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FLASHFIC-A-THON for a good cause!
This morning (Wednesday, Sept. 6) ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
divalea lost her house and her pets in a devastating fire. Lea is a self-employed comics and manga artist. I've known her for several years and she's always been very supportive of my cartooning -- as the founding editor of the comics website Girlamatic, Lea invited me to be part of the original gang of Girlamatic cartoonists and this has opened a number of doors over the years. She's also a very active feminist who promotes the interests of women in the male-dominated comics field, and offers grants to women webcomic artists.
She and her husband have two special-needs children and the fire, as you can well imagine, has left them in a very bad position, especially since Lea is employed at home, so as well as losing her home she has also lost all the equipment that she needs to make a living.
I would like to help Lea and I've decided to run a fic-a-thon to do it. I've never done this before and I have no idea what kind of response I'm going to get ... if any! But I really do hope at least some people will take me up on this.
Basically you make a pledge (see below for details) -- for the sake of simplicity, I'm only going with two kinds of pledges, a flat pledge or a pledge per 100 words -- and I write a short story to your specifications. Stargate Atlantis is, obviously, my current fandom and the fandom I'm most comfortable writing in, but since this is *your* story, you can request a different fandom if you like; see under the cut for some suggestions.
Instructions
Make a post in this thread, or email me at layla (at) ravenschildren dot com, or PM me from my Sholio ff.net account. Let me know what your pledge is and what sort of story you would like (see below for info on that). You can either give a flat pledge, e.g. $10, or per 100 words, e.g. $2 per 100 words -- and if you do the second option, LET ME KNOW if there's a cap on how much you're willing to pay for. Again for simplicity's sake, I'd prefer to do Paypal -- but if you'll be needing to send it some other way, please also let me know how to contact you so I can tell you where to send the pledge. (Since Lea is currently homeless, I will probably have people send them to me so I can send them to her.) As for the Paypal email, it'd probably be best to send the pledges to Lea directly so that Paypal doesn't take a cut of it twice, so her email for Paypal purposes is divalea (at) gmail (dot) com. Or you can send a pledge to me at layla (at) ravenschildren (dot) com, and I will see that she gets it. Just tell me which one you've done, so I know who has donated and who hasn't!
If you've never used Paypal and have questions, feel free to ask! All you need is a bank account or credit card, and there is no cost to sign up or use it. (Paypal takes a small percentage from each transaction, but it won't be passed along to you.) Another option would be gift certificates or gift cards to places like Wal-Mart or Best Buy -- if you have something like that laying around, for a business that operates in Texas (which is where she lives), it's just as good as cash for pledging.
I know I'm asking you to donate money to a person you don't know, so I don't expect the pledges to be very much; a little money from a lot of people is just as good as a lot from a few. What you will get for your pledge is a custom-made fanfic of whatever you would like, including things I don't normally write such as slash or non-SGA stories.
Let me know what characters you would like and whatever details of plot and setting you want, as well as any additional information (like ratings, pairings, humorous vs. serious, etc). More specific is preferred to less specific -- so rather than "I want a story with John and Rodney", maybe something like "...a Pegasus Project tag in which John apologizes for the lemon joke; the lemon must be physically present in the scene". Most stories will be about 500-1000 words long. Length is determined partly by the amount of your pledge (bigger pledges get longer stories) and partly on the nature of the story you requested.
While I don't normally write slash or romance, this is YOUR story and I'm perfectly willing to tackle whatever you want to see. So if you've always wanted to see a McShep story from me, this is the time to ask! I reserve the right to ask you to change your request if it's a pairing or scenario that I really don't want to write (for example, non-con is a big squick with me) and I'd rather not write graphic sex -- not because I have a problem with it, but just because I'm really *bad* at writing about it! Though you can always ask...
In addition to taking the opportunity to request genres and pairings that I don't normally write, you could also request a missing scene or sequel from one of my existing stories, or a crossover with something else. Have fun, and please ask for something you would genuinely like to see written (as opposed to playing "stump the author" *grin*).
As far as fandoms go ... as I said above, SGA is my main fandom and the one I currently prefer to write in. However, again, this is YOUR story and here is a partial list of some other fandoms besides Stargate Atlantis I think I could write in:
Books: Watership Down, Amber, Death Gate, Dark Tower, CJ Cherryh (Hellburner, others maybe), Coldfire; TV: Stargate SG-1, Lost, Firefly, Invisible Man, Forever Knight (1st & 2nd seasons); Movies: Gattaca, Narnia movie-verse; Animated & Comics: Saiyuki, YGO, X-Men. If there's something else you want, you can always ask!
You will be the first person to see your story, but you'll need to send your pledge first (since that is, after all, the point of the exercise). If you're making a flat pledge, you can send it at any time before I finish your story. (Sooner is better than later, since they need money now, and people who send their pledges sooner will get their stories written quicker!) If it's a per-word pledge, I will tell you the final amount when I finish the story, and you can send it then. After sending out the stories, I'll be posting them here and/or on ff.net so that people can read them, unless you don't want your story made public (in which case, tell me and I will honor your request).
Oh, for extra fun, I'll also do a running tally of the amount raised and the status of the stories! Because half the fun of pledge drives is watching the tallies grow!
So, to start us off, here is the current tally at ground zero:
Amount raised: $0
Stories in progress: 0/0
Stories completed: 0/0
Come on and help me make it grow!
divalea lost her house and her pets in a devastating fire. Lea is a self-employed comics and manga artist. I've known her for several years and she's always been very supportive of my cartooning -- as the founding editor of the comics website Girlamatic, Lea invited me to be part of the original gang of Girlamatic cartoonists and this has opened a number of doors over the years. She's also a very active feminist who promotes the interests of women in the male-dominated comics field, and offers grants to women webcomic artists.She and her husband have two special-needs children and the fire, as you can well imagine, has left them in a very bad position, especially since Lea is employed at home, so as well as losing her home she has also lost all the equipment that she needs to make a living.
I would like to help Lea and I've decided to run a fic-a-thon to do it. I've never done this before and I have no idea what kind of response I'm going to get ... if any! But I really do hope at least some people will take me up on this.
Basically you make a pledge (see below for details) -- for the sake of simplicity, I'm only going with two kinds of pledges, a flat pledge or a pledge per 100 words -- and I write a short story to your specifications. Stargate Atlantis is, obviously, my current fandom and the fandom I'm most comfortable writing in, but since this is *your* story, you can request a different fandom if you like; see under the cut for some suggestions.
Instructions
Make a post in this thread, or email me at layla (at) ravenschildren dot com, or PM me from my Sholio ff.net account. Let me know what your pledge is and what sort of story you would like (see below for info on that). You can either give a flat pledge, e.g. $10, or per 100 words, e.g. $2 per 100 words -- and if you do the second option, LET ME KNOW if there's a cap on how much you're willing to pay for. Again for simplicity's sake, I'd prefer to do Paypal -- but if you'll be needing to send it some other way, please also let me know how to contact you so I can tell you where to send the pledge. (Since Lea is currently homeless, I will probably have people send them to me so I can send them to her.) As for the Paypal email, it'd probably be best to send the pledges to Lea directly so that Paypal doesn't take a cut of it twice, so her email for Paypal purposes is divalea (at) gmail (dot) com. Or you can send a pledge to me at layla (at) ravenschildren (dot) com, and I will see that she gets it. Just tell me which one you've done, so I know who has donated and who hasn't!
If you've never used Paypal and have questions, feel free to ask! All you need is a bank account or credit card, and there is no cost to sign up or use it. (Paypal takes a small percentage from each transaction, but it won't be passed along to you.) Another option would be gift certificates or gift cards to places like Wal-Mart or Best Buy -- if you have something like that laying around, for a business that operates in Texas (which is where she lives), it's just as good as cash for pledging.
I know I'm asking you to donate money to a person you don't know, so I don't expect the pledges to be very much; a little money from a lot of people is just as good as a lot from a few. What you will get for your pledge is a custom-made fanfic of whatever you would like, including things I don't normally write such as slash or non-SGA stories.
Let me know what characters you would like and whatever details of plot and setting you want, as well as any additional information (like ratings, pairings, humorous vs. serious, etc). More specific is preferred to less specific -- so rather than "I want a story with John and Rodney", maybe something like "...a Pegasus Project tag in which John apologizes for the lemon joke; the lemon must be physically present in the scene". Most stories will be about 500-1000 words long. Length is determined partly by the amount of your pledge (bigger pledges get longer stories) and partly on the nature of the story you requested.
While I don't normally write slash or romance, this is YOUR story and I'm perfectly willing to tackle whatever you want to see. So if you've always wanted to see a McShep story from me, this is the time to ask! I reserve the right to ask you to change your request if it's a pairing or scenario that I really don't want to write (for example, non-con is a big squick with me) and I'd rather not write graphic sex -- not because I have a problem with it, but just because I'm really *bad* at writing about it! Though you can always ask...
In addition to taking the opportunity to request genres and pairings that I don't normally write, you could also request a missing scene or sequel from one of my existing stories, or a crossover with something else. Have fun, and please ask for something you would genuinely like to see written (as opposed to playing "stump the author" *grin*).
As far as fandoms go ... as I said above, SGA is my main fandom and the one I currently prefer to write in. However, again, this is YOUR story and here is a partial list of some other fandoms besides Stargate Atlantis I think I could write in:
Books: Watership Down, Amber, Death Gate, Dark Tower, CJ Cherryh (Hellburner, others maybe), Coldfire; TV: Stargate SG-1, Lost, Firefly, Invisible Man, Forever Knight (1st & 2nd seasons); Movies: Gattaca, Narnia movie-verse; Animated & Comics: Saiyuki, YGO, X-Men. If there's something else you want, you can always ask!
You will be the first person to see your story, but you'll need to send your pledge first (since that is, after all, the point of the exercise). If you're making a flat pledge, you can send it at any time before I finish your story. (Sooner is better than later, since they need money now, and people who send their pledges sooner will get their stories written quicker!) If it's a per-word pledge, I will tell you the final amount when I finish the story, and you can send it then. After sending out the stories, I'll be posting them here and/or on ff.net so that people can read them, unless you don't want your story made public (in which case, tell me and I will honor your request).
Oh, for extra fun, I'll also do a running tally of the amount raised and the status of the stories! Because half the fun of pledge drives is watching the tallies grow!
So, to start us off, here is the current tally at ground zero:
Amount raised: $0
Stories in progress: 0/0
Stories completed: 0/0
Come on and help me make it grow!
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Your friend's story has moved me and I want to help.
But also what you listed that you can write about has also intrigued me a bit. I noticed the "Narnia movie-verse" mentioned and find that very interesting indeed. I assume that you mean the version of "Lion, Witch & Wardrobe" that came out towards the end of last year? I recently saw it on DVD - and while I've always been fond of Edmund ever since I read the book as a kid, watching this movie was the first time I found myself actually liking Peter. I haven't read the books in ages but I always remembered Peter as being a bit too self-righteous for my tastes - whereas Edmund was flawed, but misunderstood (IMHO) and I've always loved those character. In the lastest movie, I think they did a wonderful job of portraying Peter as also being uncertain - trying so hard to be the big brother and protect everyone, still getting self-righteous in his frustration with Edmund, but really, really scared that he would let his family down. Edmund was also wonderfully portrayed as rebellious and a bit misunderstood. And I loved Susan the know-it-all, now-let's-be-sensible one. And you know me and my aversion to over-the-top hugging and crying, etc? That stuff is so not me! And yet that scene when they save Edmund's life after the battle... Oh, that was just frikkin gorgeous!
So, what this all boils down to is... if you'd write a story with the movie-verse versions of Peter and Edmund, not long after taking over kingship in Narnia, Edmund still a bit rebellious, Peter still a bit frustrated with that (and possibly overwhelmed by the fact that he's supposed run a country full of weird fantastical creatures), some conflict between the boys and then a huge display of loyalty - one saving the other's life would be good - and maybe then the other one returning the favour would be even better. Maybe with Susan and Lucy on the sidelines metaphorically shaking their heads at the "boys will boys" interactions between their brothers. I dunno. I'm musing out loud here.
Well, anyway, would $100 be a reasonable pledge for that sort of story? I could probably send something by Paypal - I used to have an account there and I don't think it would have lapsed.
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Yes, it's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Edmund was always my favorite character (hey, I like the flawed ones too!) but I found myself getting actually *fannish* about the movie, which surprised me -- and the main reason is because I really liked the way they did the Edmund/Peter interaction. (And for that reason, I really hope they do go ahead and do the next book as a movie too, because there were some neat Edmund/Peter scenes in there.)
So basically, the story that you want sounds like *totally* my thing and exactly the sort of thing I would have loved to have found when I was looking for fic after watching the movie! *grin*
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I used Paypal and sent it directly to her email as you described above (divalea (at) gmail (dot) com) - as you say, better than them taking fees out of it twice over.
I found myself getting actually *fannish* about the movie, which surprised me -- and the main reason is because I really liked the way they did the Edmund/Peter interaction.
Again with the scary sharing of a brain thing. I borrowed the DVD from the video shop just coz I thought I'd take a look out of interest and nostalgia. Didn't expect all that much from it - but the sibling interactions totally suckered me in - and I think they really did add some depth to the characters, showing reasons for some of their motivations etc. So I did sort of surprise myself by getting a little fannish too.
And yeah, now I'm hoping that they do the rest of the series too. I'm kinda interested to see if they'll get as far as the introduction of Eustace - whom I also liked coz he was flawed but a better person than was first realised
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I went and saw the Narnia movie in the theatre because it looked very beautiful, with the special effects, and I usually try to see those on the big screen if I can. It was mainly book nostalgia that made me want to see the movie at all; I don't think I'd read the books since I was about twelve. I wasn't expecting anything more than nice f/x, really, and so I was very pleasantly surprised at how thoroughly the characters suckered me in. And while my attention was largely fixated on Edmund and Peter (because bickering brothers is just about my favorite thing ever -- and I hadn't even started watching SGA at that point!) the whole dynamic between the four kids was wonderful.
And yeah, I also liked Eustace in the books for the same reason I liked Edmund -- flawed character reveals hidden depths. After watching the movie last winter, I went back and re-read the whole series, and was surprised to find how much my perceptions of the books had shifted over the years ... how some of the scenes that I had loved, now made me wince, and parts that had bored me silly were much more interesting to me as an adult. Favorite characters tended to be the same, though.
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So I would *love* to do an SGA story if you want one. And thanks!
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I'm glad that your preferred fandom is SGA, because it's my preferred fandom too. So that works out well. :-) I saw Paul McGillion at a con last weekend (please excuse me while I squee about that again -- SQUEEEE!!! Sorry, I'm okay now. LOL) and I've been reading a lot of Carson fic since. I'd love to get a Carson fic that has Carson and Rodney friendship, no slash please, and a good dose of hurt/comfort, with Carson the one who is hurt. Also, it should take place somewhere off of Atlantis, like on a mission or whatever. Angst with a bit of humor thrown in here or there would be very awesome as well.
And on a completely different subject, I hope you don't mind, but I added you to my flist. It's always great to find new friends who like SGA, so I thought I'd add you.
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And I certainly don't mind if you friend me! It tends to take me a long time to add people back, if ever, so please don't be offended if I don't; it's just 'cause I'm lazy. And I never do friends-only posts in this journal anyway, so you're not missing anything. ;)