Have I Myself Joined The Tennis Rpf Discord? No. Because Im Chicken. - Tumblr Posts
tennisblr exchange/fest: follow-up poll and questions
thanks to everyone who showed enthusiasm for a potential tennisblr fic/art/fanworks event!!
about 75% of respondents who expressed interest in participating indicated that it would depend on timing and format, so here are some questions about timing and format.
important note: if you too are mainly on tumblr, you should know that there is ALSO a fic exchange happening via the tennis rpf discord!
my Vision was for a multimedia event—currently thinking fic, art, and edits/fanvids tho see below on that—so planning to move forward in some form but when/how is up in the air. open questions about format below the cut—namely, exchange vs fest. thoughts welcome in replies or via dm/ask if you prefer!
i was initially envisioning a classic secret gift exchange via the ao3 platform. (you are matched with a recipient -> you create a gift for them -> you post your gift to the anon exchange collection on ao3 -> the exchange collection goes live -> creator names are revealed.) a few cons here: everyone has to get an ao3 account, ao3 isn't the ideal platform for graphics and video. also depending on how unique your artistic style is, posting anon might be sort of besides the point. lmao.
having said that, the one major advantage ao3 has is great admin tools—particularly, mods/admins can see who has finished and posted their gift. this is important because the worst-case scenario for a gift exchange is that someone ghosts their recipient, and if it's up to each participant to post their work to their own tumblr, this becomes exponentially more likely. no matter how many check-ins there are.
so if it's an exchange ao3 is the way to go. however the other option is NOT an exchange but an open prompt fest, which could also be fun!! i'm personally fond of the exchange format (when you're creating for someone i think you're a little more motivated to think about people/ships/ideas that might not have otherwise occured to you) but maybe we don't need two??? an open fest would also allow for more people to participate on the fly, as irl allows, and potentially for people to create a wider variety of work like moodboards, playlists, etc.
eta: what i mean by open prompt fest: everyone submits prompts (as general or specific as you want, e.g. "anything focused on zhang zhizhen", "sincaraz uni au", "naomi osaka edit to number one fan") -> the mod/admin blog posts all the prompts anonymously -> you create based on whatever prompts inspire you -> you post during the posting period!
this is possibly too deep in the weeds for most people to care lol but if you have thoughts i'd be happy to hear them!
(and yes once timing format etc is decided on there will be a dedicated blog... just waiting to roll that out until further decisions are made. @oof-ouch-yikes-stripes is going to help out with admin and ideally we'll get one more person on board!!)