spn_on_parade

Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.

I’ve often waxed lyrical about the joys of fandom at my journal, and I never need another excuse to do that, because there’s so much to love about fandom!

Fandom isn’t just a group of people who happen to like the same TV show or film, or book. We’re a family; a community. We’re a community of like-minded people who all love the same thing and who can openly share their likes, loves, and passions with each other.

And like any community, we interact, we have fun, we take care of the more vulnerable members of our community, we support each other’s dreams and cheerlead each other’s challenges.

But fandom isn’t just an abstract thing; to me it’s a place. It’s a place with no borders, where us fans, regardless of or race or sexuality or whatever other characteristics we may have can go to belong, to be welcomed into the arms of a community that is accepting and fun; a community that GETS us.

Somehow, friendships made through fandom are easy; easier than friendships forged in real life through work, or school or location. Real life friendships have to form and evolve. When you start out, you’re just two disparate strangers working for the same organisation, or living in the same street. Friendships made through fandom, on the other hand, begin with you both knowing something about each other - what you love and what you have in common. And although those friendships may start out as something as simple and superficial as a shared love of the same TV show, or the same book, they quickly grow into something far more meaningful.

Many of my fandom friendships have outgrown the computer screen and crossed over into real life, and those friendships have given me more joy than I could ever put into a simple post like this.

Members of fandom are often those of us that society thinks of as ‘weird’ or a bit odd, or on the edge of ‘normal’. A lot of us probably had a rough time at school and have never been regarded as 'cool' or in with the ‘in’ crowd; but in fandom, ‘weirdness’ is embraced, individuality is celebrated, imagination is admired. Fandom is where you can be yourself, where you can be all that you can be, and more.

And that is why I will always love fandom!

spiralicious

Challenge #2: Pets of Fandom

Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

We are kind of in between pets at the moment. Both of my cats have somewhat recently passed. Romeo in 2021 at the age of 15 and Kamikaze in 2023 at 16 1/2. We do plan on getting more cats, it just hasn't worked out yet.

Now, I said kind of because there is the matter of Tuxedo. Going on 6 years ago, a next door neighbor moved away and left his kitten behind. This was very much a kitten and not a full grown cat. The reasons the cat was left behind are unclear, as there are too many versions of the story, but what we know for sure is that while the old man who owned the cat was in the hospital, whoever was caring for it did something to it and it has been terrified of people, including those it used to be fine with, and will not come indoors. He has never left the neighborhood and has survived all this time. Not knowing his original name, my mother and I have always called him Tuxedo. We have sense learned that his name was Quiz.

In the first 2 years, my mother and I both spent quite a lot of time trying to trap him to surrender him to the local animal shelter with no success. He is crafty. The local neighborhood children speak of him like a local cryptid. Everyone in the neighborhood has tried to capture him at one point or another. Eventually, we gave up. All it did was encourage Tuxedo to spend more time in our front yard which royally upset our inside cats.

But in April of 2024, my mother came to a realization; we have no longer have cats. She thus began her campaign to convince Tuxedo to live with us.

After 20ish months, there have been mixed results. He appears for food 1 to 5 times a day. He now shows up everyday fairly consistently, whereas before it wouldn't be uncommon for him to disappear for up to 3 weeks at a time. When the weather is nice, he will spend the vast majority of his time either in our yard or side garden, though he still "checks his trap line," as Mom puts it. During bad weather, he holds up in our garage. (He has several nice beds and boxes in the yard and the garage.) He understands the various things we call him as names that are in reference to him. He understands the words Mom uses for food time as meaning food time. While, he still run from the sight of me, he also seems to understand that when I say, "no stop" he doesn't need to leave the garage and "I'll get the old lady" means he's going to get fed. I feed him too, just not nearly as often. He also actually ran to my mother when she called him for lunch time the other day. We've never seen him run in his life.

He has also learned to get my mother's attention by staring at her through the screen door window, if the front door is open. He's done it exactly twice.

All that said. He is very much still his own cat. No one can approach him without him freaking out. He hisses at my mother when she puts food down for him. And after accidentally getting locked in the garage for an hour one morning, he wouldn't go in it for 2 weeks. (He did still expect food, just brought to his general vicinity outside. )

Though with the Christmas tree and several boxes of holiday decor down, he seems to have decided to winter in the newly free space in our attic loft.

Is he our cat? No. But we feed him and sometimes he kind of lives here.

I was also going to write a bit about our muder of crows and my 12 virtual pets on Subeta, but this got kind of long. I will add more upon request.

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: from francis with love

spiralicious

Challenge #1

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

Hi! I'm Spiralicious, aka Kat. I recently turned 40. I've been on DW for 14 years. My life is a little all over the place at the minute. My main hobbies are knitting, being library furniture, and consuming fandom things, but I have many others. I'm in more fandoms than are reasonable, but my core forever fandoms are Stargate, Supernatural, Batman, InuYasha, Blue Exorcist, Samurai Champloo, Northern Exposure, and Avatar the Last Airbender. I've got loads of links on my links post to learn more about me. Them, and the bio and interests on my profile, were last updated for the 2024 Snowflake Challenge, so not too out of date.

Here are 6 facts about me you probably won't find in my "about me" pages:

1. My mother and I have developed a new dinner ritual. Dinner is served and I pop in a DVD of whatever we're watching at the moment. When I'm done eating, I then usually switch to knitting for the rest of the DVD time. I haven't done the math, but my guess is that 90% of what we watch are British detective series and Sci fi shows. Right now, we are cycling between Brokenwood Mysteries, Inspector George Gently, A Touch of Frost, Star Trek Strange New Worlds, and our big fat Stargate rewatch. We've also been going through the tedious process of getting very exact copies of Starship Troopers through the library consortium. One of them has to play all the way through. (Normally, when you put a title on hold, which ever library in the consortium that has a copy that sees the hold request first fills it. To get a specific copy from a specific library is a process.)

2. I love covers of songs that are covered in a different genre than they were originally recorded.

3. My love of liminal and abandoned spaces is well advertised, but I have a special love for gas stations, convenience stores, and campgrounds specifically. (Yes, I have heard about the abandoned grocery store fandom and I am intrigued.)

4. I have a friend with dementia I visit with and make cards with every week.

5. I feel like westerns are underutilized as a genre to mix with other genres. Especially, horror. There should be more horror westerns.

6. I consume so many hockey AUs (and hockey themed books lately) because it makes teenage me happy despite me not having followed hockey in any way shape or form in 25 years.

What I hope to get out of the Snowflake:

I've been doing the Snowflake quite a few years, I'm not sure how many, but I missed last year. Doing the Snowflake, even when I don't finish, just gives my year a start on a happy footing. And it's fun to see how everyone else responds to the challenges.

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

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: from francis with love

dizzojay

Now that Christmas is over and done, and life is getting back to normal, it's time for me to say a big thank you to all you lovely peeps who made my Christmas so special.

I received all these wonderful cards from my fandom buddies. A big thank you to:

raloria

theymp

sasha_dragon

apachefirecat and

casey28

Not to mention my non-Lj friends, Jacq, Stephanie, Wendy, Malou, Chris and Natalie
( Read more... )

spiralicious

Click the banner to join us and make some new friends!

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: from francis with love

dizzojay

Challenge #2: Pets of Fandom

Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

Oh, you’re going to regret challenging me to write about my pets! 😉

My pets are two very spoiled house rabbits. They are littermates (I hesitate to say siblings because I think there may be different fathers involved, so half siblings) and they came from a rabbit rescue sanctuary here in the UK. We got them when they were 16 weeks old, and they will be five in March.

They’re free roam in the living room, and out in the back garden when the weather’s nice – that’s because we have to sit out there to supervise them and keep an eye for predators.

My handsome little boy is Nutmeg, he’s a grumpy little ratbag plus he’s a jumper and an explorer. Since we’ve had him, he’s been up on the couch, the windowsill, the coffee table, various boxes we have around the place for them to play in, and on one memorable occasion, up on the dining table.

His beautiful 'sister' is Juniper. She’s much more sedentary than her brother. She’s all about the food and the comfort, a real lady of leisure. She’s very sweet and loving, and will sit around being fussed and loved while her brother squirms away like we’re dirty! Juniper was named in tribute to jj1564 whose name was June. We got the bunnies three months after June’s passing.

I’ve always loved rabbits, and have several throughout my life, but these are my first in the age of Social Media, so these two have their own Insta and their own Youtube channel.

I’ve always been a vocal supporter of rabbit welfare, and even more so now that house rabbits are becoming more of a thing, and knowledge of them and their needs is improving.

Here are just a few pointers as to why rabbits, although the third most popular pet in the UK (may well be similar in other countries), are also the most misunderstood, and as a result many of them live miserable, lonely and unhealthy lives:

Contrary to popular belief, rabbits are not good starter pets for children. Rabbits generally don’t like being picked up and held (they’re prey animals and picking up is a predation trigger). Children can often be noisy and unpredictable, something else that rabbits don’t do well with.
Rabbits can live upwards of ten years. I’ve known of rabbits to make it to fourteen years of age.
They’re active and require a lot of space. A hutch is not sufficient for them.
They are social animals and do better in pairs or groups than alone.
They have a level of intelligence similar to a domestic cat so they need attention and stimulation. They require toys and hidey holes, plus an environment gives them security and the freedom to engage in natural behaviours.
They’re nibblers and that can’t be stopped, so nibblesome stuff has to be kept out of their way, or protected from them
From a veterinary point of view, they are classed as exotic pets, and so veterinary care may be costly. It’s always best to find a rabbit savvy vet as they have complex needs to keep them healthy including annual vaccinations

And that’s just for starters!

So it anyone you know mentions ‘getting a rabbit for the kids’, please show them my post!

Anyway, that's it from Nutmeg and Juniper...

Signing off!

dizzojay

Challenge #1

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

I’m delighted that Snowflake Challenge is back! New year can sometimes be such a grim time with manky weather and long nights. The Snowflake always gives me such a great little positivity boost during that dreary time and January wouldn’t be the same without it!

So fandom-wise, I'm still mainly active in the Supernatural fandom although my participation has diminished significantly, I still seem to be inspired to produce a fair amount of traditional art, plus I seem to be going to more conventions than ever! Best of all, the friendships I made through the Spn fandom haven’t just lasted the distance, they seem to have grown stronger!

Anyway, in terms of fandom information, mine is mostly the same as previous years:

All of my fan fiction can be found at Fanfiction.net and AO3

All of my fan art, both digital and traditional can be found at Deviantart

I’m still present on Livejournal. I’ve always described Livejournal as my online home, and it’s sad to see that it’s such an empty shadow of its former self. However, I’ve got too many wonderful memories of that place to ever give up on it entirely. I have a back up mirror account at Dreamwidth where I cross post from Livejournal

I used to have a Twitter account which was mostly based in fannish stuff, but I deleted my account last year for the hellscape it became. I’ve been playing in the Blue Sky sandbox instead and feel much more at home there!

So that's me :)

spiralicious

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

Starts tomorrow!

Current Mood: distressed

dizzojay

Apparently Christmas has been rough for our local Christmas Penguin... :(

dizzojay

This afternoon I received an unexpected parcel which contained lots of lovely bunny goodies and a Supernatural themed tote bag. It was such a lovely surprise! However, it had no note, or sender's address or any identifying information, so I have no idea who sent it! I really want to know who I can thank for this gift - it's such a sweet surprise - is anyone able to put me out of my suspense?

Please????

dizzojay

Something to look forward to in January!!

dizzojay

So, if you remember the ongoing saga of my eyes... After my macular hole in my right eye in 2023, I was advised that I had a higher than normal risk of getting the same thing in my left eye. So I have a chart stuck to my kitchen wall at home which I use to monitor the sight in my left eye, and look out for any distortions which would be a sign that things are not ok.

In 2024, I started seeing slight distortions which looked horribly familiar, so took myself off for an eye test. They showed me the scan and we could see that my macula was stretching and had started to distort. There wasn't a full thickness hole, so I was placed on a schedule of six monthly scans, and that was that.

In May this year, I went for a scan, and leading up to it, I'd noticed that the distortions had been getting more severe. At the scan, my macula was stretched tight as a bowstring and looked just about ready to pop. At that point I more or less resigned myself to waking up with another macular hole at some time soon.

However, in recent weeks, I'd noticed the distortions had been settling down a bit, so I wondered if things had improved just a smidge.

I went for another scan this morning, and both I and the optometrist couldn't believe our eyes, My macula was absolutely back to normal, no stretching, no tearing, and best of all, no distortions.

Now, according to the optometrist, I have no more risk of developing a macular hole than anyone else. I no longer need to attend six monthly scans unless anything changes, and basically everything appears to be fine and dandy!

Of course, there's always a possibility that things could go pear shaped again, but for now I'm taking the win! :D

dizzojay

Well, that was Christmas!

As usual, the highlight of our Christmas break has been Windlesham Pram Race which takes place on Boxing Day (26th December) every year, and it's a day Mr D and I both look forward to.

Windlesham is our neighbouring village and so walking down to the race route and back is about a 3 mile round trip, a nice way of working off a few of calories we ate on Christmas day. Unfortunately, I think we'd need to walk to Mongolia and back to work them all off!

The race passes four of Windlesham's five pubs, and teams and spectators are encouraged to stop off and support each establishment, so it's a 'race' in name only, but the main purpose of the event is to raise money for local charities which include upkeep of Windlesham's open spaces such as the recreation ground and field of Remembrance, wildlife rescue and riding for the disabled. There are three winners at the end of the race - the fastest team, the best costumes and the best engineered 'pram'.

Each 'pram' doesn't actually have to be a pram, it can be any kind of wheeled vehicle, but the main rule is that it must only be propelled by being pulled or pushed. It can't have any kind of self propulsion such as a motor or battery.

And that's where the fun starts... there is no end to the imagination of some folks. This year we had cheerleaders, fire engines. lumberjacks, a giant darboard together with giant darts, multiple Jack Sparrows complete with his jar of dirt, and more inflatable men than you could shake a stick at!

And that was just for starters...

( Image Heavy post... )

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