summerpornathon and kink-bingo

[sophinisba]

I think I am finally starting to get the hang of summerpornathon! At first I wasn't seeing the entries because of a filtering mistake and then I wasn't seeing them because I'm just not on LJ that much and anyway I was feeling very angsty about not fitting in and about my writing not being good enough or have enough penises in it or whatever. I did create summerpornathon_feed so the entries would show up on my Dreamwidth reading list, but that's not ideal in that these posts with 9000 (?) words of fic show up uncut. But it's okay because I'm getting used to the schedule now so I know when to expect stuff. Also having the results of the first challenge go up on Friday made everything make a lot more sense to me.

I mean, I haven't ever done a competition style challenge before and I thought I would hate it and feel inadequate and all that. To be honest I had a lot of writing angst for the first two weeks. I mean that despite having an idea I felt awful about it and didn't want to go through with the actual writing, did a lot of other stuff to avoid writing, all of that. And when I started reading the other fics for the first challenge they were so clever and fun and I felt embarrassed that mine was so boring. But then last Friday when we got the first challenge results it turned out that
-frantic_allonsy from my own team_greed won one of the first place prizes - YAY!!
-Other people had nice things to say about the fic I had written
-Participation points made a huge difference in the weekly totals
-Participation points seem to make an even bigger difference than last year because there are so many participants

So now I am feeling pretty awesome! Because whereas beforehand I was thinking oh god I must ignore the competition aspect completely or I will get blocked and be miserable and not be able to write anything, now I am like, Whee, must write something for participation points! Must read and vote on all the entries for participation points! GO TEAM GREED!!!

The new challenge instructions went up on Sunday and I talked over some ideas with themadlurker that night and then went ahead and wrote a whole ficlet yesterday morning! It was fun and I'm pretty happy with it. It's... idk, since it's an AU challenge I sort of feel like I should start over with something more creative as an AU, something more fabulously cracky like the cabinet/power drill fic srin did last year, or the Vivian-centric femslash orgy where everyone's a doll that some brilliant person wrote for the second challenge this year. But I don't have any fabulously cracky ideas and I feel like the one I wrote yesterday pushed my boundaries in other ways, such that I would have a hard time posting it directly to my journal with my name on it. I've really come to like having that initial period of anonymity, even though I do claim all my stuff eventually.

Basically I am feeling like I can write anything I want, and that is a great feeling, though it's true I would be nervous to try Arthur/Gwen. :) The thing is, although all six of the winners for the first week were Arthur/Merlin or Arthur/Gwaine/Merlin, there really was a lot of variety to the fics and to the ones I enjoyed, and between the YAY PARTIPATION POINTS aspect and the fun I'm having reading that mix, I no longer feel, as I initially did, like I'm letting down my team if the thing that inspires me this week is Gwen/Lancelot or Vivian/all-the-ladies or whatever. Lots of people are playing that way and lots of people are having fun with it.

Speaking of the variety, I am getting such a kick out of having all these entries randomly mixed up. Back at the start of the challenge there was some discussion of how posting and voting should change to help us deal with the huge number of participants. And someone said, what if we split the entries up by pairing or by theme or something and people can vote for their favorites from each block? And the mods said no and I was somewhat sadface about it. But I was wrong, guys! Itachitachi was right! In order to vote in any block I feel I should read all 25 or 26 fics, and that means reading a lot of stuff I might normally skip over because the characters are not my favorite or whatever. But most of them are really good! Right now I've read about 3/4 of the second week fics and they all come with a list of kinks in highlight-to-read text, and I haven't been highlighting anything, just jumping in, and it's been awesome! I mean, that's me as a multishipper who doesn't have any triggers and I get that it's not the best setup for everybody, but I have been having a good time with it.

Another thing that's been awesome is how well summerpornathon overlaps with kink_bingo, now that k-b is allowing fills that also count for other challenges. Pornathon fics need to be between 500 and 750 words, and the minimum at k-b is 500, and most pornathon fics are kinky, so it's easy to get stuff to count for both (without angsting over whether you ought to be making something longer. So far all three of the ficlets I've written for pornathon have also been to fill k-b squares. Besides that, lots of other peoples fics work for my k-b card, so yesterday I made a podfic of itachitachi's Merlin/Will from week 1, and as soon as she reposts I will record visbranndrage's!

And at that point I will have filled 11 of my 25 squares on my kink_bingo card! It's true that I don't have any bingos yet and I'm not doing especially well with other special achievements, even ones I thought I could do easily, like rare pairings or underrepresented identities. I am getting close to having a text-free (all podfic) bingo in the right column, though I guess if I count that first I'll need to redo the "medical play" square if I want it to fit the diagonal bingo where I was hoping to do a bingo in five fandoms and multi-multimedia bingo (podfic, essay, and icons so far, maybe finish off with a fic and a poem or a song?)

Still, 11 out of 25, and just in the first month!! So my new goal is to do a blackout on this card by the end of September! I totally think I can do it. I am not really intimidated by any of these squares as I was by some of the ones I had last year. And, okay, part of me feels like filling a square with a four-minute Arthur/Merlin podfic is so easy it's kind of cheating and kind of a waste of time, considering how much Arthur/Merlin podfic there is out there already. :( But on the other hand, I would only be doing fics that are awesome! And at the end of the summer I'd make a podbook so people who wanted to could get a fun little sampler of pornlets! AND I'D HAVE A BLACKOUT!!!

Comments

[sally_maria]

I don't know if it's any help, but I use this in my Custom CSS box to control how much of each feed entry shows in my reading list.

/* max-height for syndicated journals on reading page */
.page-read .journal-type-Y .entry-content {
max-height: 30em;
overflow: auto;
}

Then you can either click through to it or it has its own little scroll bar, so you can read the whole entry without it taking up lots of space on your reading list.

I use 30em, but just change the value to get a size that works for you.

[sophinisba]

Oh, awesome! I was thinking there must be some kind of option like that but I had enough trouble setting up the feed in the first place and had to go back and forth with Dreamwidth support a couple times. Thank you! (I may be back with technical questions later!)

[sally_maria]

No problem. :-) I read nearly all my LJ comms as feeds on my reading list, so I find it incredibly useful.

I didn't code it myself, but I can't find the original entry I got it from to give credit. If you have any problems, do ask, though, and hopefully I can help.

[emei]

I'm really loving the variety and multishipping in the summerpornathon entries so far! I don't always feel 100% at home with all the SLASH SLASH cocks in team/party posts etc, but the writing has been fun and I've been really happily surprised by the feedback. :D

[sophinisba]

I don't always feel 100% at home with all the SLASH SLASH cocks in team/party posts etc, but the writing has been fun and I've been really happily surprised by the feedback. :D

Yes, that's been my experience exactly!

[srin]

This is no help with the team posts obviously, but the last two weekend parties have had threads with a couple of us posting pictures of pretty ladies in minimal clothing and being, uh, appreciative of them. Keep an eye out for those, they can always use more fuel!

[sophinisba]

That is good to know! I tend to get overwhelmed pretty quickly by the party posts, but knowing that there are lady threads I will try harder. And I'm sure fitz_y and I aren't the only ones who would have fun with something like that on team_greed posts.

[fitz_y]

yaaaay thon!! i, too, have been surprised how awesome the overlap with kink_bingo is. and how everything i written could fill a K_B square if i wanted it to. also, i agree, the competition is so not stressful, and it's such a love fest. it makes me happy. OMG BLACKOUT FOR KINK_BINGO! GO YOU. THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.

[sophinisba]

Blackout for kink_bingo!!! I think I will go ahead and finish this one bingo with all podfics and post that to the comm so I can get a second card, but then maybe not go back until I've finished the blackout. Will see!

[srin]

I don't much care how stuff's divided up for reading purposes, since I'm reading everything minus the stuff I skip for squicks, but I do kiiind of wish the non-A/M stuff got its own group just so the non-A/M writers would have more of a chance of winning sometimes. Several of my favourites in both challenges so far have been non-A/M, and it makes me sadface a bit that they'll probably never win. Still, I'm glad there are so many people writing other stuff and being cheered on for it! Ultimately the winning is only one part of the whole thing, after all.

Re: this week's challenge, haha, I had to throw out a couple of ideas because after last year I know writing anything involving power tools would effectively be de-anoning to anyone who knows me or remembers the last round. :D The awesomely cracky stuff is good fun, but in the past this challenge has also produced some wonderfully poignant serious stuff, so absurdity is definitely not the only way to go. ;)

[sophinisba]

I do kiiind of wish the non-A/M stuff got its own group just so the non-A/M writers would have more of a chance of winning sometimes.

There is this. That was my initial reaction to the suggestion and part of me still does wish for it. I guess I've had an unexpected pleasure from reading things all mixed up and seeing comments for the rarepair stuff mixed in with the A/M stuff. A chance at placing would be nice, but then again I feel like if they put the non-A/M stuff in a separate group the winners from that group would be Gwaine/Merlin, Arthur/Gwaine/Merlin, and Merlin/knights, you know? I could be wrong about that though!

One of the ideas I didn't write for the AU challenge was Freya/Gwen in space, so now I will see if I can write it for the bonus challenge (the idea was sort of a Firefly fusion) and we'll see how that goes! And we'll just leave the other one as it is because otherwise I'll never have the guts to post it. :O