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[lirren]

So I see someone has started a com for a Teen Wolf rare pairs fic fest, but I'm pretty disappointed because I'm not comfortable with the rules. My main concern is that you have to sign up without ever seeing any of the prompts. I don't understand the point of that. Why would you hide all the prompts and not let anyone see them? And why would you

Comments

[fluffyllama]

Yeah, I wondering whether to mention something about the minimum word count, because I've never seen one set at 3k unless it's intentionally a long fic challenge of some kind. 3-5k is right in my comfort zone, but it would really depend on the prompts available.

As I understand it, signing up now doesn't obligate you to anything, so maybe they are just using it as some sort of guide as to the potential sign ups and fandoms?

[lirren]

I think they're really limiting participation by doing that, though, especially in combination with keeping all the prompts hidden. I would be more likely to sign up if I saw a prompt that caught my attention. And I don't understand why sign ups are even necessary. It's a prompt grab, rather than an exchange, so I don't understand the need to know ahead of time how many participants there will be. It's not even a good measure of participants if signing up doesn't obligate you to write. So what's the point of making people sign up ahead of time?

[fluffyllama]

It's definitely a bit odd. Seconding the hope that it doesn't adversely affect a fest in twrarepairs. I'm really looking forward to that!

[whoviantrekster]

As long as there is still interest, there's no reason why it would have to affect anything going on at twrarepairs. :)

Let's just look at it this way, no matter what way the mod is going about it: more rare pair fic for our fandom!

[whoviantrekster]

O_o from the way you describe it, whoever is doing this is going about it entirely in the wrong way. That is not the way a prompt grab works at all. You actually have to see the prompts in order to decide which one you want/if you want to join in at all. I would never sign up for a prompt grab where I couldn't see the prompts first.

[lirren]

I've never seen a prompt grab where the prompts are hidden. And I've never participated in one where you had to sign up in advance of the claim post going up. Actually, I've never even seen one where you had to sign up in advance, but it's possible that's common in some fandoms and I've just never seen it. None of the fandoms I've been active in have ever required sign ups for a prompt grab, only for exchanges.

[whoviantrekster]

How is that even going to work with the people signing up? Is the mod going to assign prompts instead of letting people choose their own?

The only fests I've participated in that weren't exchanges were in Tokio Hotel fandom, so I'm not sure if it's common in other fandoms, either. I don't see why it would be. It's very limiting, tbh, because a person might be hesitant to join in until they see the actual prompts and find themselves inspired. That's pretty much happened to me every time I participated in a prompt grab. I wasn't going to participate but then I saw the prompts list and changed my mind.

Forcing sign ups and keeping the prompts hidden really just cancels out the possibility of that happening and keeps the number of participants lower than it might be otherwise.

[lirren]

No, from what I read she's requiring sign ups so she can contact the participants to tell them they got the prompt they claimed. I...don't understand why it's necessary to sign up in advance for that. And I don't understand why that has to be done by email. The ones I've run in the past, we just responded to the claim comment with a reply that they got the prompt they claimed. Unscreen the claim, respond, rescreen the claim. That way the authors remain secret, but they still know they got the prompt they wanted.

And yeah, I'm with you. The VAST majority of the prompt grabs I've participated in, I've only joined because I happened to see a prompt that really inspired me and got me excited. There's only been a couple where I participated simply because I felt I had to in order to support a friend.

[hamarakissa]

I agree that does seem way strange - at least have the prompts visible so you can see if you want to or can creatively write something for said pairings. And a 3000 min?!? That seems like A LOT :x