Snowflake Challenge: Day 5

[kangeiko]

Day 5

In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Mark Watches - A million years late to the party, I discovered Mark Oshiro's reviews and reaction videos. I'm a recent convert to reaction videos, so maybe it's just the lure of the new that's drawing me in, but I'm really enjoying Mark watching Babylon 5. I've powered through a few other shows he's also watched in the meantime - Veronica Mars, some West Wing, some Star Trek - and for the most part I've found a surprising amount of joy in just sharing his enjoyment of the shows. He goes in cold - no spoilers at all - and he watches each episode before writing about it. There is possibly nothing I like better than watching an unspoiled newbie watching Babylon 5. He has laughed. He has cried. He has yelled at the screen a LOT. His most frequent reaction is "WTF???" which, if you've seen the show, is 110% accurate and appropriate. He's currently watching Season 4. The comments section of his blog is split into spoilery and unspoilery sections. Unspoilery are open text, and spoilery are behind rot13 coding to allow people to discuss things in-thread without spoiling new watchers. I am really enjoying all the strong emotion Mark has when watching a show I love so much, especially in the current context. If you like B5 or are thinking about watching it sometime soon, I strongly urge you to give the site a go and join us in watching.

On the same topic, we have The Audio Guide to Babylon 5. I've linked the Twitter feed because the website seems to be down at the moment. This podcast (available via all podcast apps) was great. It had three people who really knew the show well - Chip and Shannon Sudderth, and Erika Ensign (one of my favourite podcasters) - as well as a guest 'newbie' in the form of Steven Schapansky, Erika's husband. (Steven was the control group.) The three podcasters watched each episode and discussed it at length (episodes ranged from 1hr - almost 2hrs), including behind the scenes information even I (an obsessive fan) hadn't known about. The podcast finished S5 fairly recently and is on a well-earned break, but all episodes are available to download and listen to. If you're interested in how something was made - how it was crafted, what the creator has said about it, how things were received by the fledgling fandom spaces at the time - then this is a great podcast with experienced and knowledgeable hosts.

One of the nicest and most close-knit communities out there is the chmslash community (formerly known as tgslash in some circles). Top Gear/Grand Tour as a fandom hasn't been without its share of dramas, and what I find amazing is that the community has mostly taken that on the chin and soldiered on. There are regular challenges (including the recent Secret Santa) and the members are so incredibly supportive and kind. 

One final (small) plug - some enterprising souls have gathered together to run a Culture fest in the not-too-distant future. If you're a fan of the Culture books and would like to get involved in reading/writing Culture fic, you can find the comm here.