#I am mildly pushing to see more friends on DW and in events like this

[feckyeswriting]

Fandom Giftbox - A Low Key Fandom Event

Hey y'all! I wanted to boost an event that's happening right now over on Dreamwidth that anyone can join! If you have no idea what Dreamwidth is, that's okay! The gist is that it is a journaling/semi social media site. It's based off of LiveJournal (which you may have been a part of or missed completely).

To participate, you will need to join the site. It's easy! And then once you've joined, you can be easily lured into participating in even more and more events there. There's been a lot said by people better versed than I on how to get acclimated to using Dreamwidth, so I won't get into detail here. You just need an account to be able to follow the event community & to submit your comments.

So what's this event?

Probably should get into that, yeah!?

Fandom Giftbox is a multi-fandom, anyone is invited event where people will gift you drabbles, icons, fanart, or anything else under the sun. Of course you should also be gifting to others as well. It's a nice, warm feeling to drop off a few fills and then open up your own "box" on the reveal day to see what others have thoughtfully given to you! There are just a few stages to the event.

I just want to emphasize, this is open to literally any fandom. Including Original Works. Want more cryptid/cryptozoologist action? You can request it here.

1. Sign Ups

Enter a comment on the 2020 Sign Up post. Be sure to include the General Signup and as many Fandom Signups as you feel like filling out. Three fandoms is the minimum. I've seen people put in as many as 10-12.

2. Fill Giftboxes

Once the boxes are opened, you can browse through the tags on the lefthand side of the journal or on that year's Request by Fandom posts (once they've been created). Look for at least one where you can create something for the recipient. But by all means go hog-wild and fill as many as you'd like. Again, the more that people gift, the more that everyone gets!

Fills are submitted by adding comments to the person's box. They will be "moderated" which just means that the recipient won't see them until they're revealed.

Fun fact! Mods will monitor to see if any giftboxes are "Needy" and empty. Towards the end of the fill stages, a list of these Needy boxes will be available. The goal is for everyone to get at least one fill.

3. Giftboxes revealed!

You get to look through all the fills on your box (and anyone else's). The warm and fuzzies, they are so nice.

So like... what can I give? Or what am I going to get?

Fills will have to follow the "Wants" and "DNWs" (Do not Wants) that are included in the sign-up phase. DNWs have to be followed. Prompts are just suggestions though. So if you ask for Harry/Draco with a prompt for an Auror AU, you may not get the AU. But you would get Harry/Draco.

Same logic follows for the type of fill. There's a sample list of media on the sign-up sheet for what are common fills - "Any, Fanfiction, Fanart (Drawn/Digital), Graphics (Icons, Wallpapers, Manips, Banners), Fanmixes, Fanvids, Meta, Recs, Podfic, Fan Music". If you really don't want to get anything other than fanfic, you are more than welcome to say just that. Just note it might make it harder for people to fill if you are too picky.

What's the timeline of this?

You can see the official timeline on the Fandom Giftbox page, but here's the schedule as of 4 Jun 2020:

Sign Ups Open: May 31st, 2020 Sign Ups Close: June 21st, 2020 (No earlier than 11:59pm EST) Giftbox Posting Begins: June 7th, 2020 Giftbox Posting Finished: on or before June 26th, 2020 Request Spreadsheet Finished: on or before June 28th, 2020 Fandom Entries Up: on or before July 5th, 2020 Empty/Underfilled Giftbox Requests Begin: by Sunday, July 19th, 2020 AO3 Collection/DW Comments Revealed: Sunday, September 6th, 2020 (No earlier than 11:59pm EST)

What should I do while I'm waiting for the event to start?

What a great question. Why don't you check out the DW Fandom Calendar and see if there's anything else up your alley happening soon? You can also try out some of the neat features on DW like Access-Locked journals for only close friends to see your updates, finding new people via Interest Search, or checking out Latest Things to see if anyone's journal is interesting enough for you to consider Subscribing too. Don't forget to Subscribe to Fandom Giftbox, too, so that it'll show up on your Reading Page (which is like a very slow moving Dashboard).

And don't forget to give a wave to me on there if you'd like! I give access to most people so long as we're from the same circles :)