Because life is so boring and there's NOTHING else going on....

[captainsblog]

Sometime today, I am going to sign up for yuletide.

If you have no idea what that means, join the club. I joined last year, after all the hoopla about it on various Flist entries (most of whom don't even regularly post here anymore), and am now getting bombed with entry after entry of heavenly-hashtag geekspeak about what it's all about.

They really need to make it easier for us n00bs to understand it without all the lingua obscura. I'll try to boil it down here the way I understand it.

At its core, yuletide is a Secret Santa fanfic project. You offer to write a fic for someone and you get one in return. In time, though, as with all good ideas on the Internet, this one acquired mods, and tech-manual FAQs, and threats of the banhammer for not playing nice (which this post probably invites because I'm sure there's something in there about You Don't Talk About Fight Club yuletide). And much of it, to me at least, seems intended to be inclusive to a fault, so as not to make the Bronies feel marginalized by the masses of more conventional 'verses.

What it's evolved to is this: you not only have to offer to write for a specific fandom, you have to offer to write specific characters IN said fandom.  If you don't, and just say, WILL WRITE STAR TREK, you are then obliged to write on whatever odd pairing from that fandom you might get assigned, no matter how well you know them or how "odd" it might be. ("Congratulations! You're doing a Trek fic with Major Kira, the Doctor from VOY, Miles and Keiko's little kid, and the Horta!")

So to ensure you can say NO WRITE I to that, you have to be specfic in what you WILL write. And THAT means a Sunday morning cuppa database engineering- finding your show, and then your characters, in the Seventh Level of ExcHell that it's all been packed into.  Of which there are billyuns and billyuns: almost 3,000 top-level domains, if you will, then all drawn and quartered into infinite combinations of infinite diversity for your pleasure.

Of which I need to pick at least four. By tonight. As always, best beloveds, I turn to you for suggestions.

It won't get you a story specially selected Just For You, because (a) THAT. WOULD. BE. WRONG, and (b) the chances of my actually being assigned it are only slightly less slim than your chances of getting the output assigned to you.  Still. I'm dyin' here.  If you and I are in the same neighborhood of Clueless (not the Alicia Silverstone one) about how this works, here are some rough cuts of what I think I could do. Just shows and a couple of their spunoff films, for now. We'll talk about specific characters later. And this list may grow during the day as I think of various Shiny things I've forgotten:


These are not actual offers. Just possible ones. So they don't violate any stinkin ruulz.
Trek (any of the permitted ones, but I'm still not doing Hortas)
Quantum Leap
9 to 11 Doctor Who
Firefly/Serenity
Dead Like Me
Python
Dexter
SFU
Nurse Jackie
Old-school SNL characters and parodies
HHGTG
Pushing Daisies
Sherlock (wow! what a concept!)



That's just total top-of-mind. If you've read this blog for more than a few weeks, you can probably think of others I could do justice to (or deserved injustice to, for that matter).

So let's tawk. But today. I've already missed one deadline and I don't need more Reactant Bias in my life;)

ETA. Awwwwkwarrrrd.

Thanks immensely to kouredios, I now understand more of the focus and lots more of the basics. It's not just INCLUSIVE of orphanish fandoms, it's more-or-less exclusively intended for them- and yes, if I'd RTFM'd, I'd have known that. Their FAQs are highly higgeldy-piggeldy, though (hmmm, wonder if THAT's a fandom), and it took three jumps to finally get to this much user-friendlier list of what is and isn't included, (Which includes dozens of more conventional fandoms preceded by the letters "rpf," but no indication anywhere in the FAQs I can find of what "rpf" means.)

I'm getting better! Lalalalalalalala!

ETA2. Neverminnnd. They're in. No hints, clues or clever icons. There's still time till 8 EST to get in on this (you can even jump the queue to get onto the main uploading/archival site before then), and latecomers can also offer to "pinch hit" for folks who have to drop out of their assignment for one reason or other. Pre-Merry Christmas!

Comments

[likethewatch.livejournal.com]

Can you have fic based on characters from, say, Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land? The Hitchhiker's Guide?

This is such a cool idea.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

HHGTG, yes, it's in there! (And good call- I just added it to my own list.)

I don't see Heinlein generally or SIASL listed, but don't trust the n00b on that. The whole alphabetical list of approved fandoms is here, (http://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/show_options?restriction=182&tag_type=fandom) and any not on it can be added for next year.

[kouredios.livejournal.com]

The reason there's so many rules is because it's the HUGEST festival of its kind in fandom. As in, over 2000 people participate.

It's designed specifically for rare fandoms. The choices you have to write or request are fandoms that were, first, nominated by participants and then approved as small enough fandoms to qualify as "rare. So, you're not going to find Doctor Who or Firefly in there. But you can always crossover what you're doing with them, if you'd like. But you have to limit your requests and offers to what's been nominated. It makes matching much easier. See above re: 2000+ participants.

There have always been mods. Modding the comm is necessary because, well, see above re: 2000+ participants.

Here's a history: http://fanlore.org/wiki/Yuletide

This is only my second year participating, but I've been reading Yuletide for years, as many of my RL friends have been participating from the beginning, and I generally spend New Years with them (the day that authors are revealed), so everyone pretty much spends all of NYD reading Yuletide and chortling over who wrote what. "That Winnie-the-Pooh/Granny Weatherwax crossover! That was you?"

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

There now, see? You just did a better job of explaining this whole business in nine lines than I'd managed to glean about it through almost a year of seeing tech-y postings flying by.

Guess you'd make a good teacher. Have you ever considered that line of work?

[kouredios.livejournal.com]

Heeeeeee. Best reply. :D

[kouredios.livejournal.com]

Also, signups close tonight at 8pm, so you're going to have to decide soon. If you don't follow yuletide_admin, that's where all the announcements are. /helpful?

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I've picked my gives. Takes should be easier.

[lessthanpie]

Rpf means "real person fiction". Basically, fiction about the actors/writers/musicians/etc. as opposed to fictional characters.

I love Yuletide! I hope you have fun with it.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm in- the kid picked one ask, and I wound up with at least one give not on my original list, because I'm just random that way.

We shall speak of this no more until the reveal:)

[canadiandiamond.livejournal.com]

I'm giving it a try for the first time this year too, we'll see how it goes. :)

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

yay Yuletide! This is my 4th year and every year I get exponentially more excited, starting somewhere around August. :)