The Wordsmith's Forge

The March Meta Matters challenge is now active over on marchmetamatterschallenge. See the first check-in post here for introductions. Read the FAQ list, as there may have been some changes from previous years. See my entries from 2023 and 2024. Here are my How To list and my Meta list from 2024.

This challenge involves locating and copying over meta you've created to a second site in order to ensure its preservation. The fest recommends SquidgeWorld. There will be some prompts for creating new meta. Participants can post their goals for saving old meta and/or creating new meta. You can also collect, recommend, and save meta created by other people if it's not something you make yourself or yours is already up to date and saved.

Note that AO3 has long been sadly erratic when it comes to meta, parts of the rules are unclear in ways that cause problems, and the result is pretty hostile. :( Multiple people have posted meta there only to have it taken down -- and that can get your account suspended. Last year, AO3 changed its user agreement and locked the site to current members who have signed it. As the content is no longer visible to the general public, it is much less useful as an archive, which is sad. So fewer people are choosing to post or crosspost their meta to AO3, and looking for other places to post or copy it. However, there is still a community for March Meta Matters on AO3 for those who wish to risk posting meta there.

Some canon-specific or author-specific websites have a section especially for meta about their fandom(s) to help new fans learn the canon(s), explore fandom in general, and to inspire fanworks. In particular, it used to be common for people to make fanifestos about a canon, its ships, major fanworks, etc. as guides to newcomers in hopes of growing the fandom; reviving this custom would be very helpful. Here on Dreamwidth, check out shipmanifestos. Another great type of meta is reviews; see communities such as books and book_love for those. If you know of more such resources, March is a good time to post about them so more folks can find them and make sure that meta is backed up.

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The March Meta Matters challenge is now active over on marchmetamatterschallenge. See the first check-in post here for introductions. Read the FAQ list, as there have been some changes from previous years.

This challenge involves locating and copying over meta you've created to a second site in order to ensure its preservation. The fest recommends SquidgeWorld. There will be some prompts for creating new meta. Participants can post their goals for saving old meta and/or creating new meta. You can also collect, recommend, and save meta created by other people if it's not something you make yourself or yours is already up to date and saved.

Note that AO3 is sadly erratic when it comes to meta, parts of the rules are unclear in ways that cause problems, and the result is pretty hostile. :( Multiple people have posted meta there only to have it taken down -- and that can get your account suspended. So fewer people are choosing to post or crosspost their meta to AO3, and looking for other places to post or copy it. However, there is still a community for March Meta Matters on AO3 for those who wish to risk posting meta there.

Some canon-specific websites have a section especially for meta about their fandom to help new fans learn the canon and to inspire fanworks. In particular, it used to be common for people to make fanifestos about a canon, its ships, major fanworks, etc. as guides to newcomers in hopes of growing the fandom; reviving this custom would be very helpful. If you know of such resources, March is a good time to post about them so more folks can find them and make sure that meta is backed up.

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"Whales be as people to me" has now been posted.  This is Polychrome Heroics demifiction.

This is spillover from the November 6, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from technoshaman. It also fills the "good nutrition" square in my 2-28-18 card for the Slice of Life Bingo fest. This demifiction is the bonus material for the December 4, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl reaching its $300 goal. It belongs the series Polychrome Heroics, and is mentioned in the poem "When Circumstances Are at Their Worst" (not yet published).

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This is another freebie from the Half-Price Sale in Polychrome Heroics, for meeting the $600 goal.


Terramagne-America has a series of commercials on the theme of "A ham is ..." with different topics for each. They give examples but always end with "A ham is whatever you want it to be."

The meal set covers "A ham is ..." breakfast, lunch, supper, and snack. Some episodes show a handful of finished dishes and a website where you can get recipes for them. Others focus on simple things where the construction can be shown in the commercial itself.

The adjectives set includes things like "simple" and "healthy."

The nouns set shows what social and practical uses a ham can serve, like "A ham is a housewarming gift."

The June half-price sale in Polychrome Heroics made its $400 goal, so this is the perk for that.

Warning: This entry includes some touchy topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It features sexual harassment, vulgar language, flashbacks to sexual abuse, reflexive use of a superpower at catastrophic level, death by freezing, extreme collateral damage to property, injuries (but not fatalities) among innocent bystanders, mass plant and animal death, travel disruption, cultural issues, ethical debates, and other mayhem. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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The June half-price sale in Polychrome Heroics made its $200 goal, so this is your perk for that.

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 siliconshaman has posted the History of Britannia for Terramagne.  Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

This is another commercial from Terramagne. Comfort food appears in many of the poems from Polychrome Heroics. So what do you do if you grew up with junk for comfort food? They've got a patch for that ...

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While writing Polychrome Heroics, I've noticed that the commercials in Terramagne-America are often more entertaining than the shows are in local-America. So I've started writing them down. Since I can't actually do video clips or even slideshows, I have instead pasted suitable images into the text. Also worth noting: this concept is replicable with local resources.

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