Announcing the Chromatic Yuletide 2010 Challenge

[dark_administrator]

Last year we started dark_agenda in order to try to promote the representation of chromatic sources and characters in the biggest pan-fandom challenge ficathon - yuletide. This year, we hope to renew and refine our challenge, and start it earlier with the nomination process itself.

Our challenge has four components:

• To nominate only or more sources with chromatic creators and/or characters.
  
• To request only or more sources with chromatic creators and/or characters.
  
• To offer to write only or more sources with chromatic creators and/or characters.
  
• To pick only or more prompts with sources with chromatic creators and/or characters when perusing 'dear author' letters or yuletide madness unfulfilled requests.

We suggest 'only' as an option because the odds of your receiving and writing something that meets the requirements of the challenge are significantly increased if you exclusively request and offer chromatic sources and characters.

Our suggested hierarchy for approaching the challenge:

• First, write for a language and culture other than your own.
  
• Second, support sources that are as authentic and unproblematic as they can be, especially in relation to those made about a culture from outside it.
  
• Third, celebrate actual source cultures before reinterpretations of it, because there just isn't enough of the first; i.e. realistic representations before retellings of myths, and actual religions before fantasy send-ups of them.
  
• Fourth, if you end up writing problematic source, engage in fixing it: finding the invisible people of colour and putting them back in, writing the back story for a character without tying it into the white people's narratives, showing not telling the blind spots and bigotry and flaws in the celebrated white heroes of the narrative.

Caveats:

• We use the term 'chromatic' as an umbrella definition for 'sourcelander', 'hyphenate', 'diasporian', 'person of colour', 'non-white', while we acknowledge that it has shortcomings. Similarly, we accept that there is a certain flattening in our 'White / Western /Other' terminology.
  
• We are not the final or authoritative arbitrators of what is offensive or acceptable. There is no such thing as universal agreement.
  
• We cannot and will not police authenticity or accuracy in sources, betas, or stories. We will accept and include clarifications and corrections about any opinions or facts we might state.

We prefer to focus on sources with chromatic creators because we find them underrepresented even in a challenge comprising of rare fandoms, and you can take a look at last year's list here to find inspiration on what to nominate.

When nominating, requesting and offering a source with a white creator, such as those listed here, please do make sure to specify the chromatic character(s) names.

This year, we are setting up a specific subcollection at the AO3 for the challenge, to which you can add your stories the same time as you upload them for yuletide. We would also be happy if you would use 'chromatic yuletide 2010 challenge' as a tag, in addition to whatever character-specific tags like 'Muslim character', 'PoC character', 'Latin@ character' etc that will help readers find your fic.

You can structure the challenge to meet what you feel comfortable committing to, and 'signing up' is only a way to give us some idea of who is interested in participating -- we do not penalise anyone for being unable to write what they had thought they might have been able to.

Please comment below if you would like to participate in our challenge, and mentioning which components of it you think you might be able to meet!

We would like to dedicate this challenge in remembrance of skywardprodigal, who founded multibeautiful and was responsible for adding so many chromatic visuals to our fannish landscapes.

Comments

[florahart]

psst: the challenge components all say "only or more," which I assume must mean "one or more"

(feel free to delete this comment for tidiness)

[dark_administrator]

We actually did mean 'only or more', and have edited the post to hopefully make what we meant more clear. Do let us know if we need to clarify further!

[florahart]

I think 'only or more' isn't at all clear and if it's a phrase in common usage to you (which I accept is possible) it's one I think I've never heard (US West coast)--maybe it's a regional usage?

I've concluded you mean to say either ask for/offer only these things, or make these requests the majority of what you ask for/offer. This is a sensible thing to suggest to make this challenge work, but I think what you mean to say is, [request] only or primarily [these things]. More might mean more than one, more than last year, more than not (majority), more than average... Now that I understand what you mean, I don't particularly think you need to clarify further, but I think you might opt to. Or not--I'm not especially invested. ;)

[aris_tgd]

I will definitely be nominating and requesting more chromatic sources than I did last year.

And I will work on #4 as well, though I don't know how many treats/pinch hits I'll have time to write.

[hokuton_punch]

Have done 1, planning on 2, and will at least try for 3 and 4!

[lilacsigil]

All my Yuletide nominations either featured chromatic characters in major roles or had a chromatic creator, and I'll be working on 2-4 as events allow. Thanks for this post - it helps me get my brain in gear.

[plazmah]

Definitely doing 1 and 2, will try my best to do 3 and 4 as well.

[troisroyaumes]

Have done 1, planning on doing 2-4!

[toujours_nigel]

Only my 'Mythology: Greek and Roman' prompt did not include chromatic characters. So that's the first.

Now lessee.

[sharpest_asp]

I must say this is a very good dedication to skywardprodigal. I am uncertain how successful I will be in meeting your challenge, but I will TRY.

[dragonfly]

I have nominated two (of three total noms) non-western, non-white fandoms. Without knowing what my assignment will be, I can't be certain I'll have the opportunity to write a chromatic character, but I will be on the lookout. The same goes for treats and pinch-hits.

My progress in the challenge

[dragonfly]

1. I can't say I nominated more sources with chromatic characters than I usually do, but I did nominate two.

2. All four of my requests have chromatic characters, though I didn't require them to be written. I did mention in my optional comments that I support this challenge and would love to see [name of each chromatic character] in the fic. One of my requests is in a fandom that only has chromatic characters, and, while I've offered that fandom before, this is the first time I've also requested it.

3. So far, I have offered three fandoms I've never offered before, specifically because I saw them on the spreadsheet. I specified chromatic characters I would write for one of them.

[sophiap]

I will do a variant of #4, as I am planning to participate by stalking the pinch hit list rather that signing up.

[yasaman]

I'm planning to do #3! Good way to keep myself from getting in over my head, otherwise I might just offer anything and everything I've ever read/seen, heh.

[ranalore]

Did 1, plan to do 2 if my nominations all take, plan to do 3 (which works well with my spoon-saving conviction to offer only fandoms I really, really want to write), and if I have the spoons, I'm hoping to do 4 as well.

[jadelennox]

I'll be doing the first 3 (more, not only), though not the fourth because I don't do Madness.

[glass_icarus]

Have done 1, plan on doing at least 2 & 3, if not 4!

[teaotter.livejournal.com]

I've done number one, and plan to do two and three. I've never had time for extra writing, so I don't think I'll get to four this year, but if I have time, I will attempt it.

I also plan to write posts about the fandoms I nominated that meet the challenge criteria, in the hopes of getting more people to offer to write them!

[snowynight]

I plan to do the first 3, but as I may not have time for extra writing, we will have to see about 4.

[glinda]

I'm trying to do 2 and 4 this year.

[esmenet]

Doing the first three this year; will be internet-less for Yuletide Madness.

[carmarthen]

I requested 2/3 chromatic sources and offered 2/6, plus 1 which has chromatic characters but is problematic in some ways (I have plans for subversion if I get matched on that one). I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to do pinch hits (depends on many factors), but I plan to prioritize chromatic sources and characters there.

[carmarthen]

Naturally, everything is in flux as I keep changing and adding fandoms and seeing new exciting prompts on the dark_agenda spreadsheet.

omgiamsoexcited!

[edithmorningstar]

I am participating both in requests and offers. All 4 of my fandom requests feature characters of color (though in one I do have an option of a non-chromatic character and in another the CoC doesn't have a name so I've specified him in the notes and can't guarantee anything). I've made it clear in my Dear Writer post that I'm participating here.

I'm offering a heavy chunk of chromatically focused characters in my offers. And regardless of what I get assigned, I plan to write some of the chromatic requests I see during Madness.

[toft]

I am going to make a special effort on 4) this year!

[dhobikikutti]

Heh, I should sign up officially, no?
I'm doing one to three all chromatic sources, and four if I have internet.

[matt_doyle]

While my sign-ups are already in and what I've offered to write is pretty broad - usually 'any character' - I'll be doing my best with 3 & 4.

[littlebutfierce]

I've done all chromatic creators/characters for 1 & 2, & for 6 out of 7 offered fandoms for #3.

#4 depends on how my holiday season & travel pans out. (Is there room to mention specifically picking chromatic prompts for New Year's Resolution fics? I know technically that is not Yuletide itself, but...)

[devilc]

I've made my offers.

It's now up to what I'm assigned, what I pinch hit and how the spirit moves me during Yuletide Madness.

But I'll do my damn'dest. I had a lot of fun last year.

----
Q: (and I ask this knowing there's a great deal of debate in fandom on this issue) But how is Dark Agenda classifying fictional races like Drow or Dragons?

[dhobikikutti]

Augh, we meant to throw up a post to talk about secondary world races, and totally let that slip by, sorry! Um, for the moment, can you make your own call based on each source, and we will try to get to a post to frame the policy on it soon-ish.

[skogkatt]

I requested things with chromatic characters, and said I'd love to see them in my story (though for two of my fandom choices I didn't require any specific characters).

I'm not really sure what my primary assignment will be or whether I'll be able to do something in line with this challenge for that, but I will make a point of trying to do at least one madness/pinch hit story to fit this challenge.

[livrelibre]

1-3 are done and 4 is in the works.

[oyceter]

Did 2 and 3 as only's, will probably do 1 and 4 as more's.

[taabe]

About to do 2 and 3, and regret that I missed 1 this year (poking through the archive gives me ideas for next year's nominations though. "Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" ...

[silver_queen]

Working on 3 and 4 this year.

[ishie]

Have done 1&2, am trying to do 3 before signups close, and already have some letters earmarked for 4 :)

[lastingdreams8.livejournal.com]

I've done steps 1-4, hopefully I can complete the challenge, but definitely something to think about. Thank you for this!

[freneticfloetry]

Have done 1-3, will work on 4 when Madness rolls around.

[curiouslyfic]

Missed 1, sadly, but 2-3 are done and hopefully, I'll have time for 4.

[misspamela]

I'm definitely in! Have done 1-3.