(no subject)

[bossymarmalade]

This whole thing with Yuletide is really bumming me out. Which is incidentally a marker of my own privilege (b/c I wasn't personally affected by it being tied to Christmas in the first place), but at any rate, son I am disappoint. Should anybody who knows how/has the inclination to start up an alternate to Yuletide -- which is the hint I'm getting from the "love it or leave it" wording of that post and the follow-ups from BNF pals in the comments -- I would totally be on board to help out.

Anyhow, I realized I never linked to this, and have to make up for that oversight because homg, a while ago gloss wrote me the Marge/Manjula of my DREAMS for the femslash challenge:

. very deliberately waiting by gloss | the simpsons -- "our children are conspiring against us, did you know that?" {no warnings}

It is awesome not just because it's Manjula and Marge, pitch-perfect and rounded and warm and womanly, but because they're older and there's such a delicate smoke-and-blush feel to all the hard-earned realizations they've come to, the ways they've let themselves settle. I love it so much. I wish all Simpsons fic was like this, EVER. ♥

Also, I posted something I wrote for the horror meme that was going around that was inexplicably 98% Supernatural prompts, but anyway the one I filled was this:

. see you real soon | classic disney -- donald leaves smudges of white and orange wherever he goes. pluto melted long ago, and mickey only has half an ear. they try to redraw themselves with what they can, but is it worth it anymore? {gore, madness, cannibalism}

Er

Sometimes I don't know what's wrong with me, ahahahah

At any rate, DW Inception Kinkmeme! Already 60% more Yusuf and Saito prompts than on the lj version, whoo-hoo! It's good to be a DW academic elitist ivory tower PC-policing offense-taking squee-harshing art-hating overly-demanding censorship bitch.

Comments

[gloss]

The Yuletide thing has me totally saddened and alienated.

But thank you sfm for the rec. I BEAM AT YOU ENDLESSLY.

[bossymarmalade]

I only started noticing the Yuletide situation today! I feel so overwhelmed and sad about it, but with each new announcement/comment I am feeling less and less like I want to participate in the challenge. Yes it's their challenge and they can do what they want; no it's not the wonderland of funtiems for everybody in fandom that they keep insisting it is. Sigh.

And oh, dearest, making that rec was entirely my pleasure and so overdue in its coming! I want to snuggle up with that story and make cooing noises at it. ♥!!

I was flabbergasted when I read about that earlier today

[dakiwiboid]

I couldn't believe that the BUJOLD fandom qualifies as rare or obscure.

Let us know if something else shows up, eh?

Re: I was flabbergasted when I read about that earlier today

[rhivolution]

...I've never seen any Sharing Knife/Curse of Chalion fic, personally.

Re: I was flabbergasted when I read about that earlier today

[bossymarmalade]

I shall indeed!

Re: I was flabbergasted when I read about that earlier today

[zvi]

actually, several people have reported Vorkosigan didn't qualify this year.

[glass_icarus]

Should anybody who knows how/has the inclination to start up an alternate to Yuletide -- which is the hint I'm getting from the "love it or leave it" wording of that post and the follow-ups from BNF pals in the comments -- I would totally be on board to help out.

I would be on board with this too!!

[bossymarmalade]

Excellent! With any luck we can round up a bunch of willing mods and get something started!

[rhivolution]

Ugh, you're right. I had been ignoring the comments but I shouldn't have done. Keep us posted.

[bossymarmalade]

The hostility in the comments really startled me! If anything else does come up, I will definitely post about it.

[monanotlisa]

It's good to be a DW academic elitist ivory tower PC-policing offense-taking squee-harshing art-hating overly-demanding censorship bitch.

*snicker*

♥

[bossymarmalade]

IT IS SUCH A GREAT QUOTE FROM THINGSWITHWINGS, AHAHAHAH! I have it in my userinfo.

♥ ♥!!

[duraflame]

What I'm getting from this, and I've just been skimming here, is that the people involved in running Yuletide know, like, nothing about anime/manga fandoms. Which is weird. Because, um, Hetalia was really let in this year? Really?

More importantly, omg, Marge/Manjula, BRB READING IMMEDIATELY.

[duraflame]

Also, wow, reading through the comments, Jesus Christ, why are people reacting so angrily about people disagreeing? On second thought, that's really naive. STILL.

[medie]

I'll be running Fandom Stocking again this year (omg, so need help) but that does have a secular-Christmas-y feel to it (though most of the output fannish wise is decidedly non-holiday related) as I riffed off the whole stocking_stuffer thing YT used to do.

But a properly big deal alternative? I'd be SO up for that. I'm feeling decidely 'unwelcome' by the mods. I think that's the thing that bothers me more than anything. Not the way things have changed, I can deal with cranky servers and occasionally borked coding, it's the 'f-u and the servers you rode in on' attitude that's putting me off. This is supposed to be fun not 'complain and we'll browbeat you into oblivion'

[bossymarmalade]

Hooray for Fandom Stocking! If no big alternative to Yuletide arises (or if one does but I'm not needed to help run it) and if you have work that doesn't require a whole lot of coding knowledge, I would be happy to help. *g*

I'm feeling decidely 'unwelcome' by the mods

Exactly, right? And maybe as tzikeh says, the disgruntlement isn't from a significant number of the participants, but the absolute shutdown is really off-putting.

[impertinence]

The Yuletide thing strikes me as incredibly odd because every year, they run it like they're total n00bs to organizing things; but they're the people behind AO3, so clearly they're not, and you can only coast on "we're a limited number of people!" for so long before the whole thing seems kind of sour. And I say this as an enthusiastic AO3 user. :/

Ooooh, kink meme. I ended up wanting SO much Saito/Cobb. Subtext for daaaaaaays. Also, I would pay for a good, fake science-y Yusuf-centric fic. I love fake science in fic, it's why I've read so much truly awful SGA fic.

[bossymarmalade]

I LOVE Yuletide and AO3, so this is doubly distressing, argh. I'm really surprised at the implacable response from the mods and the BNF pals running people down in the comments; I started off the day absolutely wanting to do Yuletide, became kind of "maybe this will be my last year", and at this point I don't want to do it AT ALL.

ahahaah, I don't understand fake science OR real science very well! But any well-written Yusuf fic owns my heeeaaaaaaaart.

[ex_ayalesca554]

It would have irked me a lot less if they had said "our metric is inaccurate and we know it, but it's the best we could under the circumstances, thank you for your understanding" instead of "this is what it is, I don't care about the rest of you, my way or the highway".

I'm not really into holiday fic exchanges but I could be convinced into joining one just to thumb my nose at Yuletide XD;

[bossymarmalade]

Dude! I am not even really all that worked up about what people are pointing out in their complaints, to be honest -- but like you outline, it's the WAY that the mods are doing it that's unsettling me and making me feel decidedly less joyous about the whole thing. grarrrr!

I hope somebody who knows how to run shit takes up this torch, I really do.

[anatsuno]

I'd be all for an alternative as well! It seems many people are now having the same idea at once... Here's another rumbling.

[bossymarmalade]

INTERESTING!! I really hope something comes of this. If I knew anything about modding or coding I would totally take it on, but as it is I must confine myself to monkey butler-level duties, ahahahaha!

[prodigy]

Popping over as a non-DW-user-really (sheesh, need an icon here) who got linked to your post, hope that's okay and non-stalkery! I won't comment on the subject of not doing Yuletide, as that's pretty difficult for me to contemplate, but I did want to say I was a bit put out by the shutdown of my discussion of "writing fanfic about racist things might make people uncomfortable" as "off-topic." I didn't actually think that was off-topic. :\

[bossymarmalade]

evilprodigy, right? I noticed your comment about that on one of the yultide posts, and good heavens, SERIOUSLY -- why in the world would they shut down that conversation? Especially since it wasn't questioning the mods or their processes AT ALL, but bringing up points that might make Yuletide a less-fraught exchange for people. I didn't understand that a'tall.

(And if you don't mind, can I ask where you were linked? If it was one-on-one that's fine, I don't need to know, but if I got linked in a post I'm curious to see. *g*)

[gyzym]

I've never done Yuletide, because by and large I tend to avoid challenges that are like HEY YO CHRISTMAS, but yeah, this is...a little mystifying. *Tries in vain to make sense of the internet*

Definitely let me know if you guys do end up starting an alternate version, especially one that's in a non-holiday season; I would be allll over playing in that pond :D

[zarahemla]

I ... I can't imagine doing yuletide because I have done it every year for like eight frickety frickin' years or something. But the largeness of it and the idea of scrolling through 4500 fandoms ... and then the whole mods going nuts thing ... it's putting me off. Waaaay off. Dangit!!! Dangit, I need something to make me write at least one fanfic this year! I guess it's gonna have to be you. :P

[zarahemla]

er ... I can't imagine NOT doing yuletide ... facepalm

[sohotrightnow]

I said it last year, and I'm saying it again this year: there is nothing better than Yuletide to remind me that the real answer to the question of "why can't fandom have nice things" is "because fandom".

I have been sort of tempted for AGES to start something that's small fandoms AND/OR rare cahracters/pairings in big fandoms (for instance, Inception would be allowed, but Eames/Arthur wouldn't). The main thing I worry about is that I think to make it manageable I'd have to, like, cut off signups at 200 people or something, just for the first year or so, and I don't want to start ~exclusivity~ wank. Maybe do sign-ups for a week and then, based on how many there are, figure out how long sorting/checking for actual obscurity will take, and then work out an end date from there, with an eye towards Blue Monday or something in February. Or maybe I should do them as two separate challenges, one for small fandoms and one for rare characters/pairings, at separate times; that might make things easier.

[torachan]

There are plenty of fests that take only a limited number of participants. The Harry Potter holiday exchange, Merry Smutmas, always picked names out of a hat, and things like McShep Match are limited to the first 25 people who sign up per team. This is fandom, so I'm sure there has been some wank somewhere about fests like that being exclusionary, but it's certainly not anything new.

[devilc]

It's not yuletide until there is wank.

And until there's a better alternative? I'll be sticking with Yuletide, because (with one exception) every other exchange I've ever participated in has ended with me being screwed over.

And it's pretty my only chance of ever finding that other person who's read Code of Conduct who can write me a story.

[bossymarmalade]

Hey, up until mid-morning I was all on board with still signing up with Yuletide, so it's not like I'm saying DROP YULETIDE OR YOU'RE A BAD PERSON. But for me, the way the mods acted in the comm was so off-putting that I don't think I'd enjoy it anyhow.

[paintyourlunch]

"It's good to be a DW academic elitist ivory tower PC-policing offense-taking squee-harshing art-hating overly-demanding censorship bitch."

THAT IT IS. THAT IT IS.

♥

[colorblue]

I LOVE THIS.

[kittehkat.livejournal.com]

Ma'am.

Reading your Disney bit was wonderful. I read your writing often, and it's always the perfect digestible amount, even though it's often tear-at-your-heart sad. I miss it, often. I'm glad sometimes you share it.

Can I ask: are you on Twitter? Facebook? Something? Eh?

[trixie]

Sadly, it's a lot of the same people that I already lost some respect for during the Vividcon accessibility mess, so *shrug*. It's not an attitude that surprises me at this point.

[navia]

IDGI. I read the post, I read some of the comments. IA that the mods are being less than welcoming and freezing comments is way OTT for a pretty tame-looking fic challenge discussion, but what is the conflict they're having with participants?

[navia]

I think asking this out loud allowed me to find the answer! Never mind!

[paintedmaypole]

Hrmmmmm. I've been off trying not to murder college freshmen (DIFFICULT) and fell totally behind on DW/LJ/EVERYTHING. Would you be comfortable telling me a bit more about why the fandom elligibility statement is bumming you out?

Is it just because there are ZOMFKINGGOD 4,000+ possible fandoms and the entry form now takes even longer to fill out than it previously did? Or is it due to fandoms not getting included or excluded? Or is it something else?

[paintedmaypole]

oh oh oh. maybe i'm catching on now. are they relying solely on the story/fandom counts on AO3 to determine rare vs. not rare?