General FAQ
HOW BLEACH_FLASHFIC WORKS:
The purpose of bleach_flashfic is to write fanfics for other community members, their common tie all being the anime/manga series Bleach. It’s a chance for authors to hone and experiment with their writing skills and to challenge themselves to write a fic about a given character or pairing.
The community works like this: at some point near the end of the month, a sign-up post will be put up by the mod, to which all members who wish to participate that month will respond with the following information:
--their livejournal username
--their e-mail address
--four characters or pairings
--genres (dark, humor, action, supernatural, etc.)
--maximum rating
--preferred universe to write in/receive a fic for (mangaverse or animeverse)
Participation is voluntary, which means that you don’t have to sign up every month if you don’t want to.
The sign-up post will close on the first of the month, and by the second at the latest, all participants will receive an e-mail with the name of the livejournal user they will be writing a fic for. They’ll have one month to write a fic of a thousand words or more about one of the characters or pairings from their assigned author’s request, according to the requester’s wishes.
Let it be said right now that once you receive your request, it will not be changed. You must write a fic for that person, even if you hate the characters or pairings they’ve requested. Part of the fun of this community is the challenging aspect of writing something you otherwise wouldn’t… and seeing what was written for you!
In addition, it goes without saying that the assignments are kept secret (which is also part of the fun ^^); don’t spread around who you’re writing for, and don’t pressure others into spilling details about their flashfics. The exception is if one wishes to use a beta reader, in which case the beta in question should be trustworthy enough not to tell.
On the last day of the month, all participants will post their fics with the following header:
Title:
Author’s Name:
Requester’s Name:
Pairing or Character:
Rating:
Squicks/Spoilers:
Author’s Note(s):
All fics should be spellchecked at the very least and have a reasonable attempt at proper spelling and grammar. Feel free to add to the header, too, if necessary, and to link to the fic if it’s been posted elsewhere (such as on fanfiction.net, mediaminer.org, or a writing journal).
If one is unable to post their fic on time at the end of the month (for a reason such as not being able to access the Internet to do so), they may e-mail it to the mod at her e-mail address (lucindathemaid@hotmail.com) and she will post it in their name.
If a member does not finish their fic by the end of the month, they will have a grace period of one day to post it. If they do not, they will not be able to participate in the next month’s sign-up.
HOW TO MAKE A MONTHLY REQUEST:
Every month, participating members sign up at a request post with four characters or pairings they wish to receive a fanfic about. However, when making your request, there are two things to keep in mind:
1. Feel free to state what you do not want. Satisfaction with your request fics is an integral part of this comm; if there’s something you don’t want to receive a fic about, by all means, mention it in your request! Be specific enough to ensure that you’ll get something you’ll be satisfied with, but broad enough to make sure the author that’s been assigned to you has enough room to work with.
2. Be user friendly. Try to keep your characters and pairings in the realm of sensibility or, if you feel the need to include a crack pairing, keep it to a maximum of one.
Here’s an example of a bad request:
--e-mail:
--characters/pairings: Ichigo/Shuuhei, Mahana/Michiru, Zennosuke, Oomaeda family
--genres: anything!
--max rating: anything!
In this case, the member in question did not include an e-mail address, so the mod has no way to contact him or her. The pairings are either cracked out (Ichigo/Shuuhei) or deal with obscure characters (Mahana/Michiru), and the characters by themselves are obscure, too. By obscure, I mean “barely mentioned,” “has a very minor, possibly reoccurring, role,” or “was mentioned but has never appeared in the anime or manga.” If someone receives this request, they will likely have a hard time writing something to fit the requester’s wants.
In addition, putting “anything” in the genre line means just that; you can get virtually anything as a result. This means that you could receive a fic that includes rape, incest, character death, heavy smut, pedophilia, fluff, excessive violence, and so on. So if something’s not your cup of tea, speak up in your request!
Also, if you don’t like reading explicit material (such as sexual content, violence, or cruelty), make sure you indicate this in your max rating.
Here’s an example of a good request:
--e-mail: yourname@email.com
--characters/pairings: Kira/Gin (platonic or romantic), Ichigo/Orihime, Hinamori+Matsumoto (platonic only), Hisana
--genres: yaoi, darkfic/angst, drama, songfic, romance, and AR all okay. No rape, incest, yuri, or AU.
--max rating: R
In this case, the requester included an e-mail address, so the mod can e-mail him or her with their assignment and get in touch with them otherwise. The pairings were marked as to whether they should be platonic or romantic, and there were a mix of major (Ichigo, Orihime), minor (Kira, Gin, Hinamori, Matsumoto), and obscure (Hisana) characters, thus giving the writer of their flashfic plenty to choose from.
As for the genre section, the requester listed a good amount of genres and even mentioned that a yaoi pairing between Kira and Gin is acceptable. They also listed genres they don’t wish to receive, which minimizes the chance that they’ll get a fic they’ll ultimately be disappointed with.
Failure to provide a sufficient user-friendly request will result in the mod asking you to change your request to something more user-friendly.
Here’s a list of things you may or may not want to see in flashfics written for you. Feel free to mention any of them in your request.
angst
AR (alternate reality)
AU (alternate universe)
backstory
bloodplay
bondage
BDSM
chan
character death
comedy
dark
drama
fluff
gen
gore
happy ending
het
horror
humiliation
humor
incest
introspective
lemon
lime
mpreg
non-con
OOC
parody
pedophilia
PWP
rape
romance
shota
songfic
satire
torture
WAFF
yaoi
yuri
There, that’s it! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask them here in a comment.