Snowflake Challenge 2026
Challenge #1: Icebreaker
The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.
Hi there, I'm Mary (they/them). I'm a 25+ years meta and fic writer who has taken part in fandom on and off for the past ten years.
I joined Dreamwidth last year and found a lot of folks had done this challenge. It seemed lots of fun so I've been waiting for this challenge to begin for a while!
I hope that by taking this part in challenge I can keep up a consistent blogging habit throughout the month. Writing is my passion and I love engaging in fandom, but I usually don't know what to write about apart from fics. This challenge married two of my favorite things.
Challenge #2: Pets of Fandom
Challenge #2: Pets of Fandom: Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!
Yeehaw, I'm gonna talk about some pet OCs!
Content warnings for hospitals and injury
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From left to right, these are Mina and Tarou. They are OCs animals from my Inazuma Eleven fandom verse, The Early Years.
I created them during a roleplay with a fandom friend back in 2017. They started as stray cats inhabiting an abandoned park in Setagaya, Japan.
Mina is a female calico cat. When she was three years old, she was hit by car. Soon after, a boy found her and took her to a nearby vet. She was patched up and returned to her pack. A few years later, she was officially adopted by the boy who rescued her.
She spends her days perched in her cat tower at the living room or in her cat servant's bedroom, basking in the sun. Since the accident, she walks with a limp. Despite keeping her distance from most humans, she's quite protective of the boy that saved he life and considers herself a mother figure for him. She received the name "Mina" from the boy as well.
Tarou is a tuxedo cat with white paws that resemble socks. He's from the same pack as Mina and its runt. Tarou is quite lively and social. While living outside, he approached strangers and begged for food without fear. He was also friendly with other animals such as the golden retriever of they boy's friend. Like Mina, he was adopted. As an energetic cat, he gets the zoomies quite often, keeping his human friend on their toes. When he detects the boy feels down, he tries to distract the boy with games and cuddles. He received the name "Tarou" from the boy as well. It's a common Japanese name for boys.
Last but not least, this is Hachi-Dan. He's a golden retriever and family of the Kirishima household. His name was taken from professional shogi, where each player is ranked according to a level. The higher the number, the stronger the player. Hachi means eight in Japanese.
Hachi is a friendly dog. He was adopted as a puppy and grew quite attached to the eldest son of the family.
Challenge #3: Fandom Love Letter
Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.
Fandom is a such a funny thing. Sometimes I find myself wondering what it is. I think what appeals to me about it the most is the capacity for community. I think something that gathers people is a beautiful thing.
Of course, there are lots of groups within fandom riddled with the same issues outside of it. Purity culture, misogyny, homophobia, racism, and more. When I was growing up, fandom was even more of niche thing than it is now, and it had all the same problems as it does now. I think the only difference is that participating in fandom is less stigmatized but any statement about fandom is bound to call for counterarguments.
Anyways, I really love participating in fandom because I have strong feelings and opinions about the media I engage with. This past year, I've grown more comfortable with "speaking to the void" about the things I like. In a way, it removes the pressure of expectations to myself and others. I am happy to build my little corner of the internet without gathering attention. If someone does end up commenting on something I make and share, it feels like a happy little accident and I'm grateful for it. While I don't actively make myself hard to find, I do get quite nervous with receiving a lot of attention in a small amount of time.
I think that may be why I lean towards alternative social spaces like Neocities, Mastodon, Dreamwidth, and most recently Pillowfort (and I guess Tumblr at one point) and smaller fandoms. Not only because it's more sensory-friendly for me but because I enjoy having lengthy conversations with folks about the things I love at our own pace. I consider myself leaning heavily towards counter-culture. In relation to fandom, this means I reject hustling, immediacy, and consumerism cultures. As a creator, I try to not seek validation, compromise my priorities, nor disrespect the time and effort I put into creating something. What this means is that I attempt to make peace with the initial response (usually lack thereof) I receive when publishing something in the internet available to others, take my time replying to messages in my fannish accounts, and put my own well-being above creating things. I'm not too good at any of these, so they are actually axioms I want to live by.
Of course, this makes everything I share online largely unpopular but believing that I'm not answering to someone or something keeps me sane and that's a privilege many people don't have (because art is their actual job or because they are trapped with a community with unhealthy expectations and standards).
Anyways, here's to fandom and the microcosm of society it is! Wouldn't change it for the world!