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buggeryChallenges
Three out of four challenges this month -- the Femslash Ficathon 05 (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
femslash05), the Four-Color Heroines Challenge (4colorheroines), and the Comic Book Genfic Feedbackathon -- are over with, and stories for the remaining challenge (comica_obscura) are due to begin appearing Wednesday.
Because I'm not just in the midst of my winter relapse but actively insane (and a recovering workaholic), I signed up for all four, in addition to running 4CH (albeit with help from my co-moderators and others). ::facepalms::
On the bright side, happy new reading opportunities!
The story I wrote for Femslash 05: Reflects the Darker Passion (Dinah/Babs) A dark future for the Birds.
The Femslash 05 story written for me: Embroidering the Truth by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
apotropaism (Arachne/Athena) Yes, you read that right: Arachne/Athena, from Greek mythology. This story is one of the most brilliant reworkings of a classical myth I've ever read, and I've wanted to see this particular pairing for a long time -- I'm still squeeing over having it written *for me*. Unless you honestly have never heard of the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, there's no reason you shouldn't be going and reading (and commenting on) this story right now.
Femslash Ficathon 05 archive (well, the closest thing there is to one)
The story I wrote for Four-Color Heroines: Parallel Imperatives (Cassandra and Catalina, with a soupçon of Onyx, Selina and Tim) Because canon really only hinted at a lot of the cool female-character interaction in War Games.
The Four-Color Heroines story written for me: Salvage (Barbara and Cassandra) The former and current Batgirls at work. One of many fine stories this challenge turned out.
Four-Color Heroines archive (links to indexes by author, recipient and title at bottom of page)
The stories I was assigned to write about for the Genfic Feedbackathon:
Burning Over byblinkytreefrog -- Read this if you're a fan of Jean-Paul Valley, Azrael... but more especially, read it if you've never liked the character. Really.
Deconstruction of a Tragedy byblinkytreefrog -- I've long been a fan of stories told in reverse-chronological order, and this is one of the best of that genre, the more so because of its sustained length and because it still works as a mystery.
Poisonous Melodies byblinkytreefrog -- A wonderful, terrifying story about everyone's favourite canonically-gay DCU hero, Hartley Rathaway, AKA the Pied Piper.
(Feedback Blinky received via the Feedbackathon)
Five Things That Never Happened To Jack Knight bysmittywing -- More so than most Five Things stories, this really paints a picture of who Jack Knight is by describing what he hasn't been or done.
Immortality Bites bysmittywing -- The Shade is a fascinating character with a delightfully droll sense of humour, and also a giant woobie.
Murder at Wayne Manor bysmittywing -- There's a murder mystery here, in the best lights-go-out-at-a-party style, but also hilarity and adorable interactions between Dinah and Babs, and Tim and Cass.
(Feedback Smitty received via the Feedbackathon)
The stories I was submitted for the Genfic Feedbackathon:
Changelings -- The Authority, Ellis flavour, and one of the longest and plottiest pieces of fanfiction I've ever written.
From Childhood's Hour -- The Bat has had its sights on Tim, but this story is about Bruce; by way of warning, the title comes from Poe.
Knowing -- Whatever else they've been to one another, Bruce and Dick have always shared a peculiar bond; this is an examination of how Dick first became aware of it.
(Feedback Jack received via the Feedbackathon)
Blinky did a fantastic job setting up and running the Feedbackathon. Having just run a challenge for the first time myself, I know full well how much work it is, especially when you've never done anything like it before. I have no criticism for Blinky as a challenge mod.
That said, though, it frustrates me to see that some of the challenge participants fell down on their obligations. I can't tell whetherbrown_betty and fenris_wolf0 were official pinch-hitters or just feedback good samaritans, but they provided feedback on the challenge stories of three and four participants, respectively. Even so, two participants who fulfilled their own feedback obligations only received one set of feedback, while several who dropped out (or were just no-shows?) received all the feedback *they* signed up for.
In any challenge, there are almost inevitably deserving stories that get short-shrifted on feedback. But when the whole point of a challenge is not to give and receive stories, but to give and receive *feedback*, no participant should come away with anything less than the minimum. So shame on whoever shorted their Feedbackathon recipients, and kudos to anyone who goes and comments on the underfed stories. Links, instructions and everything else you'll need are here.
Icons
My new naughty-rubber-duckie default icon actually isn't new;sparklebutch made it and gave it to me weeks ago, and I only just recently got round to uploading it.
I also have a new SUPREME POWER icon, courtesy of Te:
Goodies in the Mail
*Months* ago,weirdnessmagnet sent me a holiday-gifts package. It contained How to Read Superhero Comics and Why, a book by Geoff Klock which is sure to lead to many meta thoughts once I get a chance to finish reading it, and four pairs of novelty socks. (For those of you who weren't aware, I have a fairly serious novelty-socks fetish.) One of the pairs Mag sent has the design from Milton Bros.' MONOPOLY board game knitted into it, and goes perfectly with a fleece top and pants I love to lounge about in; one is decorated with glittery green frogs with googly eyes (actual googly eyes attached to the socks) surrounded by aqua lily pads and buzzing flies; one is a shade of blue that matches perfectly with blue jeans and features a peace-sign motif and glove-style toes; and one with brown, tan, olive and prussian-blue stripes and little crocheted dimensional puppies at the cuffs. What makes these socks even better is that they're considerably more unisex than a lot of novelty socks, geared as they are towards girls, tend to be. I have a pair of pink novelty socks with beavers on them that someone gave me for my birthday a couple of years ago, and while they're hilarious, I still haven't worn them -- they're PINK.
Then, just last week, I received *two* packages in the mail from fannish friends!
The first one came frombasingstoke, who cans her own jam in honest-to-goodness mason jars, and sent three for me to sample: strawberry jam, tangerine marmalade (which makes a fantastic glaze for poultry), and a gingered cider jelly. Yay, home-made foods!
I also got a bundle-o-Japanese goodies fromjamjar (who ironically sent me no jar of jam). She had sent me some yaoi manga collections last year, along with an assortment of profoundly strange but delicious Japanese snack foods. This time round, the package contained:
a Wolf's Rain doujinshi;
three Bohra Naono takeshobo (including Three Wolves Mountain and Fingertips' Love);
three large (60g each) bags of sesame-candied dried fish, my favourite from the assortment in the first package;
two Japanese KitKat bars, one green tea flavour and one... some sort of fruit flavour that I can't figure out from the picture;
two boxes of POCKY! one chocolate flavour (but green?) and one red-bean flavour;
a packet of "Pocari Sweat" drink mix;
a brass origami-crane charm and bell on a cord, which Jam says comes from a local shrine and is for making wishes on, but which Tara is convinced is a cat toy;
and a lovely postcard with a medieval-style painting on the front and explanations of the charm and drink mix on the back.
I love getting presents from my fellow fen. (:
And speaking of presents from my fellow fen...
Watch this space
The lovely and talented Jane St. Clair (3jane) wrote some Bruce/Dick smut for me while I was composing this post! I'll link to it as soon as it goes up...
ETA: And here it is: Seven Night
Three out of four challenges this month -- the Femslash Ficathon 05 (
femslash05), the Four-Color Heroines Challenge (4colorheroines), and the Comic Book Genfic Feedbackathon -- are over with, and stories for the remaining challenge (comica_obscura) are due to begin appearing Wednesday.Because I'm not just in the midst of my winter relapse but actively insane (and a recovering workaholic), I signed up for all four, in addition to running 4CH (albeit with help from my co-moderators and others). ::facepalms::
On the bright side, happy new reading opportunities!
The story I wrote for Femslash 05: Reflects the Darker Passion (Dinah/Babs) A dark future for the Birds.
The Femslash 05 story written for me: Embroidering the Truth by
apotropaism (Arachne/Athena) Yes, you read that right: Arachne/Athena, from Greek mythology. This story is one of the most brilliant reworkings of a classical myth I've ever read, and I've wanted to see this particular pairing for a long time -- I'm still squeeing over having it written *for me*. Unless you honestly have never heard of the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, there's no reason you shouldn't be going and reading (and commenting on) this story right now.Femslash Ficathon 05 archive (well, the closest thing there is to one)
The story I wrote for Four-Color Heroines: Parallel Imperatives (Cassandra and Catalina, with a soupçon of Onyx, Selina and Tim) Because canon really only hinted at a lot of the cool female-character interaction in War Games.
The Four-Color Heroines story written for me: Salvage (Barbara and Cassandra) The former and current Batgirls at work. One of many fine stories this challenge turned out.
Four-Color Heroines archive (links to indexes by author, recipient and title at bottom of page)
The stories I was assigned to write about for the Genfic Feedbackathon:
Burning Over by
blinkytreefrog -- Read this if you're a fan of Jean-Paul Valley, Azrael... but more especially, read it if you've never liked the character. Really.Deconstruction of a Tragedy by
blinkytreefrog -- I've long been a fan of stories told in reverse-chronological order, and this is one of the best of that genre, the more so because of its sustained length and because it still works as a mystery.Poisonous Melodies by
blinkytreefrog -- A wonderful, terrifying story about everyone's favourite canonically-gay DCU hero, Hartley Rathaway, AKA the Pied Piper.(Feedback Blinky received via the Feedbackathon)
Five Things That Never Happened To Jack Knight by
smittywing -- More so than most Five Things stories, this really paints a picture of who Jack Knight is by describing what he hasn't been or done.Immortality Bites by
smittywing -- The Shade is a fascinating character with a delightfully droll sense of humour, and also a giant woobie.Murder at Wayne Manor by
smittywing -- There's a murder mystery here, in the best lights-go-out-at-a-party style, but also hilarity and adorable interactions between Dinah and Babs, and Tim and Cass.(Feedback Smitty received via the Feedbackathon)
The stories I was submitted for the Genfic Feedbackathon:
Changelings -- The Authority, Ellis flavour, and one of the longest and plottiest pieces of fanfiction I've ever written.
From Childhood's Hour -- The Bat has had its sights on Tim, but this story is about Bruce; by way of warning, the title comes from Poe.
Knowing -- Whatever else they've been to one another, Bruce and Dick have always shared a peculiar bond; this is an examination of how Dick first became aware of it.
(Feedback Jack received via the Feedbackathon)
Blinky did a fantastic job setting up and running the Feedbackathon. Having just run a challenge for the first time myself, I know full well how much work it is, especially when you've never done anything like it before. I have no criticism for Blinky as a challenge mod.
That said, though, it frustrates me to see that some of the challenge participants fell down on their obligations. I can't tell whether
brown_betty and fenris_wolf0 were official pinch-hitters or just feedback good samaritans, but they provided feedback on the challenge stories of three and four participants, respectively. Even so, two participants who fulfilled their own feedback obligations only received one set of feedback, while several who dropped out (or were just no-shows?) received all the feedback *they* signed up for. In any challenge, there are almost inevitably deserving stories that get short-shrifted on feedback. But when the whole point of a challenge is not to give and receive stories, but to give and receive *feedback*, no participant should come away with anything less than the minimum. So shame on whoever shorted their Feedbackathon recipients, and kudos to anyone who goes and comments on the underfed stories. Links, instructions and everything else you'll need are here.
Icons
My new naughty-rubber-duckie default icon actually isn't new;
sparklebutch made it and gave it to me weeks ago, and I only just recently got round to uploading it.I also have a new SUPREME POWER icon, courtesy of Te:
Goodies in the Mail
*Months* ago,
weirdnessmagnet sent me a holiday-gifts package. It contained How to Read Superhero Comics and Why, a book by Geoff Klock which is sure to lead to many meta thoughts once I get a chance to finish reading it, and four pairs of novelty socks. (For those of you who weren't aware, I have a fairly serious novelty-socks fetish.) One of the pairs Mag sent has the design from Milton Bros.' MONOPOLY board game knitted into it, and goes perfectly with a fleece top and pants I love to lounge about in; one is decorated with glittery green frogs with googly eyes (actual googly eyes attached to the socks) surrounded by aqua lily pads and buzzing flies; one is a shade of blue that matches perfectly with blue jeans and features a peace-sign motif and glove-style toes; and one with brown, tan, olive and prussian-blue stripes and little crocheted dimensional puppies at the cuffs. What makes these socks even better is that they're considerably more unisex than a lot of novelty socks, geared as they are towards girls, tend to be. I have a pair of pink novelty socks with beavers on them that someone gave me for my birthday a couple of years ago, and while they're hilarious, I still haven't worn them -- they're PINK.Then, just last week, I received *two* packages in the mail from fannish friends!
The first one came from
basingstoke, who cans her own jam in honest-to-goodness mason jars, and sent three for me to sample: strawberry jam, tangerine marmalade (which makes a fantastic glaze for poultry), and a gingered cider jelly. Yay, home-made foods!I also got a bundle-o-Japanese goodies from
jamjar (who ironically sent me no jar of jam). She had sent me some yaoi manga collections last year, along with an assortment of profoundly strange but delicious Japanese snack foods. This time round, the package contained: a Wolf's Rain doujinshi;
three Bohra Naono takeshobo (including Three Wolves Mountain and Fingertips' Love);
three large (60g each) bags of sesame-candied dried fish, my favourite from the assortment in the first package;
two Japanese KitKat bars, one green tea flavour and one... some sort of fruit flavour that I can't figure out from the picture;
two boxes of POCKY! one chocolate flavour (but green?) and one red-bean flavour;
a packet of "Pocari Sweat" drink mix;
a brass origami-crane charm and bell on a cord, which Jam says comes from a local shrine and is for making wishes on, but which Tara is convinced is a cat toy;
and a lovely postcard with a medieval-style painting on the front and explanations of the charm and drink mix on the back.
I love getting presents from my fellow fen. (:
And speaking of presents from my fellow fen...
Watch this space
The lovely and talented Jane St. Clair (
3jane) wrote some Bruce/Dick smut for me while I was composing this post! ETA: And here it is: Seven Night
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-03-23 05:00 am (UTC)Green Arrow, Ultimate Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel Team-Up vol. 1)...
I trust your judgement.