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Challenge #3
In your own space, Scream Into the Void. Get it all out. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
As it turns out, I very recently worked through a "get it all out" elsewhere, so as it was already largely written, I've gone and fleshed it out a bit here. And as an added benefit, because I've done that I now get to go back and do the squeeing over a favorite thing for Challenge #2 afterwards.
But ahead of that, my scream into the void:
Let's agree that all exchange participant needs to do is the actual exchange.
All the B/F/E participant needs to do is the actual exchange.
And I mean literally just the actual exchange.
2011 was the year I first participated in Yuletide. I signed up because I wanted to get back into writing things for other fans (the most recent previous exchange I'd participated in when I signed up for the 2011 YT had been held via YahooML, if that tells you anything). I had no goals or expectations of anything beyond signing up, writing a fic, and then getting one in return about which I'd know little to nothing until reveals. And it worked brilliantly! I hadfun, and then terror, and then fun writing something under what I remember being a pretty tight deadline, that I thought my recipient would like, and that met the exchange requirements. I was really excited for them to read it, and to see what I'd received--and I was not disappointed!
It feels like Yuletide might have become a victim of its own success, because B/F/Es are far more centralized now than in the ML and early LJ days, and there's a lot more visibility into individual participants, fandoms, and exchange events.
And with that has come a bunch of unwritten (and often contradictory) informal rules, expectations, and shifting taboos that can make participation feel far more like a minefield now than it did when it consisted of:
And so on.
I know that at the end of the day the rules are and have always been "write a fic that follows the rules" for the exchange in question, the end. I personally have never had a bad experience as a recipient (and my recipients seem to have liked their gifts, too). But it's rough to watch other recipients get upset because their author couldn't read their minds, or worse yet, watch other authors get upset because their recipient thought they should. It makes the decision to participate more fraught than it would be if everyone just returned to the spirit of the thing: Follow the rules, make a good faith effort to produce something you think your recipient will like, and appreciate the effort your author made, the end.
これで以上です。
In your own space, Scream Into the Void. Get it all out. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
As it turns out, I very recently worked through a "get it all out" elsewhere, so as it was already largely written, I've gone and fleshed it out a bit here. And as an added benefit, because I've done that I now get to go back and do the squeeing over a favorite thing for Challenge #2 afterwards.
But ahead of that, my scream into the void:
Let's agree that all exchange participant needs to do is the actual exchange.
All the B/F/E participant needs to do is the actual exchange.
And I mean literally just the actual exchange.
2011 was the year I first participated in Yuletide. I signed up because I wanted to get back into writing things for other fans (the most recent previous exchange I'd participated in when I signed up for the 2011 YT had been held via YahooML, if that tells you anything). I had no goals or expectations of anything beyond signing up, writing a fic, and then getting one in return about which I'd know little to nothing until reveals. And it worked brilliantly! I had
It feels like Yuletide might have become a victim of its own success, because B/F/Es are far more centralized now than in the ML and early LJ days, and there's a lot more visibility into individual participants, fandoms, and exchange events.
And with that has come a bunch of unwritten (and often contradictory) informal rules, expectations, and shifting taboos that can make participation feel far more like a minefield now than it did when it consisted of:
- Having fun
- Doing something nice for someone
- That fulfilled the requirements of the exchange, and
- Didn't break its rules.
And so on.
I know that at the end of the day the rules are and have always been "write a fic that follows the rules" for the exchange in question, the end. I personally have never had a bad experience as a recipient (and my recipients seem to have liked their gifts, too). But it's rough to watch other recipients get upset because their author couldn't read their minds, or worse yet, watch other authors get upset because their recipient thought they should. It makes the decision to participate more fraught than it would be if everyone just returned to the spirit of the thing: Follow the rules, make a good faith effort to produce something you think your recipient will like, and appreciate the effort your author made, the end.
これで以上です。