Friendship Ficathon! (original) (raw)

Don't Kara and Helo need to go on a road trip? Don't Spike and Gunn need to get stuck shoveling up demon guts together? Don't Veronica and Mac need a freaking vacation already? We think so. And in the spirit of this, we, asta77 and brynnmck, present to you:

The Why Can't We Be Friends Ficathon

Intrigued? We hope so. Friendships are frequently a major building block of our favorite shows, there to sustain us with humor, comfort, bickering, and wacky hijinx while the romantic and external-conflict angst marches angstily on its way. Yet they're an aspect that isn't often explored in fic. This ficathon is dedicated to those friendships (or even enemy-ships): those complex, funny, and fascinating relationships between people who may not actually want to tear each other's clothes off.

Here are the basic parameters (and if this sounds a bit familiar, it's because I shamelessly stole a lot of it from thassalia and leadensky's Thelma and Louise guidelines, so thanks to those two!):

The stories should be focused on two main characters and their interaction. "Main characters" means the main characters of your story. Not of canon. How you choose to use those characters is up to you. (Also, for the purposes of this 'thon, "characters" means no real people. So no RPF, please, even as wild cards.) Does that mean there can't be other characters in the story? Heck no! A lot of great shows have great ensembles, and in some cases, it's damn near impossible to leave them out. That's cool. Just make sure the story centers on those two main characters and the wacky fun of their relationship.

Speaking of wacky fun, we're not ruling out adversarial relationships, either. Think Doc Cottle and Baltar stuck in an enclosed space together. Think Paris Geller and… just about anyone, really. That's all good, too.

We are, however, pretty much ruling out romantic/sexual relationships between the main characters. We love smut—no, seriously, we love smut—but, let's face it, it's not too difficult to find. And the idea of this ficathon is to focus on friendship, interaction, partnership, working together (willingly or not). And also, we hope, some relationships that don't normally get the focus. So, while most lovers are also friends, we'd like to stay away from those sorts of relationships as much as possible.

Does this mean no sex? Not at all. You think you're going to get through a Jack&Mickey story without Jack putting the moves on someone? Not likely. Just don't make the hot monkey lovin' the focus of the story.

Also, we are arbitrarily including siblings in this ficathon, but not parent-child relationships, even if they're BFF like Rory and Lorelai, or completely awesome like Sydney and Jack.

Finally (and I am stealing this almost verbatim from Thea and Leadensky, since it's so well-put), this is about interaction, not a single character. It's about the interplay between two friends, siblings, enemies, adversaries, accomplices, or comrades. So make sure you're giving weight to the connection, not just the individual.

Still with us? Then

Sign up for the ficathon here!

Signups will run through July 26.
Assignments will be sent out August 1.
Fics of at least 500 words will be due October 2.

To sign up, please provide us with the following (comments are screened because we're all about that aura of mystery):

Your LJ name: Your posting name (if different from lj name): Email (please provide this even if it's ljname at livejournal): Can we contact you to pinch-hit if necessary (you're not committing to anything, we just want to know if we can ask):

1. All the fandoms you'd be happy to write in. Please include as many of the core fandoms as possible, but feel free to go for the obscure stuff, too—you never know whose day you might make by volunteering to write Transformers fic.

2. Any additional fandoms you could be persuaded to write in if it would mean great karmic reward later on. Again, please include as many of the core fandoms as possible.

3. Up to three characters from your listed fandoms that you would vomit if forced to write about. (Three characters total, not three from each fandom, please.)

4. Your requests! Make at least four, but no more than six, requests.
a.
b.
c.
Wild card:
Wild card:
Wild card:

Your first three requests (a-c) must be from primary fandoms. For each of these requests, please list one fandom and two characters from it, as well as a short prompt. For example: "Kara and Helo and a road trip." (Can you tell this is going to be a request of Brynn's?) Each of your first three requests should be from different fandoms off the core fandom list. The last three requests are wild cards—request whatever you want. Any fandom (including ones not on the core fandoms list), multiple fandoms, multiple characters, detailed prompts, anything goes. If you want Jack Bristow and Xander Harris and Sam Carter to help Scully and Huntress build a tower of office furniture, you go with that. However, a writer might be more likely to choose a simpler request—say, Dean Winchester running into Nightcrawler in a dark alley—so keep that in mind as you're formulating your wild cards.

So, to recap: first three requests, three different core fandoms. Last three requests, anything you want. Writers will choose one request off the list to write about.

Core Fandoms:

Alias
Angel
Battlestar Galactica 2003
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Doctor Who (9th and 10th Doctors)
Farscape
Firefly
Gilmore Girls
Harry Potter
Pirates of the Caribbean
Stargate: SG-1
Stargate: Atlantis
Veronica Mars
X-Files
X-Men (movieverse)

What You're Committing To:

Please keep your assignment secret, and please make sure you leave ample time for your fic of at least 500 words to be written, beta-ed, and posted by the October 2 deadline. If you need to bail for some reason, that's completely fine, just please please please let us know at least a week in advance so we can find someone to pinch-hit. We don't want your requestor to be disappointed.

When your fic is posted, please link it to the masterlist (we'll make a masterlist post as the deadline nears). When you see that the fic written for you has been posted, don't forget to go and leave feedback!

And that's it! If you have any questions, please feel free to email either Brynn or Asta, at brynnmck or asta77 at livejournal, or just comment to this post. Thanks for playing, and feel free to pimp this to others you think might be interested. :)