BBC Merlin Real Person Fanworks

Thank you again, everyone, for taking part in (or even just silently lurking in the dark corners of) our Promptacular Fest 2016! It's been a lot of fun, and proves there's still plenty of life and passion in the Merlin RPF fandom.

So, what mischief shall we get up to next?

Sprucing up the community

I have loved the look and feel of our community, so this is not a criticism. However, we've had some changes, the banner is MIA, and after proudly being in existence for almost eight years, it's probably time for a bit of renewal on the design front.

I am happy to do it myself, but I would also be very happy for an artist or designer to volunteer their help. You were all very kind about my Promptacular banners, but I remain an amateur in this regard.

Feel free to offer via the comments, a message, or email, and we'll talk. But I am looking to work on this fairly soon, as I have a smidgen of free time.

Mini big bang!

When I held a poll about what sort of fest or event we wanted, a prompts fest came first, but a mini big bang came close behind. So shall we give that a try...?

This is me thinking aloud:

• I'm not really across all the other Merlin events and fests that are happening, and maybe it would be almost impossible not to conflict with something. But if anyone wants to suggest there are certain times we should avoid, please illuminate me!


• We could run our mini bang over the latter part of this year, i.e. starting in July and posting in November, December or January.


• Longer fills would be very welcome, but I think we could set a fairly modest minimum of 10,000 words for fic, or the equivalent kind of effort in any other type of fanwork?


• Pairings of creators with two different types of fanwork (e.g. fic and art, dance and knitting) would be very welcome, and I'd love to help with that if I can - but maybe the invitations and offers need to be driven by the creators...? When creators sign up for the mbb, perhaps one of the items is to say whether they're interested in working with a fellow creator.


• My intention is that this be slightly more formal than the prompt fest (e.g. creators must have a beta), but otherwise you'll have a feel already about how I run fests - and now is a good chance to make any (polite!) suggestions or requests about how this one will work!

Over to you, dear fellow fans! I'm very interested in your responses to all of the above!