Innumerable Stars 2017!

[elwinfortuna]

My dear people, it's nearly that time again!

The schedule for 2017 looks like this:

Nominations Open: Saturday, 15 July 2017, 3:00 PM UTC  Sunday, 16 July 2017, 3:00 PM UTC
Nominations Close: Saturday, 29 July 2017, 3:00 PM UTC  Sunday 30 July 2017, 3:00 UTC
Sign-ups Open: Saturday, 29 July 2017, 11:59 PM UTC  Sunday, 30 July 11:59 PM UTC
Sign-ups Close: Monday, 14 August 2017, 3:00 PM UTC
Assignments Out: Tuesday, 15 August 2017, 3:00 PM UTC
Assignments Due: Sunday, 08 October 2017, 3:00 PM UTC
Works Revealed: Sunday, 15 October 2017, 3:00 PM UTC
Authors Revealed: Sunday, 22 October 2017, 3:00 PM UTC

This time around, I'm going to propose some changes from last year. Let me know what you think!

1. Change from nominating single characters to relationships -- both romantic/sexual (/) and friendship/family/platonic (&).

2. Adding several more fandoms! The fandom list at the moment looks like this:

Born of Hope (2009)
The Fall of Arthur - J. R. R. Tolkien
Farmer Giles of Ham - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Father Christmas Letters - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hunt for Gollum (2009)
Leaf by Niggle - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings Online
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Video Game)
Mr. Bliss - J. R. R. Tolkien
Roverandom - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Smith of Wootton Major - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Story of Kullervo - J. R. R. Tolkien

3. I'm considering breaking The Silmarillion up into multiple separate 'fandoms' -- such as The Children of Húrin and Beren and Lúthien. However, this seems really complicated and I'm not sure how to divide it, so any assistance would be really welcomed. Also, if this would encourage people to participate -- I know that a lot of people prefer one part of The Silmarillion over other parts, or only want fanfic about Númenor or something, so if you'd be into that, let me know!

Please comment if you might be participating, even if only to say that you are fine with the changes! I'd really appreciate it, there's nothing worse than feeling like you're talking into the Void with only Morgoth as your audience! :D


ETA: I've had to change the date for opening nominations due to a family emergency. 

Comments

[greatandgrey]

Eeeek, yay! All those fandoms! <3

One question: if we wanted to nominate an entire group, like the Fellowship of the Ring or the Istari, can we nominate them like that or do we need to list each name? :) And what if our hearts are set on just an individual character? Can we nominate "Character & none"?

As for dividing the Silm, I'm not entirely sure about the best way of doing it. A person who's mostly interested in creating fanworks about Númenor will likely to get matched to someone who requested Númenor and only focus on that part of their sign up, so I think it'll just work itself out. :) But if you're looking for ideas: recently everywoman utilized Canon Helpers as a way for people to specify which version of canon they wanted a character from a megafandom. So you would pick the fandom, pick the character, then pick the canon helper the specify which version of the character you wanted. We could do it that way, although some participants from Everywoman did feel the process was a bit complicated. :)

[elwinfortuna]

I've just tried adding 'The Fellowship of the Ring' to the tagset as a relationship, and it makes the tag come out as 'The Fellowship of the Ring - Relationship' which feels a bit strange. Also I think I'd be worried about the implications of nominating groups under a single name -- I'd theoretically be fine with a group of people that was defined, like the Fellowship or the Istari, but I don't want people nominating 'The Noldor' or 'Southrons' so probably best to keep it to names only. Obviously original characters would be fine, and I think if someone really wants just an individual character doing stuff on their own, the formulation 'Character & none' is a good compromise.

I'll need to look into canon helpers! Another thing I've been trying to figure out is if I can do 'worldbuilding' tags, so maybe the solution is that rather than dividing the Silm.

[greatandgrey]

Ah, okay! :) Makes sense, so I'll nominate those groups in an & format!

And yup! :) For the Silmarillion, we had these canon helpers:

Akallabêth
The Children of Húrin
The History of Middle-earth
The Silmarillion
Unfinished Tales

I'm interested in this worldbuilding idea very much! :D

[elwinfortuna]

I think I've figured it out. We'll be using the character field to nominate people (as groups, this can be platonic, romantic, or a combination, or single characters), and the relationship tags for our worldbuilding tags!