randomling | Reading

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.

Challenge #8

Talk about your creative process.

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. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.

Okay, I can do this! But I'm creative in different sorts of ways, so I'm going to break it down by area.

Fiber Arts

I have 800 finished objects on Ravelry, so I've made a LOT of stuff. Most of the time, I see a pattern and go "OH THAT LOOKS FUN I WANT TO MAKE THAT!" and do. Sometimes I've made stuff for craft-alongs, like I used to be active in Dishcloth Weekly and Hat of the Month groups. And sometimes, I make stuff to fill a Nerdopolis theme (Nerdopolis is a crafting challenge on Ravelry where we get themes to craft to, like "Architecture" or "Cats vs. Dogs").

I do create my own patterns as well, and those have mostly come by because of fannish passion. The first time I recall making something from an mere idea is Olive, from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. She was a very strong unit and I was lucky enough to pull her AND get her geared pretty well, and I just loved her and so I made her. I hadn't done many dolls or toys at the time, and I was more confident with crochet, so I winged a design with separate pieces for her limbs. It worked out okay, but she was BIG and FLOPPY.

I eventually had ideas to create more FFBE dolls. I adored Lasswell, for instance, so made him... and Lasswell adores Rain, so I had to make a Rain for my Lasswell. This time, I found a doll pattern designed by someone else and altered it for my use - the limbs are attached as you make the doll so it's much more sturdy. But the clothes were designed by ME. I pretty much took other patterns I was familiar with and used them as a guide, shrinking down the pattern considerably.

[Image Description: Handmade dolls of Rain and Lasswell. Rain's on the left and has a shock of blond hair. He's smiling and wearing a green tunic with a red kilt on his waist. Lasswell is on the right. He has long black hair and a serious look on his face. He's wearing a white shirt, black pants, and a flowing purple coat.]

I made more FFBE dolls, too, but then wanted to branch out into other Final Fantasies. I was showing off my latest FFBE doll in the Final Fantasy group on Ravelry, and the moderator admired the dolls but lamented that she couldn't crochet... and well, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

So I designed my own knitted doll pattern, utilizing knowledge I had picked up over the course of my knitting career. I made Rinoa from FFVIII (which I seem not to have a good picture of here on DW, and I'm running out of time so can't upload one at the moment) and eventually made Aerith from FFVII:

[Image Description: A doll of Aerith from Final Fantasy VII. She's got brown hair pulled back in a braid, and is wearing a pink dress with a flounce of lace at the hem. The dress is accompanied by a cropped red jacket.]

I'm pretty fearless with my crafting. Yarn is forgiving, and many mistakes can be fixed with some patience and practice. I continue to get excited and make things. It's not all fun, though - I'm currently knitting a cardigan for myself and well, I am a fluffy lady which means a LOT of long rows and it's tedious and feels like I'll never finish. But I persevere, because I want the end result.

(and I wrote this section last. I need to post it and get ready for Stitch Club! feel free to ask questions about my creative process if you have them!)

Fanfic Writing

I'm still fairly new to fanfic writing. Oh, I had thoughts of writing fanfic way back in the Sliders and seaQuest era but as far as I can recall, it was just thoughts and I didn't follow through. I did briefly play a character in an RPG on LiveJournal, and that was mostly fun except for when it was not (drama behind the scenes).

Back when I was playing that character, I was still able to daydream. So I'd be sitting on the train going to work, giggling because I was imaging my character doing silly things (we were a comedy RPG) and it was FUN. These days, it's hard to daydream, and so well, I didn't write fanfic for about ten years because I had no ideas.

Then came the Final Fantasy Kiss Battle in 2021. I remember asking if it was okay if I left prompts even though I doubt I'd write anything, because I do NOT write, and they said "sure!". But then I was reading prompts, and

lassarina prompted "FFV, Bartz/Gilgamesh, duel" and well, my brain exploded: I had an idea!

So I opened up a Notepad++ tab and started writing. I shocked myself by not only completing that fic, but being the first that year TO post a fic. Here it is:

A Long-Sought Duel (676 words) by AltheaValara
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy V
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gilgamesh/Bartz Klauser
Characters: Bartz Klauser, Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)
Summary:

Bartz finally finds what he's been searching for.

For Snowflake Challenge 5,

visualjyushi asked how to start a story and that led to some really good conversations. This is what I wrote:

I got my start for A Long-Sought Duel partially based on the Kiss Battle prompt (FFV, Bartz/Gilgamesh, duel) but also by thinking about what a duel would be like. Duels are passionate, and it just so happens that Bartz is associated with the Wind Crystal, which is the crystal of passion. So I started with him feeling lackluster and missing passion in his life, and at the end of the short story, he finds it again.

I'm still having problems daydreaming, so I can't come up with ideas without some sort of prompt. But I am currently delighted by my Ladies Bingo card because I have ideas for SO MANY of the prompts, and have 5 WIPs already. I haven't worked on them in a while, so it might be time to do so tonight.

But yeah, most of my writing IS from prompts now. I have self-prompted a few times, like for this fic:

if you like it, then you should've put an earring on it (243 words) by AltheaValara
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Additional Tags: Fluff and Crack
Summary:

The Warrior of Light's luck comes through once more in Eureka.

So I guess I *am* capable of coming up with ideas on my own. But yeah, I love a good prompt.

Neocities (Fanscripts)

Last year during Snowflake, I built the bones of my Neocities site and launched it live. It's a repository for my Final Fantasy story summaries and fanscripts.

I can tell you how I first got into writing fanscripts. I was heavily playing Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a mobile game, and I felt its story was on par with the stories of the main 16 games in the series. And I realized: it's a mobile game, so someday it will be shut down and I will never ever get to experience the story again. That made me all kinds of sad, so one day I wandered down to our kitchen with my tablet, some paper, and a pencil. I made myself a cup of hot cocoa, then started replaying the story from the Room of Recollection, hand-writing down the story.

I finished writing down season 1 four years and four months later. It took 434 sheets of paper. But by gods, I did it.

I originally posted the story in a Dreamwidth journal, which was fine but not always the best for navigation (all my navigation links broke when I renamed the journal). I had name squatted on Neocities a few years back, and I thought well, let's put them there.

Working on Neocities is a delight for me. My degree is in math and computer science (I double majored), so I have programming in my background and it's been really fun to stretch that muscle. When I first started working on transferring the files over from Dreamwidth to Neocities, I was hand-coding the HTML because there wasn't much HTML in my original entries. That was tedious and time-consuming, though. Well, I know a bit of Python, so I wrote a Python script to process my files and automatically put in the HTML. The script doesn't make the prettiest HTML file and there's some tweaking by name I need to do, but it took a process that could take hours and made it less than a second to run the script, plus about 15 minutes to tweak by hand.

When I started working on the FFBE script, I did not have a computer of my own, hence handwriting the script. I'm so glad I was able to document Season 1, because I do adore the story. Unfortunately, the game did shut down about two years ago. When they announced End of Service, I valiantly tried to extract the Season 2 story from the game files, but I was not knowledgeable enough to do it. If I had been able to, it would have saved me a LOT of time and effort.

The game is gone, but it lives on at YouTube. So I've started going through the Season 2 videos and making a script for them. Some might argue it is wasted effort since the YouTube videos exist, but I think there's value in having a written script. For one, it may help fanfic writers because it'll be searchable--and that thought delights me.

I've expanded my efforts on Neocities and am now writing fanscripts for Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XI as well. FFXI, at least, is not so bad because Windower (a popular third party tool) can make logs of the game text as you play. Alas, it triplicates lines, but I have a handy Python script to clean that up.

Final Fantasy XIV, I started by writing summaries of the story as I played through each expansion and patch, but as I went on, those 'summaries' got longer and longer and now I'm pretty much writing a real fanscript for Shadowbringers. I might go back and do fanscripts for the prior expansions, too, if I have time.

Current Mood: creative

nanila posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

turps

Some good things that have happened recently.

pensnest, your parcel arrived. So far Kevin has been in the cave bed and Murphy has sat on top of it. Thankfully, not at the same time. Thank you so much.

James' work sent him a card signed by his whole team along with some money from a collection his team leader had arranged. I'd like to say this was a surprise, but she'd accidentally copied him into the arranging email a few weeks ago, and he'd seen before the email had been retracted. But, surprise or not, it was lovely people had put in money, especially a such an expensive time of the year. He's thinking of using it to buy our new Beamish yearly pass, which seems a good idea to me.

James also got a phone call to say he had a space in a craft shop. The way it works is you can pay to hire a unit with four shelves and a hanging space, then the shop sells the products for you. We'd inquired last year, but there were no spaces then, but two units had come free, and he'd been given one of them. It's £40 a month rental, which is under the price we'd pay for four weekends/tables at craft fairs, but with much less work. Obviously, we've no idea how profitable this will be, but it's worth a go, and when we went to the shop earlier to check out details, it was lovely to see his name already up there on his unit. Now, he just needs to work out what to take to the shop, and get his stock levels back up. But, the shop is aware of circumstances, and have said to go and fill the shelves when he feels up to it.

16 people were at exercise only class on Monday, the most we've had ever. More than half of those were newbies, so many of them that I couldn't even say hello to every new starter, something I always try to do. Why I'm adding it to the good things list though is, I asked if there was a risk of having to leave the programme being as it was getting so busy, and I'm well over the official graduation time, but Rosie reassured me that I didn't have to go anywhere.

A new Starbucks opened in my town today, so we had a wander down to check it out. The place was buzzing, and we were well past the first 50 people who were given free coffee. But, when we had to go outside to try to log onto the app due to terrible connection inside, one of the managers saw and gave us both free coffee vouchers anyway. So, I got a pistachio matcha latte, and very tasty it was, too.

prisca posting in

fic_promptly

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princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: curious

oursin

This is being one of those weeks when I'm not sure if Mercury is in retrograde or in the opposite of retrograde, if there is an opposite.

In that some things are going unwontedly smoothly and unexpectedly well, and other things not, and plans being thwarted, etc.

E.g., further to the expeditious renewal of my library membership, I was going to boogy on down to the relevant institution to pick up my card and do a spot of light research (I think I may have copies of the books I need to look at but they are not in any of the places where I would anticipate them to be). However, it is chucking down rain in buckets, I think I will leave this until a drier day. Dangers untold and hardships unnumbered is one thing, sitting around with wet shoes in an airconditioned reading room is another.

However, in connection with the research, I remembered that Elderly Antiquarian Bookdealer/Bibliographer had mentioned to me a Person who has come up as Of Interest, and I thought I would see whether they are still around, and apparently they are at the latest report though nearly 90. And not only that, last year, why was I not told, there was published a limited edition from a small press of various of their uncollected writings, including an essay on the very person. This is something I would have bought anyway had I known it existed.

And lo and behold, I ponied up for this hardback, limited edition etc: and got a massively discounted price in their winter sale calloo callay.

On the prehensile tail, I managed to break a soup bowl at lunchtime. Fortunately not containing any soup.

linaewen posting in

writethisfanfic

Hello on Thursday! How's the day going so far for fic? (If you haven't gotten started on your day as yet, how did yesterday go for writing fic?)

- Excellent!
- Terrible
- Somewhere in between
- Nothing doing

How much time have you spent on writing fic today, roughly?

- None
- 30 minutes or less
- 30-60 minutes
- 60-90 minutes
- More than 90 minutes

In five words or less, how do you feel about that?

james_davis_nicoll

Murderbot and allies struggle to establish friendly relations with a rediscovered lost colony in time to protect them from a predatory company.

System Collapse (Murderbot, volume 7) by Martha Wells

rmc28

I am currently ill with my third cold since November. This is very boring, I am blaming uni open ice on Monday with all the students returned to Cambridge from all over the world. I am trying a radical new approach of "stop working, go to bed, do nothing but rest and hydrate and breathe steam at regular intervals". Attempting to push through the last two colds this winter just led to being subpar for days on end and missing a lot of hockey practice, and I really, really don't want that again.

The one hip bruise healed up enough by Saturday night that I could return to sleeping on that side, phew; the other is still making itself known, and is going a truly remarkable range of colours. (me to fanf: do you want to see my epic bruise? fanf: absolutely not)

Our trusty Pointer standard bike (not the cargo bike) failed catastrophically in December. fanf took it to the bike shop for assessment: minimum £350 to repair, it cost £500 new, lo these many years ago, a new bike of similar quality would be £700 now. We thought about it for a bit, and eventually I said Vimes boots theory also applies to bikes and so we'll order the good bike and hope it lasts at least another 15 years.

Warbirds (or Tri-Base 2 I guess these days) had a game in Peterborough Saturday night, and my teammate who lives nearby kindly drove me up, and gave me the cultural experience of visiting a huge Eastern European supermarket near the rink. We lost, again, but the bench atmosphere was good, the opponents were fun to play against, and I was reasonably happy with my play.

I joked in the car about Tony buying an expensive bike as soon as I left the country, and teammate said "uh, can't you use Cycle to Work?" and it turns out yes I can, and in fact the whole process was very straightforward. So now we'll pay for this bike in ten monthly instalments from my salary which brings tax savings but is also way easier to budget. The actual bike hasn't arrived yet, which is leading to some interesting logistics around work and school and who is where with what bike, but this too shall pass.

I may, or may not, be playing a game on Saturday for the uni. It's a challenge game against UCL, with players from both Womens Blues and Huskies, but there are way more players available than needed and the roster is still not out (eh, students). I hope I can kick this cold by then; if I'm not playing I'll do game ops as usual.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: enthralled

author_by_night

Snowflake Challenge #8: Talk about your creative process.

I don't know that I have a set process, but here are the things that help me:

- Music. I actually can't listen to music while writing, though I sometimes listen to it when doing other creative tasks. But I get a lot of inspiration from music.

- Stress. Yes. You read that right. I think it's that creative projects help me unwind and recalibrate, so it's easy to be creative when I actually have zero time to be creative, because I need that brief outlet.

Though sometimes I really am just too busy, and there's nothing to be done.

- When it comes to writing specifically, I would say that I ask myself questions. I also try allowing the story to tell itself. I have set out to write funny stories, ended up with tearjerkers that left me sobbing. I think in both cases, on the surface the ideas were fun, but as I really delved into what those situations could potentially look like, I uncovered darker and sadder things.

darkjediqueen posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: Couldn't Wait
Rating: R
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Fandom: S.W.A.T.
Relationships: Donovan Rocker/Molly Hicks
Tags: Established Relationship, Child Birth
Summary: Molly couldn't wait to be a mother with Donny.
Word Count: 2,746

( Couldn't Wait )

tozka posting in

fancake

Fandom: Star Wars
Pairings/Characters: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 22,206 words
Creator Links:

Nanaille /

nanaille
Theme: Crack Treated Seriously

Summary: In this house we respect the Jedi Order, the Force, and our Very Holy General Kenobi (peace be upon his beard).

Obi-Wan is back on Coruscant. Wary, famished, and deeply not ready for what’s waiting.

He thought the clones would hate him. Instead?
They built shrines.
They quote his sass like scripture.
And someone really needs to stop printing stickers.

Featuring: false sightings, reverent memes, emotional breakdowns, and a commander who never stopped waiting.

Reccer's Notes: A very fun fic which mixes modern media fandom things (e.g. the clones have a kind of Discord chat), a fix-it AU (well...some things are fixed, anyway), and heartfelt feelings platonic and otherwise.

Fanwork Links: Our Radiant General (Peace Be Upon Him)

smallhobbit posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: Four Socks
Fandom: Spooks (MI5) [Werewolf AU]
Rating: G
Length: 378 words
Summary: It often happens that when a dog has a leg wound a sock is worn to prevent the animal chewing at the wound. Of course, with a werewolf this proves more complicated.

( Was there a problem this morning? )

scribblemoose posting in

snowflake_challenge

Introduction Post*
Meet the Mods Post

Challenge #1
Challenge #2
Challenge #3
Challenge #4
Challenge #5
Challenge #6
Challenge #7

Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.

( Challenge #8 )

And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.

And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.