Remixthedrabble

Journal Community
Name:	Remixthedrabble, Remix: The Drabble
Date(s):	2007-2009
Moderator:	trascendenza, then dorian_mauve (amory_vain), sophinisba, and amathela.
Founder:	trascendenza
Type:	ficathon
Fandom:	multifandom
URL:	http://community.livejournal.com/remixthedrabble/
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Remix: The Drabble is a multifandom ficathon using the remix concept. Participants choose a drabble from their assigned recipient's canon, and remix it to the tune of exactly 100 words. It was founded by trascendenza in 2007, with round 1 of Remix: The Drabble opening the same day as the Remix Redux V archive went live.. There have been seven rounds (and one lightning round), with the last one happening in 2009.

Following the example of Remix Redux, all fics were posted anonymous to the comm by a sock-puppet, rather than by individual authors. Names were then revealed about a week later.

Rounds

Round 1

• Sign ups open: April 22-29 2007
• Assignments sent out: April 29-May 7 2007
• Fics due in: May 26 2007
• Fics posted: May 28 2007
• Author reveals: June 3 2007

Authors were sent only one assignment.

• Round 1 tags
• Round 1 discussion post

moderator trascendenza commented "12 fandoms, 21 drabbles, and a pretty nice mix of well-known and not-so-well-known fandoms and pairings and gen. All things considered, I think the whole thing went swimmingly. "

Round 1.5

• Sign ups open: June 8-18 2007
• Assignments sent out: June 18-20 2007
• Fics due in: June 30 2007
• Fics posted: July 2 2007
• Author reveals: July 7 2007

Rules changes from the previous round included participants only having to have written three fics of more than 80 words in at least three fandoms, and each participant was sent three assignments.

• Round 1.5 tags

"14 entries in 9 different fandoms, with four brave authors participating and two behind-the-scenes pinch hits."

Round 2

• Sign ups open: July 6-14 2007
• Assignments sent out: July 14-17 2007
• Fics due in: July 31 2007
• Fics posted: August 1 2007
• Author reveals: August 8 2007

As per round 1, participants had to have written at least five (5) fics of at least one hundred (100) words, and were given one assignment.

• Round 2 tags

Round 3

• Sign ups open: September 22-29 2007
• Assignments sent out: September 29-October 2 2007
• Fics due in: 20 October 2007
• Fics posted: 21 October 2007
• Author reveals: 27 October 2007

• Round 3 tags

23 entries in 15 different fandoms, with seven brave authors participating and pinch-hitting.

Round 4

• Sign ups open: March 1-7 2008
• Assignments sent out: March 8-10 2008
• Fics due in: April 1 2008
• Fics posted: April 3 2008
• Author reveals: April 21 2008

This round involved "NON-RECIPROCAL remixes. That means that you have the option of offering your fic to be remixed, and you have the option of signing up to write remixes, but you are not required to do both."

• Round 4 tags
• Round 4 Dear Remixer letters

moderator trascendenza commented "We had 76 entries in some 30+ fandoms, which is three times more than we've had in any of the previous rounds... A few of you may have noticed that this round had a few growing pains. I did have some additional difficulties organizing things because of the non-reciprocity in combination with the option of writing multiple remixes and the larger number of participants, but I did everything I could to make sure that everyone who signed up to be remixed received at least one. ... Sorry it took so long for everything to go public; next round I'll definitely get some co-mods to help out so the ficathon isn't so subject to my time availability.

Round 5

• Sign ups open: 10-18 October 2008
• Assignments sent out:
• Fics due in: 15 November 2008
• Fics posted: 18 November 2008 (although some are dated 13 Nov)
• Author reveals: 21 November 2008

Another non-reciprocal round. In addition to trascendenza, the moderation team now comprised amory_vain (primary mod), sophinisba and (for future rounds) amathela. Around 60-80 fics were posted in this round as well.

• Round 5 tags

Round 6

• Sign ups open: May 1-11 2009
• Assignments sent out: May 13 2009
• Fics due in: June 10 2009
• Fics posted: June 13 2009
• Author reveals: June 21 2009

Participants needed to have at least 5 fics of at least 100 words in at least 1 fandom. This was another non-reciprocal round. It was also a 'Drabble Purist Round', with all remixes having to be exactly 100 words long. trascendenza was not obviously involved with this round.

• Round 6 tags
• Round 6 guesses post
• Round 6 masterlist
• Round 6 reaction/discussion post

150 drabbles in 53 fandoms.

Round 7

• Sign ups open: September 11-19 2009
• Assignments sent out: September 21 2009
• Fics due in: October 15 2009
• Fics posted: October 19-24 2009
• Author reveals: October 28 2009

Another non-reciprocal round. "This round, remixers will have the option of writing more than one remix. You are only required to write one, but the option of writing up to five remixes will be available. Participants who sign up to write more than one remix will be given a PRIMARY assignment, i.e. one assignment that they have to write, and up to four OPTIONAL assignments."

• Round 7 tags
• Round 7 guesses post (interestingly much less popular than the round before)
• Round 7 masterlist
• Round 7 reaction/discussion post

Example fics

All of the following are from Round 7. Fandom is first, followed by title.

• Numb3rs: Sleepless (The Dreaming Remix) [Billy/Charlie, 300 words, rated PG-13], by emmademarais; remix of Sleepless, by melissima
• Doctor Who/Torchwood: Clothes Make the Man (The One Small Thing Remix) [Jack, Nine, 495 words, rated G], by astrogirl2; remix of Lilies of the Field, by joking
• Lord of the Rings: With a Great Effort He Concealed It (The Shadow Remix) [Frodo, 100 words, rated PG], by sophinisba; remix of The Shadow, by lindahoyland
• Doctor Who: Absolute Zero (the Quantum Singularity Remix) [The Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness, 100 words, rated PG], by kindkit; remix of Frozen, by kerravonsen
• Due South: The Joy of Commerce (The Money, Money, Money Remix) [Diefenbaker, 164 words, rated PG], by amaresu; remix of Untitled; prompt: due South, Dief, beef jerky, by isiscolo
• Merlin: Ladies of War (The Whose War Anyway Remix) [Gwen/Morgana vaguely, 100 words, rated PG for mention of death, spoilers for episode 1x12], by wordsofastory; remix of Ladies of War, by veleda_k
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Prodigy (The Unexpected Consequences Remix) [Giles/Olivia, 100 words, rated PG, spoilers for the entire television series], by lady_ganesh; remix of Charms and Tidings, by duh_i_read

Reactions and Meta

Requiring a minimum of 100 words rather than 1000 words encourages writing styles and changes of form that don't work as well in longer stories. For example, getting rid of the dialogue altogether is reasonable in a very short story, while I, at least, can't stand reading more than a page or two without it. The form lends itself to expanding an alluded-to scene, or playing with the timescale and plucking out only bits and pieces of the original. (isiscolo - as part of a much longer post)

What I found fascinating about remixing a longer piece into a really short one was how much I had to cut and cut and cut and edit and edit and edit down to get what I wanted. There's only so much scope a drabble will hold. I almost think for me, it's a helluva a lot easier to write a 100 word-to-100 word remix; there was one I wrote that didn't make my final cut in probably under a minute. (trascendenza)

More difficult for me, personally, was deciding which part of the story to remix (since a 2000+ word story can't be summed up in its entirety in 100 words). But once I decided to stick with the sex part :-D it practically wrote itself. (And no, Sheera, I wasn't just being a horndog--I picked the sex part because the entire piece is about their connection to each other, and that seemed like the best way to explore that in 100 words. *g* And also, prettyboysex.) (theswearingkind)