All Bingo

September Stragglers collection is up! (for August Intimacy late submissions)

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 16:12:42 GMT

Posted by: zaniida

September Stragglers is the sub-collection for August Intimacy projects posted to AO3 after the initial collection was closed (which I did a couple hours after midnight Pacific Time, so very early September 1st). In case people didn't make the deadline but still want to be part of the collection.

I still have next to no idea what I'm doing, but I hope the collection is useful. I'm hoping to add some more pieces in random fandoms (as well as update my BINGO piece, Turtles in a Bottle (Clint Barton and Bucky Barnes stuck in a HYDRA base for a while)) before Creepyfest hits, but it's already a week into the month and I'm still feeling that slumpy feeling of "okay the event is over time to decompress" and I'm hoping that'll go away soon because I've got major Creepyfest fics to write!

(Yes, brain, this is the perfect time to get hyperfocused on the mathematical patterns in Frost Giant physiology, why thank you, that's so useful for our current project load.)

(Dozens of spreadsheets later...)

(Sigh.)

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August Intimacy Collection Closed*

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 09:29:54 GMT

Posted by: zaniida

It's 2 a.m. and I just closed the AO3 collection: Twenty-two works across 17 fandoms.

I've been persuaded to create a sub-collection for stragglers sometime during September, so if you happen to put together your content during September, there should be another collection to add it to. But I need a bit of time to catch my breath here, so I'm not gonna worry about that for a few days.

Besides me, six authors made it into the collection, writing a total of ten fics. AQuietThinker managed three; Cornerofmadness and Ysabetwordsmith posted two apiece; idrilhadhafang, Siberianskys, and Signamino posted one apiece.

Which means that I managed 12 fics, though four (and my podfic) are works in progress, including my main BINGO entry. I hope to update them sometime during September, though this is the point at which I switch gears and start working on my Creepyfest entries (October content). Plus, I need a bit of a break before anything else, and I've got a shiny new copy of modable Skyrim that I might or might not get into this month. (Kindly vaguely hoping not, 'cuz there goes my productivity, but OTOH... Skyrim. With lightweight potions and a way to bypass the poorly thought-out opening sequence. I do want to enjoy that before the end of the year....)

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My August Output

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 08:30:49 GMT

Posted by: zaniida

Here's the summary of what I accomplished during August:

BINGO Project

Turtles in a Bottle uses the Bottle Episode BINGO Board and is set up for a Turtle fill. It has been planned out but so far only two chapters have been posted. I hope to finish it during September (though I am historically bad at predicting my creative output). 2764 words so far.
Plot: While investigating a suspected HYDRA base, Clint Barton gets captured. Due to the aftermath of SHIELDRA and Civil War, SHIELD is low on resources, and the only hero available to rescue him is Bucky Barnes. Bucky takes out all the HYDRA agents easily (in like two throwaway paragraphs, because they're not the focus), but due to the stuff HYDRA was doing to Clint, they end up stuck there for a few weeks, waiting out quarantine. Which gives them plenty of time to get to know each other.
Style/Tone: I usually try to research enough to be quasi-realistic in my tales, but this piece throws that all out the window and goes full Hollywood: Air duct shenanigans, unspecified drugs, safe & easy knockouts, unrealistic tasers, whatever's fun to write. Just playing up the drama, as usual.
Extras: As Clint and Bucky will find that they share Auditory Processing Disorder, I believe this qualifies for Pushing the Limits and Order of Fries. Also Gensplosion, though that's gonna be true of most stuff written for this event.

More General Nonsexual Intimacy

These aren't working from BINGO boards, just whatever I could throw together to fit the theme.

One-Shots

MCU: Dust and Ashes and Dreams (591 words)
Pairing: Tony Stark & Nebula
Vulnerability: Nebula wakes Tony from a nightmare, and he curls up with his head in her lap as she rubs his back.
This ended up being an accidental AU as I'd forgotten that Morgan was born after the Snap.

Octodad: My Quirky Neighbor's Daddy-Daughter Moments (651 words)
Pairing: Octodad & Stacy (his daughter)
This fic is from the POV of a neighbor who's oblivious to Octodad being an octopus.( Read more... )

So, that's my output for August. Now that I've actually laid it out... man, while I was in the midst of Panic Posting Mode, I did not realize how much I actually accomplished.

Not counting the updates of previously established fics, that's two pieces of nearly 3000 words each, one nearly 2000 words, four around 1500 apiece, a 1300 and two 1000's, plus five under a thousand words.

Collectively, unless I miss my math, that's 19,715 words -- again, not counting the updates (because they were partially drafted before the event).

That's 40% of a NaNoWriMo, or half of Numb Too Long or two-thirds of Obedience Is Bliss (Don't Fight It) (those being my Fic Exchange entries from a couple years ago). Time to celebrate accomplishment!

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Got an FMI Podfic up! (Physical Intimacy: Massage)

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 18:30:50 GMT

Posted by: zaniida

I didn't complete it in time, but since my policy for the August Intimacy event has been "as long as you get the first chapter up," I figure that getting the first section posted is sufficient to make it into the collection.

Ergo, here's the first part of Back Rub by April_Valentine, a Person of Interest fic that focuses on physical intimacy (and a touch-starved character).

Y'know, it took me decades to run across the term "Touch-Starved" and realize that it applies to me. I live in a house with three other people, and yet I could literally go an entire year without any significant, memorable physical touch. (It was this realization that I'd gone a year without a hug that made me finally start connecting some dots. Or, more precisely, that the most amount of touch I'd gotten that year was being passed fries by a friend every week as we carpooled.) I really hate having to ask for a hug; it feels needy, and I'd much prefer to have my friends and family understand that I want occasion hugs, and just give them to me randomly.

Anyway, this is part of why I am so attracted to fics with strong elements of nonsexual physical intimacy. And I've had this podfic in mind for a couple of years now; it's just, the last time I'd tried to record it, I'd had a cough that would not quit, so I had to give it up for a while. The scenario is a great delve into nonsexual sensuality and the sheer pleasure that physical intimacy can bring. I hope I've done it justice.

P.S. Last day to add works to the AO3 Collection! I'll be closing it down a couple of hours after midnight, Pacific Time, just to give stragglers a chance to get in. Meanwhile, I'm trying to finish up as many pieces as I can manage. Remember that posting a single chapter is enough to qualify for the collection, so you don't have to have a complete fic if you have at least a complete chapter. Thanks for participating!

ETA: Debated about allowing an extra week for the main collection, or adding a sub-collection for stragglers. Have been persuaded to go with the latter; I expect to open up a new sub-collection sometime mid-September for anything that didn't get added to the collection during August.

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One Week to Go for August Intimacy!

Tue, 25 Aug 2020 12:23:36 GMT

Posted by: zaniida

So far, the AO3 Collection has garnered 11 works with a total of 11 fandoms, which only works out mathematically because the one for The Witcher is labeled with three variations of the fandom and several of the Marvel ones are double-labeled with sub-fandoms. But! We've got a handful of Marvel pieces, plus Star Wars, The Witcher, Person of Interest, Stardew Valley, Recettear, and an Original Work where the characters are socks (which has been described with various synonyms for "cute"; I'm quite pleased with how it turned out).

Participants So Far: idrilhadhafang, Siberianskys, AQuietThinker (who wrote two), and Signamino. The other six pieces (two Marvel, POI, SDV, Recettear, and the Original Work) are mine -- three are complete, three have just the first chapter posted. The POI one is a Dark Inversion (Forced Intimacy).

And it's at this point in the game when someone pointed me at potentially a better tag: 5MI instead of FMI. It wouldn't get confused with "For More/My Information," which had been my worry over the original, though it'd get confused with "5-Minute" (e.g. Five-Minute Crafts), so... not sure if that's a gain or a loss or if it just breaks even. Con: "Five Em Eye" is harder to say than "Eff Em Eye," and slightly harder to type. Anyway, I tried it out on one new fic, and I'm mulling over whether it's an improvement or not, but feel free to use it if you like (it's not yet an AO3 tag other than on my piece, but if enough people use it, AO3 would eventually wrangle it into a synonym anyway).

Moving on.

This being my first hosting gig, I don't know if there's any additional administration-type tasks that I'm supposed to accomplish near the end of the event. So basically I'm just pulling up as many FMI projects as I have stockpiled and figuring out which ones are close to postable, while also trying to put time into my main piece.

Anyone who needs a boost near the end here should head on over to Start With This, a podcast by the makers of Welcome to Night Vale, which offers a ton of useful advice and suggestions to help with everything from meeting your word count to dealing with anxiety to knowing your limitations. Much recommended!

Thanks to everyone who's participating! I look forward to reading what y'all come up with =^_^=

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FMI: Comma-Separated Category Lists Are Up

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 14:20:05 GMT

Posted by: zaniida

They're under the Spreadsheets and Simple Lists folder, as text files.

I hope this is sufficient for anyone to make their own BINGO cards, if mine don't cover enough ground. There's a bit of overlap between the categories (it's about focus), but I tried to cut down on that. If you're using a random generator then you might get multiple prompts that are close to each other, though differentiated by nuance (e.g. different shades of loss: older than you, younger than you, peer group, or being comforted).

As I understand it, the easy-ish way is to stuff the lists into randomizers and then put the top five from each list into the board, thus preserving the categories. There should be plenty of variety for that much ^_^

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