Snowflake Challenge #1

[kate]

In your own space, introduce yourself!

Oh lol. Well, it's 3am and I just quick recorded, edited, and posted a podfic, so I am gonna shorthand this something fierce. here's my 'about me' tag. The highlights:

I'm married. My wife is a gamer by trade and not really in these kinds of online spaces anymore. Sometimes I miss that.

I'm a fan. Currently my obsession is The Untamed/MDZS (all versions) and RPF related to that. Yes I'm sort of nominally trying to learn some Mandarin in my copious free time. Shut up.

I'm a writer. Fanfiction, mostly, though I have ideas for original fic and will probably write them after I retire.

I'm a podficcer. Please please please, put a blanket permission statement on your fic. It really helps podficcers out, and we will make you things!!!!

I'm a musician. My degrees are in music. I have played in a professional orchestra and have a professionally recorded and edited CD.

I am the director of an office. I have 13 staff members. I take this very seriously and do my best to do right by them.

I am still growing and learning, particularly around racism, sexism, and ableism. I want to do right, and if I recognize a mistake, I will try to make amends. At the very least, I will apologize and try to do better. If I don't recognize a mistake, and you have the bandwidth to tell me, I'd appreciate it if you would. I understand if you don't have bandwidth and I recognize it's not anyone's responsibility but my own.


The questionnaire.

About me (yup, stupidly accurate, I hate that a bit):

TENDERNESS
You are not afraid of the sufferings and sorrows of other people, even when they are acted out in unappealing ways. Beneath even defensiveness and self-righteous behaviour, you know that deep down people need nurturing and consolation. One danger is being naive about people’s dark sides. But at your best you know you can be mean yourself, which helps you to sympathise. You bring strength and forgiveness where other people might panic.
RATIONALITY
You like clarity and intelligent simplicity and you get frustrated at messy thinking. This can make you seem unreasonably pushy to some, but it is actually a virtue: you are motivated by a horror at pointless effort and a longing for precision and insight into how things and people work. Your ability to synthesise and bring order is essential in producing thinking which is truly helpful.
AGGRESSION
One part of your character is anger in all its forms: frustration, outrage – and when anger is suppressed – bitterness, grumpiness, and bodily aches. Fundamentally, frustration comes from hope: you get upset because you expect your life will be more than a valley of tears. One way to deny aggression is to direct it inwards, as self-criticism. But you’re at your best when you acknowledge anger, and act it out clearly and in a focussed way, with honour.
SENSITIVITY
You have delicate, sensitive perceptions; you can be deeply moved by appearances – the right light in a room, or good food, or the texture of a piece of clothing. Expressive, intelligent language has a powerful hold on you; your mind works better when it is inspired and provoked by vivid imagery. It can be sad to live in a world which is often so ugly and not properly looked after. But you know that things can be otherwise, and you have the ability to appreciate the world at its best.
EXHIBITIONISM
There’s a strand in your nature which loves making an impression – perhaps with your clothes, or conversation, or in a self-revealing blog or a novel. You like to dramatise yourself, to pose as a unique, perhaps mysterious person, to joke or exaggerate your part in adventures. Though you might more than once have been called a show off, it is actually a generous tendency: you want to please and entertain others. It could be the start of good teaching and leadership.

Comments

[paulamcg]

This is an excellent shorthand intro! :) Thank you also for some good pieces of advice! I'd be thrilled if a podficcer got interested in my work, and I suppose including the permission in a transformative works statement in the AO3 profile is enough?

[kate]

Absolutely! That's the first place I go to look. I might suggest adding it to anyplace you have masterlists, etc. of your fic, adding yourself to the blanket permission to podfic list on fanlore, and mention it in your social media spaces, if you know any podficcers. Blanket statements are catnip to podficcers!

[paulamcg]

Thank you for the more detailed advice in addition to the reassuring, positive response!

[sperrywink]

Hello! Thanks for doing this. I learned new things about you! I didn't know you had original story ideas.

[kate]

HELLO AND GOOD MORNING. We are on opposite sides of the day, lol. I need to go to bed, I have DND at 2pm tomorrow and I have not slept yet.

Most of my original fic ideas are from dreams! I have a few really vivid ones I still remember now, years later. :D

Also - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! <333333

[sperrywink]

Good morning, indeed! I hope you are off to dreamland now! 2pm will come around before you know it.

Interesting! My dreams aren't that interesting usually. I have had the occasional fannish dream, but no original ideas. In reality, most of them are of me doing chores I don't want to do in real life like washing the dishes, which seems cruel since I wake up and the dishes are still dirty.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[spikedluv]

*waves* I'm so happy to see your name pop up at Snowflake! And I'm glad you wrote up this post because I learned some new things about you. I didn't know you were learning Mandarin or that you're a musician (unless I knew and forgot, which is also very possible o_O).

[kate]

Aw, thanks! I love this fest, it is always one of my favorites, so I'm so pleased to see it continuing. Thank you and all the mods for being awesome. <3

I started learning Mandarin exactly 18 days ago, so that is a very new development, ha! I try to limit how much I learn and repeat it over and over so it sticks, that's all the brain I can manage at the moment, lol.

Yeah, the musician thing is much older, but before last year, I hadn't touched an instrument in 10 years, so another thing probably most people didn't really know about me, so you are probably right on that front. <3

Thanks for popping by! :D

[teigh_corvus]

Hi there!

I think it's awesome that you're prodding at Mandarin in your free time. *highfives* It's amazing, the things that our fannish loves inspire us to do. <3

[kate]

Hi! Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks! I've only been learning for 18 days officially; I have very limited time but this has been on my mind for over a year now, so I gave in and started making flash cards. I agree - fandom inspires some really amazing achievements!

[adafrog]

I didn't know you are a musician. Very cool. What is your instrument?

[kate]

Yup! I play them all (one of my degrees is music ed) but clarinet is my main. I've been playing piano longer, but not as intensely. Do you play?

[adafrog]

Neat. :) Actually my main instrument is my voice. I played flute through part of college, but didn't love it like singing. Almost got a music minor, but decided not to.

I'd like to play with the piano again, but haven't gotten around to getting an upright or a keyboard. Also, I'm not that great at it. lol I had a friend in college who could play just about anything on the first try. Amazing. And my church choir has a large percentage of music majors. (so sometimes I feel a bit intimidated by the high tech music talk. ;)

[kate]

Ah, yeah, fair. I sang through college, but I don't have the control over it that I would like, so I never really did much of it after that.

I'm not that great at piano either, but I don't know... why do we have to do things well to enjoy them? Like, I enjoy playing piano, and I have no real need to improve. I don't have room for a piano right now, but I dream of houses with more space for one in the future.

[adafrog]

I can see that. That's why I stopped playing flute-I didn't feel I had as much control.

While it is nice to sound good, I agree on not having to be perfect. If I had a piano (when I lived at home we had one), it was fun to just play around. I kind of have enough room for an upright, but not really the time or attention for one right now.

[sjh2009]

What a great introduction. There's a lot more to leading a team than people realise isn't there. I did it for years and had a real mixture of people, sometimes you're treading a very fine line to ensure everyone is happy, it's a constant learning curve. It's something I really enjoyed though, encouraging people to be the best they can be and encouraging them to take the next stop,in their career, even if it means losing a damn good member of the team.

[kate]

Thanks! It is difficult, leading a team. But you're right - the best part of it is watching them grow, even if it means they grow out of your team. I enjoy that part of my work the most, for sure.