Snowflake Challenge - challenges 1 & 2

[antuhsa]

It's that time of year again! Oh, how time flies. Even though 2019 was intense and stressful and I'm glad for it to be over, I do have good memories of participating in the Snowflake Challenge last year. I'm looking forwards to seeing what this year will bring!

Challenge one: introduce yourself

Hello and welcome to my journal! My name is Antuhsa (pronounced like 'an-TOOG-sjah') and I'm a 25 year old woman living in western Europe. I work in a healthcare related field during the day, but in the evening I have a secret second life as a bookbinding student. I've just started a multi-year bookbinding programme and am enjoying it a lot so far! 

As for fandoms, I'm a life-long Arthurian lore enthusiast. I read any King Arthur related book I could get my hands on as a child, and later went to uni to get a degree in Medieval literature, with a focus on the Arthurian side of it. King Arthur is pretty much the OG fandom when you think of it: it has been popular for centuries, we don't know who started it so there isn't much agreed upon canon, and if you write for it, you're allowed to publish your book as an original work. Isn't it great? :D

I was also a huge LOTR/the Hobbit fan in my teens and even went so far as to read The Silmarillion from cover to cover. I never really got into the fanfic, but I did make a few crappy fanvids for some LOTR inspired songs by this Russian band. One of those got hundreds of thousands of hits and even caught the attention of the band itself ^^. Those were the good times. I'm not that into LOTR anymore, but I still have fond memories of my time in that fandom.

Right now, I'm primarily involved in HP. I also read fanfics for Labyrinth, Jane Austen, Gentleman Jack and a few others, but I'm mainly in HP. I'm not the biggest fan of the books, but I do really like the fandom. It's so big that there's something here for everyone. I read almost any ship, but my favourite is Harry/Snape. Though I'm not sure if I can really say I ship them, because in most of my favourite fics they don't actually end up together at the end. What can I say? I prefer dark and angsty fics to romantic ones any day, especially for Snarry.

I'm more a consumer than a creator when it comes to fandom, but I do have a handful of works up on my AO3 page. I've written a few fics in the past and am now experimenting with combining fandom and bookbinding (inspired by last year's Snowflake Challenge!). It's a lot of fun and I'm looking forwards to making more fandom inspired books in the future. However, I also have a lot of stories in my head I still want to write. I haven't written these before because of fear or failure, but hopefully 2020 will be the year I finally push myself to go for it.

Challenge two: talk about your fannish history

Ha, I accidentally covered some of this in my introduction already, but I'll happily add a bit more to it. I think my fannish history started with Pippi Longstocking. I was a big fan of Astrid Lindgren's books as a child. My favourite was The Lionheart Brothers, because everybody died in it (I've always had a preference for angst), but Pippi Longstocking inspired me more. I had a lot of fun imagining myself as Pippi's best friend and we had many exciting adventures together in my head. I actually wrote one of those adventures down when I was about 9, which was my first attempt at writing fanfic.

When I was 11/12, I became more interested in historical stories, especially medieval ones. My brother and a good friend of mine did too, and together we devoured any King Arthur and Robin Hood related movie/tv show we could get our hands on. We were also huge fans of this Dutch tv show called De Legende van de Bokkerijders, based on the 18th century Dutch legend of the buckriders. When we finished those shows, we'd write plays based on them and perform them for our family. We did that for years and always had great fun with it. I'd do it still if the opportunity presented itself.

I read the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit when I was 11/12 and became a huge fan of those books, but I've already mentioned that in my introduction above.

I started reading Harry Potter when I was about 11 as well. At that time, OOTP had already been published, so I was quite late to the party and hardly had to wait for the next books to come out. I enjoyed HP and talked about it a lot with my friends, but I didn't do anything more with it, because I enjoyed LOTR a lot more.

When I was 19 and studying Medieval studies in uni, I was listening to a lecture about medieval English literature, when I spotted a girl in class reading from a website called Adult Fanfiction and was intrigued. I knew what fanfiction was, but had never had the urge to learn more about it. Until then. I went to that website as soon as I returned home and, well, fell down the rabbit hole hard.

I visited the LOTR/Hobbit section of the website first and read fics there for a few days, but none of them really caught my interest. I clicked on HP next, found my first Snarry by accident, and immediately knew what I'd been missing in the LOTR section. Something about HP fanfic in general, and Snarry in particular, just clicked and felt right, to the point that I'm still here 6 years later. In that time, I wrote about 20 fics to various stages of completion, published three, beta-read more than 300k words, bound two Snarry inspired books, and made a couple of lovely friends that I talk to regularly and hope to meet for real later in 2020. Even though I'm not the most active person here, fandom has definitely brought a lot to my life.

I must say that I'm long past the honeymoon phase when it comes to HP fanfic though. The all-consuming enthusiasm for it is gone. Instead it has become comfortable, sometimes even bordering on boring. I feel like I've already read it all. It's rare that a fic surprises me these days. I often wonder whether it isn't time to move on, and I seriously consider going on a long hiatus a few times a year. Yet there's always something that brings the spark of enthusiasm back. A wonderful new fic, an interesting conversation with a friend, inspiration for a fannish project. Right now I'm in one of my fandom fatigue phases again, but at the same time fandom still brings me joy. As long as that's the case, I'll be staying.

Comments

[perspi]

Hello, it's good to meet you! And wow, how cool that you're studying bookbinding!?!

I'm excited for the challenges this year, too!

[antuhsa]

hello there, nice to meet you too! Here's to another great year of the Snowflake challenge!

magic books

[oldtoadwoman]

Bookbinding is one of those crafts that seems a bit magical. ♥

Re: magic books

[antuhsa]

It is! Well, it can be very frustrating at times, but mostly it's wonderful to see your vision slowly come together. Also, hi! Happy to see you around this year as well!

[silveradept]

Arthurian legends are the best. (And, sometimes, the worst. But I always have a soft-spot for the Gawain-poet.)

[antuhsa]

They are! And I do too. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of my favourite Arthurian stories. Though my all-time favourite has to be Perceval. I love both the unfinished version by Chrétien de Troyes and the German translation/adaptation by Wolfram von Eschenbach. In all other Arthurian stories the knights are always super competent, so I think it's very fun to have this story about a knight who's still learning and makes every possible mistake along the way.

[silveradept]

The Perceval is lovely, yes, although I've only read the de Troyes in translation.

Many of the stories I read, although it's been a while, usually have the named knight of the story messing up somehow and having to make it up through some feat. Yvain and Lancelot (the Dung-Cart Knight) seem to have this structure, if I remember correctly, as opposed to the "you're secretly nobility and I'm going to troll the Round Table about it" that was Beaumains. But it's been a case since I've seriously cracked the books, so I may be remembering wrong.

[antuhsa]

The German version is very similar, except that Wolfram added quite a lot to it to make it into a finished story. Would recommend it if you're ever in the mood to read it!

You've read the other Chrétien de Troyes stories too then, haven't you? Awesome! I love those as well. Although, maybe not Erec and Enide, but that's mostly because I had to read that one for almost every Arthurian lit course I was in, so at some point it became a bit tiresome.

Yes, you're right that the main character of the story usually does mess up in some way. However, they mostly mess up morally. They're all trained knights already, so their fighting skills are up to par, they just need to learn a bit more about loyalty, fidelity or honesty, or something like that. Perceval, on the other hand, doesn't know anything. He grew up in a forest, so he doesn't have proper manners and wins his first fights mostly with luck and some hunting skills. He only gets his first lessons in etiquette and sword fighting later in the story, and only then can he start on his moral improvement journey. That's what I meant with him not being as competent as the others. I should have explained myself better before.

[silveradept]

Ah, I didn't understand you properly. Sorry. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on how chivalric romances are a dialog about how the mounted class should behave (often in contrast to how they did behave), so I was likely bringing that lens to what you were saying.

I will take that recommendation, if I have a desire to dive back into the world of knights and magic and see how someone wrote the journey from complete outsider to knight of the table.

[antuhsa]

No problem whatsoever. That's a very interesting topic for a thesis! It must have been a joy to write it and do research for it. My undergraduate thesis was about *drumroll* Perceval, so it seems like both our thesises were relevant for our conversation!

Hope you have fun with the rest of the Snowflake Challenge!

[seleneheart]

OMG, The Brothers Lionheart!! I wept over them. I think that was probably my first introduction to that type of story. I don't even know what to call it, because angst doesn't really fit for me. I mean, there's probably a direct path from Jonathan to Boromir in my heart.

[antuhsa]

Really? Wow! I hadn't expected to come across someone else on DW who had read that book as well. I read that one so many times as a child. It was definitely a favourite. I like the comparison with Boromir!

I called it angst because the story is very sad when you think about it. The tone is reasonably lighthearted, but the story is about two children dying. One from an accident and the other, his brother, from a terminal illness shortly afterwards. Can you imagine how devastated their parents must be? I know they don't even appear in the story, but I can't help feeling sorry for them anyway.

[buggyfiction]

Hey, a fellow Dutchie!

I had to google De Bokkerijders because I only know it from a Suske & Wiske comic. I have no idea how this eluded me... Oh, this looks so interesting!

I went on camp with Kids for Animals once in Overijssel and we were taught about the Witte Wieven, also a great great Dutch legend.

[antuhsa]

Hi! This is the first time I'm meeting another Dutchie on DW, so I'm pleased to see you here! Hope you don't mind me switching to Dutch, because that makes more sense for the topic.

Haha, ik kende de bokkenrijders eerst ook alleen van Suske en Wiske! Ik had het daarna wel eens opgezocht en kende de legende vaag, maar het is vooral een Limburgs ding volgens mij, dus ik wist er ook niet heel veel van. De serie was op tv in de jaren 90, maar toen was ik nog te jong. Ik kreeg hem ergens rond 2008 op dvd en toen hebben mijn broer en ik hem grijs gekeken. Het is niet de beste serie ooit hoor. Vooral het acteerwerk van de kinderen laat nog heel wat te wensen over. Joost Prinsen zit er ook in en die doet het wel goed, maar die had natuurlijk wat meer ervaring dan de rest.

Volgens mij staat de serie in zijn geheel op YouTube, voor als je nieuwsgierig bent. Als je zoekt op 'Legende van de Bokkerijders' vind je hem zo.

Ik heb wel eens van de Witte Wieven gehoord. Volgens mij is daar ook een Suske en Wiske over trouwens. Leuk dat je over NL legenden hoorde tijdens een kamp!

Veel plezier met de Snowflake Challenge verder!

[buggyfiction]

Zo vaak op kamp geweest als kind, was altijd zo leuk en informatief haha. De Witte Wieven staan mij bij omdat de spook tocht wel heel erg eng was.

Ohh, I see you like Arthurian stories. So do I! Well, I know of a few 'retellings' that I enjoyed like the Merlin mini series with Sam Neill, and soon a Netflix movie or series comes out called Cursed, which is a retelling of the Arthurian Legend, written by Tom Wheeler and illustrated by Frank Miller. I just received the hard copy of that book, and I'm going to read that next! :)

Jij ook veel plezier met de Snowflake challenge!

[antuhsa]

Oeh, een witte wieven spokentocht? Dat klinkt heel cool! Maar ik kan me voorstellen dat het eng was als kind.

Wow, are you kidding me? There were a few movies my brother and I watched over and over again as teenagers. De Bokkerijders was one of them, but the Merlin series with Sam Neil was another! Thanks for bringing it up! I haven't thought of it in a while, but I really loved that series. It was such a unique take on Arthurian lore. Have you seen the sequel as well? It wasn't nearly as good, in my opinion. It had completely different characters, took place in a different universe, had a very different tone and feel, and overall lacked the magic of the first one. It was still entertaining, but I would never have guesssed it was a sequel to the Merlin mini series if I hadn't known.

Oooh, I didn't know about that Tom Wheeler book, but it sounds good. And I bet the illustrations are lovely as well. Hope you'll enjoy it!

[buggyfiction]

I have seen the sequel... mostly because I got bored and wanted to? Kinda regret it? I don't even have it on DVD anymore. No, Merlin was great, the sequel... pants. That's usually the case with sequels, imo.

[spikedluv]

Wow! I'm happy to hear that you were so inspired by last year's Snowflake!

Oh man, Pippi Longstocking! I remember reading those books as a young'un!

[antuhsa]

Yes! The Snowflake challenge had quite a large impact on my life last year, by inspiring me to take bookbinding more seriously. It was unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome!

Pippi Longstocking was great! Although I've seen the movies much more often than I've read the books. In fact, I'm not even sure I've read all the books. Still, the character really struck a chord with my childhood self.

[williamsnickers]

This already sounds like it's going to be a fun series of posts to read. Keep 'em coming!

[antuhsa]

Absolutely! Snowflake has been lovely so far. Hope you'll be doing a challenge or two as well!

[williamsnickers]

I'm on it!

[antuhsa]

Yay! <3

[paulamcg]

I’m thrilled you mention The Brothers Lionheart! Astrid Lindgren is possibly the writer I admire more than any other. And that particular book, my favourite by her, has been very important for me – probably influenced my fiction writing. I was eleven when it was published, twelve when the translation came, and my teacher (who also encouraged my writing for years) read it aloud in class. By that time I was proud of reading Victor Hugo, Dickens and Russian classics, but my teacher and Astrid Lindgren gave me my first experience of a children’s book being not only for children. I also remember the controversy around that book’s theme and (fantasy and perhaps symbolic) events: was is all right to write to children about something that looked like suicide?

You got me carried away. Above all, I hope you’ll continue to find joy and inspiration in fandom, and stay!

[antuhsa]

Really? That's awesome! Astrid Lindgren is fantastic, isn't she? Her work is very popular in my country. I don't know anyone else who've read and enjoyed that particular book, however, so I'm surprised and excited to see a few other people express their love for it in response to my post!