jimmy stewart as a puppet is just wrong

[bossymarmalade]

So, on the subject of Yuletide:

Now that my initial reaction of DO NOT WANT has had time to mellow and dhobikikutti made this measured, thoughtful post about it, I am considering options.

I've been doing Yuletide since it started and look forward to it a lot every year. Many people do (three thousand, as I was told). But there's also a lot of brainstorming that people have been doing in terms of an alternative that I am loathe to just forget or shove at the Yuletide mods in the hope that they'd have the time/inclination to address it. It probably wouldn't even be do-able within the current structure of Yuletide and might not be of as much interest to them as it is to me. And since a lot of people have expressed interest in an alternative to Yuletide (or at least a different sort of rare fandom fic thing), I am gonna try to round them up and lay them out here to see what y'all think:

a) have East Asian sources built in from the foundations, so there's no need for outreach and there's people on-board who know about anime/manga/manwha etc. fandoms

b) don't have it in a holiday season or associate it with any particular religious/cultural observance

c) allow bigger fandoms under certain circumstances:
- the fic involves race/gender/other-bending of the characters in a meaningful way
- the fic is not about the "big" pairings/characters in the fandom
(Point C seems most likely to cause wank, but I am still really attached to the ideas)

d) structure it less as a one-to-one exchange and more like an angel tree

EDIT Nov 15: It seems most people aren't keen on the angel tree idea, so let's nix that for now.

If various people would like to help mod, right now I am considering a rotating challenge along a five-year schedule:
Year 1 - race/gender/other-bending
Year 2 - "less popular" characters & pairings
Year 3 - multimedia projects that include a significant art component
Year 4 - focus on non-Western & non-East Asian sources
Year 5 - books-only rarelit (nothing that has been made into a miniseries/movie/etc.)


What do y'all think? What suggestions have I missed? Which of these sound the most feasible and desirable? What ideas have been kicking around in your head that you'd want to see in a rare fandom fic exchange/challenge/thingy? What sort of coding or webspace would such a thing require? What are some of the things that put you off most about these ideas or fic challenges? Anything you wanna talk about, please feel free to comment; I can't promise I'll be able to answer or engage intelligently because there's lots I know shit-all about, but probably *somebody* will take up the thread, heh.

Comments

[duraflame]

Also, I would like to note that one thing I'd love is a rare fandoms fest that was for the English-speaking community but was limited to not-originally-English-language sources *only*.

Ooh, I would love this too.