Wow, I'm really really excited for poly options, and crossovers look like a lot of fun too! I recently got into Steven Universe and I ship EVERYTHING POLY for it oh my god, there's actually a tag for it on tumblr (polygems) which is about a clump of 3-4 ladies in love.

Regarding the art stuff, I haven't really used imgur, photobucket I used in like, mid-00s LJ image hosting (such a dark time for fandom artists) and it's really not good because if you have the good luck to be popular, your image gets replaced by a "you're out of bandwidth" icon. I use something which might seem a little weird when it comes to image hosting--I just upload it as a private photo post to my tumblr, and right click image source for direct links, or use this code: <img src="yoururl"> where yoururl is...your URL. Keep the quotes, they're part of the code. That should work on AO3 with the default HTML input. I've tested it on months-old posts Google's had time to trawl, and reverse image search can't find it; google doesn't index private posts, so the user's identity is safe, and the URL itself is just a mash of letters and numbers with no clue as to the identity of the poster. There's no reason anyone would have to do it that way other than the many other image hosts out there, but I just find it easier to keep track of, and I know it's not floating around somewhere.

Regarding watermarks, I think we talked about it last year and as I said for myself personally it's not an issue--I don't watermark a lot of my art anyway and I don't shed tears over reposted art, it happens and I mostly just feel happy someone liked my art enough to save and repost it--but this is not the predominant view among artists. It's not going to affect my own participation at all, but I feel like it might be a real point of friction for others, which is a shame. People just save and repost art in a kind of casual way that never happens with fic. (I've been posting art online since 2003 and fic since 2004, and I've never had a reposted fic, but I've seen my art very casually reposted without credit, and no real malice or attempt to take credit, just a very innocent sort of "look at this cool thing I found" that treats the internet as an Anonymous Art-Generating Machine without real people actually working on art. I'm guilty of this too, I've saved art without credit, it's very easy to do.) With improved tools like GIS it's not like the source is likely to really be lost for anyone who cares to look, but ehhhh.... heck I've seen people use general websites like "Pixiv" or "Weheartit" (which is often already reposted art, sigh) as a source as if that was the name of the artist, I'd eyeroll if the artist of many talents "Femslashex 2015" got credited in reposts, lol. It'd be like if someone said, "I didn't write this fic, archiveofourown did," but it happens to artists all the time.

Were any artists specifically asking for an anon period? (I'm indifferent to it) Treating fic and art "the same" might actually be unfair to artists since different mediums have different needs? Or the anon period could be voluntary for artists--anon for artists who want it/don't care, not-anon for artists who feel the need to protect their work? IDK, it feels like it'd be meaningful to be willing to change part of the fic-culturey architecture to be welcoming to people who draw and their own unique culture. But well I'll let other artists voice objections if they have them, since it's not a problem for me. Sorry, I don't wanna be the problem child here!

For prompts I agree with others that basically if it's really long or really abstract (how would you draw, "A and B have a lot of student loan debt so they resort to dubious means of getting money" or something like that) that's good for fic but not for art, but stuff based on outfits, actions (kissing, fighting, cuddling, riding a horse together, etc) is more art-friendly. General themes/preferences (angst, fluff, h/c, explicit, PG-rated, AU, happy endings, etc) work all-around. Agreed that a fanart tag or a favorites folder on Deviantart (or a link to the requester's own drawings if they make them) could help people tailor for tastes if they like to do that.

Regarding a banner, I might be game, what sort of thing are you looking for? Original art, several pictures to represent many fandoms or just one, a manip of canon sources of stuff, combinations of drawings from several different artists?

Everyone seems to like the idea of poly, so we're giving it a go. Hopefully at least some SU fans will sign up.

That's good to know about private images on tumblr. I'll add that to the list of options, as well as how to do the coding (which I forget isn't universal knowledge). Having everything central is a pretty big advantage.

I don't think a fest-specific watermark would be quite the same as a site-specific one. You'd at least be able to find it more quickly if you knew which part of the fest to look at. There had been some discussion of putting the whole URL on, for one.

That's an interesting point about making the anon period optional for art, to accommodate the culture. Part of me feels like it wouldn't be "fair" since it would mean that some creators would be able to promote their work before others. However, it would be a way to draw traffic to art on an platform otherwise unfriendly to it. And, as you said last year, everyone pretending to be anon when art styles are often so distinctive and recognisable can seem a bit silly. I'll have to think about it and talk to the other mod.

On a logistical point, the archive is either all anon or all revealed, and there's no way to select for that. However, that wouldn't stop people from revealing themselves.

I'll do a posts for art and artists some time soon. For now, I think everyone in comments has given me a pretty good idea of what to include. Thank you.

Ideally, the banner would be original art of women that were generic enough to appeal to lots of fandoms (not clearly being Star Trek characters, or something), cute, and have the text of "Femslash Exchange" worked into it (two women sitting on the edge of the text? Just pretty text in the bottom? IDK). But honestly, anything that got the idea across would be great. I hesitate to make such a big ask, and would be happy for any banner that wouldn't frighten people off (which would be the effect of anything I made).

I hope we get some SU fans too! (Other than me, that is.)

That banner seems completely doable. Do you have anything specific you want for the text part (fonts, a logo you have already)? For the ladies should I basically just design two random women, or do you want silhouettes or something to make it more ambiguous? Also do you have any preference for image size/dimensions? (If it's for tumblr use, this might be useful.)

I'm sure there will be. It seems like a pretty popular fandom right now.

Two random woman would be great. I was thinking something in the line of 540 wide by either the same or shorter tall, to have a horizontal orientation. I'm pretty font unsavvy (I find comic sans calming, lol), so I'd better bend to your discretion on that. (Don't use comic sans.)

Edited 2015-07-25 06:02 pm (UTC)

Having talked it over, I think we will make the anon period optional for artists, but will ask people not to crosspost the whole piece until after creator reveals.

That's awesome to hear, and I think the crossposting restriction is completely fair. :D

Also, I meant to get back to you about the banner! It's completely doable, I've just had a rough week, I hope to get a chance to work on it soon!

No hurry. We're not going live for over a week, though I hope to get the rules post up by next weekend.

omg I'm sorry this took so long!



I hope you like it. It's transparent. :)

pls credit vampyrrhicvictory (my artblog).

OMG! That's gorgeous! They're so cute. I love their expressions!

Timing's not bad actually, as I can use it for the ad for sign ups.

I haven't got the treats for pinch hitters (etc) post worked out yet, but you'll see it when it's there.

And we're off: http://femslashex.tumblr.com/post/127436084002/sign-ups-are-open-image-credit-to

Yay! And also, kinda dumb thing but I wanted to thank you for something, I saw on tumblr how someone tried to challenge the asexual/queerplatonic inclusion in the fest, and as an ace-spectrum lesbian I immensely enjoyed the smackdown they received. (I wasn't the person nomming things with ampersands, and I was fine with those not being allowed too, ace relationships can use the slash and be real ships! God in most fics you wouldn't even know if the girls were ace or not, just that they're in love!) But yeah you do a really good job of not excluding fringes of queer lady identities while not making them the center focus (which is perfectly comfortable for me, it's okay to be included and not take over) and stuff like including nonbinary femmefolk and so forth, parts of queer identity that I so often see treated as "dequeerifiers" like you're less of a lesbian if you're ace and nonbinary and etc, and so much fear of like, not being a pure enough lesbian which gets so gross and gatekeepy and exclusionary. Anyway yeah it was like a breath of fresh air and I was like "I am supporting this fest any way I can come hell or high water" and I showed it to an ace friend of mine who hadn't been planning on participating but might now. We're both completely comfortable writing romantic and sexual femslash so I swear there's no ace takeover, it's just nice to feel...not hated.

I certainly didn't mean it as a smackdown (can sympathise with not liking the no-homo vibes that one corner of the queerplatonic crowd put off, though I'm also unsure that the no-homo corner would actually sign up for a femslash challenge). As I said, I have no interest in policing anyone's definitions or sexuality. For one, it never ends well. And I have no time for the whole lesbian hierarchy. Gold star, my Aunt Fanny.

The fest has run pretty well on an honour system so far, so if people are comfortable with the range of other people who are going to be involved, and that they want different things, and understand that it is all under the non-binding labels of "fem" and "slash," then, -shrugs- have at.

Oh I know--it was very polite! I certainly wasn't looking for rudeness from you guys. But it was also a firm "we're not excluding people" and that's a rare and beautiful thing. :) It isn't that I wanted you to be mean to or embarrass anyone, just that it was very clear it wasn't going to be a debate or a compromise.

and yyyyeah tbh there are ace people who take it to the weird no homo place (or no romo, which like, is fine, but not femslash?) but it actually seems way more common to me that allosexual people do the no homo/no romo thing with "ace headcanons" for characters they just don't want to ship (90% of it is PoC ace headcanons by white allosexuals who want to ship everyone else I s2g) and there's a contingent ~tumblr people~ (I say, as a tumblr person) who will jump on every new canon f/f ship and go, "what if they were ace?!" and I'm like "what if u chilled" but yep exactly I don't see why these people would sign up for a femslash fest, and tbh I think a lot of it is coming from allosexual people who don't have a good idea of how ace romances actually work. It's hard to imagine ace lesbians wanting to erase themselves? Everyone else does a great job of that already lol.

And like ace people have been in the lesbian community since forever (there's old slang terms like "stone butch" and "touch-me-not" for lesbians who like to give but not receive sexually, which is a very ace way of having sex) and Boston Marriages (some of which were undoubtedly sexual, but some of which also probably were not) and yep I'm so sick of the gold star thing too.

Basically I've been told by people that my identity is offensive because "lesbians have a history of being desexualized" (like they realize I'm a real person? Not a fictional character? people who think you can just pick the "best" sexual orientation ugh) on the one hand, then had people try to use my identity to no-homo lesbians which is like using me to erase myself and yep to have you guys say that even though ace stuff isn't the point or the main show of the fest that it doesn't cancel out f/f romance or LBPQ identities and doesn't need to be purged...thank you.

I wrote porn for the fest last year and my requests always say all ratings are good, asexual != antisexual and besides it's fiction? IA that this probably wouldn't be a good choice for people actively uncomfortable with fictional depictions of sexuality in all forms, but even the acest person I know isn't like that when it comes to fandom. ppl don't have to only make stuff of their exact orientation, and rarely do! I don't even come here to promote the Ace Agenda, just knowing the door is open for other people to portray characters who are like me if requester and filler are both into it...it's good.

This got way too long, basically I just wanted to be like, thumbs up, good job, making people feel safe and welcome, A+.