For who_daily: Looking for communities to partner with a friending meme

[eve11]

Hey there, I'm setting up a Doctor Who Friending meme that will hopefully go live this weekend. A friending meme is a post where people from different circles on lj can post a comment introducing themselves and find more friends with common interests. I'd like to partner with some Doctor Who communities, maybe put a list of partnering comms on the front page of the main lj post. Or it would be nice for communities to enter a comment on the meme too so that the maintainers can post what they are about.

Anyhow, If anyone's interested in partnering their comm with the friending meme, leave me a comment below :)

If you would like, when the meme goes live, you can post the banner in your comm, but that is not required if it would seem too spammy. Below is a prototype for the banner (resized; the "real" one will be about twice that size):

Thanks!


[As an example, if this were the main meme post I would have a line here at the bottom of the post that says: Check out our partner communities! (and a list)]

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

I have dw_straybunnies and I'd be happy to be associated.

I've looked at your layout in the other post and it looks great. It seems to include all the things you'd want and not too many others so it gets hard to read - and also links for cross-pollination.

ETA: Looking at the comments above, I think inactive comms should be included, if the mod's still around, because if this is about rebooting activity here (or even on Dreamwidth) then knowing these comms are around and getting new people to join them is great. (Where the mods aren't around, there's often not much you can do, though.)

[eve11]

Great! I think the last thing I might want to put in there is something like, "Projects" where you can highlight a fannish project you did that you are particularly proud of. Like a fic or a vid or art or something. Or is that getting too far afield?

[thisbluespirit]

I don't know, I think I'd find that a bit odd, for me? But if you've got the 'anything else' field, if anyone wants to add recs or something, they could. But it strikes me that's maybe a whole other thingumy. Maybe that's just me, though - I'm not entirely comfortable choosing my own fanwork. Other people might like it.

[eve11]

Hm, Maybe I will just put in a "links to your stuff" suggestion in the "anything else" category. I had put a blurb up in the "Fannish Activities" section but it might just be better as a suggestion in the free form section. :)

[eve11]

Also, curious: I've been thinking about an "across the board" kind of drabble or short-story meme; maybe straybunnies would be a cool place to host it?

The idea would be thus:

- A prompt is posted (a theme, a wacky trope, a picture, whatever)

- Underneath said prompt, a list from 1 to 11 (with possibly some addendums)

- Each person who wants to do so claims an era, and writes a short story of the prompt for that era.

So you get a mini anthology for that prompt. I think it might require a lot of people to participate though.

ETA: oh, actually, if you restricted it to "five things" so that the first five claimants would set the five eras that get represented, that might work better.

[thisbluespirit]

That sounds v cool. Although - much as I would love more activity ondw_straybunnies it would probably only fit on there if you wanted to borrow the prompts. It sounds like the sort of thing that could easily be a comment ficathon of its own. Or maybe you should grab JJ about who_at_50 because the multi-era part sounds like it might be fab to kick that off with. (Are you friended, I forget? I can always ask him. He's used to me and my bloody cheek by now. *sheepish*)

I mean, if you wanted it on straybunnies, I would, of course! But also the comm is stuck on the LJ horrible default, so no subject lines are available. (grr, lj.) Your journal would have subject lines...

[thisbluespirit]

Er. That sounded altogether a bit negative, it wasn't meant to be! Just thinking. Here's some cheerleading, because I'm quite excited for this happening:

\o/

[eve11]

Ah, I am just riffing and was curious about dw_straybunnies. I didn't want to add another comm if there was a comm somewhere already where it would dovetail in.

Having a writer's exercise like that on who_at_50 might be an interesting fit, if it sounds like something jjpor would like to field.

I am friends with jjpor but not with the comm. I should rectify that before we get to the anniversary year. I guess the thing is with me, I am less enthusiastic about big anniversary specials and Multi-Doctor episodes than others? But I would be all in for a flash fiction multi-era fic-writing bash. :)

[thisbluespirit]

The comm's not so much about the special as it is celebrating the anniversary with monthly ficathons (a Doctor + other prompt, to avoid leaving people out per month, starting with Eleven, I think). It's for getting fanworks happening during the anniversary year mainly. As I understand it, anyway. See what he thinks, but it sounds to me like your comment ficathon idea there might fit nicely as a precursor to it kicking off properly in Jan.

ETA: Though the multiple takes on prompts is something I do on straybunnies, you're right. If you needed a home, I would give it one. But, as I said, my comm is stuck with the inconvenient default LJ style - not good for comment fic, especially.

[eve11]

Ah, okay. I think we might be able to get a good buy-in for a "matrix of awesome" (see my answer below to jjpor) there. It's been so long since I focused on flash fiction; I think it would be fun to make it very-short-story specific.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

This interests me very much, as it happens. :) As lost_spook says in her reply, one of the main intentions behind the who_at_fifty comm is just to get a wide range of fanworks dealing with all eras of Who going on in the anniversary year, and to get as many Who fans as possible coming together to celebrate the anniversary in ways personally meaningful to them, rather than necessarily cheerleading anything the BBC may or may not do.

So yes, I would like who_at_fifty to participate in your friending meme, and your idea for a writing exercise intrigues me. I'm very shortly going to kick off the first leg in the ficathon-of-ficathons I'm hoping to run throughout 2013 (Eleven + supplementary theme tbc), but I wouldn't say no to you posting something on there as a bit of a warm-up, and it might get other people starting to post their own things on the comm too, which is what I would ideally like to see happening.

A couple of questions:

Would you be providing the prompts, at least to begin with?

Are we talking comment-fic or full-blown ficathon-type-ficathon (I don't know if running two full ficathons at the same time on the same comm would work)?

Do you see this as a one-off, or as a regular thing throughout next year? Either way would work for me, but a regular thing would be great. :)

[eve11]

Great! I'm going to have the meme go live likely some time tonight, hopefully giving me enough time to fill out my own entry before falling asleep ;)

For the writing exercise I was thinking of each prompt having its own post, with a 1 through 11 + "Other/Wildcard" list underneath. I am looking for flash fiction stories, like comment-fic snippets ~500 words. So the idea is that when the prompt goes up, you can claim an era if inspiration strikes, and your lj name goes next to that number. First come first serve! And then within a week you post your story in the comments on the post.

Then at the end of 12 weeks, you've got a giant matrix of flash fiction with "Theme/Trope" on the rows, and "Era" in the columns. So one could read in rows to get cross-era stories on the same theme, and down columns to get 12 stories that all relate to the same era. And you've got ~6000 words of awesome per era.

I could post a weekly prompt in the community (or not post the next prompt until all categories for the preceding are filled) and take care of editing the list of claimants, and of poking writers for any holes in the matrix that need back-filled.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Sounds good - I'll look out for it, and post accordingly on the who_at_fifty comm.

As regards the flash-fiction - go for it. I'll be posting the sign-up/discussion posts for the Eleven ficathon sometime this weekend, but you can put up your first prompt post whenever you like - I will leave the timing (weekly or after categories are filled), editing the claimants lists etc up to you. Go wild with it. :D Perhaps let me do my initial post re the friending meme first, so I can sort of announce it as something that is happening on the comm etc.

[eve11]

Sure :)