...I can ask for your help. I have a billion ideas buzzing around in my head. The problem is I'm not sure which one to pick for further development. Sooo, help me out?
Problem specifications: I want to have some sort of challenge where I can icon Farscape episodes (one ep/week, not more than a few icons per episode). Something interactive where I could discuss the episodes with others would be a big plus.
Background: We have finally reached the end of the weekly
club_farscape rewatches, and as far as I understand the plan is to start again from the beginning on Sunday. However, I've seen the episodes a gazillion times already so I'm not sure there's any point in watching them yet again, unless this time I have an icon challenge to go with it - the best kind of motivation. Soooo I'll need to come up with an idea asap.
Possible solutions (rambly collection of seriously incoherent thoughts! None of these are ready ideas yet, just concepts for possible solutions and they all need serious refining, some more than others):
- a personal challenge: I'd just make my own challenge post and complete it with episode-specific icons. Pluses: This would be the easiest option, and independent of anyone else's interest so I'll be able to do at least this in any case. Minuses: not interactive, just me iconing all by myself, not very inspiring or motivating
- challenge with a specific friend or group of friends: everyone would enter each week and there could be discussion about the episodes too, something resembling this BSG rewatch post with vampire_sessah :) Pluses: it would be a fun way to collect everyone's opinions of the episodes, and quite motivating imo. I really like the prompts especially (favorite character, favorite scene and one AC for each ep, and clear schedules like this help me participate in a challenge regularly). Minuses: it's a pretty rigid structure and puts maybe too much pressure on each participant to enter every week (for me that's no problem but might prevent others from participating?). Only works if I can find at least one person to do this with!
- free-for-all, open challenges in my journal or froonium_icons: anyone could enter when they feel like it, no signups or anything. I'd just make a post each week, corresponding to the episode of the week, and anyone would be welcome to post icons of the ep (possibly for specific prompts like in the above suggestion?) Pluses: very flexible, it would allow for people to enter maybe only their favorite episodes, or to jump in in the middle, or drop out, or anything. Very low on pressure. Out of all these challenge types, this would probably work the best with other types of graphics too. Minuses: making a new post every week would probably feel like annoying spam to those watchers/friends who are not interested (or, in case we would use the same post each week, that probably wouldn't work very well cause everyone would probably just forget about the post altogether).
- making a few icons each week for some other challenge (maybe theiconquest quests?) with an added rule of only using caps from that week's episode: Another type of personal challenge I could do just on my own. Pluses: slightly more motivating than solution #1, cause at least the icons would be for something. I always plan on doing more for theiconquest and this would definitely make me do that. Other possible comms would be the7days whenever there's a more technical theme that can be used with any subject, and maybe even 20inspirations if I'd claim a Farscape season in some future round. Minuses: still noninteractive and depends a lot on my ability to find compatible challenges. Also this is a much more vague challenge structure than the others so I'm not sure I'd be able to follow it very efficiently, I like clearer rules and systems.
- creating a Farscape (icontest?) comm: each week there would be new prompts (I'm thinking three prompts and everyone could enter 1-3 of them?). Could work with or without votings. Pluses: if this would take off, it would be a fantastic place for Farscape discussions and icons and possibly motivate even those FS fans who are too busy for farscape_20in20. It would allow for discussion with those FS fans who don't for some reason go to the chats, and that would be awesome cause I always love to hear new points of view. I could post cap samples there too so that even those too lazy to look for caps could participate, and when we'd reach those eps with no bluray caps yet I could definitely cap them too. Minuses: this would require much more work than the preceding options, and there's a big possibility that this wouldn't actually interest people so I'd just end up iconing by myself in a comm and feeling silly.
- creating a multifandom challenge comm for episode-specific challenges, type A: a comm where you sign up for a rewatch with a specific show and then post icons and opinions for it as you go, anyone could set their own pace and also decide how often they want to post (a fast watcher could just post a set for a whole season in one post, while a slower one like me could just make a few icons each week). Due to not having deadlines or even any set structure, this comm could hardly have votings. Think of this as a multifandom, less scheduled version of #2! Pluses: this could be a really fun place for different fandoms to meet and for us iconers to get to know each other through the discussions. If it would be possible to have more than one show on the list, I could definitely take something other than Farscape too, maybe SPN since everyone apparently wants me to icon it/talk about it, so why the hell not :D Minuses: if there wasn't much interest, I could again just end up iconing there all by myself and looking silly. Or if this *would* actually take off, the place could get chaotic and difficult to run quickly, and I'd probably need a co-mod. Also, this would mostly just work for those who watch popular shows, as the less known ones probably wouldn't spark discussion. This might also very well become one of those comms that start strong but die quickly, especially if there were no deadlines.
- creating a multifandom icontest for episode-specific challenges, type B: This would work more like a regular icontest. There would be no claiming of shows so you could icon episodes of different shows each week. There could be weekly challenges and votings, if people want them. Pluses: the well-known traditional format would probably be easy to grasp and thus lower the bar to participate. It could be fun to icon several shows. The format could easily be modified according to the interest of the participants, for example, it would work with or without votings, and with or without weekly prompts (if it's 'without' it could just have 'icon things you liked particularly much about the episode' as a general theme, or the same ones from option #2?). Minuses: difficult to run, though less chaotic than option #6 and would require less work from me than option #5 (because I obviously couldn't offer caps from every possible fandom so there wouldn't be any). Also, the multifandom angle wouldn't actually have any effect on me as I would still be iconing just Farscape, unless it was allowed to participate several times for each weeks challenge, so you could use as many shows as possible (which I still probably wouldn't do cause hey there are other challenges and I have to leave some time for those too!), OR maybe a solution where you could icon different shows in one entry - say, I could participate with one icon from FS, one from SPN and one from Lost. Idk?
- Something else (please give ideas in the comments!)
So, obviously I still have a LOT to decide, and there's room for modifications in each of these so if one of these only half works for you, I'm really open to concrit. Also, I know some of these are explained in a horribly confusing and rambly way so if you didn't get what I meant with some of the options, please ask, I'd be happy to clarify!
And just to clarify - no matter which option I pick, any possible comm would be free for all (=not an elite comm), and if I pick one of the Farscape options, participating would not require coming to the club_farscape chats.
It would be awesome if you could fill the poll if any of these interest you at all! Please only fill this if you read the descriptions above cause the short descriptions in the poll don't really give a good idea of the solution.
Poll What do you think? (pick all that apply) I'll of course still do other challenges as well and pick other fandoms for those, so please don't comment with 'pick Supernatural for this instead'! Yes I know you want me to icon it but as stated above, I have a good reason for wanting to pick Farscape for this project, to go with the shared rewatch :)
Huge thanks to anyone willing to help me with this!! I hate it when I have too many ideas, lol. If this post doesn't get any replies or votes, I'll just go for option #1 or #4 or manipulate a friend or two into option #2 :D