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Update: In this post I was considering the 40k Eddie Munson Big Bang. I just saw the announcement for a 10k Stranger Things Big Bang which is ... probably a much better idea. 10k feels a bit short for a bang, and I am less interested in a more general bang.
Am I dumb enough to try a Big Bang again? Not only have almost all my experiences with structured fic events been horrible, but the last two I did never actually ran. So, not only did I not know about re-dating, when my fic went live it wasn't part of any event.
I've also dealt with weird stuff with mods that I am not going to bring up publicly in namespace, but when I've posted on FFA 'hey, was this weird of the mod?' the answer was unilateral.
I feel like the spiders Georg of weird BB and Exchange problems. I swore them off forever years ago. I stick to fandom stockings type events only.
Still, I'd really like a chance to do something structured, long term and interactive in the Stranger Things fandom.
The minimum is 40k words I'd have 3 months. But in these three months I also need to:
* Finish my 6+1 story. I have 3/7 chapters posted and some writing done on all remaining chapters. Chapter 4 might be up tonight... but more likely this weekend.
* I must finish Sharkskin before digging in too much on a BB
* I have Still Here to finish, but I don't mind updating that slowly.
But I also need to figure out what to do, especially since I am already writing a long, plotty fic. This will also mean I probably wont get Fake Dating On A Train done before Leverage season 7. I actually do have a good chunk written and could start posting before S7 E1, but finishing it would be deeply unlikely.
I am currently working on two very different stories. I'd need to come up with a different thing to write. Here are my current stories:
Still Here is my long, plotty fic that accounts for all characters and their inner lives. Steve is touch starved and has deep issues with physical contact with male friends due to years of being on sports teams and in paranoid, toxic locker rooms. Both the boys are bi. Eddie is going to wind up being the group archivist.
6+1 is vibes. Everyone is alive. Don't ask me how. Slightly fantastical, whimsical feel. Cozy vibes. Steve is coming to terms with being specifically gay after heterosexuality was such a big part of how he saw himself. I don't know if I should use the word comphet. I do see it casually used for people of all genders, but it started out as a specifically lesbian term. But in my brain this is 'Steve deals with comphet'. Also Eddie is dealing with being forcibly adopted by a large inter-generational family group after having had a rocky, unstable home life.
As much as I enjoy struggling with internalized homophobia, both focus more on the euphoria of realizing who you are. I think The Light Ahead did, too.
So, what to do that is separate from all that?
I don't want to do a Kas!Eddie AU.
I am somewhat intrigued by the idea that after the next Vecna battle everyone still alive wakes up back in 1983 with all their memories. So, Steve, Robin, Max etc all remember everything, but Eddie doesn't. Interesting idea, but I am not sure what I'd do with it.
I do still want to play more with early RPG culture and the importance of lgbt+ bookstores. I also want to write odds and ends like 'Eddie talks to El about taking control of her identity by getting a cover up tattoo, turning numbers into flowers'
I don't want to do any kind of big AU or anything, but I also feel like my current stories covers a lot of what I want to do with Stranger Things. I did some planning last night to make sure I don't mix the sauces.
I am going to at least see if I can come up with an idea. Despite eleventy billion reasons why it's a bad idea, I do want to do the thing
Am I dumb enough to try a Big Bang again? Not only have almost all my experiences with structured fic events been horrible, but the last two I did never actually ran. So, not only did I not know about re-dating, when my fic went live it wasn't part of any event.
I've also dealt with weird stuff with mods that I am not going to bring up publicly in namespace, but when I've posted on FFA 'hey, was this weird of the mod?' the answer was unilateral.
I feel like the spiders Georg of weird BB and Exchange problems. I swore them off forever years ago. I stick to fandom stockings type events only.
Still, I'd really like a chance to do something structured, long term and interactive in the Stranger Things fandom.
The minimum is 40k words I'd have 3 months. But in these three months I also need to:
* Finish my 6+1 story. I have 3/7 chapters posted and some writing done on all remaining chapters. Chapter 4 might be up tonight... but more likely this weekend.
* I must finish Sharkskin before digging in too much on a BB
* I have Still Here to finish, but I don't mind updating that slowly.
But I also need to figure out what to do, especially since I am already writing a long, plotty fic. This will also mean I probably wont get Fake Dating On A Train done before Leverage season 7. I actually do have a good chunk written and could start posting before S7 E1, but finishing it would be deeply unlikely.
I am currently working on two very different stories. I'd need to come up with a different thing to write. Here are my current stories:
Still Here is my long, plotty fic that accounts for all characters and their inner lives. Steve is touch starved and has deep issues with physical contact with male friends due to years of being on sports teams and in paranoid, toxic locker rooms. Both the boys are bi. Eddie is going to wind up being the group archivist.
6+1 is vibes. Everyone is alive. Don't ask me how. Slightly fantastical, whimsical feel. Cozy vibes. Steve is coming to terms with being specifically gay after heterosexuality was such a big part of how he saw himself. I don't know if I should use the word comphet. I do see it casually used for people of all genders, but it started out as a specifically lesbian term. But in my brain this is 'Steve deals with comphet'. Also Eddie is dealing with being forcibly adopted by a large inter-generational family group after having had a rocky, unstable home life.
As much as I enjoy struggling with internalized homophobia, both focus more on the euphoria of realizing who you are. I think The Light Ahead did, too.
So, what to do that is separate from all that?
I don't want to do a Kas!Eddie AU.
I am somewhat intrigued by the idea that after the next Vecna battle everyone still alive wakes up back in 1983 with all their memories. So, Steve, Robin, Max etc all remember everything, but Eddie doesn't. Interesting idea, but I am not sure what I'd do with it.
I do still want to play more with early RPG culture and the importance of lgbt+ bookstores. I also want to write odds and ends like 'Eddie talks to El about taking control of her identity by getting a cover up tattoo, turning numbers into flowers'
I don't want to do any kind of big AU or anything, but I also feel like my current stories covers a lot of what I want to do with Stranger Things. I did some planning last night to make sure I don't mix the sauces.
I am going to at least see if I can come up with an idea. Despite eleventy billion reasons why it's a bad idea, I do want to do the thing
no subject
Date: 2022-08-06 03:32 am (UTC)From:The first one a decade+ ago on LJ was a crossover contest, but we wound up with only me and one other person completing their fics, so the whole thing was basically cancelled.
The one that I returned to fandom with a few years ago had a rocky start as it got targeted by a wave of anti harassment about the fact that the BB allowed NSFW. The mod tried to compromise on rules, and the harassment just moved the goal posts. It went along well for a while, then there was more drama, including mod sockpuppets, and the mod ultimately deciding the drama was too much and that they no longer wanted to be involved. A few participants took over modding and created a new event, which some participants (including me) moved to so that we could complete our work, but it was a MESS for a while.
BUT STILL. I say do the thing if you want to do the thing! (Though... I know that having a bunch of other projects in progress makes it hard to commit to focusing on something with a timeline.)
The 10k one (which I also just saw come up) sounds much more doable than 40k, particularly on a shortish timeline. (A few months for 40k sounds EXTREMELY daunting to me, particularly to put out a nicely finished product. Though 5 months for 10k sounds excessively generous for yes, a pretty short entry for a BB. Though there's no reason you couldn't write something longer. But... I like the appeal of a more focused BB subject than a general fandom one, too. CURSES.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-06 07:18 pm (UTC)From:I want to stay a free agent in case something a bit more suited to me pops up. Fall is coming and Halloween tends to be a big time for events. Maybe I'll sign up to help beta with the Munson BB.
A lot of people have great experiences and do events every year. But my experiences have mostly been awful. I enjoyed Fandom Stockings and helping the low-fills stockings, but that seems to be gone and no clone has enough momentum to really get going.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-08 02:43 am (UTC)From:I hope there IS a ship specific event - that sounds like it would be much more appealing for you to join. Staying a free agent is probably a wise choice!
Yeah, I've seen lots of events that seem to go really well, and friends who are excited about their participation. I'm certainly happy for them, and event type things seem to be one of the best avenues (or SHOULD be) for fandom-as-community.
I never did Fandom Stockings, and I feel a bit like I missed out. I remember seeing something for it last year, probably an attempt at a new revival, but it doesn't surprise me that momentum has been lost. Chocolate Box seemed like another one along similar lines from what I could tell, but I'm not sure I 100% understood how it worked, lol, and haven't ever tried to participate.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-08 04:48 am (UTC)From:Some people really find great community with exchanges and the Munson BB had a stated goal of building community, but also it's run on tumblr so... I'd feel differently if it was going to be DW or Discord based.
And yup, it's passed 6969 and is gunning for that top spot. It'll topple Harringrove pretty soon.
I loved doing Fandom Stockings, but I feel like any clone needs at least 200 people for me to be able to join in with my mostly-rare-fandoms. I mean, I am in a juggernaut right now but that's not typical.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-09 01:26 am (UTC)From:I'd be surprised if there wasn't some Steddie-specific event, considering the enormous popularity!
(I'm hoping for some sort of Halloween thing, though. Or maybe I'll find an unofficial inktober prompt list and write based on those or something.)
I am a little leery of anything being run totally on tumblr. That seems difficult from an organizational standpoint, because it's not really set up for direct communication? Reblog threads get unwieldy, and there's not really an in-between option between "totally public" and "private 1-on-1 messaging".
I've seen event weeks on tumblr which tend to be "everyone make their own stuff based on the prompts, and we'll reblog the works!" which can be fun, and the platform is fine for, but it's not really community-focused.
Rare fandoms are rough. Yuletide is still a thing I guess, though it's another one that I've spent forever hearing about but don't really know the workings of. But yeah, if you've only got 50 - 100 or so participants, that's a decently sized event... but probably still going to mostly have people into a wide spread of medium-to-large fandoms, and not necessarily the really small ones.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-09 04:07 am (UTC)From:Some people enjoy Yuletide. It's not my thing. And also *cough* sometimes in small fandoms when authors find themselves to be persona-non-grata and can't do events in that fandom, they move onto yuletide. Yuldetide became the new home of some serious wankers in my fandom and I'mma just let them try to start over there.
Yuletide is also a bit weird in that it can have big effects on small fandoms. The top Jooster fic all being omegaverse is due to yuletide. It can create weird impressions as to what fandoms are like and what tropes are popular. In another of my fandoms all the top fics are from yuletide and the writing quality is... hard to decipher.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-09 11:35 pm (UTC)From:Lol, I feel like I'd kind of heard there were some drama-mongers who'd found "refuge" in Yuletide. I haven't ever really looked much at Yuletide, so about all I really know is it's for small fandoms and that it has been very long-running. But yeah, maybe it's best serving as containment for certain people, haha.
Though huh, that's not something I'd really thought of, in terms of it skewing the perception of some of those smaller fandoms and what is most-liked within them. It doesn't surprise me that the quality could be... extremely variable.