Looking toward FKFicFest '25

[brightknightie]

The annual fkficfest pre-game poll will come soon. As usual, I'm pondering our schedule and mechanism.

Timing:

• Just me: I'd like to avoid too many overlapping work obligations. (I don't talk about my job here. I do have one and am grateful to.)
• Other fests: I'd like to accommodate other events folks want to also participate in. In '24, we had everywoman (assignments June 24; due July 26) and saturdaymorningex (assignments May 4; due June 14). Others...?
• Duration: Exchanges these days seem to give ~4-6 weeks to write, not the ~8 weeks FKFicFest has had since olden days. Should we change to this current norm?
• Holidays: Easter is April 20 this year. Passover is April 12-20. US Memorial Day is May 26.

Mechanism:

• Goal: For playing challenge-style, the goal has always been to find the prompts that appeal most to the most players, while keeping the prompt pool small enough to echo the way challenges ran on FKFic-L, where everyone addressed one prompt in common.
• Voting: Ranked-choice voting gets closest to identifying the most commonly acceptable prompts... yet the least common denominator can leave some folks cold. Last year's brackets experiment produced the same end result as a raw majority vote would have (the seeding matched the winners).
• Limits or not: Should we perhaps consider abandoning the limiting of prompts to a very small pool, and go full prompt-meme, with or without claiming? That is, should there be as many prompts as folks want (or a max per person), and anyone can pick any, either exclusively or in common? (I've avoided this not only in remembrance of FKFic-L days, and in hopes of boosting interaction and community feeling, but also because of the likelihood that one person would have all her prompts written while someone else would have none of her prompts written.) (Do not underestimate the feelings people have about these things!)

Personal: A final, post-script consideration is another all-me point. Very personal. Wholly subjective. Not affecting the game, only affecting my feelings.

Maybe I shouldn't say this. Please forgive me if sharing was a poor decision, and please gently teach me how to approach it better next time.

Still, I feel it so much that sometimes I dread this fest that I always, frankly, put so much into. At those times, there's no enthusiasm, only duty.

While of course I still and always love the Forever Knight that I feel I know, especially first season, I increasingly feel exhausted and abandoned as well as sad when I encounter FK fanfic that, well, asks me to root for evil. It's why I rarely read new FK outside the fest anymore. (I have an RSS feed that alerts me to every FK story newly posted to the AO3, and many make me feel outside and alone, as if their mere arrival is a kind of boot grinding into everything I believe the show's story to be. Probably, I should stop looking. Yet it's not the only proximate trigger of the feeling.)

This is not about liking or featuring one character more than another. It's about what deserves admiration and what does not. What is triumph and what is tragedy. Can we all agree that human life and dignity have value -- immense, intrinsic value? I'd like to imagine we can.

Comments

[greerwatson]

I personally like the two-month writing period. As for prompts: I think something of that sort helps to focus the mind; but I'm not fussy about the way the selection is done or the number of prompts to consider. Whatever works best for you.

[nicholas_lucien]

I do like it when we have a few prompts for everyone to pick from. It's interesting how many different ways the same prompt can be interpreted.

[thefruitbat]

I'm fine with the way FKFicFest was these last years, but if changes could make it easier for you, then I'll still play. I love the community-feeling of it. I'd just not like it if claiming a prompt would mean nobody else can write it. Like nicholas_lucien, I love to see how differently people interpret the prompts.

[pj1228]

I like the 8 weeks. In case RL gets in the way, it's good to have some buffer time.

I understand that the prompt choosing procedure is quite work intensive for you. How about simply picking the next prompt in line from the three previous years, i.e. the prompt that ranked highest, but didn't make it into the pool?

As was already said before, I enjoy how several people approach a common prompt differently.

As for your personal note, I'm afraid I don't have a solution. Except maybe you shouldn't feel obliged to read all stories if the tags suggest that it may not be your cup of tea. That's what tags are for. FK has always been multifaceted in terms of interpretation and preferences. That's what makes writing about the same prompt by several writers so interesting.

[calliope24]

Thanks for considering taking this task on again. I feel you should implement it in whatever way works best for you.

I do favor a longer writing period, largely for selfish reasons because writing can be a painfully slow process for me.

I did enjoy watching and voting on the brackets last year, but if a raw majority vote yields the same results, it seems like a lot of extra work. I would avoid claiming as I do like to see how different writers manage the same prompt. In just the limited time I have participated in the ficfest, I haven't seen two responses that are remotely similar. I'd also support going full prompt-meme, it's reasonable to try something different for a change.

As for your personal note, I'm not sure what to say. It is sad to see what you feel as the essence of a favorite series slipping away in the fiction that is being posted. I think it's possible to appreciate a different way of looking at something without agreeing with it. That's how I approach it.