Nothing is more surreal than a dream coming true.

You asked for it, and it’s happening: the fandom Craft Fair is coming BACK! Get ready for our third annual craft extravaganza, running February 19 - 27, 2027!

Follow us on bsky at @ourfamilyourfight and tumblr at @ourfamilyourfight and fill out this form to get our info emails.

This year’s focus: CREATURES OF THE DEEP and ALL THINGS NAUTICAL. Show us your tentacles, your creepy fishies, your ships, and your stormy seas. 

We’ll be going back to our roots and supporting the Trans Youth Emergency Project at the Campaign for Southern Equality once again, because their work remains crucial and they need our support!

More info to come in a few months, but for now, we’d love to see what you’re making or planning to make, so use the tag #fandomcraftfair to show off (or to say what you’d like to see and bid on!).

Some nitty gritty details to get you started:

No more than 12 listings per crafter, but you can have as many identical items within those listings as you’d like!

OFMD-themed items are of course welcome, but we want to encourage plenty of items that appeal to a wider audience! To that end, we will not be allowing crafts from other fandoms so we can maintain that balance.

Minimum price for physical items is $12 to account for the cost of shipping (the exception is stickers, bookmarks, and other flat paper goods that can be shipped untracked with a stamp).

We’ll be limiting what can be shipped via Lis this year to folks making 10 or more identical items! Otherwise, all crafters are responsible for  shipping their own items.

Dana Scully in homage to St Brigid of Kildare

upon request i'm publishing a fandom-neutral version of this post that i wrote about the results of this survey about reblog culture. the findings were gathered within spn fandom but, as with most things, seem applicable across multiple fandoms.

to keep it simple and not too wordy, i will try to stick to a “challenge - possible solutions” format for this post.

disclaimer: any and all suggestions are just that: suggestions. they won’t be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. they’re comprised of survey responses and my own thoughts/ideas.

clique culture*

unfortunately there is still a significant number of people who say they feel like there’s a clique culture in fandom. while they acknowledge that friend groups will always form and there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself, it can still feel exclusive sometimes and not welcoming.

solutions:

> tagging newbies/new followers in tag games and not just long-time mutuals -> they start to feel less like strangers cause you’re learning more about them and they feel more welcome

> “looking for new people to follow” posts -> either make one yourself stating your interests or share someone else’s and look in the notes for blogs you might vibe with

> ask games / sending people random asks (if someone’s ask box is open, it’s safe to assume they welcome this - but perhaps if you like receiving them, you can put it in your pinned post or bio to encourage that)

the vicious cycle of silence

the survey revealed that there are a lot of long-time fans who don’t have a lot of followers and some of them admit this is one of the reasons they feel less inclined to reblog things, since it won’t get seen by many people. this can be a vicious cycle, because when you rarely reblog things, people don’t get a chance to notice you popping up in their notes etc.

solutions:

> reblog and yap like nobody’s watching -> eventually community will find you

> follow more people yourself -> this creates a busier dash and more interesting posts to rb

> write your own comments/jokes/musings in the tags when you reblog or add them to a post -> fun interactions can lead to feeling more part of the fandom

blogs as a highly curated archive

a not insignificant number of people shared that they’re very picky about the posts they reblog because they want to be able to retrieve these posts very quickly. if you identify with this description and you still want to contribute more to keeping fandom alive, there are some very simple solutions:

> a better tagging system

> a sideblog

more info on that here

purity culture

the age-old set of ethics around “ship and let ship” and “fiction ≠ real life” is something that works and worked great in the past. in the last 5 ish years there’s been a shift in a lot of fandoms towards intolerance and gatekeeping. not that it didn’t exist before, but it’s more prevalent now and it’s concerning. none of this negates your right to create a safe space in fandom for yourself and set your own boundaries. you are capable of being responsible for that without dictating how other fans engage with the source material.

solutions 

> educate yourself on the Three Laws of Fandom** and its importance

> if you need to avoid specific triggers, block those specific tags or phrases. remember that if you use a DNI list, it's not realistic to expect everyone to check every blog's list before interacting. ultimately you are the only person responsible for curating your online experience in this way. use the block button where needed

confusion about tumblr

some people expressed that it took them a long time to figure out how tumblr culture works.

> this is a decent survival kit for the basics and should improve your experience here

*general note about the clique culture issue: there were some people who mentioned there being a strict view on canon/interpretations/headcanons among certain groups that is perpetuated in a way that makes it feel hostile to different ideas. sometimes vagueblogging is something that exacerbates this and i see this happen in every fandom. we can do better and have to take responsibility in creating a space where people aren’t made to feel stupid or lame for having headcanons or takes that aren’t the most mainstream (or subversive in the “right” way)

adding also a general call to action to be open to newer people in fandom or just blogs you hadn’t checked out yet, interact with their posts/reblogs and give them a follow. it has the added advantage of making your dash feel more alive

But last time I reblogged one ten/fifteen minutes later I got a call offering me a job

But I reblogged it because I was waiting on hearing back from the job. So there you go.

It includes:

A digital copy of the movie (with subtitles in 30+ languages via download)

My transcript of the movie (more on that here)

Audio recordings of the movie

A PDF of the book

An EPUB of the book (for e-readers)

The full audiobook

A copy of Andy Weir's doc on Eridians

A copy of Andy Weir's spreadsheet on Astrophage physics (among many other things!)

A draft of the screenplay for the film from 2022

The deleted scenes from the film (VLC Media player required)

An audio recording of the director's commentary

My transcript of the director's commentary

A folder of 700+ screenshots and other reference photos

There's also a google doc with some instructions to follow if any of the files aren't working or aren't allowing you to download them, which usually happens when too many people try to access or download something at the same time.

Additionally there's a UHD copy (that's too big to fit in the drive) here!:

Please note that because of the way that google drive works, some of the subtitles only work if you download the file yourself.

The audiobook, audio recordings, and commentary all have their properties programmed so they (should) work just like songs with a track number, album cover, artist, and so on if you download them.

There are two audios of the movie, one is the entire film untouched and one is that same audio cut up and broken down into separate scenes for convenience.

Additionally, there are two versions of the movie transcript, one with time stamps that match the audio recording and one without. The time stamps (+ their titles from the audio) are outlined in that version, so if you double-click on that tab or click "show outline," they'll all show up and you can pick a specific scene.

Similarly, there are two different versions of the director's commentary transcript. The first is made to listen along to the commentary, while the second is more intended to be read on its own. The first is a direct transcription of everything that's said (an attempt, at least), while the second is slightly cleaned up for easier reading, meaning things like jumbled sentences and stuttering were removed or reorganised, but nothing has been actually paraphrased. Both are broken down into different scenes based on how their conversation goes, and the listening version includes timestamps. 

The first few seconds of the commentary are missing unfortunately as my US friend who was kind enough to record it for me had some technical difficulties at the start, but she was able to paraphrase the part that was missed. The commentary starts at that first red shot of Ryland Grace's face in the coma suit 32 seconds into the digital copy.

All the screenshots are ones I've taken either to use as a reference, decoration, or on request from other people. All other images are ones I've collected for similar purposes. They're vaguely organised into folders and there is also a guide explaining what is in each folder. In those folders, they're listed in the order of which they were taken, so for the most part they're in chronological order of the events of the film. However, some folders are out of order in cases where I went back to take more screenshots later. It is slightly messy and arbitrary, but hopefully isn't too difficult to navigate.

As always, if anything's not working right or you notice any mistakes in anything, please let me know and I'll fix it as soon as I can!

if there is two things you should remember me by it's both loving birds and being very pro Europe.

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)

Beginner-oriented video on how to sail

This guy has so many videos on baking different types of bread. SO very many.

Coding in Python - one of the most flexible and adaptable high-level programming languages out there - explained through projects making video games

Learn to swim! (for adult learners. I don’t care if you live in Kansas or Mali or wherever. LEARN TO SWIM.)

Learn how quantum mechanics works. Then read some more about it

[Learn about quantum mechanics again, but in a more advanced engineering/mathematics class. Then read more about the math and physics of it]

Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver

Something I learned this year: how to sew a quilt (Here’s a very easy beginning pattern that looks amazing and can be done with pre-cut fabric!)

How to hit the ball in softball

Tutorial video on what is under the hood of most (gas) cars + weird engine sounds and what they mean

Full beginner mechanics technical training, if you want to go more in depth

Playlist on how car engine physics work if you want to go ultra in depth

Lecture series on architecture design through study of buildings

How (American income) taxes & tax law work (choose “audit course” at checkout for free class)

Pickleball for beginners (so you can finally join your neighbor/friend/distant cousin who is always insisting you join their team)

+ Para-Pickleball for beginners (for mobility aid users!)

School is so much more fun when there’s no tests:

American Law - Contracts

Shakespeare’s Life and Plays

Fairy Tales: Meanings, Messages, and Morals

Modern Poetry

World History [Part 1, Part 2]

Learn a language:

Arabic + Resource Guide compiled from Reddit (includes info on different dialects)

Chinese (Cantonese) (audio)

Urdu (frequently recommended course on Reddit) + Resource Guide