straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2024-01-28 03:20 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2024-01-28 03:20 pm
266 | snowflake challenge, exchange talk, & writing prompts
► The prompt for Day Ten of this year’s fandom_snowflake is to make a list of five things. Within like five seconds I went from “having no ideas as to what I can make a list about” to “having too many ideas”. Then I almost went into overkill mode (aka: making five different lists of five things each), but was saved by the fact that I couldn’t settle on which of my list ideas should be the “fifth thing”.
So now, I’m simply sharing the only one which I actually got around to writing during this whole progress, namely, a list of five exchanges that had a particular importance to me of some kind at one point in my life or another.
Or, in other words, it’s basically an abbreviated history of me + multifandom exchanges in the form of a five things list.
1. Yuletide — my first multifandom exchange! I keenly remember patiently waiting to turn eighteen so that I could participate (yes, I was a very, very lawfully-aligned teenager), and spending those years of waiting by hungrily stalking through people’s letters, looking through the collection, and dreaming of how I’d craft my own letter/sign-up once I was finally Allowed. It’s been couple of years since I last signed up for it, but I was only one year shy of having signed up ten years in a row when I stopped, and I have a lot of fond memories of my time with this exchange.
2. Press_Start — I only participated in this one once, during its inaugural round in 2015, but it nonetheless holds a special place in my heart. I still vividly remember how excited I was about it—a specialized exchange focusing on video game canons!! I had such a lovely recip, and remember my assignment—and the experience of writing it—with such fondness. I always meant to participate in the later rounds as well, but somehow the timing never worked out.
3. Darkest Night — I don’t know if this one is even running anymore? I think not. I associate this exchange with my time in the Stand Still Stay Silent fandom, as there were a lot of us signing up for it in the years I participated—and I consider it a key point in my long journey realizing that I do, in fact, like (and in fact, adore) horror. Or at least particular kinds of horror.
4. Trick or Treat — The treating culture in this one was such a treasure, and I appreciated how the “trick” option encouraged more bite-sized pieces of horror to appear in the collection. The current format of the exchange no longer works for me personally, but I had a great time with it in the years I did participate <3
5. Battleship — My current favorite! I love the atmosphere—all that enthusiasm, flexibility, and wild creative freedom that it invokes, as well as how it releases me from the kind of self-imposed mental pressure that haunts me when I do most regular exchanges these days.
► In other news… Femslash February prompts! I can’t remember quite where I came across this (the EAD discord, maybe?), but someone somewhere shared this bingo card mixing the “dark” and “light” prompts. Original tumblr post here.
Idk if I’ll end up writing anything for it, but the prompts (and especially the prompt combos) are quite good. It doesn’t even need to clash with my “finish WIPs” goal for the year, since I do have a few beloved f/f WIPs that would match up with some of the prompts…
fandom_snowflake is to make a list of five things. Within like five seconds I went from “having no ideas as to what I can make a list about” to “having too many ideas”. Then I almost went into overkill mode (aka: making five different lists of five things each), but was saved by the fact that I couldn’t settle on which of my list ideas should be the “fifth thing”. So now, I’m simply sharing the only one which I actually got around to writing during this whole progress, namely, a list of five exchanges that had a particular importance to me of some kind at one point in my life or another.
Or, in other words, it’s basically an abbreviated history of me + multifandom exchanges in the form of a five things list.
1. Yuletide — my first multifandom exchange! I keenly remember patiently waiting to turn eighteen so that I could participate (yes, I was a very, very lawfully-aligned teenager), and spending those years of waiting by hungrily stalking through people’s letters, looking through the collection, and dreaming of how I’d craft my own letter/sign-up once I was finally Allowed. It’s been couple of years since I last signed up for it, but I was only one year shy of having signed up ten years in a row when I stopped, and I have a lot of fond memories of my time with this exchange.
2. Press_Start — I only participated in this one once, during its inaugural round in 2015, but it nonetheless holds a special place in my heart. I still vividly remember how excited I was about it—a specialized exchange focusing on video game canons!! I had such a lovely recip, and remember my assignment—and the experience of writing it—with such fondness. I always meant to participate in the later rounds as well, but somehow the timing never worked out.
3. Darkest Night — I don’t know if this one is even running anymore? I think not. I associate this exchange with my time in the Stand Still Stay Silent fandom, as there were a lot of us signing up for it in the years I participated—and I consider it a key point in my long journey realizing that I do, in fact, like (and in fact, adore) horror. Or at least particular kinds of horror.
4. Trick or Treat — The treating culture in this one was such a treasure, and I appreciated how the “trick” option encouraged more bite-sized pieces of horror to appear in the collection. The current format of the exchange no longer works for me personally, but I had a great time with it in the years I did participate <3
5. Battleship — My current favorite! I love the atmosphere—all that enthusiasm, flexibility, and wild creative freedom that it invokes, as well as how it releases me from the kind of self-imposed mental pressure that haunts me when I do most regular exchanges these days.
► In other news… Femslash February prompts! I can’t remember quite where I came across this (the EAD discord, maybe?), but someone somewhere shared this bingo card mixing the “dark” and “light” prompts. Original tumblr post here.
Idk if I’ll end up writing anything for it, but the prompts (and especially the prompt combos) are quite good. It doesn’t even need to clash with my “finish WIPs” goal for the year, since I do have a few beloved f/f WIPs that would match up with some of the prompts…
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that became longer than I meant for it to be, oops:Basically, this exchange is, as the name implies, based on the game of Battleship. There's been changes made to the format every year, but that remains the main inspiration of the exchange. Regardless of how the specifics play out, everyone who signs up always gets sorted onto one of two teams, and the goal is always to "sink" or "hit" the other team's targets on a board.
Sign-ups take place on AO3, similar to how it works with a regular exchange. (So nominations, tagset, etc. I'm not sure how familiar you are with how that works, so if you need more explanation than that, I'd be very very happy to explain it! I just don't want to unnecessarily tl;dr about something you already know if you are familiar with it.) You sign up with between 1-10 requests, with the required fields being the fandom, requested ships/characters, and requested freeform tags from the tagset.
Each team is given a board divded up into smaller squares. Each of these squares has a tag from the aforementioned freeforms list (or, as of last year, two tags) and a number on it. The number signifies how many works using that tag (or tags, as of last year) need to be made in order for your team to call a "shot" on that square. The first team to successfully find and hit the opposing team's targets wins.
In the years I participated, there were multiple boards that needed to be uncovered, as well as "boss fights" in-between. In order for works to be revealed, we need to have both a winning team, and everyone who signed up must have received at least one gift.
Each fill must be a gift for someone who signed up or left a prompt in the prompt colleciton, and it has to include at least one of their requested freeforms, though the tag they requested doesn't have to be the one you're targeting on the board, if that makes sense. Each work can also hit more than one tag, though there are restrictions on this.
You're also not actually required to create anything; there's no punishment or shame if you sign up, but don't manage to finish anything in time or realize after the fact that the format don't work for you. Tbh people are mostly just happy that they have more requests to create for! There's also a prompt collection for people who want to request things but not sign-up (though there's not gift guarantee for that one), while people who are instead in making things but don't want to request anything usually also are given a way to participate. Though imo the most fun is signing up and joining a team.
It's a very high-energy, fast-paced experience. There's never an official end date, but it usually lasts about three weeks
weeks in which I basically live and breathe BattleshipI do know that some people find it stressful/not for them, but I personally find it very freeing. It's definitely not the exchange to go to if you're looking for a perfectly tailored gift, but if you're in it for the love of writing (/creating, since it's multi-format, but for me it's writing) and the joy of the game, it's a wonderful experience.This was a lot more than I meant to write, but I kept thinking of more and more to say... in any case, if you have any questions, feel free to ask! I'm happy to ramble on more if needed. It can sound complicated when reading through explanations of it, but imo when you're actually playing, it's pretty clear.
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