Hi All! This is a post for pinch hitters, graphics makers, beta readers, community gift givers, and cheerleaders. You can join in with any or all of this regardless of whether you’ve signed up to the Secret Santa gift exchange or not. Want to dip your toes in the water or missed out on sign ups? Community gift! Fancy gifting banners? Graphics team! Want to encourage and enable other people? Cheerlead! We like to make this festive thing fun for everyone :)

PINCH HITTERS

We will be automatically assigning pinch hitters to anyone who doesn’t submit their gift by the deadline of December 6th, which should hopefully give you a decent amount of time to create a gift before we start posting. If people then do manage to submit their gift by an agreed extension your pinch-hit would be assigned as a gift to the community as a whole, but no less appreciated! We will let you know as soon as a pinch hit is needed, so either when the deadline has passed or earlier if people let us know in advance that they’re dropping out. Gifts needs to be a minimum of 1,000 words or the art equivalent and ideally we’d like pinch hits to be completed by December 13th.

If this sounds like something you’d like to do please comment to this post with:

Your email address: either in the comment or PM me

Type Of Gift: gift type you’re willing to pinch-hit for, fic and/or gift basket (which is anything arty or anything arty combined with a short fic)

Absolutely Not: Things that are an absolute no for you, such as anything triggering, character death, certain ratings, things that you will not do.

Kinda Like: If we get plenty of pinch hitters showing interest we can match you up a bit so you get something you think you’d be good at or would have fun with, so what are your strengths or likes? Genres, AU, comics…? No guarantees, but we’ll try!

GRAPHICS MAKERS

There are two types of graphics in Secret Santa. The first is participation graphics, such as banners or icons. The second is the epic banner making we like to do, where we create a banner for every gift. When Secret Santa exchange participants reach the deadline we collate their titles, who the gift is for, and some general theme or idea of what the gift is about, then a team of graphics makers get creative in time for banners to be added to the top of all gifts when they’re posted.

If either or both of these sounds like something you’d be interested in please comment to this post with your email address (or PM me your email address) if we don’t already have it from this year’s Secret Santa and what type of graphics you’d like to make. We’ll then email around the details and organisation as we go.

Of course if you’d just like to create some Secret Santa or seasonally inspired icons, advertising banners, or anything else do feel free to share!

BETA READERS

To make things friendly and easy, if you’d like to offer your beta reading skills for someone’s Secret Santa fic please comment to this post saying BETA VOLUNTEER and a bit about your style and strengths as a beta reader.

For both volunteers and people requesting beta readers, we had a discussion on beta readers and how to ask for them a while back here that might come in useful. (The information on who’s available to beta read on that post is old though.)

If you’re unsure of how to approach a beta reader remember it’s a creative exchange. Beta readers do it for the fun of it and to help you :) And if either of you think that the other’s style isn’t for you that’s absolutely fine and you can part ways with a smile. You might want to tell your prospective beta reader: how long your fic is, your deadline (if other than the 5th December), the rating and any warnings or triggers, what you’re stuck on if there’s something specific or even general like you’re worried about your grammar or an action scene.

COMMUNITY GIFTS

This is what it says on the tin: a gift for the community. If you missed signing up to Secret Santa this year, fancy just dipping your toes in the water, or would like to write something extra, you can create a community gift.

The simple way of community gifting: create something fic or arty, following the usual rules of the comm, and post it in December, or during Secret Santa posting time, saying that it’s a gift for the community.

Or if you want to be a Secret Santa: create a gift using the rules and guidelines of Secret Santa, just create whatever you want instead of something specifically for someone’s prompt or request. Wait until the post on how to submit gifts anonymously as part of Secret Santa, which will be by email, and then submit your gift the same way by the same deadline, including commenting to the completed post with your title and banner theme and when you submit state clearly your LJ name and that this is a community gift. Your gift will then be posted anonymously as part of the exchange as a gift for the whole community. (There will be no deadline extensions for this. If you don’t meet the deadline you can still post ‘the simple way’.)

You can create as many ‘simple way’ community gifts as you like, but only ONE Secret Santa anon community gift. (This can be in addition to your actual Secret Santa gift if you’re part of the exchange.)

CHEERLEADERS

We need you! To comment, squee, join in, get excited, and make this comm the place it is!

If you’d like to get even more involved as a cheerleader you can also comment below with CHEERLEADER AT THE READY. People who have signed up for the Secret Santa exchange or who’re creating a community gift can then team up with you in whatever way works for you to encourage them. This might be reading their fic in progress and letting them know what you like and don’t like, it might be contacting them every so often to ask where they’re up to, it might be sending them pictures of Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson, whatever works!

To all our volunteers: THANK YOU!
To all our bar: have fun and enjoy!