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1 00:00:00,960 –> 00:00:03,760 So you want to organize a fan event?…

2 00:00:04,460 –> 00:00:06,380 Welcome, Citrus Con.

3 00:00:06,680 –> 00:00:08,820 whimwitch: This is whimwitch, and I'm here- SCUMSUCK: And Scumsuck.

4 00:00:09,540 –> 00:00:12,260 whimwitch: Yeah, I'm here with SCUMSUCK.

5 00:00:12,340 –> 00:00:14,820 And we're going to go over everything you

6 00:00:14,820 –> 00:00:17,020 bizzy bees need to know about what you

7 00:00:17,020 –> 00:00:19,460 need to do to organize fan events for

8 00:00:19,460 –> 00:00:21,940 your own fandoms.

9 00:00:21,940 –> 00:00:24,500 So in general, we're going to go over

10 00:00:24,500 –> 00:00:26,980 who we are, and why the hell we feel like

11 00:00:26,980 –> 00:00:29,540 we're the right people to tell you how to

12 00:00:29,540 –> 00:00:31,460 run a fan event. And then we'll go

13 00:00:31,460 –> 00:00:33,780 through all of the details about why a

14 00:00:33,780 –> 00:00:35,340 person might want to run a fan event,

15 00:00:36,080 –> 00:00:37,840 types of fan events that you can run,

16 00:00:38,000 –> 00:00:40,640 where you can run your fan events, how

17 00:00:40,880 –> 00:00:43,200 you run your fan event once you actually

18 00:00:43,520 –> 00:00:46,400 get it rolling, how you might

19 00:00:46,400 –> 00:00:48,720 archive your fan event. What we learned

20 00:00:48,720 –> 00:00:50,640 through our experiences and then we'll

21 00:00:50,640 –> 00:00:53,520 share resources and have a Q&A at

22 00:00:53,520 –> 00:00:55,780 the end since this is a recorded presentation.

23 00:00:56,080 –> 00:01:01,100 So a little bit about us… So I'm whimwitch

24 00:01:01,100 –> 00:01:03,600 Um…there's not a lot to say about me.

25 00:01:03,640 –> 00:01:06,080 I'm gay. I like Yu-gi-oh.

26 00:01:06,080 –> 00:01:08,960 I participate in a lot of fan events and

27 00:01:08,960 –> 00:01:12,160 zines all over the Internet and in real life.

28 00:01:12,560 –> 00:01:16,280 I have run the Yu-gi-oh Rare Pairs Mini Bang for

29 00:01:16,280 –> 00:01:19,740 four years in a row, and I do a

30 00:01:19,840 –> 00:01:22,860 lot of shit posting and blabbing on blorbo.social.

31 00:01:25,200 –> 00:01:28,000 SCUMSUCK: And my name is Maggie. My artist name is

32 00:01:28,000 –> 00:01:30,560 SCUMSUCK. I like SpongeBob.

33 00:01:31,280 –> 00:01:33,880 I run Artcade, which is a creative

34 00:01:33,880 –> 00:01:35,920 exchange for original characters, which

35 00:01:35,920 –> 00:01:38,240 I'm planning to run again this year.

36 00:01:38,240 –> 00:01:40,800 And I've also run a bunch of zines

37 00:01:41,560 –> 00:01:44,320 for myself and for other people to join,

38 00:01:44,680 –> 00:01:47,600 which you can view if you click

39 00:01:47,600 –> 00:01:49,440 on the links in the slide.

40 00:01:50,140 –> 00:01:52,280 I am also on blorbo.social, which is part of the Fediverse.

41 00:01:52,580 –> 00:01:56,300 So join me and whim on anywhere other than Twitter.

42 00:01:56,100 –> 00:01:57,860 whimwitch: (laughs) Hell yeah.

43 00:01:58,560 –> 00:02:01,520 So we both are going to

44 00:02:01,520 –> 00:02:04,400 be talking about two events that we've

45 00:02:04,400 –> 00:02:06,280 run that we thought would be really good

46 00:02:06,280 –> 00:02:08,920 examples for people that are new to fan events,

47 00:02:08,920 –> 00:02:11,020 Or just want to see behind the

48 00:02:11,020 –> 00:02:13,540 curtain a little bit for how we

49 00:02:13,540 –> 00:02:16,420 actually put all of this together.

50 00:02:16,420 –> 00:02:18,880 So my event is the Yu-gi-oh Repairs Mini Bang,

51 00:02:18,680 –> 00:02:24,400 and basically it's this huge collaboration where people

52 00:02:24,880 –> 00:02:27,320 are partnered with an artist or a writer,

53 00:02:27,320 –> 00:02:29,440 depending on the ordering of the year

54 00:02:29,440 –> 00:02:31,320 since we go back and forth between the setup.

55 00:02:31,720 –> 00:02:34,120 And we have a ton of people

56 00:02:34,120 –> 00:02:36,040 that create pieces that go together.

57 00:02:36,140 –> 00:02:37,860 And every year I put it together

58 00:02:37,860 –> 00:02:40,100 in a huge master spreadsheet

59 00:02:40,100 –> 00:02:42,160 since everybody's posting everywhere

60 00:02:42,160 –> 00:02:44,080 online these days. So it's nice to have

61 00:02:44,080 –> 00:02:45,840 everything collected together in the end.

62 00:02:46,800 –> 00:02:49,200 SCUMSUCK: And I run Artcade,

63 00:02:49,600 –> 00:02:52,240 which the last year

64 00:02:52,640 –> 00:02:54,720 was on Dreamwidth, and I

65 00:02:54,720 –> 00:02:57,520 continue to want to run it on Dreamwidth.

66 00:02:58,080 –> 00:03:00,880 People sign up by posting a sort of

67 00:03:00,880 –> 00:03:02,760 exchange letter with a list of the

68 00:03:02,800 –> 00:03:05,720 characters they want to see, you know…

69 00:03:05,720 –> 00:03:09,740 drawn, written about, or other creative things made about.

70 00:03:10,320 –> 00:03:12,820 And then people simply respond to the post

71 00:03:13,420 –> 00:03:15,340 with works they made for that person.

72 00:03:15,340 –> 00:03:18,240 There's no obligation to do, uh…

73 00:03:18,880 –> 00:03:21,760 trades, but it's highly encouraged to

74 00:03:21,760 –> 00:03:23,640 make something for someone else who has

75 00:03:23,640 –> 00:03:25,240 chosen to make something for you.

76 00:03:25,240 –> 00:03:27,280 It's a complete free for all, but we've had

77 00:03:27,480 –> 00:03:30,920 people make like 200 things total in like one month.

78 00:03:30,920 –> 00:03:34,160 So people get really motivated to just start making things

79 00:03:34,160 –> 00:03:35,640 when you don't give them deadlines.

80 00:03:36,973 –> 00:03:39,653 whimwitch: So when you are trying to

81 00:03:39,693 –> 00:03:42,693 decide that you're wanting to run a fan

82 00:03:42,693 –> 00:03:44,333 event, I feel like the most important

83 00:03:44,333 –> 00:03:46,413 thing to consider is what's your why?

84 00:03:46,493 –> 00:03:48,413 Like, what is the reason why you want to

85 00:03:48,413 –> 00:03:50,973 go through all this work to bring people

86 00:03:50,973 –> 00:03:53,653 together and moderate an event?

87 00:03:53,733 –> 00:03:56,713 So you might want to think about a particular niche

88 00:03:56,713 –> 00:03:58,593 that might be missing in your fandom.

89 00:03:58,593 –> 00:04:00,573 Um, for example…

90 00:04:00,573 –> 00:04:03,293 maybe you're interested in rare pairs,

91 00:04:03,293 –> 00:04:05,613 or there's a specific ship that you're

92 00:04:05,613 –> 00:04:08,573 interested in that doesn't really have, um…

93 00:04:08,653 –> 00:04:11,293 its own event because maybe there are

94 00:04:11,293 –> 00:04:13,253 like a whole bunch of fans that you

95 00:04:13,253 –> 00:04:15,013 personally know that you really want to

96 00:04:15,013 –> 00:04:16,893 collaborate with, but you just need to

97 00:04:16,893 –> 00:04:19,513 find the perfect excuse to bring them all together.

98 00:04:19,513 –> 00:04:21,853 That might be a reason why you

99 00:04:21,893 –> 00:04:24,353 might put a fan event together.

100 00:04:24,353 –> 00:04:26,233 Or maybe there's a lack of fan events in your fandom.

101 00:04:26,333 –> 00:04:28,773 You might want to build community

102 00:04:28,773 –> 00:04:31,573 on top of creating art.

103 00:04:31,853 –> 00:04:33,453 Or like I said, you might want to be

104 00:04:33,453 –> 00:04:35,053 bringing together specific groups of people.

105 00:04:35,053 –> 00:04:37,773 So this could be outside of

106 00:04:37,773 –> 00:04:40,453 even the fandom perspective.

107 00:04:40,933 –> 00:04:43,513 You might be interested in a specific kink or fetish,

108 00:04:43,513 –> 00:04:45,853 and that can be a really nice way

109 00:04:45,853 –> 00:04:48,573 to collaborate with people outside of

110 00:04:48,573 –> 00:04:50,813 your fandom through a shared interest.

111 00:04:51,613 –> 00:04:54,013 But most of all, you want to think about (laughs)

112 00:04:54,653 –> 00:04:57,613 if <i>YOU</i> yourself are a masochist and

113 00:04:57,613 –> 00:05:00,413 you personally enjoy putting in a lot of

114 00:05:00,413 –> 00:05:02,893 work where you might not be getting a lot of

115 00:05:03,013 –> 00:05:07,193 you know, really tangible rewards out of it.

116 00:05:07,593 –> 00:05:09,653 Aside from the fact that you feel good about

117 00:05:09,953 –> 00:05:12,033 creating this space for other people.

118 00:05:12,533 –> 00:05:15,333 You really want to think about what you personally

119 00:05:15,333 –> 00:05:17,453 want out of this event, and if there might be

120 00:05:17,453 –> 00:05:20,253 better avenues to do whatever you're

121 00:05:20,253 –> 00:05:22,653 interested in outside of a fan event

122 00:05:22,653 –> 00:05:25,653 if it's not something that, um, makes you

123 00:05:25,653 –> 00:05:28,413 really feel like you're compelled to organize something.

124 00:05:30,493 –> 00:05:33,213 And so SCUMSUCK and I thought about our

125 00:05:33,213 –> 00:05:35,853 own events and why we decided to run them,

126 00:05:35,853 –> 00:05:37,773 and we felt like there was a lot of overlap.

127 00:05:38,173 –> 00:05:42,373 So I would say for the rare pairs mini bang that I run,

128 00:05:43,113 –> 00:05:45,353 um, specific to that event, there were a lot

129 00:05:45,553 –> 00:05:48,173 of fandom wide events, but typically they

130 00:05:48,173 –> 00:05:50,733 were dominated by about 5 popular ships.

131 00:05:51,053 –> 00:05:52,653 And they were not really welcoming to

132 00:05:52,653 –> 00:05:55,653 people that were interested in spin-offs of Yu-gi-oh.

133 00:05:55,693 –> 00:05:57,573 It was mostly just people

134 00:05:57,573 –> 00:06:01,213 who were fans of the original series, which is Duel Monsters.

135 00:06:01,213 –> 00:06:05,253 And I would also say that I was really interested in

136 00:06:05,253 –> 00:06:07,373 focusing on rare pairs because in

137 00:06:07,373 –> 00:06:09,613 personal circles that I was in,

138 00:06:09,613 –> 00:06:11,533 there were a lot of friends that I had

139 00:06:11,533 –> 00:06:13,773 that were interested in rare pairs.

140 00:06:13,773 –> 00:06:16,173 And even if you yourself are not especially

141 00:06:16,173 –> 00:06:18,653 familiar with that rare pair, I feel like

142 00:06:18,653 –> 00:06:21,373 a lot of times rare shippers are more

143 00:06:21,373 –> 00:06:26,173 likely to support other people that also like rare pairs.

144 00:06:26,253 –> 00:06:29,213 SCUMSUCK: And for Artcade, my own reasons were

145 00:06:29,213 –> 00:06:34,413 because original character communities are usually very

146 00:06:34,413 –> 00:06:37,213 child friendly and will ban you for

147 00:06:37,213 –> 00:06:42,173 having 18+ art off site or even implied on their website.

148 00:06:43,053 –> 00:06:46,053 So, I'm an adult. All my friends are adults.

149 00:06:46,053 –> 00:06:51,613 And I thought that we needed a space to do this.

150 00:06:51,613 –> 00:06:54,493 This also was concurrent with, like, just after,

151 00:06:54,493 –> 00:06:57,133 like, Tumblr had started banning all NSFW art.

152 00:06:57,133 –> 00:07:00,013 And everyone's realizing, “Oh no,

153 00:07:00,333 –> 00:07:02,693 porn or other adult things are going to

154 00:07:02,693 –> 00:07:04,473 disappear offline if we don't preserve it.”

155 00:07:04,473 –> 00:07:07,053 So I want to encourage people to make

156 00:07:07,053 –> 00:07:09,413 their own spaces on their own websites to

157 00:07:09,413 –> 00:07:11,933 archive their stories and characters

158 00:07:12,493 –> 00:07:14,013 if they happen to contain things that

159 00:07:14,013 –> 00:07:16,093 might not be allowed on the open web.

160 00:07:17,133 –> 00:07:19,293 The other third point is very similar to whim's

161 00:07:19,293 –> 00:07:24,373 in that people who have OCs are generally going to be interested

162 00:07:24,373 –> 00:07:26,813 in other people's characters as well

163 00:07:26,813 –> 00:07:29,333 because we don't have a built-in fandom

164 00:07:29,333 –> 00:07:31,493 like, you know, mainstream media.

165 00:07:31,493 –> 00:07:33,613 We have to support each other and make fan art

166 00:07:33,613 –> 00:07:35,853 for each other to make each other happy.

167 00:07:36,893 –> 00:07:39,853 And, uh, I just feel like…

168 00:07:39,853 –> 00:07:41,133 you know, if you're stuck in your own brain space

169 00:07:41,133 –> 00:07:43,533 talking about your character, you're likely to, like, get into someone else's

170 00:07:43,533 –> 00:07:45,133 brain worms about their character too.

171 00:07:45,613 –> 00:07:46,653 Much like rare pairs.

172 00:07:47,853 –> 00:07:49,853 whimwitch: Absolutely.

173 00:07:50,253 –> 00:07:54,253 And something that we definitely share with the reasons why we made events,

174 00:07:54,353 –> 00:07:58,193 which might resonate with a lot of people watching this right now,

175 00:07:58,193 –> 00:08:02,673 is that, um, there weren't really other spaces in fandom or OCs-

176 00:08:02,893 –> 00:08:05,213 OC communities for our particular niche.

177 00:08:05,373 –> 00:08:07,053 We wanted to create these collaborative

178 00:08:07,053 –> 00:08:09,773 spaces for a wide range of art styles,

179 00:08:10,173 –> 00:08:12,413 especially when there's certain events

180 00:08:12,413 –> 00:08:17,693 that might only focus on fic or might only focus on 2D art

181 00:08:18,173 –> 00:08:22,653 that's more traditional and not inclusive of all kinds of other art.

182 00:08:22,653 –> 00:08:25,373 Cause like, with Artcade, um, what types of

183 00:08:25,373 –> 00:08:28,173 art have you had people contribute?

184 00:08:29,293 –> 00:08:31,973 SCUMSUCK: Oh yeah, whim made a recipe based on one

185 00:08:31,973 –> 00:08:35,533 of my characters in the voice of that character, which is really cool.

186 00:08:35,057 –> 00:08:36,429 whimwitch: (laughs) Oh yeah!

187 00:08:35,853 –> 00:08:41,053 SCUMSUCK: And then people make music playlists based on each other's characters vibes.

188 00:08:41,053 –> 00:08:43,453 So I'm just in love with like every sort of art.

189 00:08:43,453 –> 00:08:47,093 Like if you put creative effort into it, like that's just so cool.

190 00:08:47,293 –> 00:08:50,073 whimwitch: Yeah. And then also like, there's a lot of freedom

191 00:08:50,613 –> 00:08:56,053 that you yourself can have from freeing yourself from limitations

192 00:08:56,053 –> 00:08:57,833 that maybe you've experienced in other events

193 00:08:57,833 –> 00:09:02,373 when you can kind of tailor it to your specific interests

194 00:09:02,373 –> 00:09:04,133 and your specific needs within a fandom.

195 00:09:06,372 –> 00:09:09,012 So there's a ton of different fan events,

196 00:09:09,012 –> 00:09:11,292 which we're going to cover briefly,

197 00:09:11,292 –> 00:09:13,332 but when you're looking through these,

198 00:09:13,332 –> 00:09:16,672 you might want to be considering some of these different questions

199 00:09:16,872 –> 00:09:21,712 just to figure out what type of event might fit the kind of community you're trying to create.

200 00:09:21,712 –> 00:09:25,892 So you might want to consider the types of fan works you currently see in your fandom.

201 00:09:25,892 –> 00:09:30,772 You know, is it a really fic heavy fandom, or is it a really art heavy fandom?

202 00:09:30,772 –> 00:09:33,352 Because based on that,

203 00:09:33,412 –> 00:09:37,872 you might have a harder time drawing in writers if you don't really see

204 00:09:37,892 –> 00:09:41,992 very many fics for your fandom at all, but maybe there's a lot of artists.

205 00:09:41,992 –> 00:09:44,652 Or maybe you want to really foster, um,

206 00:09:44,652 –> 00:09:49,632 more people to feel like they can create art for a fandom that might be really fic heavy.

207 00:09:49,632 –> 00:09:52,992 So maybe then you would want to have an art focused event,

208 00:09:52,992 –> 00:09:55,572 but then maybe you want to really make sure that your

209 00:09:55,572 –> 00:10:01,012 expectations are lower if you know that maybe there won't be as many people interested.

210 00:10:01,012 –> 00:10:04,012 But I think that's kind of the beauty of this is when

211 00:10:04,012 –> 00:10:08,092 you have really small event, it's really a nice way to foster little communities.

212 00:10:08,092 –> 00:10:13,152 And you never know who's out there until you actually create the event.

213 00:10:14,192 –> 00:10:16,692 And then you also want to consider maybe what the

214 00:10:16,932 –> 00:10:19,412 average fan is like in your fandom,

215 00:10:19,412 –> 00:10:21,052 like the typical fic length.

216 00:10:21,652 –> 00:10:23,732 If you're in a fandom where it's not really common for

217 00:10:23,732 –> 00:10:27,112 people to write fics that are over 10K,

218 00:10:27,112 –> 00:10:32,892 you probably don't want to do a big bang where your minimum is a 50K fic.

219 00:10:32,992 –> 00:10:35,032 It's just not going to be realistic.

220 00:10:35,532 –> 00:10:38,432 Um, you might want to also think about where people are posting their fan works,

221 00:10:38,432 –> 00:10:40,332 and if there are already people

222 00:10:40,332 –> 00:10:44,392 within the fandom that seem like they like to collaborate with each other,

223 00:10:44,612 –> 00:10:47,092 especially if you have friends that collaborate,

224 00:10:47,092 –> 00:10:51,492 it's a nice way to reach out to them personally to bring them in.

225 00:10:51,492 –> 00:10:54,932 And it makes it a lot easier to build that community when you already know people

226 00:10:54,932 –> 00:10:58,052 who are willing to share their works with each other.

227 00:11:00,212 –> 00:11:03,412 So there are a lot of different types of fan events.

228 00:11:03,412 –> 00:11:06,672 We're going to cover 6 main types today.

229 00:11:06,772 –> 00:11:15,092 So there are bangs, exchanges, anon or kink memes, fan weeks, fanzines, and gameified fan events.

230 00:11:15,652 –> 00:11:20,112 So starting off with big bangs or mini bangs or reverse bangs.

231 00:11:20,112 –> 00:11:23,052 As we go through these slides, you might want to take a look at

232 00:11:23,052 –> 00:11:24,972 the pros and cons for each type of event

233 00:11:24,972 –> 00:11:27,432 to decide if this might be the right fit for you.

234 00:11:27,432 –> 00:11:33,072 But a bang is a partnered writing or art collaboration event

235 00:11:33,072 –> 00:11:38,392 where people are making art based on each other's art, essentially.

236 00:11:38,392 –> 00:11:41,812 So there might be a person who writes a fic

237 00:11:41,812 –> 00:11:44,212 and then somebody creates art for it,

238 00:11:44,212 –> 00:11:46,532 like this example here. This is the DeanCas Big Bang.

239 00:11:47,252 –> 00:11:49,252 It's been running for 15 years.

240 00:11:49,252 –> 00:11:52,632 It's a really, <i>really</i> good example if you're interested in running bangs.

241 00:11:52,632 –> 00:11:55,312 I would definitely recommend looking at this.

242 00:11:55,332 –> 00:11:59,332 But there are also reverse bangs where a person might make a piece of fan art

243 00:11:59,332 –> 00:12:01,832 and then someone makes a fic based on it.

244 00:12:02,192 –> 00:12:05,892 So why it's called a Big Bang is just because when you're making all of

245 00:12:05,892 –> 00:12:09,232 this content, and it's all published all at the same time,

246 00:12:09,332 –> 00:12:12,592 there's usually like a week or a month

247 00:12:12,592 –> 00:12:17,032 where everybody's posting their fics and art all together.

248 00:12:17,132 –> 00:12:18,932 It's like this huge burst of content.

249 00:12:18,932 –> 00:12:21,252 So it's like this big bang in the universe that is

250 00:12:21,252 –> 00:12:23,572 giving you this wonderful gift of a ship.

251 00:12:25,092 –> 00:12:27,252 SCUMSUCK: And next we have Exchanges.

252 00:12:27,812 –> 00:12:31,732 Basically, you sign up with a request and you fill others' requests.

253 00:12:31,732 –> 00:12:33,312 Sometimes it's done more formally where you're assigned

254 00:12:33,312 –> 00:12:35,792 a fill, other times it's a free-for-all.

255 00:12:35,812 –> 00:12:37,492 The image I have here is an example of

256 00:12:37,492 –> 00:12:42,292 what you will get if you sign up for an exchange on AO3.

257 00:12:42,292 –> 00:12:44,932 You can see that this person got assigned

258 00:12:45,092 –> 00:12:47,592 someone who requested Despicable Me fan fiction,

259 00:12:47,592 –> 00:12:52,392 and they have their likes listed as well as their DNWs.

260 00:12:52,392 –> 00:12:54,792 DNWs stand for “do not want,” and you commonly put that

261 00:12:55,092 –> 00:12:57,412 in your exchange letter so people know,

262 00:12:57,412 –> 00:12:59,652 “I really don't like this. Please don't put it in my fic!”

263 00:12:59,952 –> 00:13:02,212 And it does not have to be on AO3.

264 00:13:02,212 –> 00:13:04,452 It can be a Secret Santa.

265 00:13:05,032 –> 00:13:07,592 It can be a free for all like Fandomtrees.

266 00:13:07,892 –> 00:13:10,852 The possibilities are endless.

267 00:13:12,052 –> 00:13:15,012 whimwitch: Then there's also Anon or Kink Memes.

268 00:13:15,012 –> 00:13:17,652 These are not as common anymore, but they were

269 00:13:17,652 –> 00:13:19,972 very, very popular on Live Journal and

270 00:13:19,972 –> 00:13:21,492 they're still around on Dreamwidth.

271 00:13:21,892 –> 00:13:24,772 Sometimes you might see them on AO3, but

272 00:13:24,772 –> 00:13:29,732 they're basically an anonymous prompting event where somebody

273 00:13:29,732 –> 00:13:32,692 leaves a prompt specific to a fandom or a ship,

274 00:13:32,692 –> 00:13:36,652 and then they wait very, very, very patiently for another person to fill it.

275 00:13:36,932 –> 00:13:43,052 So in this example here, this is from um, a Disney Kink meme where

276 00:13:43,052 –> 00:13:46,232 this person's requesting some- something for Ratatouille.

277 00:13:46,232 –> 00:13:48,872 And they're interested in Colette and Linguini's first time,

278 00:13:49,072 –> 00:13:53,472 and then someone would reply to this with a fill.

279 00:13:54,112 –> 00:13:57,292 So it could be a fic. I've also seen art fills for these.

280 00:13:57,972 –> 00:14:00,772 It really is up to whoever wants to run it.

281 00:14:01,412 –> 00:14:05,592 But it's definitely something that a lot of people aren't really familiar with anymore,

282 00:14:05,772 –> 00:14:09,172 but it's very low stakes as far as an organizer since it's not really

283 00:14:09,172 –> 00:14:11,492 based around any set time.

284 00:14:12,772 –> 00:14:18,532 SCUMSUCK: And here we have Fan Weeks, typically run as a hashtag on social media.

285 00:14:18,532 –> 00:14:20,692 The event account will post prompts for the week

286 00:14:20,772 –> 00:14:23,492 and people will post their fan works, uh,

287 00:14:23,492 –> 00:14:28,492 usually using those prompts as inspiration in that same hashtag for people to find.

288 00:14:28,492 –> 00:14:32,932 The example I have here is a Inktober thing I ran for

289 00:14:32,932 –> 00:14:35,412 my Discord server, where I had various

290 00:14:35,692 –> 00:14:38,132 different prompts for people to fill.

291 00:14:38,132 –> 00:14:42,252 And it was very low pressure to just like, choose one or none.

292 00:14:42,452 –> 00:14:44,792 If you didn't like any of them, just skip to the next week,

293 00:14:44,832 –> 00:14:47,592 and just post it for everyone to see and everyone will appreciate it.

294 00:14:49,972 –> 00:14:52,132 Next we have Fan Zines.

295 00:14:52,132 –> 00:14:55,092 These are printed or digital fan anthology projects.

296 00:14:55,192 –> 00:14:59,072 The larger expensive ones are sometimes for profit, charity,

297 00:14:59,072 –> 00:15:03,552 or include merch, but this is not necessary at all to make a zine.

298 00:15:03,552 –> 00:15:07,332 The very base definition is to just have something to read.

299 00:15:08,132 –> 00:15:10,452 The examples I have here are a zine I ran

300 00:15:10,452 –> 00:15:15,752 based on the concept of a Girl Scout character from Team Fortress 2.

301 00:15:15,752 –> 00:15:18,712 And I made a physical zine with

302 00:15:19,332 –> 00:15:22,032 lots of combination of text and images,

303 00:15:22,032 –> 00:15:25,972 as well as a little bit of extra stickers to go of it.

304 00:15:26,012 –> 00:15:28,472 Again, none of the extras are necessary.

305 00:15:28,612 –> 00:15:31,492 You don't need merch or fancy binding.

306 00:15:31,892 –> 00:15:35,732 I did mine all at home with printer paper and staples.

307 00:15:38,532 –> 00:15:41,752 whimwitch: And last but not least, there are Gameified Fan Events.

308 00:15:41,852 –> 00:15:45,152 And these are basically the same as everything we've

309 00:15:45,152 –> 00:15:47,232 been talking about, where there's some

310 00:15:47,332 –> 00:15:50,092 sort of prompt or it might be a gift,

311 00:15:50,092 –> 00:15:56,772 and it's all unified around either a fandom or a specific, uh, kink or whatever.

312 00:15:56,812 –> 00:16:01,372 But these are creative events with really interesting rules or setups.

313 00:16:01,372 –> 00:16:03,712 And oftentimes they're competitive.

314 00:16:03,712 –> 00:16:05,912 So the example I have here,

315 00:16:05,912 –> 00:16:08,532 this is a multi fandom event that you

316 00:16:08,532 –> 00:16:11,192 might be interested in called Battleship Exchange.

317 00:16:11,192 –> 00:16:14,232 And it's pretty much like the game Battleship.

318 00:16:14,232 –> 00:16:17,092 There's a grid board with coordinate spaces where

319 00:16:17,092 –> 00:16:19,772 somewhere on the board there's going to be battleships,

320 00:16:19,772 –> 00:16:23,652 and you're put on a team where your goal is to fill

321 00:16:23,732 –> 00:16:27,792 whatever the prompt is within the spot on the board,

322 00:16:27,792 –> 00:16:31,572 and you're going to hope that you're going to sink somebody's battleship.

323 00:16:31,672 –> 00:16:34,232 And it runs really quickly because people are just filling these

324 00:16:34,332 –> 00:16:36,212 prompts as fast as possible to clear the board.

325 00:16:36,212 –> 00:16:39,112 But there are also bingo events.

326 00:16:39,112 –> 00:16:43,092 I feel like a lot of times those tend to be multi fandom.

327 00:16:43,252 –> 00:16:46,672 The limits are really up to the organizer.

328 00:16:46,712 –> 00:16:49,972 You can do pretty much whatever you want with these.

329 00:16:50,784 –> 00:16:54,984 So now that you've heard about all of these different types of events,

330 00:16:54,984 –> 00:17:00,924 you might be asking, “whimwitch, SCUMSUCK, how <i>do</i> I organize this event?”

331 00:17:01,104 –> 00:17:04,384 And so I would say the 3 things you really want to

332 00:17:04,384 –> 00:17:09,044 keep in mind before you get involved in planning an event is…

333 00:17:09,064 –> 00:17:12,284 #1: You want to make sure that when you're organizing,

334 00:17:12,284 –> 00:17:14,364 you're prioritizing yourself.

335 00:17:14,464 –> 00:17:19,024 You want to run your event based on your own availability and your own interests.

336 00:17:19,024 –> 00:17:22,844 Because if it's not something you're interested in, you're not going to be (laughs)

337 00:17:22,904 –> 00:17:25,304 wanting to run that event like ever again.

338 00:17:25,604 –> 00:17:32,544 #2: I would also say that it's good to keep in mind that anybody can run an event.

339 00:17:32,544 –> 00:17:35,164 In the words of Chef Gusteau, “Anyone can cook.”

340 00:17:35,164 –> 00:17:36,824 So you might be thinking to yourself,

341 00:17:36,904 –> 00:17:40,584 “I am not good at networking with people.”

342 00:17:40,584 –> 00:17:43,004 Which is not something you need to do to run an event.

343 00:17:43,004 –> 00:17:46,444 Or you might be thinking, “I don't know how to archive things.”

344 00:17:46,444 –> 00:17:48,804 That's definitely something you can learn.

345 00:17:48,804 –> 00:17:51,124 And I would also say that people that participate in these

346 00:17:51,224 –> 00:17:53,704 events are really kind and also willing

347 00:17:53,904 –> 00:17:56,184 to support you through this.

348 00:17:56,184 –> 00:17:59,324 There are a lot of skills you can learn from other people

349 00:17:59,324 –> 00:18:01,764 who might be interested in supporting you

350 00:18:01,764 –> 00:18:04,544 if there's an event you're interested in organizing.

351 00:18:04,944 –> 00:18:08,244 The #3 rule is to not have too many mods!

352 00:18:08,244 –> 00:18:10,444 You do not need a mod for

353 00:18:10,544 –> 00:18:12,504 every single task that you might have to

354 00:18:12,504 –> 00:18:14,264 do to run your event.

355 00:18:14,364 –> 00:18:15,924 The more direct communication can be

356 00:18:15,924 –> 00:18:18,724 with your participants, the better it will be for

357 00:18:18,724 –> 00:18:21,324 you and the people in your community.

358 00:18:21,344 –> 00:18:26,704 It's not really helpful if you have six or seven mods that are each

359 00:18:26,704 –> 00:18:29,264 assigned to a task, but then maybe

360 00:18:29,264 –> 00:18:33,884 there's miscommunication between the mods if a participant reaches out to somebody.

361 00:18:33,884 –> 00:18:38,364 Or maybe people aren't sure when to jump in to actually complete a task.

362 00:18:38,364 –> 00:18:43,624 It's a lot of times easier if you really trim the fat with that

363 00:18:43,624 –> 00:18:49,424 and just have enough people to make it run functionally.

364 00:18:49,424 –> 00:18:52,004 And sometimes that means just you.

365 00:18:52,304 –> 00:18:54,544 SCUMSUCK: And don't worry about doing things that you don't

366 00:18:54,544 –> 00:18:57,124 have any experience in. Like you don't need to hire like

367 00:18:57,424 –> 00:18:59,584 a social media mod or graphics mod.

368 00:19:00,224 –> 00:19:02,544 If you don't know how to use Canva or Photoshop,

369 00:19:03,044 –> 00:19:05,764 make the graphics yourself in MS Paint. It'll look great! I promise you.

370 00:19:05,904 –> 00:19:07,724 And it'll look- …I'll love it!

371 00:19:08,124 –> 00:19:12,684 whimwitch: Definitely! And I think a really good example here of, like,

372 00:19:13,264 –> 00:19:16,984 reaching out to people when you need help for things (laughs)

373 00:19:16,984 –> 00:19:20,424 is when I'm thinking about how I run my event, I really like to

374 00:19:20,784 –> 00:19:23,264 make sure that the participants feel like

375 00:19:23,264 –> 00:19:26,324 they have a stake in it. And so this most recent year,

376 00:19:26,424 –> 00:19:30,244 I reached out to people and asked if they could help me with making a banner.

377 00:19:30,344 –> 00:19:35,104 Because I personally did not have time to draw a bunch of little

378 00:19:35,104 –> 00:19:38,544 different Yu-gi-oh characters, so it was actually really nice to get art from the

379 00:19:38,544 –> 00:19:40,704 community with people just pitching in.

380 00:19:41,024 –> 00:19:43,004 That's something that you can also consider.

381 00:19:43,204 –> 00:19:47,344 But this is the homepage for my event.

382 00:19:47,344 –> 00:19:49,904 I use Dreamwidth because I like to have everything on a

383 00:19:49,904 –> 00:19:52,364 solid platform that's not going to go anywhere.

384 00:19:52,364 –> 00:19:56,824 And I basically make a master post on there with all the

385 00:19:56,824 –> 00:20:00,784 information for people that might be interested in my event.

386 00:20:00,804 –> 00:20:06,164 I have an FAQ; I have a page where I list the specifications; I list the contact information.

387 00:20:06,164 –> 00:20:10,104 But really I make sure that I'm hosting all of my

388 00:20:10,104 –> 00:20:12,624 information in one place, and then I use

389 00:20:12,624 –> 00:20:17,744 other platforms to supplement communication for the event once things are actually running.

390 00:20:19,744 –> 00:20:21,544 SCUMSUCK: Yeah, the same goes for me. I also use

391 00:20:21,584 –> 00:20:24,464 Dreamwidth as the homepage of the event.

392 00:20:24,944 –> 00:20:27,664 It's very useful because people can also

393 00:20:27,664 –> 00:20:33,024 subscribe via e-mail or RSS feed to get updates instead of having to

394 00:20:33,024 –> 00:20:35,264 ping everyone in the busy Discord server.

395 00:20:35,744 –> 00:20:37,744 And keeping links all in one place is

396 00:20:37,744 –> 00:20:40,464 just so good for people being able to

397 00:20:40,464 –> 00:20:42,704 know what the rules are or how to do things.

398 00:20:44,864 –> 00:20:47,104 whimwitch: So when we're thinking about how we run

399 00:20:47,104 –> 00:20:48,624 our events, we thought it would be

400 00:20:48,624 –> 00:20:50,704 helpful to kind of show them side by side

401 00:20:50,704 –> 00:20:53,264 so you can see what things look like for

402 00:20:53,264 –> 00:20:55,104 different events or different ways that

403 00:20:55,104 –> 00:20:57,984 you might want to consider organizing.

404 00:20:57,984 –> 00:21:00,784 {\an8}So for my event, for the mini bang,

405 00:21:00,864 –> 00:21:05,584 {\an8}I use a huge spreadsheet to organize everything from

406 00:21:05,584 –> 00:21:11,504 {\an8}signups, to the claim process to, when the pieces are actually posted.

407 00:21:11,904 –> 00:21:14,064 {\an8}Just because I feel like it's a lot

408 00:21:14,064 –> 00:21:16,264 {\an8}easier for me to go through all of the

409 00:21:16,264 –> 00:21:20,424 {\an8}information as the organizer to just see everything in one place.

410 00:21:20,904 –> 00:21:24,664 {\an8}And since, um, the claim process for a bang is anonymous,

411 00:21:24,664 –> 00:21:29,484 {\an8}it's nice to have that completely separate from a platform where

412 00:21:29,484 –> 00:21:32,464 {\an8}people might be able to see where people are claiming things.

413 00:21:32,564 –> 00:21:36,384 {\an8}Sometimes there can be drama if people see that like one

414 00:21:36,384 –> 00:21:41,044 {\an8}particular prompt summary is really popular and a lot of people are claiming it.

415 00:21:41,344 –> 00:21:44,664 {\an8}Some people might feel bad about the piece that they're creating.

416 00:21:44,964 –> 00:21:49,104 {\an8}So I've felt like it's really helpful when I've run my event to have people…

417 00:21:49,104 –> 00:21:53,064 {\an8}uh, they basically will sign up once they're committed to being

418 00:21:53,064 –> 00:21:55,144 {\an8}in the event and they'll say, you know,

419 00:21:55,144 –> 00:21:59,984 {\an8}“This is the ship I'm going to be using for my piece.

420 00:21:59,984 –> 00:22:05,424 {\an8}Here is a summary of what my piece either looks like if it's art or a summary of the fic.

421 00:22:05,904 –> 00:22:07,864 {\an8}And you know, content warnings and

422 00:22:07,864 –> 00:22:09,864 {\an8}everything people might need to know.”

423 00:22:09,864 –> 00:22:15,024 {\an8}And then for the people that are claiming this piece, they will see these

424 00:22:15,024 –> 00:22:17,824 {\an8}summaries and then they will sign up

425 00:22:17,904 –> 00:22:20,784 {\an8}with a form, and I will hand match

426 00:22:20,784 –> 00:22:25,124 {\an8}all of the people with a partner who's interested in their piece.

427 00:22:25,124 –> 00:22:30,544 {\an8}Usually, I- I ask people to sign up with their top three or their top five, uh, works.

428 00:22:30,584 –> 00:22:34,864 {\an8}And then if anyone is unclaimed, I reach out to people that

429 00:22:34,864 –> 00:22:36,544 {\an8}have shown an interest in pinch hitting

430 00:22:36,604 –> 00:22:41,704 {\an8}and it's worked out really well every single year because I think the

431 00:22:41,704 –> 00:22:43,504 {\an8}pinch hitters feel motivated because they know

432 00:22:43,504 –> 00:22:45,344 {\an8}that they're going to be getting a little

433 00:22:45,344 –> 00:22:47,424 {\an8}gift at the end of the event for their

434 00:22:47,424 –> 00:22:49,744 {\an8}extra work, which is usually just a

435 00:22:49,744 –> 00:22:54,884 {\an8}sketch or somebody might write a short ficlet for them.

436 00:22:55,464 –> 00:22:58,304 {\an8}SCUMSUCK: All right, and for Artcade, I set up

437 00:22:58,384 –> 00:23:01,224 {\an8}the exchange in the style of a free for all.

438 00:23:01,224 –> 00:23:06,144 {\an8}So I took a lot of inspiration from the Fandomtrees event, where people

439 00:23:06,144 –> 00:23:08,684 {\an8}post their exchange letter as its own post,

440 00:23:08,684 –> 00:23:13,424 {\an8}people reply to that exchange letter with their gift,

441 00:23:13,824 –> 00:23:17,684 {\an8}and then you are forced to comment or be shunned from the community.

442 00:23:17,784 –> 00:23:22,644 {\an8}So first you see that I have the basic information in your exchange letter:

443 00:23:22,644 –> 00:23:26,524 {\an8}You need your name, you need a page for your characters,

444 00:23:26,564 –> 00:23:29,584 {\an8}which encourages people to make their own website, by the way.

445 00:23:29,584 –> 00:23:32,864 {\an8}You let people know what your preferred characters are. You can have a lot of characters.

446 00:23:32,864 –> 00:23:35,744 {\an8} You have a bunch of lists of, uh, likes and prompts

447 00:23:36,144 –> 00:23:39,944 {\an8}just to start people off with an idea if they're not familiar with your characters.

448 00:23:40,044 –> 00:23:43,944 {\an8}Then you have do not wants, which is like hard, like, I don't want this.

449 00:23:43,944 –> 00:23:46,544 {\an8}It'll ruin my day if I see this kind of things.

450 00:23:46,544 –> 00:23:49,924 {\an8}And very importantly, repost permissions!

451 00:23:49,924 –> 00:23:55,224 {\an8}So if people want to show off the art they got on their own website,

452 00:23:55,224 –> 00:23:57,584 {\an8}or use it as an icon, it's very easy to just say,

453 00:23:57,584 –> 00:23:59,344 {\an8}“Hey, it's OK for you to do that!”

454 00:23:59,344 –> 00:24:02,224 {\an8}Or, “No, please don't do that!”

455 00:24:02,224 –> 00:24:05,604 {\an8}Next you see a reply to my entry token by loveisshort.

456 00:24:05,604 –> 00:24:10,604 {\an8}They simply replied with a link to a new post in the community

457 00:24:10,624 –> 00:24:13,264 {\an8}that has an image of what they made for me.

458 00:24:13,264 –> 00:24:15,584 {\an8}In this case, it is a drawing.

459 00:24:16,304 –> 00:24:19,264 {\an8}And then I replied with a comment

460 00:24:19,664 –> 00:24:22,164 {\an8}saying, “Oh my God, I love this! You're amazing!

461 00:24:22,164 –> 00:24:24,404 {\an8}I'm going to hang this up and show everyone!”

462 00:24:24,404 –> 00:24:27,364 {\an8}You also see there are eight other comments in this thread

463 00:24:27,864 –> 00:24:32,644 {\an8}and I really welcome other people to comment on art or writing or whatever.

464 00:24:32,644 –> 00:24:34,804 {\an8}Even if it's not for them, you need to look at

465 00:24:34,804 –> 00:24:38,504 {\an8}everyone else's art they made and appreciate it.

466 00:24:38,644 –> 00:24:43,604 {\an8}By the way, this art is by spillingdown, and they have an artist alley table at Citrus Con,

467 00:24:43,604 –> 00:24:46,064 {\an8}so go visit them!

468 00:24:46,864 –> 00:24:50,264 {\an8}whimwitch: Yeah, go be nice to spilly please! They make really good art.

469 00:24:51,684 –> 00:24:54,204 So I'm gonna blab a little bit about bangs,

470 00:24:54,964 –> 00:24:59,524 just because, um, a lot of people aren't really familiar with the mechanics

471 00:24:59,524 –> 00:25:02,724 of these types of events. So I- I mentioned before,

472 00:25:02,724 –> 00:25:06,924 all of my stuff is hosted on Dreamwidth, but outside of

473 00:25:07,364 –> 00:25:11,924 having the sign-ups, uh, through a form and all the spreadsheets are organized,

474 00:25:11,924 –> 00:25:17,924 I also keep a Discord that's used as a chat or an announcement hub.

475 00:25:17,924 –> 00:25:21,924 And I'm going to be mirroring that community to Revolt soon

476 00:25:21,924 –> 00:25:24,484 because Discord really sucks a lot of times (laughs).

477 00:25:24,484 –> 00:25:28,244 But basically I'll keep a lot of information there, and then people can

478 00:25:28,244 –> 00:25:29,764 talk with each other. And it's really

479 00:25:29,764 –> 00:25:32,324 nice to have a Discord community because

480 00:25:32,324 –> 00:25:36,844 then if somebody gets paired up with their partner, they can immediately have

481 00:25:36,844 –> 00:25:39,364 a way to contact them.

482 00:25:39,364 –> 00:25:41,484 But people can also participate in this event through

483 00:25:41,484 –> 00:25:44,464 e-mail only. That's also worked completely fine.

484 00:25:44,944 –> 00:25:48,964 And then I also post announcements to the Fediverse.

485 00:25:49,044 –> 00:25:53,324 So if you've heard of Mastodon, that's one example. And I've bridged my

486 00:25:53,324 –> 00:25:55,444 account to Blue Sky so I don't have to

487 00:25:55,444 –> 00:25:58,564 have multiple accounts to post the same information.

488 00:25:58,564 –> 00:26:03,364 I also sometimes use Tumblr for it, um…used to use Twitter…

489 00:26:03,484 –> 00:26:07,604 but I feel like it's easier to just have a bridged account that people can go to.

490 00:26:07,604 –> 00:26:10,004 And you don't have to have every single

491 00:26:10,004 –> 00:26:12,644 type of social media account to run an event.

492 00:26:12,644 –> 00:26:17,444 And the bang itself, it runs for 4 months with

493 00:26:17,444 –> 00:26:22,964 a sign up process, people claim, and then I have a few check-ins as we go through

494 00:26:22,964 –> 00:26:27,244 those months just to make sure that people are on track to finish.

495 00:26:27,244 –> 00:26:31,824 Because if somebody has to drop out, then I have to find somebody else that can fill in for that person.

496 00:26:31,824 –> 00:26:36,604 And I really like my event switching between being

497 00:26:36,604 –> 00:26:39,284 a traditional bang, where you'll have a

498 00:26:39,364 –> 00:26:44,124 writer that writes a fic and then an artist creates art based off of it.

499 00:26:44,124 –> 00:26:47,044 And then on other opposite years we'll

500 00:26:47,044 –> 00:26:49,004 be a reverse bang where the artists get

501 00:26:49,004 –> 00:26:52,584 to create their piece and then a writer writes a fic based on it.

502 00:26:52,584 –> 00:26:54,824 And I feel like it really keeps things fresh.

503 00:26:55,124 –> 00:26:57,364 You- you don't run into as many issues with people

504 00:26:57,364 –> 00:26:59,364 creating the same thing every single year,

505 00:26:59,364 –> 00:27:01,924 and then you might have people who

506 00:27:01,924 –> 00:27:06,324 lose interest cause there's not as much variety in the ships.

507 00:27:06,404 –> 00:27:08,724 So if you've never seen a bang before, this

508 00:27:08,724 –> 00:27:10,724 is what a regular bang looks like, where

509 00:27:10,724 –> 00:27:13,524 you have this wonderful fic here written

510 00:27:13,524 –> 00:27:16,084 by Millennium Writer, and then you

511 00:27:16,084 –> 00:27:18,884 have art that was inspired by this fic

512 00:27:19,204 –> 00:27:21,844 that was done by SCUMSUCK.

513 00:27:21,844 –> 00:27:24,584 But on the flip side, you could also have a reverse bang,

514 00:27:24,584 –> 00:27:29,544 especially if you have a fandom where people tend to write shorter pieces.

515 00:27:29,544 –> 00:27:34,324 A lot of times reverse bangs have lower word limits, and you'll

516 00:27:34,324 –> 00:27:38,484 have an art piece that then inspires a fic.

517 00:27:39,184 –> 00:27:41,464 SCUMSUCK: And I'd like to talk from my experience as

518 00:27:41,964 –> 00:27:44,964 a participant in whim's bang event.

519 00:27:45,684 –> 00:27:47,644 I have done both the

520 00:27:48,404 –> 00:27:54,084 drawing from someone else's fic experience as well as having

521 00:27:54,124 –> 00:27:59,684 drawn something for someone else to write something based off of.

522 00:28:00,164 –> 00:28:02,884 In this case of Fair Chivalry,

523 00:28:02,884 –> 00:28:08,724 I signed up first because I was very interested in any pairing involving Rishid.

524 00:28:08,724 –> 00:28:13,604 And then we got mashed up together. We DMed each other.

525 00:28:13,604 –> 00:28:19,444 I read the draft of the author's story and kind of zoned in on a

526 00:28:19,444 –> 00:28:21,684 specific scene I want to illustrate.

527 00:28:22,244 –> 00:28:28,164 Something I chose based on what I think would encapsulate the relationship in one scene.

528 00:28:28,464 –> 00:28:35,524 So in this case, Rishid has never really been out for a night at- on the town,

529 00:28:35,924 –> 00:28:41,784 and Kujaku is going to show him what it's like to, like, play cards and stuff.

530 00:28:41,784 –> 00:28:45,364 I thought that really showed the characters off. I told that to my writer.

531 00:28:45,364 –> 00:28:53,924 I sketched out my drawing. They said, “Cool, that's awesome! Could you add this and this detail?”

532 00:28:53,924 –> 00:28:58,724 I specifically asked 'em about details about what sort of cards I should add in their hand

533 00:28:58,724 –> 00:29:02,164 to sort of show the personalities through that as well.

534 00:29:02,684 –> 00:29:05,644 You can see, uh, Kujaku has the king and queen because

535 00:29:05,844 –> 00:29:12,884 she's sort of in charge of this conversation while she is also smirking

536 00:29:12,884 –> 00:29:18,004 because, well, Rishid doesn't know how to play cards very well right now.

537 00:29:18,004 –> 00:29:22,924 But I found this, uh, a very satisfying back and forth situation

538 00:29:22,924 –> 00:29:25,484 because it's very rare that you get such a tailored

539 00:29:25,484 –> 00:29:27,884 feedback to your work, and it's great to

540 00:29:27,884 –> 00:29:29,884 take advantage of this opportunity to

541 00:29:29,884 –> 00:29:32,324 really get like those compliments in,

542 00:29:32,564 –> 00:29:37,644 work each other's stories up, and you'll inform each other's work with

543 00:29:38,404 –> 00:29:43,884 your own like art or writing and make for a much more satisfying final piece where

544 00:29:43,884 –> 00:29:46,724 the art and writing really shake hands and work together.

545 00:29:48,484 –> 00:29:50,684 whimwitch: So I would say some quick advice if

546 00:29:50,684 –> 00:29:52,484 you're interested in running a bang is to

547 00:29:52,484 –> 00:29:57,524 check out ongoing bangs or participate in one first. Just because if you've

548 00:29:57,844 –> 00:30:03,304 never seen this before, it might be a lot easier to understand if you've participated in one first.

549 00:30:04,304 –> 00:30:06,964 But you also want to make sure you have a plan for how

550 00:30:06,964 –> 00:30:09,284 you'll match unclaimed people, because

551 00:30:09,444 –> 00:30:12,164 there are a lot of bangs where people

552 00:30:12,164 –> 00:30:17,904 might have to drop out, and no one ever, um, is able to come in as a pinch hitter.

553 00:30:17,904 –> 00:30:21,524 And it can really suck if you're working on like a 20K fic

554 00:30:22,004 –> 00:30:27,084 and you have no partner there to kind of cheer on your creative process

555 00:30:27,084 –> 00:30:28,944 and collaborate with.

556 00:30:28,944 –> 00:30:31,704 There are a lot of bangs that also match the

557 00:30:32,244 –> 00:30:37,604 fic word count with the quantity of fan art that is given to that person.

558 00:30:38,324 –> 00:30:41,124 And I feel like matching the fic word

559 00:30:41,124 –> 00:30:46,644 count with the amount of fan art somebody can get is really tedious and more stress

560 00:30:46,644 –> 00:30:50,564 than it's worth, including for participants. Especially if,

561 00:30:51,044 –> 00:30:56,244 um, let's say somebody is writing a 15K piece for their Big Bang

562 00:30:56,644 –> 00:31:02,164 and in the tiers of art, that means that they're supposed to get 2 sketches.

563 00:31:02,164 –> 00:31:06,764 But then there's someone who wrote a 50K fic and they're supposed to

564 00:31:06,804 –> 00:31:08,804 get like a six page comic.

565 00:31:09,364 –> 00:31:12,324 And maybe that artist that's doing the

566 00:31:12,324 –> 00:31:14,764 six page comic would have been more than

567 00:31:14,764 –> 00:31:18,244 happy to do a couple of sketches for this person, but because they're so

568 00:31:19,284 –> 00:31:24,364 um, tied to the amount of work that they have to do, it's harder to get artists to cover everybody.

569 00:31:24,364 –> 00:31:28,564 So, I would say that if you're interested in running a bang,

570 00:31:28,564 –> 00:31:33,364 that might be an antiquated feature of bangs that you might want to leave out,

571 00:31:33,364 –> 00:31:35,764 especially if you're not confident that

572 00:31:36,164 –> 00:31:41,604 uh, you'll be able to find people to do all of that art for somebody.

573 00:31:41,604 –> 00:31:43,764 It's also a really good idea in any type of

574 00:31:43,764 –> 00:31:45,484 event to be open to hearing ideas from

575 00:31:45,484 –> 00:31:46,844 your community, cause it really keeps

576 00:31:46,844 –> 00:31:49,044 things fun and organized and people have

577 00:31:49,044 –> 00:31:50,804 a lot of good ideas that maybe you've

578 00:31:50,804 –> 00:31:51,724 never thought about.

579 00:31:52,355 –> 00:31:55,315 So you might wonder where you

580 00:31:55,315 –> 00:31:57,835 can run your fan event after hearing all

581 00:31:57,835 –> 00:32:00,415 of this great information about fan events.

582 00:32:00,439 –> 00:32:04,915 And so it really just depends where you would like your event to be hosted.

583 00:32:04,915 –> 00:32:09,335 So SCUMSUCK, you could, um, walk us through this cause like

584 00:32:09,335 –> 00:32:14,275 you've used probably all of these platforms when thinking about fan events.

585 00:32:14,275 –> 00:32:17,235 So, um, w-what are your thoughts on this?

586 00:32:18,675 –> 00:32:21,395 SCUMSUCK: Oh yeah, I think you want to

587 00:32:21,395 –> 00:32:25,315 decide first what kind of fan event you wanna run, and figure out what are the

588 00:32:25,315 –> 00:32:30,415 strengths of each platform to streamline communications and posting.

589 00:32:30,515 –> 00:32:35,395 You may or may not wanna use multiple platforms, but the less you have,

590 00:32:35,395 –> 00:32:39,795 the easier it is to keep track of everything. For example, like

591 00:32:39,875 –> 00:32:46,635 everyone has an e-mail, but does everyone check it? It's very slow, you don't get instant feedback.

592 00:32:46,635 –> 00:32:50,835 Discord: instant messaging, instant feedback. People are yapping on there all the time,

593 00:32:50,835 –> 00:32:53,475 but can you keep track of all of that?

594 00:32:53,475 –> 00:32:58,035 You also think about the life expectancy of the platform because we live in an age where

595 00:32:59,075 –> 00:33:00,995 sites are going up and down all the time.

596 00:33:00,995 –> 00:33:05,475 They make new rules, they ban certain things. So a lot of popular corporate

597 00:33:05,475 –> 00:33:10,115 social media is going to go through ups and downs, while smaller things like,

598 00:33:10,355 –> 00:33:16,515 say, Dreamwidth, e-mail, the fediverse… You're a little bit more stable in their rulings.

599 00:33:16,815 –> 00:33:22,835 Uh, self hosted is also possible. There are sites like Creative Clash and Art Fight

600 00:33:22,835 –> 00:33:27,775 which I know have their own website, forums and image uploading.

601 00:33:27,775 –> 00:33:32,035 But that is very time intensive and expensive cause I always see these sites asking for like

602 00:33:32,035 –> 00:33:36,075 fundraisers to keep their site going and that that can range into like the

603 00:33:36,075 –> 00:33:42,275 thousands just to host like 100 people, or more, posting their art and writing all the time.

604 00:33:44,355 –> 00:33:50,275 whimwitch: So we've both used Discord in some format for our events.

605 00:33:50,275 –> 00:33:56,235 {\an8}When I've used Discord for the mini bang, it's pretty slimmed down. It's really just

606 00:33:56,235 –> 00:34:01,035 {\an8}a copy paste of a lot of information that I already have on Dreamwidth just so people

607 00:34:01,035 –> 00:34:05,755 {\an8}have that information on Discord to save my sanity. (laughs) So if somebody is asking like,

608 00:34:05,755 –> 00:34:09,555 {\an8}“What are the rules?” They can just go to the rule channel and see everything if

609 00:34:09,555 –> 00:34:10,835 {\an8}they don't want to look on Dreamwidth.

610 00:34:11,395 –> 00:34:14,275 {\an8}But I also have sections where people can

611 00:34:14,275 –> 00:34:17,155 {\an8}just chat, and I have artists and writers

612 00:34:17,155 –> 00:34:22,835 {\an8}split up when we're at the part of the event where pieces have to be, uh,

613 00:34:22,835 –> 00:34:25,835 {\an8}kept secret from the other side.

614 00:34:25,835 –> 00:34:28,155 {\an8}So like if, for example, people are creating art first,

615 00:34:28,155 –> 00:34:32,435 {\an8}the writers should not know about any of the art that's being created until

616 00:34:32,435 –> 00:34:37,015 {\an8}claims open, just to keep things a little bit more exciting for people.

617 00:34:37,515 –> 00:34:40,735 {\an8}And then I have a section that's just kind of a dumping ground for people to post

618 00:34:41,355 –> 00:34:45,635 {\an8}anything that they want to share to be promoted, or inspiration that they might

619 00:34:45,635 –> 00:34:48,035 {\an8}have for their piece, or memes 🗿.

620 00:34:48,435 –> 00:34:51,795 {\an8}And I also felt like it was really helpful to create a section for people to

621 00:34:51,795 –> 00:34:56,835 {\an8}talk about other events, just because people that are involved in your

622 00:34:56,835 –> 00:34:59,875 {\an8}event are probably also going to be doing other types of events.

623 00:35:01,955 –> 00:35:06,435 {\an8}SCUMSUCK: Yeah, I'm a really big fan of the way whim set up their Discord server because it's-

624 00:35:06,675 –> 00:35:11,555 {\an8}It feels much more streamlined than what I tried. It keeps things on topic.

625 00:35:11,555 –> 00:35:12,915 {\an8}You don't have too many people yapping about

626 00:35:13,235 –> 00:35:17,475 {\an8}like, like for example a vent channel. Don't have those ☠️. Keep things focused on

627 00:35:17,475 –> 00:35:24,455 {\an8}the event, and make Discord servers for other things for other topics if you need to.

628 00:35:24,635 –> 00:35:30,515 {\an8}I used my Discord server for the first two years of Artcade to actually run the thing.

629 00:35:30,515 –> 00:35:35,355 {\an8}And I don't recommend it for this type of exchange because it's

630 00:35:35,355 –> 00:35:40,195 {\an8}just really messy and hard to keep track of each other's fills.

631 00:35:40,495 –> 00:35:44,595 {\an8}When Discord introduced threads and forums, that helped a little bit to keep people's

632 00:35:44,595 –> 00:35:50,435 {\an8}comments and art organized, but it was still really hard to

633 00:35:50,675 –> 00:35:53,975 {\an8}uh, get everyone sort of on the same page with everything.

634 00:35:54,075 –> 00:35:57,395 {\an8}But still, it's very valuable to have in community engagement

635 00:35:57,395 –> 00:36:02,235 {\an8}because I kept the Discord server open during Dreamwidth's year so people could

636 00:36:02,235 –> 00:36:06,235 {\an8}talk to each other about each other's characters and be like, “Oh my God!”

637 00:36:06,235 –> 00:36:09,275 {\an8}Have you guys seen this meme? You want- You guys want to fill out this meme to, like,

638 00:36:09,275 –> 00:36:10,635 {\an8}dress up your character like this and this?“

639 00:36:10,635 –> 00:36:13,755 {\an8}Or like, “Oh, what would your character eat if they went for a date?”

640 00:36:13,755 –> 00:36:17,795 {\an8}Like, I- I think that community involvement is very important. And as much as

641 00:36:17,795 –> 00:36:23,895 {\an8}it's hard to moderate a Discord server, it has a lot of pros to it that you should consider.

642 00:36:23,895 –> 00:36:28,335 {\an8}whimwitch: Yeah, like a lot of people use it, but at the same time I feel like

643 00:36:28,335 –> 00:36:32,915 {\an8}modding can be really busy, especially if your event is

644 00:36:33,315 –> 00:36:38,095 {\an8}running pretty quickly and people might be having a lot of questions.

645 00:36:38,195 –> 00:36:41,755 {\an8}It it can be difficult to be available at all times. And then there's also like

646 00:36:41,755 –> 00:36:46,835 {\an8}the paywall limitations with certain features on Discord, and the terms of

647 00:36:46,835 –> 00:36:50,555 {\an8}service with 18+ art are kind of rocky.

648 00:36:50,675 –> 00:36:54,855 {\an8}So, you might want to check those out if you're planning to use Discord for your fan event.

649 00:36:55,555 –> 00:36:59,675 {\an8}SCUMSUCK: What are the paywall limitations you've run into?

650 00:36:59,875 –> 00:37:05,395 {\an8}whimwitch: Um, I would say that it's hard for people to upload large text files,

651 00:37:05,715 –> 00:37:10,595 {\an8}so it can get kind of tricky if people are wanting feedback on a longer

652 00:37:10,675 –> 00:37:15,235 {\an8}passage from their fic. They're not really able to share that.

653 00:37:15,235 –> 00:37:17,075 {\an8}So they have to basically share the whole draft and

654 00:37:17,075 –> 00:37:20,835 {\an8}then explain, like, where they want people to specifically look.

655 00:37:20,835 –> 00:37:23,755 {\an8}So it gets kind of clunky in that way.

656 00:37:23,835 –> 00:37:28,055 {\an8}Or I feel like there were more issues with image uploading earlier.

657 00:37:28,755 –> 00:37:31,635 {\an8}Um, I feel like Discord's increased the limits with that.

658 00:37:31,635 –> 00:37:35,415 {\an8}SCUMSUCK: [I've also] found that, like, uploading images,

659 00:37:35,415 –> 00:37:38,295 {\an8} that goes in- hand in hand with messy archiving.

660 00:37:39,795 –> 00:37:44,795 {\an8}It's very hard to search images, to find people's fills or find old drafts, or see

661 00:37:44,795 –> 00:37:47,455 {\an8}what your partner's working on.

662 00:37:47,655 –> 00:37:50,535 {\an8}whimwitch: Yeah, it's really just a little tricky

663 00:37:50,835 –> 00:37:56,355 {\an8}to Jerry Rig it to work exactly for your event. But I definitely

664 00:37:56,355 –> 00:38:00,155 {\an8}think it's a good supplement, especially if you're wanting people to be able to

665 00:38:00,155 –> 00:38:03,075 {\an8}chat with each other really quickly.

666 00:38:03,075 –> 00:38:06,875 We both use Dreamwidth, (laughs) which has been described as the coelacanth of the Internet,

667 00:38:06,875 –> 00:38:09,315 which is not a bad thing!

668 00:38:09,315 –> 00:38:14,915 It's going nowhere! And so I would say the biggest pros of Dreamwidth is that

669 00:38:15,235 –> 00:38:19,675 people can get e-mail updates. And if they don't want e-mail updates,

670 00:38:19,675 –> 00:38:24,915 you can get RSS updates, which if you're younger than 30, you might have

671 00:38:24,995 –> 00:38:29,155 (laughs) absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, but it's basically just

672 00:38:29,395 –> 00:38:34,835 automatic feeds that you can set for websites like Dreamwidth or

673 00:38:35,155 –> 00:38:39,755 um, Twitter used to have RSS, and it does not really work anymore.

674 00:38:39,755 –> 00:38:42,275 There are a bunch of websites that use RSS like blogs,

675 00:38:42,595 –> 00:38:46,435 and you can put them in a feed if you want to see everything all together.

676 00:38:47,395 –> 00:38:52,995 Fediverse actually has built in RSS capabilities, so if you are interested in

677 00:38:52,995 –> 00:38:58,875 getting Dreamwidth updates there, you can just plug it into the Parrot Bot,

678 00:38:58,875 –> 00:39:02,995 and it will give you an RSS feed for whatever event you're interested in.

679 00:39:02,995 –> 00:39:07,975 It also allows anonymous commenting, which can be really nice for things like kink memes, for example.

680 00:39:08,075 –> 00:39:12,675 And you can have tagged posts like- SCUMSUCK for Artcade,

681 00:39:13,395 –> 00:39:18,835 uh, the way that you had tagged posts for characters, I thought that that was a

682 00:39:18,835 –> 00:39:24,075 really nice way to actually see everything all together for different OCs.

683 00:39:24,175 –> 00:39:29,815 I feel like Dreamwidth also has a pretty permissive TOS. I'm not as familiar with it.

684 00:39:30,015 –> 00:39:31,775 Could you talk on that a little bit?

685 00:39:32,595 –> 00:39:35,475 SCUMSUCK: Oh yeah. So the TOS in Dreamwidth is

686 00:39:35,475 –> 00:39:39,955 basically the same as Ao3, if you're familiar. Anything that's legal under

687 00:39:39,955 –> 00:39:42,975 U.S. law, you can post on there.

688 00:39:42,975 –> 00:39:48,355 Only thing is that image uploading is not intuitive. It's not drag and drop.

689 00:39:48,355 –> 00:39:55,315 You have to manually upload everything. So, you <i>can</i> host your art on there.

690 00:39:55,315 –> 00:39:59,155 But it's much better for writing because you can just paste however long of a post you want.

691 00:40:00,275 –> 00:40:05,395 So one of the biggest cons of Dreamwidth is that younger people might not know how

692 00:40:05,395 –> 00:40:08,115 to use it because it's so <i>old school</i> (-̀◞_◟-́).

693 00:40:08,355 –> 00:40:13,635 You use HTML to format posts, you use HTML to upload images.

694 00:40:13,635 –> 00:40:17,235 And a lot of people don't know how to use sites that aren't like, they don't have an app like

695 00:40:17,235 –> 00:40:20,075 Twitter or, you know, Blue Sky or something.

696 00:40:20,075 –> 00:40:24,335 And, uh, the DMS are very clunky on Dreamwidth, so I ended up using

697 00:40:24,335 –> 00:40:26,575 Discord for DMS anyways.

698 00:40:27,075 –> 00:40:29,075 And another weird con is that you cannot

699 00:40:29,075 –> 00:40:32,835 edit your comment after it's been commented on.

700 00:40:32,835 –> 00:40:38,035 So, it'll just stay static in that state forever. I highly recommend in that case, having a

701 00:40:38,035 –> 00:40:40,755 comment as a link if it's something you might edit later.

702 00:40:43,075 –> 00:40:48,275 whimwitch: All right, so moderating events.

703 00:40:48,275 –> 00:40:52,595 It- it's really different for everyone, but I feel like SCUMSUCK and I are

704 00:40:52,595 –> 00:40:55,315 pretty much on the same page with this.

705 00:40:55,315 –> 00:40:57,875 So as far as participation numbers, my event

706 00:40:57,875 –> 00:41:02,995 was pretty solidly at like about 25ish people for the first 3 years,

707 00:41:03,275 –> 00:41:09,115 which I think is a really great number as far as, like, getting your sea legs

708 00:41:09,315 –> 00:41:12,035 without actually [knowing how to] moderate an event.

709 00:41:12,035 –> 00:41:16,995 And then this year it jumped up suddenly to 56 people. And this is the

710 00:41:16,995 –> 00:41:20,355 year I realized my cap! Which is completely fine to do.

711 00:41:20,355 –> 00:41:22,635 You are allowed to set limits just to make sure you're

712 00:41:22,635 –> 00:41:24,675 actually able to organize your event.

713 00:41:24,915 –> 00:41:29,715 Part of this reason is because my event only has two mods, and I am not interested

714 00:41:29,715 –> 00:41:32,555 in adding more mods to the process.

715 00:41:32,675 –> 00:41:37,035 I am the primary organizer,and then my partner, miscellanium♡, is there for backup,

716 00:41:37,355 –> 00:41:42,395 mostly to field questions and help when I'm doing check-ins with everybody.

717 00:41:42,635 –> 00:41:45,235 And honestly, I feel like the perfect balance

718 00:41:45,235 –> 00:41:49,015 for mods is having one mod per 25 people.

719 00:41:49,015 –> 00:41:52,015 There's really no reason to have a whole bunch of mods for

720 00:41:52,515 –> 00:41:57,275 a small group because having excess mods is not necessarily a good thing!

721 00:41:57,275 –> 00:42:04,335 Like too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the broth, so keep things simple for yourself!

722 00:42:05,035 –> 00:42:07,435 SCUMSUCK: Yeah, I had similar participation numbers for

723 00:42:07,435 –> 00:42:12,515 the first couple years I ran Artcade as well. We dipped slightly when I moved to

724 00:42:12,515 –> 00:42:15,115 Dreamwidth because a lot of people did not want to learn to use Dreamwidth,

725 00:42:15,115 –> 00:42:17,835 but that was totally fine with me!

726 00:42:17,835 –> 00:42:20,635 Having your numbers go up is not necessarily always a

727 00:42:20,635 –> 00:42:26,595 good thing. Having them <i>stable</i> makes it much easier to moderate and

728 00:42:26,595 –> 00:42:31,275 keep in mind the amount of moderation you have to do each year.

729 00:42:31,275 –> 00:42:35,335 Because I had a similar situation to whim, where my partner is also my co-moderator.

730 00:42:35,335 –> 00:42:40,235 Like I know my partner, I can trust him. (◡ ‿ ◡ .) We have the same idea of moderation, like, oh,

731 00:42:40,235 –> 00:42:43,235 “If you post like something…like…<i>bad</i>,

732 00:42:43,235 –> 00:42:48,655 something illegal in a state of- the country of Germany, then we need to like warn you and, like, do that.”

733 00:42:48,655 –> 00:42:53,435 We're not gonna argue over like, “Oh, should we ban this person or not?”

734 00:42:52,159 –> 00:42:53,159 whimwitch: (laughs)

735 00:42:53,515 –> 00:42:55,535 SCUMSUCK: And uh, but, the- the con to that is

736 00:42:55,535 –> 00:42:59,355 if you are in the same time zone as your mod, you cannot answer questions from people in a

737 00:42:59,355 –> 00:43:03,435 different time zone. And we had people from all over the world in our events,

738 00:43:03,435 –> 00:43:05,275 like, you know, some people in Asia,

739 00:43:05,275 –> 00:43:07,435 some people in like, you know, Australia.

740 00:43:08,435 –> 00:43:12,675 While we're like in a different time zone. So in that case,

741 00:43:12,675 –> 00:43:16,355 it was easier to be able to moderate things on a slow site like Dreamwidth cause we

742 00:43:16,355 –> 00:43:21,195 could just wake up with less sense of urgency, having to address like a

743 00:43:21,195 –> 00:43:23,195 dumpster fire that had occurred in our sleep.

744 00:43:25,835 –> 00:43:28,795 whimwitch: So you might be wondering, “OK,

745 00:43:29,435 –> 00:43:35,615 I know how to run an event. I have an idea of what event I might like to do in the future,

746 00:43:35,715 –> 00:43:40,215 but how the heck do I actually archive this?” And there's not one answer.

747 00:43:40,215 –> 00:43:44,955 It really just depends on your personal preference and what might make

748 00:43:45,035 –> 00:43:47,415 the most sense for your event.

749 00:43:47,415 –> 00:43:52,475 So for the mini bang that I run, I use a spreadsheet that's partially inspired by

750 00:43:52,635 –> 00:43:57,515 the DeanCas Big Bang (laughs). Like I said, they use a spreadsheet for all of their works.

751 00:43:57,755 –> 00:44:04,155 And why I decided to use a spreadsheet is because it contains links to all of the works.

752 00:44:04,135 –> 00:44:07,575 I have people posting things everywhere.

753 00:44:07,575 –> 00:44:10,755 Uh, people post on Twitter, people post on Tumblr,

754 00:44:10,755 –> 00:44:13,455 people post on Blue Sky, people post on fediverse.

755 00:44:13,455 –> 00:44:17,615 I've had a couple people post on DeviantArt, their own websites, like…

756 00:44:17,675 –> 00:44:23,355 there's just art everywhere,and all fics are posted to the Ao3 collection.

757 00:44:23,355 –> 00:44:26,675 But when you have all of these links, I feel like it's easier to just keep them

758 00:44:26,675 –> 00:44:30,875 in a spreadsheet so that people can just see the pieces all together and

759 00:44:30,899 –> 00:44:36,155 appreciate them as one nice little chunk like this.

760 00:44:36,155 –> 00:44:42,755 And part of why I decided to use GetGrist is just because, uh, I used to use Airtable and

761 00:44:42,755 –> 00:44:46,315 they've paywalled a lot of their features. So this is a nice

762 00:44:46,315 –> 00:44:51,635 alternative, um, just to make sure that people can access this information.

763 00:44:51,635 –> 00:44:54,875 Another really nice thing about using a spreadsheet is if people are only

764 00:44:54,899 –> 00:44:58,575 interested in a specific series-

765 00:44:58,955 –> 00:45:06,235 So if people are, like, only fans of Yu-gi-oh Arc-V, they can filter the

766 00:45:06,235 –> 00:45:10,955 spreadsheet and only look at everything that was made for Arc-V.

767 00:45:10,955 –> 00:45:14,115 It's just a really nice way to see everything all up front.

768 00:45:14,115 –> 00:45:18,955 But I would say that learning how to manage spreadsheets like this was the

769 00:45:18,955 –> 00:45:22,955 biggest learning curve I had, just because there are a lot of functions

770 00:45:22,955 –> 00:45:25,035 I wasn't familiar with and

771 00:45:25,715 –> 00:45:28,315 when you're having to actually put all of

772 00:45:28,315 –> 00:45:34,475 this information all in one place, it's really easy to accidentally miss links,

773 00:45:34,555 –> 00:45:39,355 or maybe use the wrong link because somebody would prefer

774 00:45:39,355 –> 00:45:41,235 to be credited a different way.

775 00:45:41,235 –> 00:45:46,075 There's just a lot of things to keep in mind, but I- I feel like this is a really nice way

776 00:45:46,075 –> 00:45:50,235 to present all of the fan works that you might have for your event if you are

777 00:45:50,235 –> 00:45:55,035 going to have a really large quantity of them, or if you're having people

778 00:45:55,035 –> 00:45:56,475 collaborating with each other.

779 00:45:58,075 –> 00:46:01,675 SCUMSUCK: Yeah, I'm a really big fan of the spreadsheet method that whim uses to have

780 00:46:01,675 –> 00:46:05,995 a big show off of the end result of their bangs.

781 00:46:07,275 –> 00:46:12,475 Uh, and it does have a good thing where if someone doesn't want their fic to be

782 00:46:13,115 –> 00:46:17,995 readable anymore, they simply delete their fic or like orphan it

783 00:46:18,075 –> 00:46:23,155 and then it, you know, it doesn't have to be updated on the spreadsheet itself

784 00:46:23,155 –> 00:46:25,835 if you decide you no longer want like repost permissions or stuff.

785 00:46:27,355 –> 00:46:29,635 whimwitch: Mmm, true. Yeah, it makes it really easy for

786 00:46:29,635 –> 00:46:35,355 me to not have to touch this again because the- the link will update.

787 00:46:36,315 –> 00:46:39,115 All of this stuff is just there.

788 00:46:39,195 –> 00:46:41,595 SCUMSUCK: I- I do wonder about the portability of it.

789 00:46:41,595 –> 00:46:44,915 Like should Grist ever go down? Can you just copy paste this

790 00:46:44,915 –> 00:46:47,555 into another spreadsheet displayer?

791 00:46:48,155 –> 00:46:51,115 whimwitch: You can! Um, one nice thing about Getgrist is

792 00:46:51,115 –> 00:46:56,955 you can download it as, like, a standalone file onto your computer. And so it's

793 00:46:56,955 –> 00:47:01,035 easy to re-upload somewhere else, which is something that I would definitely

794 00:47:01,035 –> 00:47:05,675 recommend that you do if you're archiving works is to keep an actual copy

795 00:47:05,835 –> 00:47:07,995 physically on your hard drive (laughs).

796 00:47:08,315 –> 00:47:12,875 Because like I said, Airtable, I used to use it for three years, and then it

797 00:47:12,875 –> 00:47:16,135 started having issues, and I had to move everything over here.

798 00:47:16,135 –> 00:47:18,955 Thankfully, Airtable is similar, and you can download it.

799 00:47:18,955 –> 00:47:23,475 That's something to keep in mind is that I feel like a lot of these, uh,

800 00:47:23,915 –> 00:47:28,835 live spreadsheet platforms go through changes. So I think it's a good idea to

801 00:47:28,835 –> 00:47:34,435 just keep a backup on your system so you don't lose everything.

802 00:47:34,435 –> 00:47:40,275 SCUMSUCK: Yeah! So, speaking of portability, I archived my event on my own

803 00:47:40,475 –> 00:47:48,395 personal site with like plain HTML. My event happened to be mostly visual art,

804 00:47:49,115 –> 00:47:51,275 so in that case it was more useful to me

805 00:47:51,275 –> 00:47:53,395 to have like thumbnail galleries

806 00:47:53,395 –> 00:47:56,235 to display the art.

807 00:47:56,235 –> 00:47:58,155 That does mean you have to ask everyone for

808 00:47:58,155 –> 00:48:00,155 permission in order to re-upload their art.

809 00:48:00,155 –> 00:48:04,875 So in my case, I just uploaded my own art and people could make

810 00:48:04,875 –> 00:48:07,755 their own sites to show off what they got.

811 00:48:08,155 –> 00:48:10,315 And I have a separate section on my website for

812 00:48:10,355 –> 00:48:12,475 gifts that I've gotten, including fics

813 00:48:13,035 –> 00:48:15,995 and visual art. And that can also be

814 00:48:15,995 –> 00:48:18,995 on their character pages too, which is a neat thing about personal sites.

815 00:48:18,995 –> 00:48:22,075 You can make so many pages for each of your characters, for each piece of art you've

816 00:48:22,075 –> 00:48:24,715 given, for each like fic you've gotten,

817 00:48:24,715 –> 00:48:29,515 It's, uh, just very wonderful and very portable because you know save the HTML,

818 00:48:29,915 –> 00:48:34,955 copy paste it in any other host, and you can see your thing again.

819 00:48:34,955 –> 00:48:39,195 I also printed zines for the first 2 years as a physical keepsake

820 00:48:40,115 –> 00:48:45,035 of the event. But that also took an extra level organization that I

821 00:48:45,035 –> 00:48:48,635 don't really recommend if you're short on time, because then you have to ask people

822 00:48:48,635 –> 00:48:50,955 for their pieces, format them,

823 00:48:51,835 –> 00:48:53,675 you know, make a PDF, and then print it.

824 00:48:54,955 –> 00:48:56,635 But in the end, it is very worth it to

825 00:48:56,635 –> 00:49:00,995 archive because I just look at these pages every so often. I look at other people's websites.

826 00:49:00,995 –> 00:49:02,915 And I'm like, “Wow! that's so cool we did all that!

827 00:49:02,915 –> 00:49:07,915 I can't believe we actually made like 115 pieces in like a month!”

828 00:49:07,915 –> 00:49:13,475 {\an8}So do you have to archive your event? It depends on your goals as an organizer.

829 00:49:13,475 –> 00:49:17,035 {\an8}whim, could you tell me some of the reasons why you would not want to archive your event?

830 00:49:17,755 –> 00:49:23,395 {\an8}whimwitch: Sure. So there might be content specific in your event

831 00:49:23,435 –> 00:49:26,435 {\an8}that maybe you do not want people to easily find.

832 00:49:26,435 –> 00:49:32,075 {\an8}Like maybe it's about a controversial kink, or

833 00:49:32,075 –> 00:49:36,515 {\an8}maybe it might violate copyright if you

834 00:49:37,515 –> 00:49:40,515 {\an8}really publicly post all of the pieces

835 00:49:40,515 –> 00:49:44,655 {\an8}of your event for everybody to see, and you're worried about it getting taken down.

836 00:49:44,655 –> 00:49:49,835 {\an8}There's also a lot of beauty in events that just kind of run

837 00:49:50,075 –> 00:49:52,795 {\an8}and people make pieces and

838 00:49:52,795 –> 00:49:55,035 {\an8}then maybe no one ever finds them again.

839 00:49:55,035 –> 00:49:57,595 {\an8}Like a lot of fan weeks tend to be like

840 00:49:57,595 –> 00:49:59,755 {\an8}that just because you're posting it to a

841 00:49:59,755 –> 00:50:02,235 {\an8}hashtag and maybe you'll only see it once

842 00:50:02,235 –> 00:50:07,035 {\an8}and then never again. And it's kind of cool to know that you've seen all of

843 00:50:07,035 –> 00:50:11,515 {\an8}these pieces and they're just kind of out there in the ether.

844 00:50:11,515 –> 00:50:14,095 {\an8}I don't know, um, what are your thoughts on that SCUMSUCK?

845 00:50:15,675 –> 00:50:18,315 {\an8}SCUMSUCK: I personally love to archive all

846 00:50:18,315 –> 00:50:21,835 {\an8}my stuff because I'm like Ritska from Loveless. I will forget if there's not

847 00:50:21,835 –> 00:50:23,755 {\an8}photographic evidence I do something.

848 00:50:23,279 –> 00:50:24,351 {\an8}whimwitch: (laughs)

849 00:50:24,875 –> 00:50:30,475 {\an8}SCUMSUCK: But I also realize the value of having something made that you learn from,

850 00:50:30,475 –> 00:50:33,435 {\an8}you had fun with, and then you never have to think of again.

851 00:50:33,435 –> 00:50:36,315 {\an8}It's like a one night stand of art or writing, and

852 00:50:36,795 –> 00:50:38,715 {\an8}it doesn't mean it's any less valuable.

853 00:50:38,715 –> 00:50:42,515 {\an8}It just means that you did what you needed to with it, and you're ready to move on to

854 00:50:42,515 –> 00:50:45,395 {\an8}the next beautiful adventure.✨

855 00:50:45,595 –> 00:50:50,295 whimwitch: Yeah, so it's totally up to you with how you want to do this.

856 00:50:50,395 –> 00:50:55,535 Just think about maybe, like, your strengths with keeping information

857 00:50:55,775 –> 00:51:00,915 and the easiest way to display it or not display it.

858 00:51:02,275 –> 00:51:07,295 So what we learned through all of this.

859 00:51:07,395 –> 00:51:12,515 So, for me, I feel like one of the biggest things I learned was to set boundaries,

860 00:51:13,155 –> 00:51:16,055 especially with myself, to not overextend myself

861 00:51:16,155 –> 00:51:21,795 with my organizing and how much I'm doing (laughs).

862 00:51:22,275 –> 00:51:25,675 Um, because your goal with this should ultimately be to have fun.

863 00:51:25,675 –> 00:51:27,715 And if you're running into situations where you're

864 00:51:27,715 –> 00:51:32,595 feeling burnt out because of maybe a specific task you're having to do,

865 00:51:32,915 –> 00:51:36,895 then maybe think of ways that you don't have to do that for your event!

866 00:51:36,895 –> 00:51:39,135 I know, for me, I was getting really burnt out of

867 00:51:39,235 –> 00:51:43,395 having to use a lot of different social media platforms, and so I decided that

868 00:51:43,635 –> 00:51:46,435 I'm just gonna host information in these

869 00:51:46,435 –> 00:51:48,835 two places and if people don't see it,

870 00:51:48,915 –> 00:51:51,795 then they don't see it and that's OK.

871 00:51:51,795 –> 00:51:56,275 I also feel like word of mouth is the best way to garner interest in an event.

872 00:51:56,275 –> 00:52:00,955 You do not have to have like 6 different social media accounts everywhere to

873 00:52:01,235 –> 00:52:03,555 have a nice event with people.

874 00:52:03,955 –> 00:52:06,915 I've had the best experiences with people

875 00:52:06,915 –> 00:52:10,295 that I- I just talk to and tell them that, you know,

876 00:52:10,395 –> 00:52:13,515 “Hey, this is an event that I'm running. You might be interested.”

877 00:52:13,635 –> 00:52:17,315 And they join and they tell their friends about it, and I feel like it's a really

878 00:52:17,395 –> 00:52:22,275 positive community when people already know that there's someone there that they

879 00:52:22,275 –> 00:52:27,475 {\an1}want to collaborate with, or someone that they're familiar with.

880 00:52:24,895 –> 00:52:29,995 {\an3}SCUMSUCK: Yeah, I mean, I joined whim's, uh, Rare Pair Exchange because they

881 00:52:30,995 –> 00:52:35,275 said in my server, “Hey, I'm running a Yu-Gi-Oh event!” So I'm like, dude, I love Yu-Gi-Oh!

882 00:52:35,275 –> 00:52:38,895 I'm gonna join! So you join one event and eventually that just becomes a

883 00:52:38,995 –> 00:52:43,555 a whole bunch of other events that you can find out from too.

884 00:52:43,555 –> 00:52:46,235 whimwitch: Yeah, it's like the gateway event! (laughs)

885 00:52:45,659 –> 00:52:46,659 SCUMSUCK: (laughs)

886 00:52:46,235 –> 00:52:50,915 Like you just wanna like drag people into this wonderful experience with you.

887 00:52:51,155 –> 00:52:53,635 And then like having a set schedule is important.

888 00:52:53,635 –> 00:52:56,035 Like you want to kind of plan ahead to

889 00:52:56,355 –> 00:53:00,995 deadlines if you're running an event that has a specific time frame in mind.

890 00:53:01,555 –> 00:53:05,395 But at the same time, you want to be flexible with yourself and participants.

891 00:53:06,115 –> 00:53:10,815 Um, you don't have to stick to what you originally planned to be, uh,

892 00:53:10,815 –> 00:53:14,095 the week where everyone's going to be posting their works.

893 00:53:14,195 –> 00:53:18,075 It's OK to maybe expand that into two weeks or maybe a month.

894 00:53:18,275 –> 00:53:20,275 That was something where I had to pivot this year

895 00:53:20,275 –> 00:53:24,755 just because I wasn't expecting as many people to be participating.

896 00:53:24,755 –> 00:53:26,835 And instead of having to

897 00:53:27,555 –> 00:53:31,675 really plan ahead to like, OK, when are people going to post things this week?

898 00:53:31,699 –> 00:53:35,395 How am I going to make sure that this all gets done? It was a lot easier to just

899 00:53:36,035 –> 00:53:37,715 have the whole month, especially when I

900 00:53:37,715 –> 00:53:42,695 had multiple people asking for extensions. It's just kinder to you and everybody else.

901 00:53:42,695 –> 00:53:47,295 At the same time, when I've been organizing events,

902 00:53:47,555 –> 00:53:49,555 there are sometimes really unfortunate

903 00:53:49,555 –> 00:53:51,715 situations where you might have to deal

904 00:53:52,195 –> 00:53:57,235 with people that are bullies or jerks to other people in your event.

905 00:53:57,235 –> 00:54:02,195 And I had to be OK with kicking people out that were really ruining the vibes

906 00:54:02,195 –> 00:54:07,555 for everybody. It's your event at the end of the day, and if there's somebody that

907 00:54:07,555 –> 00:54:12,595 is making other people uncomfortable, or if there's somebody that is…

908 00:54:13,235 –> 00:54:17,235 Uh, gossiping about other people that are in your event and saying really nasty things

909 00:54:17,235 –> 00:54:19,795 about them outside of your server.

910 00:54:20,675 –> 00:54:23,555 It is OK to use your best judgment with

911 00:54:23,555 –> 00:54:25,715 that and keep things…

912 00:54:26,915 –> 00:54:31,975 friendly and comfortable for the majority of people.

913 00:54:32,875 –> 00:54:36,875 And it doesn't make you a bad person for kicking those people out.

914 00:54:37,475 –> 00:54:39,835 SCUMSUCK: 100% agree like that was a big stress point

915 00:54:39,835 –> 00:54:42,115 with some of the events I ran in Discord.

916 00:54:42,595 –> 00:54:44,475 Like, no matter how you write your rules

917 00:54:44,475 –> 00:54:48,195 and say, “Hey! If you join this event, there's gonna be some horrible stuff that

918 00:54:48,195 –> 00:54:53,775 will, like, be Not Safe For Life if you click into, you know, a content warned post.”

919 00:54:53,775 –> 00:54:57,355 There <i>are</i> going to be people who click on it and be like,

920 00:54:57,355 –> 00:55:00,875 “This is disgusting! How can you post this?!! This should be illegal. You should go to jail!!!👶”

921 00:55:00,875 –> 00:55:04,675 Like, just kick him. Don't try to reason with them. Don't think, oh man,

922 00:55:04,675 –> 00:55:07,475 I should give him a chance. Maybe they'll get better. Just kick 'em!

923 00:55:07,475 –> 00:55:09,775 It's not worth your time. You're not a paid therapist!

924 00:55:10,275 –> 00:55:14,835 Just kick 'em! And a lot of these people will try to shame you and keep on DMing

925 00:55:14,835 –> 00:55:16,995 you after you've kicked them.

926 00:55:16,995 –> 00:55:21,355 Just block 'em! Don't talk to them ever again! They're not worth your time.

927 00:55:21,355 –> 00:55:23,235 Don't let them, like, make you feel like,

928 00:55:23,235 –> 00:55:26,215 “Why won't you let me into your small event?!? You must hate me!!! :(”

929 00:55:26,215 –> 00:55:29,015 Who cares?! Maybe you do hate them.

930 00:55:28,039 –> 00:55:29,051 whimwitch: (laughs)

931 00:55:29,475 –> 00:55:32,395 SCUMSUCK: So, uh, I also agree completely with word of

932 00:55:32,395 –> 00:55:33,915 mouth being the best way to do things.

933 00:55:33,915 –> 00:55:37,475 Like don't try to over advertise. Don't think about marketing or whatever.

934 00:55:37,475 –> 00:55:39,515 If you only have like two people, that's fine.

935 00:55:39,515 –> 00:55:43,195 If you get 50 people, wow! That's not necessarily better. That's a lot more work!

936 00:55:43,195 –> 00:55:47,455 But any number is a good number. Just remember, like each person is making

937 00:55:47,455 –> 00:55:51,275 something specifically for someone else and that's just amazing, right?!

938 00:55:51,275 –> 00:55:55,315 If you're just talking to someone and they just gave you a gift on the word, that's fucking great!

939 00:55:55,315 –> 00:55:58,895 I also learned gameification is <i>very hard</i>. It gets people

940 00:55:58,995 –> 00:56:04,875 excited because it activates that monkey brain, like you insert a peanut and you

941 00:56:04,875 –> 00:56:07,195 get a prize in turn kind of thing. 🐒

942 00:56:07,235 –> 00:56:09,155 But it's super hard on the moderators, and I

943 00:56:09,155 –> 00:56:14,635 overextended myself and my other partner in this event in trying to

944 00:56:14,635 –> 00:56:18,275 make prizes for people. Like I would draw like custom emotes or like commissions

945 00:56:18,275 –> 00:56:20,675 for people basically. But like, whew!

946 00:56:20,995 –> 00:56:23,795 That's a lot! Make it simple, like a cute little button they can put on their

947 00:56:23,795 –> 00:56:26,035 website or like a fancy Discord role.

948 00:56:26,835 –> 00:56:31,635 And, uh, I will say that you should keep things

949 00:56:32,515 –> 00:56:37,475 very like short and sweet, as simple as possible in terms of guidelines for

950 00:56:37,475 –> 00:56:40,275 uploading, posting and formatting.

951 00:56:40,755 –> 00:56:45,315 Like for writing, Discord has a limit of 5000 words, so you maybe you want to keep that

952 00:56:45,315 –> 00:56:48,995 in mind if you're hosting an event on Discord.

953 00:56:48,995 –> 00:56:52,115 Or for images, you know, maybe like you personally have really

954 00:56:52,115 –> 00:56:56,215 slow internet, so you gotta ask people, can you make your images less than 500 kb

955 00:56:56,215 –> 00:57:00,675 so it doesn't take an hour for me to like, look at this image?

956 00:57:00,675 –> 00:57:04,715 And, uh, give them the tools to do so because not everybody is very like into

957 00:57:04,835 –> 00:57:10,335 computer stuff. Like, like send them a link to photopea.com to resize their image.

958 00:57:10,335 –> 00:57:14,155 Or, you know, send them a link to a word count website to make sure they're

959 00:57:14,155 –> 00:57:16,815 under a certain limit.

960 00:57:16,815 –> 00:57:21,935 And, uh, don't worry about deadlines. It's all for fun fun at the end of the day,

961 00:57:22,235 –> 00:57:24,355 and the more relaxed you make it, I find the more

962 00:57:24,355 –> 00:57:26,875 people actually just casually come in and

963 00:57:26,875 –> 00:57:29,315 do things, like more than you thought they would.

964 00:57:29,315 –> 00:57:32,215 Like maybe you'll get someone who doesn't do anything for the first like

965 00:57:32,215 –> 00:57:36,135 week of your event and the next week they like write like 10 fics for 10 different people.

966 00:57:36,635 –> 00:57:43,955 All right! So, that's everything in our presentation. Um, but we do have

967 00:57:44,115 –> 00:57:46,115 a bunch of slides after this with

968 00:57:46,115 –> 00:57:49,875 resources and examples of different fan events that you can

969 00:57:49,875 –> 00:57:51,775 click on with the blue links.

970 00:57:51,775 –> 00:57:55,395 And since this is recorded, we're going to have a Q&A in

971 00:57:55,395 –> 00:57:59,595 the chat, and I'll be talking to people at Citrus Con to see if we can have like

972 00:57:59,635 –> 00:58:02,275 a thread or forum specific to this panel.

973 00:58:02,675 –> 00:58:07,615 But if you'd like to take a look at our slides again, we have our QR code in the corner

974 00:58:07,615 –> 00:58:10,695 and also the hyperlink will be posted in the chat.

975 00:58:10,795 –> 00:58:14,755 SCUMSUCK, is there anything that you want to end on?

976 00:58:14,755 –> 00:58:16,475 SCUMSUCK: Get out there and do an event!

977 00:58:16,475 –> 00:58:18,595 If it's your first time, don't be afraid to make something that

978 00:58:18,595 –> 00:58:20,935 seems bad or like, you know, kind of janky.

979 00:58:20,935 –> 00:58:25,715 It gets better every year the more you train yourself.

980 00:58:25,715 –> 00:58:31,215 whimwitch: Hell yeah! Just try it. If you build it, they will come.

981 00:58:31,215 –> 00:58:33,975 And just remember to have fun. Organizing is a really

982 00:58:34,275 –> 00:58:36,875 wonderful experience, and I'm sure you'll love

983 00:58:36,899 –> 00:58:41,399 whatever communities that you get together. So-

984 00:58:41,335 –> 00:58:44,995 SCUMSUCK: Yeah, I mean, I met whim through like doing events,

985 00:58:44,995 –> 00:58:49,395 and we're doing this, uh, event on how to make events together right now.

986 00:58:49,395 –> 00:58:51,435 So friendship is magic! 🦄

987 00:58:51,435 –> 00:58:54,015 whimwitch: (laughs) Yeah, exactly! We're coming full circle here.

988 00:58:54,015 –> 00:58:57,315 I hope everyone enjoys the rest of Citrus Con, and we're so

989 00:58:57,315 –> 00:58:59,635 happy to answer any questions that you have.

990 00:59:00,035 –> 00:59:02,215 Um, feel free to reach out anytime.

991 00:59:02,255 –> 00:59:03,315 whimwitch: See ya! SCUMSUCK: Bye-bye!

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