Introducing the Pod-Together BIPOC Character Love Subcollection, Plus Some Important Dates

[shmaylor]

Hi Everyone! We're moving into the final stretch of Pod-Together 2020 and we hope everyone has been having a wonderful time! A few announcements:

Pod-Together BIPOC Character Love Subcollection

We've created a subcollection on AO3 for Pod-Together projects featuring BIPOC characters!

This subcollection comes from continued discussions within the Pod_Together Discord, including podficcers of color, and among the mods about how to boost and celebrate works about BIPOC characters and encourage more of them within the bounds of our challenge. We know that the larger context of fandom is that stories about BIPOC characters often get overlooked in favor of stories about white characters. In affirming our commitment to stories about characters of color, our hope is that the existence of this subcollection gives participants support in thinking intentionally about BIPOC representation within their stories, gives BIPOC readers and listeners greater access to stories with characters that look like them, and allows the stories that do have this representation to have an extra spotlight and receive extra love and attention!

This new subcollection is located here.

The subcollection is opt-in, so if you feel that your project belongs, go ahead and add your work! Here are some guidelines to help you decide:
- Includes at least one BIPOC major character
- Was created with the characters' cultural identities in mind

Pod-Together projects from this year AND from all previous years are welcome and encouraged to join the collection.

To add a previously posted work to the collection:
1. Go to your work and choose "Edit"
2. Scroll down to the "Associations" section
3. Type Pod-Together BIPOC Representation into the "Post to Collections/Challenges" box.
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Post"

(Any projects added to the BIPOC Character Love subcollection still remain in the subcollection for the year of Pod-Together it was created in. This subcollection is an additional location to find your work, not moving your project from one place to another.)


Reminder of Important Dates

- The podfic deadline is this Sunday, August 23rd. There is no timezone cut-off, so as long as it's still the 23rd anywhere in the world, you're all-set!

- If you need an extension, you must also request that extension by the 23rd. For more information on extensions, see the rules post (it's the third item down in "Basic Rules")

- After that, it's one of the most exciting parts of Pod-Together: Posting! The posting schedule will go up by Tuesday the 25th, and your projects will be revealed from August 27th through September 5th, with about 5 projects posted each day.

- Party Favors are due September 5th and will all be revealed on September 6th. For more info on Party Favors, check out the FAQ. Party Favors are submitted the same way as regular projects by adding them to the 2020 Collection (see the posting instructions)


P.S. The inaugural Chromatic Characters Podfic Anthology is open and is encouraging of Pod-Together style projects. So if you loved the collaboration of Pod-Together, maybe grab a partner and create something for the anthology!

Comments

[averytree]

This is such a cool idea and I'm really glad you've made this! I have a question- what are your thoughts on including a Kpop RPF story into the BIPOC subcollection? I've been on the fence, personally, whether I feel like RPF of POC famous people is "in the spirit" of increasing visibility of characters of color. For example, I made a specific decision not to submit any RPF stories to the Chromatic Characters Podfic Anthology, only stories about fictional characters. But the piece I made for Pod-Together is BTS RPF- does that fit into the BIPOC subcollection or no?

[shmaylor]

The opinion of klb and myself is that RPF is fine to include. It's still stories about BIPOC, and so as long as it's written with their cultural identities in mind, it's a good fit for the collection.