musical skill, or wanting to read a novelisation of a favourite video game, or to create portraits for all the major characters in The Wheel Of Time or—anything! It can be something much less grandiose as well. Maybe you'd really love to see q story that explores what happened when Those Two Characters Met, but you don't feel like you could write it very well. Or you'd like to make a wallpaper edit for your phone background but don't have access to good editing software. Whatever it is, tell us about it!

I think there's an argument to be made that both of these faux-challenges of mine are too negative, FHJDSK. Oh well, hahaha! I guess that's why it's a winter challenge >:(!!!