News
Crediting for Artists, Beta Readers, and Sensitivity Readers

Hi, EF! We’re excited to announce some brand-new features for the site. As of this writing, we’ve incorporated crediting systems for artists as well as beta and sensitivity readers for our members to better acknowledge all the hard work that goes into creating fanworks.

When a creator posts a fanwork to the site, there is now an option to select the names of any beta readers, sensitivity readers, or artists—whether they are Elysian Fields members or not—who have contributed to the work. For artists, this can be someone who makes banner art, story art such as illustrations, or both. You can credit yourself as an artist, as well.

In order to credit members, start typing their name into the input box (pictured below) until the name you want appears, then click it to add it. (And repeat for additional crediting!) For non-members, type their name(s) exactly as you wish to credit them. In both cases, you can credit multiple persons.

New Story Form with Beta Reader, Sensitivity Reader, and Artist Crediting

Once you’ve added appropriate credits to your work, they will display wherever members see your story on the site.

New Story Block with Beta Reader, Sensitivity Reader, and Artist Credits Showing

We're planning additional improvements to this feature over the next few weeks. If you have any comments, suggestions for improvement, or bug reports, please send them to us at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com or leave a comment on this news post.



--cawthraven, DarkVoid116, and the Mods on March 24, 2024 09:54pm 6 Comments
Changes to Tagging Artwork

Hi all! It’s been almost a year and a half since we added artwork to Elysian Fields and we couldn’t be happier with how it’s been going—over 100 stories marked “artwork” have been added to the site since then, and we don’t think that number is slowing down any.

During that year and a half, however, we have noticed that our artwork tagging could use some improvement. There’s some confusion over which tags to use when, and the “Exclusively Artwork” checkbox conflicts with our site events, causing headaches for members trying to add their artwork to events.

With that in mind, we’re rolling out the following changes to artwork tags:

  • We are retiring the Artwork genre. Artwork is really a category of fanwork, not a genre, and this removes the duplication of tagging and reduces confusion about whether to use both the Artwork genre and category or just one.
  • All works tagged with the NSFW Artwork category, the NSFW Artwork genre, and the Artwork genre have been retagged by the mods and are now in the Artwork category.
  • A new category has been added, Narrative Artwork. Narrative Artwork is defined as a fanwork that combines written and visual art. Visual art is defined as a visual image or set of visual images including but not limited to drawings, digitally manipulated photographs, or videos. Works in the Narrative Artwork category must meet the criteria for story submissions.
  • The Artwork category is now defined as a visual image or set of visual images including but not limited to drawings, digitally manipulated photographs, or videos. Words, if present, are limited and/or incidental.
  • The Exclusively Artwork checkbox has been retired. All stories labeled using this checkbox have been added to the Artwork category if they were not already tagged with the category.

We ask all artists to check their stories and ensure they are tagged with the appropriate tags, including the categories for Artwork and Narrative Artwork as well as all the correct ratings and relevant warnings.

We're aware these changes might sound complicated, but we believe that they’ll simplify the process of posting, sharing, finding, and enjoying art on the site. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.comor comment below.



--cawthraven and the Mods on March 18, 2024 12:28pm 5 Comments
Monster Mash Event Wrap-Up

Our Monster Mash event has ended and I’m here with the stats! 

EF had a total of twenty-four works created specifically for this event, which consisted of:

  • Four artwork-only submissions 
  • One submission that combined a written narrative with artwork
  • Nineteen stories 

These were made via a collaboration of:

  • 20 Authors
  • 16 Artists (including banner artists)
  • 16 Betas and Sensitivity Readers 

Between them, participating authors posted 140,033 words for the event across 44 chapters. A total of 203 members left comments or likes throughout the three-day commenting portion of the event, 120 members commented on or liked event stories specifically, and 32 commenters met the requirements for an award. The combined total of comments for the event is 476, and the new stories generated for this event received a total of 676 likes. 

If you’ve yet to check out any of the brand-new challenge fics, you can find them all here.

Many, many thanks to everyone who took part, in whatever way you contributed. All participating authors, beta and sensitivity readers, artists, and commenters should now have the relevant awards on their profiles. If you seem to be missing one, or anything else seems not quite right, please drop us a line at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com.



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on March 15, 2024 02:23pm 2 Comments
Final Details about the Monster Mash Event

It’s not long to go until EF’s next mini-event, folks!

If you missed the announcement about the Monster Mash, see the news post linked here. Or if you need a little reminder, the theme is Monster Mash. There is a monster in town* and Spike and Buffy team up to take it down. (*The fic does not need to be set in Sunnydale. Road trips and fics where Buffy and Spike live in other towns or cities count.)

The posting window for stories and art is one day (from 12 am/midnight until 11.59 pm on March 10th) and the window to earn the commenter award is three days (same start time, but running until 11.59pm on March 12th). Members can post artwork, drabbles, one-shots, or even multi-chapter fics if they wish, so long as they post the complete work before the end of the event.

As mentioned in the announcement post, there will be awards on offer for participants, artists (including banner artists), commenters, and betas.

For the commenting award, you’ll need to make 10 comments of at least 15 words during the previously stated three-day window. Event deadlines are based on site time, which is always listed just under the Shoutbox on EF’s homepage.

Anyone who submits an artwork-only piece will be eligible for both an author and artist award.

Banners should include the words "Designed for the Elysian Fields 2024 Monster Mash Event" in small, yet legible text.

During the posting window, when you go to add a new work, a tickbox will appear as depicted in the screenshot below. Ticking said box marks your work as officially part of the event (meaning it’s listed on the dedicated event page), generates a special event icon to appear beside your work title, and makes you eligible for awards (above, designed by the wonderful ClowniestLivEver, who also suggested the event theme).

Note: If you are ticking the event box, ignore the ‘artwork only’ tickbox even if it would usually apply. This is because only one tickbox can be applied to each work. If you accidentally tick the artwork only box, or tick both boxes, contact a member of the Mod Team and we will correct it on the backend of the site.

Also remember: credit your beta(s) and/or banner artist(s) if you use them! If you made your own banner and want your artist award, please tell us in the story notes that you made it. (The Mod Team has many talents, but being psychic is sadly not one of them.)

Any other questions in the meantime, you know the drill: comment below!



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on March 04, 2024 01:31pm 1 Comment
Email Update: Return of the Digest!

Hi everyone! This has been a long time coming, but we’ve fixed our email issues so that we no longer have to worry about a limit on how many emails we send a day. With that in mind, we will be restoring the Daily Digest emails.

Please make sure you have a valid email address listed before you sign up for emails! This means check the email you have on file with the site for typos and make sure the inbox isn’t full.

What’s the Daily Digest? The Daily Digest is a daily email sent to the account you have on file that rounds up every news post and every new and updated fic from the day before right in your inbox.

That sounds cool! How do I sign up for it? If you’re not currently signed up for the Daily Digest and want to be, you can go to Account Info > Edit Preferences to enable the Digest under “Email Settings/Alerts.” Check the box for the digest and hit Submit at the bottom of the form.

What are these other checkboxes here for? These control the other kinds of emails you can get from the site. You can sign up to get notifications when a favorite author posts a new story or a favorite story gets a new chapter, get an email when an author responds to a comment you left them, or when someone comments on one of your stories.

That sounds neat, but I want to get fewer emails/I don’t want to get these notifications anymore. How do I turn emails off? You can turn emails off in Account Info > Edit Preferences. Just make sure all the boxes for email alerts are unchecked. Please note: this does not affect private message notifications or password reset emails.

If you have any questions or issues (about email or anything else) please reach out to us at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com so we can help get it sorted out for you.



--cawthraven and the Mods on February 29, 2024 11:06pm 2 Comments
Event Announcement: April Challenge Month 2024

Can you believe it’s almost that time of year again?

For the month of April, EF will once again be running our Challenge Month event. Your task––should you choose to accept it––is to respond to challenges issued to our site by your fellow members (see here). You don’t have to complete the fic (or art) by the end of the month, just post the first installment between midnight on April 1st and 23.59 on April 30th (site time).

You can respond to as many challenges or as few as you want––so long as you didn’t issue them yourself!

If you find a challenge that mostly speaks to you but you would like to change an element of it, we recommend that you contact the person who issued said challenge and ask for their permission/blessing.

Any other questions or queries, please comment below or contact one of the Mod Team directly via email at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com. Further details including what the awards for authors, commenters, betas, and artists will look like will be posted closer to the time.



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on February 21, 2024 07:40pm 3 Comments
Sensitivity Readers Added to Beta Reader Profiles

Hi all!

We’ve been working on an update to our beta profiles and beta search to include sensitivity readers.

If the term is new to you, a sensitivity reader is a specialized type of beta reader who holds a lived experience or marginalized identity that the author does not, but that the author intends to portray within their fic.

Sensitivity readers can help authors write in ways that are more authentic and representative of the experiences of others. With that in mind, we’ve added a section to the beta profile that allows members to opt in as a sensitivity reader and indicate the kinds of topics and themes they can help review. We’ve revised our guidelines on working with beta readers. Among other changes, the guidelines now specifically feature tips on working with sensitivity readers, including when you might want to reach out to one.

A number of pages have changed to support this. First up is the Edit Beta and Sensitivity Reader Profile, which you can find in Account Info. You can opt in or out of beta reading and sensitivity reading here.

Edit Beta and Sensitivity reader Profile

Unlike our beta strengths section, we have included a text box for sensitivity reading strengths, since there are a range of topics that someone might be suited to sensitivity read for, and all of them require nuanced discussion.

These beta profiles are available on our Betas page (see the menu for the link; it’s under “Members” on mobile).

Active Beta and Sensitivity Readers

You can browse all of the profiles from here, or you can search for a beta or sensitivity reader who is currently accepting new stories through our Beta and Sensitivity Reader Search. (We're currently working out a few kinks with search, so please let us know if you have any issues with it!)

Beta and Sensitivity Search form

This will let you find the beta and sensitivity readers best suited to help you.

Beta and Sensitivity Reader Search Results

We’d like to thank Dynamite for suggesting this addition to the site, which we feel will help our writers, as well as trevino, who was instrumental in helping us craft a definition for sensitivity readers and in revising the guidelines.



--cawthraven, Darkvoid116, and the Mods on February 17, 2024 03:00pm 3 Comments
Event Announcement: Monster Mash!

After the success of EF’s first mini-event, the Satisfaction-athon last year, we have decided to run another one. Again, it will be for one day only, but this time the theme is Monster Mash and the date will be March 10th.

Credit for the theme idea goes to ClowniestLivEver, who implanted it in the Mod Team’s minds many months ago.

To clarify the theme: There is a monster in town* and Spike and Buffy team up to take it down. (*The fic does not need to be set in Sunnydale. Road trip fics count.)

The monster or monsters, plural, can be from the show (literally any of the minor monster-of-the-weeks. e.g. Luke, the Gorch brothers, Amy's mom, etc.); a classical monster (Frankenstein's monster, Wolf Man, the Invisible Man); a monster that is both (Dracula); or an original character monster.

Members can post artwork, drabbles, one-shots, or even multi-chapter fics if they wish, so long as they post the complete work before the end of the event. There will be awards on offer for participants, artists (including banner artists), commenters, and betas, which we will reveal the artwork for closer to the time.

Anyone who submits an artwork-only piece will be eligible for both a participant and artist award.

Commenters must leave a minimum of ten comments of at least fifteen words during the three days (72 hours) following event kick-off, i.e. 00:00 (12:00 am) on March 10th until 23:59 (11:59 pm) on March 12th, according to site time (which you can check under the ShoutBox on EF’s homepage).



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on January 08, 2024 05:24pm 10 Comments
Skins Update

Hello EF!

The Mod team has hit you with a lot of information recently, and we’re about to pile on more, for which we apologize but hey, it’s all good stuff.

Those of you who were active last year might recall that we retired a number of skins, including some that dated back to EF’s launch in 2006. These skins were replaced with a selection of new skins created with the support of some of the amazing artists that comprise our current membership.

While perfectly functional, there were a few glitches in the new skins resulting from inherited issues from older programming and the shift in border size for desktop users. Lucky for us, these kinks were ironed out in mid-2023 by cawthraven with the creation of the Drabblemania skin. One of our goals was to implement the improvements to all the 2022-era skins before the end of the year. As of today, that has been done. Members who are using a skin developed in 2022 might notice small changes upon flushing your cache, but the result should be an improved user experience.

We have likewise added five new skins: two by cd85, and three by bewildered, one of which showcases the logo we had commissioned earlier this year, and another that uses the same main color scheme of the retired skin not without a fight* by popular request. These banners have also been added to the rotating banner for our 1,000 authors celebration.

The new skins are:

Thank you to our artists who keep Elysian Fields beautiful with your artwork. We are so lucky to have such amazing talent within our community.



--Holly and the Mods on January 05, 2024 12:36pm 11 Comments
2023: A Year in Review

Hello EF! It’s officially a new year, which means it’s time to look back on the completion of our last trip around the sun together.

And what a trip it’s been! The last twelve months have been rife with changes for the archive—amazing changes. In fact, I started this post by revisiting our 2022: A Year In Review post from last year, reviewing some of the initiatives we planned to undertake. Just the tip of the iceberg, really.

In 2023, accomplishments include:

And really, y’all, so many other things. It’s been hard to keep track of all the improvements and changes that have been made this year, large and small. We’re not slowing down, either. Already we’ve announced new awards: Star Commenter Award, the Superstar Commenter Award, and the Artist of the Month Award. There is a lot more coming in the way of improvements and updates, so stay tuned because our team has been busy.

Speaking of our team, one of the best things that happened to EF in 2023 was the addition of cawthraven to the Mod team. Even before she was an official Mod, she was working closely with DarkVoid116 to help troubleshoot, implement, and roll out many behind-the-scenes improvements and updates. Suffice it to say, that has continued.

And all while we continued the proud history of site events, with Finishing Months in January-March, the Satisfaction-athon in February, Challenge Month in April, Drabblemania in July, the Truce Challenge in October for the site’s anniversary, and our fourth Secret Santa Fic Exchange. Once again, you guys blew our expectations out of the water.

So are you ready for awards?

In the fourth year of recognizing the milestone that is Completed Fics, we had 113 authors complete a total of 612 fics; that’s a staggering 225 more fics than last year.

All authors who completed a fic (one-shots count!) in 2023 have been issued this award:

Fic Complete 2023

The other award seeing its fourth year is the Event Complete Award (formerly the Challenge Complete Award). This was awarded to site members who completed any site event challenge in 2023 (that is, the challenge events that are overseen by the EF Mods and come with spiffy thematic skins and stuff). The exception here being Secret Santa, as finishing the fic is baked into the challenge itself.

Event Complete Award

And speaking of Secret Santa, we have some numbers to share.

We had 44 event contributions, which have garnered 1124 likes and 539 comments. All participants who completed their fics and/or art should now have their participant award on their profile.

P.S. If you haven't read the fics yet, you can find them all on the Secret Santa event page, which is also accessible by going to Events >> 2023 Secret Santa.

We also have issued awards to our most prolific members. These are chosen by the numbers.

In 2023, we added:

  • 10,328,329 words
  • 729 stories
  • 5,430  chapters
  • 1,654 new members
  • 120,624 new likes
  • 49,227 new comments to the archive (comprising 2,096,789 words)
Top 10 Most Prolific Commenter

Top 10 Commenters

Top 10 Most Prolific Author 2023

Top 10 Authors

Our most prolific author for 2023 was scratchmeout (again!)

Most Prolific Author 2023

Our most prolific commenter for 2023 was magnus374 (again)!

Most Prolific Commenter 2023

If you are missing an award you should have received, please reach out to us (elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com) and we’ll verify and get that corrected.

Folks, we had an amazing year. Thank you all so much for what you give to our wonderful community. We eagerly await the amazing contributions we know you will make to the archive as we celebrate another year of Spuffy. And we’re just getting started.



--Holly and the Mods on January 03, 2024 10:07pm 7 Comments
New Commenter Awards

Hey, Spuffy fans! We have some brand new awards to announce for the new year.

Here at Elysian Fields, we’re always thinking of new ways to get all of our members involved in the community. During our Event Months, we give out Commenter Awards to members who fulfill specific requirements. You may have noticed that, when there isn’t an event, there is a page for All Star Commenters linked in the Members of the Month section. Anyone who leaves at least 15 comments of 5 or more words in a month qualifies for this status.

To that end, we're introducing two new commenting awards, both designed by the talented cd85.

The first, the Star Commenter, will be awarded to any member who is an All Star Commenter in at least six of a year’s twelve months.

Star Commenter

The second, the Superstar Commenter, requires that a member reach All Star commenter status in all twelve months.

Superstar Commenter

If you qualify for the Superstar Commenter, you’ll also receive the Star Commenter award as well.

During event months, you will still only need 15 comments with 5 or more words for the month to count toward these awards, even if, for example, the April Challenge Month Commenter Award requires 15 comments with 15 or more words.

Starting January 1, 2024, a page tracking progress toward these awards will be linked in the Members of the Month section of the homepage. You can see the page here with 2023 stats. They will be refreshed for 2024 on January 1.

That’s all for now. Please let us know if you have any questions about how these awards work.



--Dark and the Mods on December 29, 2023 10:11pm 7 Comments
One thousand, baby!!!

 

Hey everyone! You may have noticed we just hit one thousand authors on the site—a huge milestone for our little archive. We couldn’t do it without all of you, whether you read quietly or comment constantly, whether you make and share art or just drool over it, whether you’ve never posted a fic or you post tens of thousands of words a year to Elysian Fields. Every single one of you is so important to the site and we want to thank you for being part of what makes our community so great. So this celebration is a celebration of everyone who has ever been to Elysian Fields. Thank you—Spuffy may have brought us together, but you’re the reason we’re all still here.

To celebrate our milestone achievement, we have a new skin called “onethousand.” While we’ll be adding “onethousand” as a new skin, for a limited time only it will randomly select a banner from each of our active skins to display. (And much thanks to cawthraven’s brother, who helped write that bit of code while visiting on Thanksgiving.) If you’re watching closely, you may also see our new One Thousand banner in there!

Also, starting January 1, the featured fics will randomly select fics from throughout our 18-year history to display, so you can see a wide range of our 1,000 authors whenever you load the main page of the site.


Again, thank you to our authors and all our members. We’re so excited to keep growing with you all.

Special shout out to though_you_try, whose fic, Let Me Count the Ways, put us at 1000.



--Holly and the Mods on December 23, 2023 11:51pm 10 Comments
New Feature: Artist of the Month!

Hi EF! We’re super pleased to announce that we are adding “Artist of the Month” as a new category to our Members of the Month. Nominations are open now (and will close as normal on the 25th of the month) so get your nominations in for Artist of the Month—and Author of the Month and Commenter of the Month—now.

We have a snazzy new award, designed by MillennialCryBaby, that’s based on the original Author of the Month and Commenter of the Month awards. We also have snazzy, updated awards for those moving forward, so that all three match (and we took advantage of the opportunity to update the language on Commenter of the Month so it no longer says Reviewer).

Artist of the Month Award

Author of the Month AwardCommenter of the Month Award

We’re really excited we now can honor all of our artists, whether they make banner art or post their art as fanwork stories in the archive. We want to thank all the many people who have asked for this over the years via the Suggestion Box, email, private messages, and chats. It’s taken us a long time to get to where we felt this was the right move for the archive, but we’re here now and super happy about it.



--cawthraven and the Mods on December 15, 2023 10:38am 5 Comments
Final Details for 2023’s Secret Santa Event

It’s an exciting time here at EF, as forty-five members have signed up to take part in this year’s Secret Santa event––and that’s not including the people who didn’t officially sign up but put themselves forward as rescue writers and artists anyway.

Participants must post their fics (or artwork, if applicable) between 12:00 am site time on December 1st and 11:59 pm on December 31st. If something goes awry and you cannot meet the deadline, please contact us! We understand life happens, but we don’t want anyone to end up giftless. Letting us know if your muse abandons you/cat eats your laptop/garden gnome blows up and takes your house with it means we can avail upon our aforementioned rescue writers and artists. 

REMINDER: If you fail to hand over your gift by the deadline, you will be ineligible to take part in Secret Santa next year. Or possibly face a lifetime ban from this event if you not only do this, but also don’t reach out to the Mod Team to tell us what’s up.

Members are welcome to make and upload their own fic banners or commission another member to make a banner for them, as usual, but there is also a default gift fic banner (linked here) if you want to use it. If you use the default banner, please credit MillennialCryBaby as the banner artist. If you're including a custom banner with your fic, we request you add "Designed for the Elysian Fields 2023 Secret Santa Event" somewhere legible on it.

Reminder: only members participating by writing a fic or creating artwork will get an event award for Secret Santa. There are no shinies for betas, commenters, or banner artists.

Once it comes time to post your fic, you’ll be able to tick a box that will appear on the submission page, like so:

Please state clearly who your gift fic is for in either your story summary or story notes. You may also like to add the prompts you are meeting in your story end notes, though this is optional.

We recommend you reach out to your giftee via the EF PM system once you have posted to make sure they don’t accidentally miss it. That would be such a shame after all your hard work!

Giftees, we shouldn’t need to say this, but it is good etiquette to respond to your gifter to let them know you’ve seen and appreciate all their efforts.

Here is a screenshot of a sample fic showing the icon that will appear beside your fic, once posted, to indicate its status as part of the event:

Finally, here is the gorgeous participant award for this year:

Any issues or questions, please email EllieRose101 at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on November 30, 2023 09:07pm 2 Comments
Truce Event Wrap-Up

Our Truce event is officially over and I’m here with the stats! (Apologies for the delay in this post going live.)

There were 3 artwork-only works shared, 2 works consisting of both art and words, and 48 traditional (i.e. written) stories, as made via the collaborative effort of:

  • 45 Authors
  • 26 Artists (including banner artists)
  • 28 Beta Readers 

Between them, participating authors wrote 303,667 words during the event, across 118 chapters. A total of 441 members left comments or likes throughout the month of October, of which 264 commented on or liked event stories specifically, and 48 commenters met the requirements for an award. All comments for the event totalled 1,223, and the new stories generated for this event received a total of 2,111 likes. 

If you’re yet to check out any of the brand new challenge fics, you can FIND THEM ALL HERE.

Many, many thanks to everyone who took part, in whatever way you contributed. All participating authors, betas, artists, and commenters should now have the relevant awards on their profiles. If you seem to be missing one, or anything else seems not quite right, please drop us a line at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com.



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on November 10, 2023 04:26pm 1 Comment
2023 Secret Santa Event Announcement

Here’s the news post you’ve been waiting for: Secret Santa sign-ups are OPEN!

There is a lot of info below, and I recommend taking your time to read it all if you wish to take part, but the short version is this: during December, members who have signed up will give and receive a fic (or artwork!). 

If you’ve never taken part before, or if you need a reminder, here’s how it works: 

As of this post going live, you can fill in a GOOGLE FORM HERE to sign up. 

Everyone who signs up to participate will write one fic or make a piece of art and receive one fic or piece of art. (You can opt out of giving or receiving art in the Google form if you’re only interested in written fic). Each fic MUST be a “one-shot” size (or be posted as a single “chapter” in the case of art). 

The chapter word limit is 15,000 words here on EF, but variations in software word counting sometimes mean that there is a discrepancy between the EF word count and what Microsoft or Google Docs will tell you. It is the author’s responsibility to make sure their story fits. If your fic is approaching the limit, we recommend leaving ample time for edits to make sure you can post correctly and before the deadline.

There is no word count minimum to this event. 

Gifts DO NOT need to be holiday-related in any way (unless your giftee requests it!). 

Participants will receive an award on their profile at the end of the event. There are no additional awards for betas, artists, or commenters. Both authors and artists will receive the same ‘2023 Secret Santa Participant’ award. Artists who create banners for other people’s gifts will not be eligible for a participant award. 

Once you sign up, EF Event Mod EllieRose101 will make best case matches from all of the responses and then reach out to each participant with the penname and story preferences of their giftee. Please remember that this gift-giving is confidential. Don’t share who you have for a giftee until you post your fic! Revealing that information ahead of time will allow demonic Santa to start his spree of terror early, and that would just be a bad time for everyone.

Any member, whether they've previously written a fic on EF or not, is eligible to partake in this event––UNLESS you signed up for last year’s Secret Santa event and did not complete your fic or did not complete your fic by the deadline. Those members will have already been notified (at the end of last year’s event) and will not be eligible to participate this year, but may participate again in 2024.

Please note that bad behavior toward your gifter or giftee, in regards to either the gift you receive or the gift you deliver, will result in a permanent ban from this event for all future years. We wish we didn’t have to say it, but we do.

Any ineligibility will be communicated to you by a mod, if it becomes relevant. Otherwise, you may assume you are good to go.

Important Dates: 

  • Today: Sign-Ups Open (See link, above.)
  • 11.59pm site time on Monday 20th November: Sign-Ups close 
  • 22nd & 23rd November: Assignments Distributed
  • 1st December: Participants can start posting
  • 11:59 pm 31st December, site time: All gifts must be exchanged. 

No late sign-ups or publishing will be allowed.* Leaving a participant giftless will make Spuffy deeply sad, and we can’t have that, and will result in ineligibility from participating in Secret Santa for at least one year. (A one year ban if you don’t post but at least tell us, or a lifetime ban from participating if we never hear from you.)

*If you miss the deadline to post, please still send your gift, just be aware that it won’t officially count towards the event. And in either case––I cannot stress this enough––TELL US what’s happening! 

Whether or not you sign-up to participate in the event itself, you can sign-up to be a Secret Santa Rescue Writer! Either choose "yes" on the event sign-up form where it asks, or email EllieRose101 at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com and let her know that you'd like to be on the volunteer Rescue Writer list. If she ends up with someone in need, she may reach out to you (by no later than Dec. 16th) to see if you can rescue a gift.

Any questions? Comment below!



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on November 08, 2023 09:02pm 2 Comments
Email Issues October 27

Hi all! We've reached our daily limit again and email notifications will be down for 24 hours. As a reminder, this means no digest, story updates, comment notifications, author response replies, or PM notifications.

We have decided while we implement our longer-term fix, we will be temporarily suspending the daily digest until further notice to try to alleviate the traffic problem through the end of the event. As soon as we have our longer-term fix in place, we will resume sending the digest.

We will keep you informed of any future outages. You can post questions here or send them to elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com, which is not affected by the outage.



--cawthraven and the Mods on October 27, 2023 12:24pm 0 Comments
Email Issues October 23

Hi all! We wanted to let you know about some email issues that are sort of growing pains with the new site host. With our new plan, we have a limit on how many daily emails we can send (unlike our old host), and we sorta exceeded that on October 23. The downside is this shuts down our email for 24 hours, so we are unable to send the digest, story updates, comment notifications, author response replies, or PM notifications until that 24-hour period lapses.

Normally, the digest and story updates are placed into a queue and would go out as normal once email is restored. Due to the busy nature of October being an event month, we anticipate a domino effect of “too many emails” if we do this. In light of that, as a short-term fix, we have decided to turn off the digest for all users for a couple of days (so the digest that would send on October 24 and October 25) and will restore it once our email volume is under the limits.

In the meantime, we are looking into longer-term fixes that would prevent this from happening. We will keep you informed of any future outages.



--Holly and the Mods on October 23, 2023 09:50pm 2 Comments
Elysian Fields Archive is now a 501(c)(7) organization (with a new logo!!!)

Elysian Fields Archive is now a 501(c)(7) organization.

This year, Elysian Fields Archive applied for status as a 501(c)(7) organization. We’re pleased to announce that as of October 21, we are officially registered as a not-for-profit. 

Why now?

In 2021, the site administrators received word that owing to changing tax codes, any donations received by Elysian Fields would be reported to the United States government as earned income by the person whose name and identifying information were associated with our PayPal account. This would put that admin at a severe disadvantage and require them to pay taxes on money that belonged to the archive as though it had gone into their personal bank account.

One of the reasons we suspended donations in 2022 was to avoid any of the administrators being taxed for donations that went to support the archive. Admittedly, it took longer than we thought it would to get our ducks in a row—if you remember, last year was one of change and challenges. Several planned behind-the-scenes initiatives were placed on hold as we settled. Earlier this year, we returned to this initiative as the most important, and officially dove into the paperwork and legalese of applying for not-for-profit status.

What is a 501(c)(7)?

A 501(c)(7) is a nonprofit social club organized for “pleasure, recreation, and other similar purposes.” We do differ from most traditional 501(c)(7) organizations in several ways, the key factor being that we do not (and will never) require annual dues by members, nor is donation to the organization in any way compulsory. Elysian Fields only began accepting donations after multiple members made it clear that they wanted to contribute to the site. We are enormously thankful for donations but do not expect them.

Are donations to Elysian Fields tax-deductible now?

Unfortunately, no. Under IRC Section 107(C)(2), any donations made to Elysian Fields do not qualify as tax deductible. We are a recreational group rather than a charitable organization.

But I can donate if I want to?

Absolutely.

Anything else?

Not at this time, but if we learn something, we’ll let you know.

We would like to thank all the members who have donated over the years for your support and assistance in keeping our wonderful community going. And all of our current members for being part of the reason we love spending time here.

And while we have nothing else right now on our new not-for-profit status, we are extremely pleased to announce that for the first time in our 17-year history, Elysian Fields has an official logo. We're still exploring ways to incorporate the logo on the site itself, as well as other applications, but if you follow us on our various social media platforms, you're sure to see it. It was designed for us by the endlessly talented bewildered. These are just a few of the variations.

It's certainly been an exciting anniversary month!

   



--Holly and the Mods on October 22, 2023 01:53pm 8 Comments
Site Migration: Three Weeks In

Hey all! We wanted to update you on the site migration from our old host to our new home. As you all know, the process wasn’t as smooth as we would have liked (which would have been impossibly smooth, no hiccups at all) but it went much more smoothly than we feared it could.

We faced three main issues: many users were unable to access the site for a time and saw a lot of Fatal MySQL errors; comments weren’t always posting, again showing Fatal MySQL errors; and email notifications were down.

The first two were because we were on our old host for all 17 years the site was live and in a couple spots, the code had gotten old without our realizing it. We’ve updated the code (some of this is ongoing work, but it will help future-proof the site). The commenting issue, for instance, is because of how the emoji were stored on our back end. We’ve updated the way they are stored for comments (though we have some work still to do in some of the less critical areas—please let us know if you use an emoji anywhere and see a Fatal MySQL error after). That being said, we are still experiencing an issue where some emoji are not displaying correctly. We do not have an ETA for a fix for this issue, but we are actively investigating now.

Also, related, oddly enough, to the emoji issue, we have noticed display issues with some characters stored in the database, such as smart quotes (when single and double quotes curl in toward the word). We will be running a script on the back end later today (October 15) to address this issue, but authors should check their story titles, chapter titles, summaries, and all chapter notes. The text of your story should be fine, as chapters are not stored directly in the database in the same way.

The email notifications were mostly due to the move breaking connections between the email servers and the code; this is all resolved now and all email alerts should be going out. Please let us know if you are not receiving them. We have email alerts for password resets and private messages, and you can also opt-in to receive a Daily Digest of all story updates from the day before; new stories from your favorite authors; story updates from your favorite stories; comments on one of your stories; and author responses to one of your comments. (If you didn’t know about this before, you can turn notifications off in Account Info > Edit Preferences; if you already receive notifications and no longer wish to, you can turn them off at any time in the same place.)

At this point, we believe all of the major migration-related issues should be resolved, so if you or someone you know is still experiencing any bugs, major or minor, please let us know ASAP by emailing us at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com and provide as much detail as you can as to what is not working. We love screenshots!

Thanks for your patience with us throughout this process. A site this large and established has a lot of moving parts to worry about. We love the Elysian Fields community and are excited about the opportunities to grow in our new home. We have already made a couple of minor improvements thanks to recommendations by our new host that should start to speed things up and have many more planned, both in terms of optimizing and new features.



--cawthraven and the Mods on October 15, 2023 10:32am 3 Comments
Everything you need to know about the Truce Challenge

Somehow, September is almost gone and our next event is right around the corner. If you missed the announcement, you can find it linked here

Before I get too far into fine details, though, I want to acknowledge that the site has undergone some teething pains due to having switched web hosts, resulting in limited access for some folks. With the exception of email, the Mod Team believes the issues are now largely resolved. Please see the post linked here for more information, and if you still are experiencing any issues, you can report them or any error messages you have to us at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com.

Now, without further ado, here are the deets for the event itself: 

  • Kick-off is at 12:00 am site time on the 1st. (Site time can always be found under the Shoutbox on our homepage.)
  • Written submissions must meet a minimum word count of 100 and must include or address a truce in some fashion (if you’re unsure if you’ve done enough to satisfy this requirement, please ask a mod).
  • Your first chapter needs to be posted during October––no earlier, no later––but that does not mean you need to have the entire thing finished and uploaded by month’s end. 
  • One-shot fics are of course acceptable, as are artwork-only and multimedia works. 
  • There is no word count minimum for artwork-only or multimedia pieces, and no upper limit on any works beyond the site limitation of one-shots being under 15k. (Anything over 15k needs to be posted as multiple chapters, therefore making it no longer a one-shot by definition.) 
  • You can earn the artist award for creating a banner for any work submitted for the event and/or posting a work with artwork or multimedia elements.
  • To earn the commenter award, you must leave at least 17 comments containing at least 17 words (because it’s our 17th anniversary). The comments can be on any fic or artwork across the EF site (comments on news posts don’t count). 

At the start of the event, you will see a tickbox appear when adding a new story. This is to indicate your story is part of the event, to make sure it appears in the official list of event fics, and so it can be featured alongside the others throughout the month.  It looks like so:

Additionally, when you’ve ticked that box, a white flag icon will appear beside your story, as depicted in the example here:

Note: while sequels (or indeed prequels, or companion stories) to existing fics and artwork are eligible for this event, it’s important that submissions are new works, as in not previously shared elsewhere already. 

Once you’ve written and shared your new fic to EF, you can share it on any other site you wish. We do not require exclusivity. 

The dimensions for banners are the same as they’ve always been, as outlined on our FAQ page. All we ask is that you add a small line of text stating “Designed for the 2023 Elysian Fields Truce Challenge.”

Please, please (we cannot stress this enough!) credit your beta(s) and/or banner artist by listing their Elysian Fields username in the story notes. If you have made your own banner, include something along the lines of 'Banner by me' so you get credit for it. If you do not list your credits, we can’t issue awards. The mod team will not be chasing down this information.

Artwork-only and mixed media submissions should include the Artwork category, but please do not tick the ‘artwork-only’ box for event works, as site coding would prevent the work showing as part of the event. If you forget, or accidentally tick the artwork box, contact the Mod Team and we can resolve this. 

The awards, lovingly designed by DeathTheKat, are as pictured at the top of this news post and there is a custom site skin for this event also designed by DeathTheKat which will be the default during the entire month of October.

Any questions, comment below!



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on September 27, 2023 09:50pm 4 Comments
State of the Archive

Hello EF!

So, after implementing some back-end tweaks, we are confident that the largest problems resulting from the migration (the MySQL errors and the inability to load stories) have been resolved. Of course, if you’re still having issues accessing content that you previously could access, don’t hesitate to reach out, preferably with screencaps of any error messages.

Not everything is back online yet. We know that some users are having trouble leaving comments and believe we have isolated the cause to an encoding error that occurs when non-site emojis are used, that is, iOS or Android emojis. Site emojis, being embedded in our code, are working fine. This is on our list to address, but until we get the kinks ironed out, we’re encouraging all commenters to either refrain from using emojis entirely or stick to the site emojis to make sure the comment goes through.

Also, site email remains down, so story updates, comment notifications, digests, and pretty much all other site communication have not been reinstated yet. This was expected downtime. The site email is a separate entity from the site itself, so the records need to be updated to reflect our new server home. That hasn’t happened yet, as the Mod team has been focused on getting full access to the site back for all members (especially considering our anniversary celebration event is just a few days away from kicking off). Now that the access issues seem to be addressed, restoring email is our number one priority. Keep in mind, it will likely take a couple of days for the DNS records to propagate once the email settings have been updated. Until then, we encourage readers to check the Most Recents for story updates and authors to manually check their stories for new comments or comment responses, or email us if you need to reset your password at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com.

If you encounter an issue not related to anything discussed here, again, please let us know by emailing us about it at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com. Assuming all goes well, the next news post should be the final details of the Truce Challenge Event.

Thank you all so much for your patience, kindness, and support over the last few days. You make this community awesome.



--Holly and the Mods on September 27, 2023 01:10pm 2 Comments
State of the Migration

Users receiving MySQL errors: until we can get the kinks worked out, you might try accessing the site via a proxy server, such as https://us2.proxysite.com/. Some members have found that to be a serviceable workaround that restores the ability to read and comment. This is a temporary fix, not a permanent solution. 

We know that the site is still reporting MySQL errors for some users and have been in communication with our new host to discuss causes and troubleshoot solutions. While it is frustrating that so many members are having accessibility issues, we are very impressed with the level of service and care we’ve received from the new host. Once everything is working for everyone, we anticipate a much smoother EF experience. 

Until then, we do encourage users to continue sending us error messages. So far, all the error messages have been the same, but we want to know ALL errors to make note of any variation. 

What we can tell you right now is the new DNS records haven't fully finished propagating in all regions, and we have some ideas on tweaks we can make on the back end that'll restore functionality to all users. 

Please be assured we are working on it, and we won't stop working on it until it's back for everyone. 

Thank you for your patience and understanding!



--Holly and the Mods on September 26, 2023 12:20pm 0 Comments
Server Migration Update

 

Hi guys! We know many of you have been waiting patiently for updates on the site migration. Here's where we are right now:  

  • Full site functionality has returned for many users; it is still in limbo for others
  • This is normal as DNS records can take 48-72 hours to update
  • All our conversations with the host indicate everything is on track and going well. We just need to be patient.
  • Email remains spotty, but this is because we have work to do on our end to make sure the email servers are functional. It's separate from the site migration. So, readers might just check the Most Recents for fic updates and authors watching for comments might need to visit the site to see any new ones until we get this fixed. It's been a busy weekend for your Mods but the site itself was our first priority.

  Please do keep us updated on issues that you continue to have (DMs or by emailing elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com) so we can keep an eye on them and make sure they get resolved. Otherwise, rest assured that all signs indicate things are running smoothly for a server migration.   Thank you!



--Holly and the Mods on September 24, 2023 09:53pm 1 Comment
Host Change

Hello EF,

Over the last couple of years, you’ve heard us reference issues we have with our current website host more than once. Well, we decided to do something about it. We’re in the process of changing hosts; in fact, our assets are currently being migrated to the new hosting platform. Our new host was chosen after a careful audit of available alternatives that started in July when the site was inaccessible and culminated in our decision to switch providers, well, now.

Once the migration is complete, Elysian Fields will need to update our domain information so that everything is pointed at the right place and fully functional. There might be temporary downtimes before the end of the month, but we’ll do our best to mitigate the effects by initiating these changes during times when the site is less active. That said, this is a new thing for all of your Mods, so please be patient. If all goes well, you won’t notice a thing. If you do notice something, that’s probably the reason, but don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have an issue.

You can reach us:

Please let us know if you have any questions.



--Holly and the Mods on September 19, 2023 11:05am 5 Comments
Event Announcement: Anniversary Month 2023

I know so many of you have been bursting at the seams to know the theme for our October event, and we’ve been bursting at the seams to tell you, so… Because EF will be turning 17, and that was the age at which Buffy had a significant milestone in her relationship with Spike, our theme is in honor of said milestone. Which is to say, the theme is TRUCE!

What kind of truce? Between who? To what end? Why? Does it go well or explode in their faces? Well, obviously, we are a Spuffy site and so all of the participating stories must be Spuffy focused overall, but your truce can be set in any season, timeline, or alternate universe, between any two (or more) characters. So, basically, go nuts with it. Here’s the rundown of how the event will work:

  • Written works must be 100 words minimum and include or address the theme in some fashion. 
  • There is no word count limit for artwork-only pieces or mixed-media works (that consist of both words and pictures).
  • If you are writing a multi-chaptered fic, the first chapter must be posted during the month of October according to site time––no earlier, no later. (As always, you can see the current site time underneath the Shoutbox on the front page.)
  • You do not have to finish your fic in October; you only have to post the first chapter. 
  • Awards will be available for authors, artists, betas, and commenters as usual. Artist awards can be earned by creating a banner for someone (or yourself) or by posting an artwork-only or mixed-media story.

More details (including an artwork reveal of the banner, skin, and awards) to follow, but if you have any questions, please comment below.



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on August 12, 2023 10:15am 4 Comments
Wrapping-Up Drabblemania

When the idea of an event focused around drabbles was first discussed, some members were skeptical. There was a little uncertainty about how it would work, and even more uncertainty if anyone would like it at all. So we asked you guys, and while you let us know that you didn’t want to lose Mystery Month forever, you also said you’d give this new event a shot.

Well, guys… it’s fair to say you did a bit more than that.

For this brand new event that no one was quite sure about, we had 64 writers participate who earned themselves a bronze award. 53 of those writers also earned silver awards, 23 earned gold awards, AND we had 6 super enthusiastic members who went ahead and completed a triple blackout, writing a drabble for every single prompt!

Big round of applause for those six: Amina, BewitchedXx, cawthraven, Julikobold, Jws1993, and MaggieLaFey!

In total, an incredible 513,309 words were written during this event, across 143 stories consisting of 1,593 total drabbles (yes, you read that number right).

But of course that is not all! 41 artists* and 37 beta readers took part. Meanwhile, 470 members left a combined 10,628 comments and 21,768 likes during the event, with 273 of those members leaving 8,184 comments and 15,025 likes on event-qualifying stories, and 66 of those members earning a commenter award.

(*Banner artists and participants who made artwork-only or mixed media works.)

While we’re on the topic of commenters, our very own magnus374 left a whopping total of 1,627 comments of five or more words during the 31 days of July. (He also broke 30,000 total comments on the site during the month of July!) And so, in his honor, we have made a brand new, ‘Epic Commenter’ award––pictured here:

Going forward, you can earn this award by following Magnus’s amazing example and leaving a minimum of 1,000 comments in a single month. (Anyone who would have achieved this in the past, had it existed before now, will be retroactively awarded the epic commenter badge.)

Many, many thanks to everyone who took part, in whichever way you contributed. All participating authors, betas, artists, and commenters should now have the relevant awards on their profiles. If you seem to be missing one, or anything else seems not quite right, please drop us a line at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com.

If you’ve yet to check out any of the brand new drabbles, you can FIND THEM ALL HERE



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on August 08, 2023 01:49pm 10 Comments
Final Drabblemania Reminders

As our Drabblemania event draws to a close, the Mod Team asks that all participants check that the prompts relating to each of their drabbles are clearly labeled in either the chapter title or the beginning chapter notes and that all betas and banner artists are credited in the summary or story notes. This information should be visible from the main page of your work, where the table of contents of the work is listed. We are not able to check chapter end notes for this information for this event. If the prompts are not in the chapter notes or chapter title, you will not receive credit for that drabble, which may impact the awards you are eligible for.

This is a gigantic help for us as we issue awards. Speaking of which––this event has been more successful than we could have ever imagined. As such, the Mod Team has a lot of things to double- and triple-check before we can issue awards, so please bear with us, as it will likely take longer than usual.

Lastly, the official site time has changed back to its original East Coast setting. Because of the temporary site outages and for the sake of simplicity, the event will run up until midnight tonight, July 31st, according to the new/current site time (Eastern Daylight Time)––four hours later than the previous site time (Greenwich Mean Time). As always, the current site time can be viewed under the Shoutbox on our homepage.



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on July 31, 2023 04:36am 7 Comments
New Warning Tags

Hello EF,

Finally, some news that is not related to the site acting wonky but rather to inform you that the Mods have listened to concerns from the membership and decided to add a couple of fic warnings that, effective immediately, will be mandatory on new content published on the site.

These warnings are as follows:

  • Depictions of Bigotry: contains characters making prejudicial statements and/or offensive slurs regarding race, gender, ability, orientation, religion, or class, including incidentally. (Not to be confused with authors making such remarks.) Authors are asked to use their discretion here as to what qualifies as bigotry, as a full explanation on where we're drawing lines could quickly become a six-page essay. If you have any questions on a specific fic, you can contact the mods— we are happy to consult. Please be aware that if you do not use the warning and it comes to Mod attention, we reserve the right to reach out and address the situation.
  • Incest: contains depictions of a romantic and/or sexual relationship between family members, whether related by blood or marriage. If the latter, situations in which the characters in question were raised as and/or regarded each other as family prior to their romantic and/or sexual involvement.

Now, on the Depictions of Bigotry, we spent a lot of time (really, a LOT of time) trying to come up with the appropriate definition only to realize, well, there isn’t one. We’re a fandom for an old show, and as such, problematic themes, characterizations, ideas, and beliefs were depicted and/or supported in the source material. The same can be said for a good amount of fic, where social and cultural norms of the day it was written have since been identified and recognized as Not Cool. Speaking personally, I’ve had several people let me know of things I wrote in old fics that I would never write today and intend to address when I edit those works. 

Point is, it's now 2023, and we are so proud to have cultivated a wonderfully diverse community that we have been told, numerous times, helps individuals in otherwise targeted communities feel heard and (hopefully) safe. The addition of this warning is a continued part of that outreach, as well as in line with our goal of empowering readers so they may confidently and safely engage with content published here.

That said, we also hope the membership understands that we do not have the resources to retroactively review all the fics published on this site to see what stories qualify for our new warnings, or ANY of the warnings that have been added since we launched in 2006, of which there are many. If you are already aware of such fics, we encourage you to let us know so we can reach out to the authors or apply the warning ourselves, if necessary. If in the future you encounter an older fic that isn’t tagged, again, let us know and we will handle it.

Just to reiterate to all EF authors, use your own discretion and reach out to us with questions. We understand that this is a very daunting, nebulous tag, which is why it took us so long to decide how to approach it, but we do think it’s essential to continue supporting the health and safety of community members. As always, if you include any warning in a fic that you would like to explain, you are encouraged to elaborate in the story notes. And rest assured, unless authors refuse to use the warnings or act with malicious intent, no one will be in trouble for neglecting to add a warning. The most you can expect from us is a private message requesting that the warning be added if we think it is warranted.

Likewise, under no circumstance should a member reach out to an author directly and confront them about depictions of bigotry (or any other warning) in their work. If there’s an issue or concern, let the Mod team know. That’s one of the things we’re here for.

I’m sure this is going to open the floor to a lot of questions, but we truly are going to rely heavily on the definition we drafted for this tag. Really, just use your best judgment, and if you aren’t sure, ask.

You can find all information regarding rating, category, genre, and warning definitions here.

Thank you!



--Holly and the Mods on July 26, 2023 04:14am 7 Comments
Recent Service Issues

Hi EF,

In waiting for the host to get back to us over the most recent outage, the Mods started digging into analytics to pinpoint the source of the disruption. In that, we discovered that EF was being repeatedly hit by the same IP address every few seconds. We took immediate action and banned that IP and service was restored within minutes.

Then we started looking at some of the symptoms of a DDOS/DOS attack, something we have never seriously considered before, and many symptoms do align with the outages we’ve experienced over the last few weeks. So it’s possible that the outages have been deliberate rather than just your enthusiasm for the event (which would both make more sense and less sense).

More sense: Not the members’ fault. Drabblemania definitely exceeds even our most optimistic expectations, but EF’s events have always been popular and this has never happened before.

Less sense: We have no idea why we would’ve been targeted for such an attack. Even with some similarities, this isn’t on the same scale as what was happening to AO3. For one thing, no one has claimed responsibility. For another, it looks less like a DDOS attack (which is what AO3 went through, with multiple actors working in tandem to overload the server) and more like a DOS attack (with a single actor working to overload the server).

Anyway, I’d like to believe it’s random (despite it happening multiple times now) and that it’ll now stop entirely, but we don’t know. In the interim, thank you for your patience and understanding. Should this happen again, we’ll at least know immediately where to look and what actions to take without waiting on the host.

Thank you!



--Holly and the Mods on July 19, 2023 11:26am 10 Comments