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alyndra9 · 7 years

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SPN Big Bang Masterlist

Ever wonder how many big-bang-style challenges Supernatural fandom really has?

Various people have compiled various lists and posted them in various places. Trust me, I have a list of these lists. Everyone also defines the parameters of their search a little differently. Personally, I chose to look for past and present SPN Bang challenges, and then I made a spreadsheet with info about each bang. There are 70+ entries on it.

I included big bangs, mini bangs, reverse bangs, and the herculean mega bang. I did not include other kinds of fic challenges, such as gift exchanges, flashfic or drabble communities. What makes a bang a bang?

Well, it should have writers and artists all paired up and collaborating on their works. Usually there's a claims process, but the important point is you wouldn't just sign up, write your fic, and post. Most challenges will try to get pinch-hitters to fill in if either the author or artist drops out unexpectedly, but even if this doesn't happen it can still be a bang as long as the intent is that everyone gets paired.

That said, often my criterion for inclusion was more like, "does it have bang in the name?" So speak up if there's anything I missed but should have included, or anything included that doesn't meet the definition, or if you just think my definition is whacked.

Size: the original Big Bang community, a Harry/Draco innovation, had a minimum fic length of 40,000 words. This rapidly started dropping as Big Bang challenges proliferated. Each challenge is free to set a minimum wordcount wherever it likes. Although there is a lot of variety in minimum wordcount thresholds, there seems to be a fairly settled line around 10,000 words: a min. 10k wordcount can be considered either a big or a mini bang, depending who's running it, but any wordcount below this is almost always a mini bang, and above it is a big bang.

And then we get into the rarified heights of the mega bang, which, according to the SPN Mega Bang community, is over 100,000 words. (A smaller community has one for over 50k.) Mega bangs are unique to the SPN fandom so far; if anyone sees one in future, holler!

Reversebangs reverse the usual order of affairs: instead of writers starting off and artists choosing stories to work with, in a reversebang artists draw first and then writers choose which art they'd like to write a story for. Minimum size for a reversebang is generally smaller than a regular big bang.

The Friend Bang is unique because you start out paired with a friend and both write and draw for each other. The collaboration bang is an experimental format tried last year by the Sastiel Big Bang where artists and authors are paired up right off the bat and create simultaneously.

(An interesting idea to try might be a doodle!bang. Artists are perennially in shorter supply than ficwriters, even as wordcount limits keep going down. Setting up a low-pressure experience — maybe suggested 10-minute doodle — probably as a reversebang, could encourage artist participation.)

Couple more notes about what did and didn't qualify for inclusion here:

There are any number of multi-fandom bangs as well as bangs for other fandoms. In the interests of getting one list completed, I skipped including these, even though many (perhaps most) multi-fandom bangs would have SPN fic written for them.

In order to be included, a bang must have completed a round productively or else be less than a year old. Older bangs which never got off the ground are included in this list here. One exception that merits honorable mention in my list is the slackers bang, whose mod posts tell their own tale.

If a challenge's home page has been deleted, then inclusion rests on whether I can find fic/art for it, for example an AO3 tag. If you show me fic, I will include it in my list.

A note about schedule dates I've included: I deliberately tried not to get too precise. Challenges may or may not be regular from year to year, and schedules may be adjusted. Always check the bang page if you're interested in a challenge, rather than planning based off the dates in this! This is just to give a general idea. Some will certainly end up not being what I have down here. Links are to sign-ups open as of when I last checked. The numbers before months are just there to enable sorting by month.

The latest round column is the last year in which a round of fic started being posted, for dormant communities. If they're doing a round in 2017 it should say 2017. Occasionally communities will skip a year or three and then run another round, so dormant may not mean dead! Communities with a history of this are marked ongoing, but may not have schedule information posted.

Eventually I would like to replace the "year started" and "latest round" columns with (There are now) columns for each year which contain links to the masterposts for each round. Here's a resource with links to masterposts, in the meantime! for other fandoms. ETA 3: Done! Numbers indicate fic/art pairs for each round, plus scattered unpaired works. Mods who put in the labor to make masterposts, I love you and you get cookies bold font. Mods who tally their entries to spare me counting, you totally rock! Asterisks: because Sheets throws fits about more than one link in a cell, an asterisk means Intrepid Reader should exercise their detective skills to find all the fics; for example, by clicking to the next month on a LJ calendar. Note about calendars vs. tags: often there will be a tag for each round. However, I link to the calendar or archive rather than the tag, if I can't find masterposts, because I can't know if everybody tagged properly without doing a ton of cross-checking, and I don't want to miss anybody. I'll link to tags only if I'm assured they're complete.

Also, if you are a mod (or civic-minded citizen) who has shiny new (or old but well-hidden) masterposts for previous years, please do link me up!

“Main” and “wing” should be self-explanatory. (They were shorter than “Primary” and “Secondary.”) The “Other” column could be any site challenges are hosted, but right now it’s all Dreamwidth (dw). The numbers in the AO3 columns indicate how many works there are in each tag or collection. Keep in mind that tagging and collecting is up to individual authors, and therefore neither the tag nor the collection is likely to represent all work for a challenge, nor will they necessarily consist of the same works. Check challenge masterposts for complete works. Here’s the tag collection for Big Bangs on AO3. I’m sure there are tags and collections on AO3 that I haven’t yet found the links for, but I’m still on it! ETA 2: I’ve now looked at all 641(!) collections with Supernatural in them. Unless you named yours “LMNOP2″ or “Drabbles Comm: Socks” and didn’t include a description, I should have all Bang collections up in the Doc. (Stray tags may still crop up.)

My Google Spreadsheet of SPN Big (and otherwise) Bang Challenges!

Anyone can comment directly into the document or contact me with additional information or suggestions! Feel free to link to this from anywhere you like as well. Note that there are a couple new challenges with author sign-ups closing TODAY, August 31!

ETA: Fun with filters!

The awesome thing about speadsheets is that you can sort all the data any way you like! Here’s a quick rundown of possibly-useful information.

Even if you don’t have editing privileges on a Google Doc, you can still sort columns. It won’t permanently change the doc or impact the way others are seeing it if they’re viewing it at the same time as you. All you do is mouse over the top of a column where it says “A” and a little arrow will appear for you to click on. So if you’re an artist, feel free to sort by ‘artist signups,’ or if you just like reading everything as soon as it comes out, sort by ‘posting starts.’ The default way I have the Doc sorted is first I sort by ‘status,’ then by ‘writing signups,’ then by ‘latest round.’ This means that the doc will be sorted primarily by the year of the latest round, then by the month writers should sign up in, then by status.

I renamed challenges which haven’t yet gone a round from “new” to “virgin,” not just for amusement, but so we could have an alphabetical list: Closed, Deleted, Dormant, Hiatus, Polling, Ongoing, Virgin. Is that not sweet? You can sort by that, or alphabetically by name, etc. Play around, have fun, and when you’d like to go back to the standard view, just ‘X’ out of the dark gray filter bar.

#supernatural #spn #challenge #bigbang #mini bang #reverse big bang #masterlist

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