Dark Agenda Fic in Yuletide

[dark_administrator]

Now that the archive is live, we can see that there are 50 stories tagged "Dark Agenda Challenge".
This is awesome! Everyone who participated, rock on!

We bet, though, that there are actually a lot more stories (well, or at least some more) that qualify for the challenge, but whose authors for one reason or another didn't end up tagging them as such.

So as you read and leave feedback, please leave a comment suggesting that the author tag their fic to help other readers find it.

You can also bookmark and/or rec fics at AO3, and if you use the "Dark Agenda Challenge" tag while doing so, it will make it much easier for us to add those stories to the collection we plan to set up.

Do feel free to crosspost lists of Dark Agenda fic recs to this comm. If you have one or two amidst a bunch of others, there will be a post up in a few hours where you can comment with your recs, and we will edit them into a master list.

Thank you very much, all of you who have participated so enthusiastically in this community and challenge!

Comments

[thingswithwings]

I just wanted to ask . . . I sort of understood the Dark Agenda challenge to be more focused on non-Western fandoms/characters, but I also see that some folks have tagged stories in Western fandoms featuring characters of colour (like Alec Hardison from Leverage) as "dark agenda" as well. I think this is probably okay, and it certainly is helping me read more characters of colour regardless of fandom, but wanted to check that it was okay with the challenge mods to tag fics just generally about characters of colour as "dark agenda."

And while I'm here, thank you so much for running this challenge! I love it to bits, and have met some great new fandoms through it.

[dhobikikutti]

(until DW gets with the switch profile ability, I suspect I am always going to be too lazy to respond in the admin profile.)

Shorter version: Yes it's ok.

Longer: The challenge was two-tiered. We wanted to support and promote chromatic sources. But as your vid making pointed out, there was also a lot of ignoring of CoC in popular, Western sources. So we made two lists, one for chromatic characters to write about, and one for chromatic sources. Ideally, the presence or absence of a "Chromatic Source" tag should help you figure out which part of the challenge the fic fulfils.

[thingswithwings]

ah, obviously I wasn't paying very close attention! Thank you for explaining. I'm all over those tags now (or, er, I will be, whenever the archive quiets down). :)

[troisroyaumes]

Hi, I just posted my first set of Yuletide recs (most of them qualifying for Dark Agenda Challenge), and I was going to crosspost the relevant ones here but noticed that posting access is limited to moderators. Should I just wait until the recs compilation post goes up and leave a link in the comments?

[dark_administrator]

(Apologies for the delayed response... we messed up our email forwarding.)

The recs compilation post is up now, so do leave a comment with all the appropriate recs, and we will edit them into the masterlist!)

[justvan]

Sadly, despite reading through this comm, I really don't know what fics should be tagged for this challenge. If your fic is a non-Earth-centric fantasy novel set on a fantasy world with fantasy character who happen to be non-white, does that count? Do you have to have signed up for this challenge or even have known it existed to tag your fics with this challenge tag? I'm all for tagging my story with this challenge title, but I don't want to do so if it doesn't fit the criteria and it seems most of your posts are focusing more on actual Earth-based non-whites and not fictional ones, etc. (Which makes sense, but might needt o be clarified if you don't mind, etc.)

[dark_administrator]

(Apologies for the delayed response... we messed up our email forwarding.)

We will try to make it less confusing for people in the future!
Basically - you don't have to be signed up for this challenge, or have previous knowledge about it to tag your fics.

If your fic meets the criteria, tag away!

Non-white fantasy world characters are something we had planned to talk about, but we missed the boat on having that conversation before yuletide went live. For right now, could you go ahead and tag them "Dark Agenda Challenge" and add a "Chromatic Secondary World Character" tag to them, so that we know they are not real world representations.

We will make a mod post explaining that tag, and will make sure to talk about this before we set up the Dark Agenda Collection on AO3.

[justvan]

Great, thanks. I'll probably wait until after the reveal to tag this though, since otherwise mine will be the only fic tagged with that for a bit. XDDD Thank you for letting me know though, and no worries about the delay. It's the holiday season after all.

[devilc]

I wrote 3 stories for yuletide this year and two of them were no-brainer tags for Dark Agenda and Chromatic Character.

But one I'm not sure of.

Is it okay if I post here and/or PM the mod after the reveal about the suitablity of the giving it Chromatic Character and/or Dark Agenda tags?

---

It's future fic. In the source, the CoC plays an important supporting role. In telling the story of the character I was asked to focus on, I also reveal what happened to the CoC, and the story makes it clear that their lives are going to be intertwined from here on out.

ETA: He plays a big enough role that I tagged him as a character in the story, if that helps.

[dark_administrator]

(Apologies for the delayed response... we messed up our email forwarding.)

Yes, after the reveal, we will make sure to have a post up to talk about those slippery slopes of what we thought we might tag, but weren't sure of. There will also be a fannish meta brainstorming post.

[devilc]

thanks