fannish update (challenges etc.)

[sophinisba]

I feel good about the things I've been accomplishing in fandom lately! On Sunday I posted one of my longest Merlin fics and submitted my podficbigbang project - posting for that should start very soon. I doubt I'll ever take on a podfic this large again, but it's been a good experience, and one nice effect is that now I can look at a 10K fic and thing, pshaw, that's nothing. In fact, I recorded one that's a little under 9K yesterday and am hoping to finish the edits and post it today. With that I will have only one square left to fill on my kink_bingo card before the June 15th Amnesty deadline. That square is guns, and I would like to fill it with a podfic, fic, or poem about a character with a disability. I would be grateful for podficcable story recs or writing prompts! You can also help out other people who are trying to meet their amnesty goals over at the Amnesty Boogaloo reverse promptfest at the comm.

Working on a characters with disabilities bingo has given me a funny skewed perspective on fic lately. I mean I have always enjoyed fics about pwd but mostly was looking for angst and relationship and h/c stuff. Lately I get all het up about not being able to find fics that fill my squares, but in a selfish "I just want to finish my bingo!" way more than the social justice-y "people with disabilities want kinky sex too!" way that would probably be more appropriate. So for example I'll read Eagle fics thinking "Please please please mention his leg again, say it will never really be healed." Or I'll go to the guns tag at the AO3 and page through scores of Sherlock fics thinking, "This version of Watson is useless to me! Damn it, Moffat, would it have been so hard for you to let him keep the damn cane?" when there are, you know, a lot of more grownup or nuanced things one could say about that decision. Also, it's not like I can get too upset with fandom for not writing those fics when I'm not writing them either. :/

Even so, I was looking over my kink_bingo cards and banners collection last night and feeling really good about what I've managed to do with it in the past year. I remember getting my second card and feeling pretty blah about it, disappointed that it repeated a lot of squares I'd had already, and mildly anxious about how I'd come up with a fill for suspension or genital torture that are so not what I'm into. But I've filled almost all of them, and I'm happy with the variety of pairings and genres and all of that. Definitely looking forward to going at it again in the next round.

I'm also planning to sign up for hc_bingo, which will have a new round starting around June 10. I've been interested in this since it started but I've hesitated to sign up, partly because I felt like I had too many commitments already and partly because some of my friends and other people I respect were raising objections to the challenge, talking about h/c being problematic and turning disabilities into entertainments and all of that, and I felt anxious. The thing is, kinky sex and loving hurt/comfort have always been my two favorite kinds of fanfic to read but were always hard to get myself to write. I've gotten a lot more comfortable writing kink since I've been doing k-b (even though most of my fills are podfic, not fic) and I would like to like to get better at writing h/c too. Besides that I think I could contribute some things that aren't terribly common, like h/c podfic, or h/c about ladies. Besides that, like, fairly often when someone criticizes h/c as a genre (including when people were criticizing this challenge when it started up) they make these generalizations that like... have very little to do with my experience of the genre, and I guess that makes me feel rebellious.

summerpornathon signups are open!!! Closing Thursday night! I hope lots of my friends will sign up, though to be honest I also have some hope that we might have a slightly smaller group this year, which would make teams more intimate and reading more manageable. Super excited for the reading and writing, not so much for the pages full of flashing gifs but what are ya gonna do. :)

Lots of activity planned for International Day of Femslash coming up on July 14th! It would be neat if we got a ton of femslash at the pornathon that week, though it would be better if we got a ton of femslash at the pornathon every week. :D

The wording of this call for audiofic volunteers makes me a little wary, seems to suggest they're ignoring what I know of podfic fandom and looking for a file format more than a fanwork, though maybe I'm just being sensitive. I don't know whether it would make sense to say something to them or if it'd be better to leave it alone (up to them how they want to run their fest) and go with whatever femslash podfic_project cantarina and nickelmountain are organizing instead.

remix_her is a new challenge for writing lady-centric remixes (gen, het, femslash, poly - originals can be about the mens as long as the remixes are about the ladies) in all fandoms!

femslash_remix is specifically for writing Harry Potter femslash.

Probably in the fall there will be another all-genre Merlin remix, either hosted at camelotremix/camelotremix or somewhere else.

Comments

[woldy]

Thanks for linking to femslash remix! I'm excited about it, especially given the excellent authors and artists who've signed up so far.

[itachitachi]

Checked out the link you gave calling for audiofic volunteers--I do think it would be beneficial to send them a not about it? IDK, it's just, I see exactly what you mean by asking for a file format rather than a fanwork. Even suggesting that they change "want to record your story or someone else's story" to "want to create a podfic for a story" would make it all sound much more friendly.

I'm excited for your PFBB! And hearing you talk about podfic just makes me want to pick it up too, now that my major paper is fiiiinally done. Almost. Augh, this has been so stressful I'm seriously doubting academia is the career for me. Props to you, dude. /o\

I'm also hoping pornathon will be a bit smaller this year. :) It makes me a bit sad because in my head that means it's not popular or cool or fun anymore, but that's not true and it will probs be a great time as ever. (I'm mostly just sad because I think I'm losing my mojo for it and I don't know that I'll come back next year. AHHH just admitting it makes me weepy. We'll see.)

AAAAND just wanting to say YAY, I hope there is another Camelotremix because that was so fun. :D

[meri]

I tried h/c bingo this year and didn't write a thing. Apparently, as much as I love a good h/c story I have no desire to write one.

I am thinking of signing up for kink bingo again this year but I also promised myself not to add a lot of writing goals for this year and to give myself time off. But then I think how much kink is good for the soul and how both Lost Girl and Avengers fandom need more kink in them. So I'm going back and forth on that one.

[sophinisba]

I think the femslash remix is a fantastic idea. Even as somebody who can ship just about any pairing I do sometimes get a little nervous signing up for a remix and thinking I might get assigned to someone who only does boyslash. I'd like to see a lot more specialized kinds of remix challenges.

[sophinisba]

Yeah, it's a weirdly worded post for sure, or at least it reads strange to me after spending a lot of time around podficcers and podfic communities. Like, it's the only post at the site that's tagged "volunteers", as if they needed people to move tables around or something, whereas other challenges are aimed at mostly writers and to a lesser extent visual artists, and are addressing them as creators.

OMG PFBB, it's so frickin' long Itachi. Just doing the volume adjustments after I'd gone through and done everything else took me three days where I barely got anything else done. It was ridic. Also had a weird situation where my collaborator stopped collaborating. But it's done and I am super proud of it! So excited to see everything get posted. Also excited about trying out other podfic things that would have seemed ambitious before but now seem totally doable. :)

Even though I am not a mod I feel pretty ambivalent about saying yay smaller pthon. I mean, part of the reason it's smaller is that some of my good friends and favorite authors have decided not to play! OTOH I am slow at reading and slower at processing comment pages full of gifs so, yeah, I am hopeful about getting to know some people a little better this round.

ALL THE REMIXES!!

[woldy]

I do sometimes get a little nervous signing up for a remix and thinking I might get assigned to someone who only does boyslash. That was exactly the reasoning - I knew so many talented authors who wanted to write just femslash, or femslash plus het (although often het fans have the wiggle room of canonical pairings), and worried about getting boyslash-only assignments. In Merlin it seems as though a lot of people wrote multiple pairings (at least in the early days), but many fandoms are more segmented.

I also decided to throw femslash_remix open for people to create fic inspired by art or art inspired by fic (or, if anyone wants to, art inspired by art) as well as traditional fic remixes, so I'm hoping that makes it a bit more inclusive too.

[cantarina]

You'll be delighted to hear that Nickel and I are actually moving podfic_project to DW. We're just trying to nail down a new name before we launch KISSES II :D

I think that the official IDF's project is brilliant, but I'm a little bit wary of it too. The emphasis seems to be on authors, rather than podficcers, and I'm not sure if I want my work archived somewhere where the author has the first and last say in whether it comes down or stays up. It's something I keep meaning to bring up to the moderators; I'll have to send that email today. Theoretically, though, I think that it's a brilliant endeavour!

Enjoy kink_bingo! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with for the hc variety too.

[cantarina]

... Lost Girl kink? Yes PLEASE.

[woldy]

On the topic of hurt/comfort: it can be problematic, but I think it doesn't have to be. I've found that I like it best when one character is temporarily ill (having flu seems to be my favorite) and the other cares for them, because there's no permanent power imbalance or patronizing / othering dynamics about dependence / independence (not to say that dependence is incompatible with equality, but it's tricky and not always done well or to my taste) and the fun of skewed perception from fever.

I'd like to see well-written hurt/comfort about ladies, personally, although I wonder if the relative lack of it is to do with gendered expectations of care provision and care receipt - that women are both expected to be carers and traditionally seen as less autonomous, so hurt/comfort is more compatible with dominant conceptions of femininity than dominant conceptions of masculinity. So saying, it can still be adorable and hot and interesting with ladies - the chicken soup scene in Kissing Jessica Stein comes to mind there.

[meri]

There needs to be so much more Lost Girl kink because of reasons. Actually, because Bo and Kensi both strike me as people who enjoy a touch of kink. Actually, all the fae do. And I want more sub!Vex stories. I love the idea that a vicious mind control fae likes to sub to human women. And how GLEEFUL he is about being chained up, abused, and humiliated. IT'S CANON!