I started a thread on the Elysian_archive LJ, not as an official EF Mod but as an individual person. It's intended as a safe place for our family to reach out lovingly in support to one another. Here is the link:
http://elysian-archive.livejournal.com/22548.html
Kathleen
I initially posted it on my own LJ but thought it better belonged on the EF archive LJ instead.
--pfeifferpack on November 09, 2016 08:13am 0 Comments
Hi everyone. It's nearly at that time for fic posting for the Artistic Anniversary Challenge. Yay! We know everyone's excited to get started (including us!), and we know you all have questions about how everything is going to go. We'll try to answer everything here, but if there's something else you're curious about, please let us know in the comments. There's a lot of information here, so grab a snack, get comfy, and get ready to learn about all the amazing things happening in October...
How and when do I post my story?
Starting at midnight on October 1 (site time, which is Eastern US time-it's listed under the shoutbox), you'll see a checkbox on the page where you add a new story:
As soon as you see that box, you're free to post. If your story is part of the challenge, check the box and you're good to go.
Your fic does not need to be complete prior to posting. In fact, it doesn't even need to be completed during October. So any authors stressing about the timeline, please take a breath because you have the whole month, during which you only need to BEGIN posting the story.
In terms of banner credit, the artists need to be credited for the wonderful works, so all authors need to include the following line in the Summary section when uploading your fic. Written for the Elysian Fields 'Artistic Anniversary Challenge'. Banner 00 by artistname.
Here's a fictional example of what it should look like:
Summary: The day began just like any other for Buffy. Just your average Tuesday. That is, until the phone rang. Written for the Elysian Fields 'Artistic Anniversary Challenge'. Banner 375 by angelic_amy.
You can link to the banner master list also if you wish: http://dark-solace.org/elysian/artisticanniversary.php. This might be a good idea so that your readers are aware of the challenge specifics. Alternatively, you could copy and paste the challenge specifics into the Story or Chapter Notes of your story.
Hopefully by this time all of your authors have made contact with your artists. If you've not been able to make contact with them, or forgot, please let Amy know and she'll put you in contact with each other.
To add the banner to your story, you can upload the banner to your account in the Your Images section of your account info page, or to an image sharing site (imgur.com, photobucket.com, etc...) . Enter the image URL (which should end in .jpg, .gif or .png - nothing should be after the file type) into the line marked Banner URL:
How do I find the stories that are being added to the challenge?
Besides the note in the story summary, challenge stories will have a little artist's palette next to the title:
This will make it easy to spot challenge fics. Also, don't forget that we have a site events browse page where you can view all the stories from previous site events, as well as the ones from this challenge.
Will you be featuring regular stories while the challenge is going on?
There won't be any mod-chosen featured stories in October. To celebrate the 10 years of stories, we're doing a little something different. Since this is all because it's Elysian Fields' 10th bithday, from the 1st-10th we're highlighting stories from each year of EF's existence. Each day will focus on one year (1st-2006, 2nd-2007, and so on...), and will contain a random assortment of stories published in that particular year. Starting on the 11th, that section will change to feature a random assortment of fics that are part of the Artistic Anniversary challenge.
This challenge celebrates the amazing authors and artists at Elysian Fields, but what about the readers?
Don't worry readers, we haven't forgotten about your incredible contributions to EF. We want to celebrate you by having a challenge you can participate in as well. If you write at least 15 reviews in October that all contain at least 8 words (for any stories here on EF, not just the challenge ones), you'll meet the requirements of the reviewer challenge! You'll see a link to the review challenge leaderboard on the homepage under the Members of the Month where the all star reviewer list is usually located. Authors and artists who participated/are participating in the Artistic Anniversary challenge are welcome to participate in the reviewer challenge!
Besides an amazing sense of pride, do we get anything for participating in these challenges?
Of course you do! We have some amazing awards that will be given out after the end of October. Our wonderful Kathleen (pfeifferpack) created the following awards for participating authors: , artists:
, and reviewers:
.
What's going to happen to the banners that weren't selected for the challenge?
That's still being determined, and will be announced shortly after the challenge ends.
That about covers it. Please let us know if there's any additional questions. Hurray for Fictober!
--Amy, Kathleen, Megan and Susan on September 29, 2016 04:35pm 7 Comments
With the Artistic Anniversary challenge starting in one month and 7 days (but who's counting?), we know that a number of authors may be using banners on Elysian Fields for the first time. It can be a confusing process if you're not sure which code to copy and paste into the banner section of the story form. To hopefully make the process simpler and less confusing, we are now offering the option of loading your banners and art work to Elysian Fields. In your Account Info page, you'll now see an option called Your Images. To add a new image, click the Upload New Images link. On the new page, you'll see that images must be a .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, or .png file. The image can't be larger than 920 px x 300 px, and the max file size is 1 MB. Click the browse button to choose an image file from your computer and click Upload. If the image doesn't match the requirements, you'll get an error message, but hopefully it will be within the guidelines, and your image will be renamed and uploaded. Once an image is added, you'll see it in your list, along with the direct link URL. That URL is the one you'll need to use to use the image as a banner.
The size limit is necessary to limit disk space usage. Also, to preserve space and bandwidth, we do not allow hotlinking, which means that the images will only be available for use on Elysian Fields.
You're still able to use images that are stored elsewhere if that works better for you. You just need to make sure you're using the direct link no matter where the image is hosted.
--Susan on August 24, 2016 03:02pm 7 Comments
Writers note that there are two new warning selections for your stories available if needed. They are for suicide and attempted suicide.
We will not be going through the thousands of existing stories and adding this warning because none of us have the time to cull through. If you have written a story where the warning would have been appropriate and you wish to edit your story to add the warning please feel free. Otherwise please note that these warning labels are available for future stories from now forward.
If you are a reader please realize that the warnings were not available until now, August 19, 2016 and read at your own risk.
Thank you for the suggestion.
Kathleen
--pfeifferpack on August 19, 2016 12:19pm 3 Comments
Hi everyone. Just a short note to let you all know that all banners claims up until this point have been confirmed. Authors, you should've received an email, and I've updated THE LIST, so all of the pretties are linked to the writer's who've signed up for them.
Now, for anyone who is super eager, and wants to take a crack at a second banner, (oh how do I want to, because they're so pretty... but I'm not sure if I should), then the process is the exact same as for Round 1. Second banner claims open Friday the 12th of August, SITE TIME. Email me with your preferences, in order, and I'll get back to you ASAP.
Final reminder... Now that you have your confirmations, you may begin writing (YAY!), but please don't post anything until October the 1st. Thanks!
Happy writing!
--Amy on August 10, 2016 10:41pm 3 Comments
Hi everyone. It's nearly at that time for banner claiming - less than five hours and counting. Yay! o/
First of all, important dates to remember:
Banner creation: 17th of July - 6th of August
Banner claiming: 7th - 13th of August
Banner confirmations: 14th – 15th of August
Writing time (but no posting of fics): 16th August - 30th September
Posting of fics to begin: from the 1st of October (and of course authors can continue to write/post throughout the month and beyond)
Now that we've got that out of the way... if you are someone who has been ogling admiring the pretties over the last few weeks (and there was just another massive upload of another 18 banners/challenges, so make sure you check them out) then here's what you need to do.
Firstly, you need to follow the rules and regs of the challenge. I'm reposting them in case anyone has forgotten. By signing up for a banner, you are agreeing to comply with the rules and regs, and write a fic with the following specifics:
- Length: Minimum length 1,500 words, maximum completely up to you!
- Characters: Buffy, Spike, any other characters shown in the banner.
- Content Specifications: Must abide by the Must and Can’t Haves specified by the artist. Obviously the Can Haves is voluntary! All fic MUST follow the guidelines set by the banner artist, unless changes are agreed upon by both parties.
- Dates: no posting of the fic on the archive (or anywhere else) until the 1st of October.
- Banner claims are for new fic only, not to be attached to an existing story.
- The banner must accompany the fic when it is posted on the archive. Modification of the banner with fic title and author name should be discussed with artist once the first part/chapter is ready for publishing. Authors, the mods will put you in contact with the artist when we confirm your banner selection.
Another reminder, each banner will ONLY be allocated once, and it will be first come, first serve. So make sure you are ready to hit send on the email when sign ups commence (very shortly). Sign ups will be for your top three banner choices, in case your first or second is chosen. If you want to list more preferences than that, have at it. But understand you will only be allocated one banner to begin with. Secondary signups for unclaimed banners will happen later on (dates to be confirmed).
If you think you can follow these specifics, and would like to claim one of the gorgeous artworks just begging to accompany a fic, then here is the last piece of information you need. When you can grab your pretty.
Susan, our resident tech guru, has the banner claim page set up to automatically switch to banner claiming OPEN at midnight SITE TIME.
So make sure you have the site open. When the message at the top of the page switches you need to email me at angelic.amy.fic@gmail.com with the following information:
Author penname:
Email address: (so contact can be set up with the artist for text additions)
Banner request: List your banner choice(s) by title (number) and artist name, in order of preference.
And that's it...
E-mails will be sent to authors to confirm their choice of banner, and then your Elysian Fields ID will be linked with the banner on the master list, which is why providing your penname is essential. Early email claims will not be accepted. So don't start writing until you receive your confirmation.
Any questions? Comment here.
And when the time comes... happy claiming!
--Amy on August 06, 2016 12:14pm 7 Comments
Hi everyone!
Well, the entries are coming in hard and fast, and at present we have a count of 57 banners uploaded. That blows my mind, and I am so impressed and excited by the level of interest the challenge has created. We still have another week (until the 6th of August) for banner submissions, if anyone is still wanting to contribute. Thanks again to everyone who has contributed so far.
Side note, from an admin perspective, please ensure you send me all of the relevant information for your banner submissions. The most important thing (apart from the art itself) is your member ID/penname. Banners are not being loaded anonymously, and if I don't have that information I can't put your gorgeous work up!
Now, with the massive amount of entries so far, there is bound to be some errors with the uploading. A couple of artists have contacted me already because their specifications were a little screwy--something with the copy/pasting process not translating correctly. So, if you made a banner, and you notice something isn't right, please email me so I can correct it! **EDIT: And please ensure you add the banner number assigned to make it easier for me to search through to make changes. Thanks!
Banner claiming is currently not open. But it will be, soon. So author's, start brainstorming. I'll post the requirements for the banner claiming process within the next couple of days.
Wanna see the pretties? CLICK HERE
--Amy on July 29, 2016 03:50pm 0 Comments
Ordinarily I don't feature Adult Only stories not because they aren't worthy (believe me there are lots of fabulous stories with that rating!). I try to make the features accessible to the widest audience including those in the age groups that cannot read AO stories.
However I really want to give nods to some of the best of them out of fairness. So I figured what better time than the hot days of summer than to feature AO stories? It's summer in the northern hemisphere so the features this time will all be AO stories. We'll do it again when it's summer in the southern hemisphere.
So...enjoy!
Kathleen
--pfeifferpack on July 25, 2016 08:59am 5 Comments
Hi everyone!
First of all, I just have to have to say I am very impressed with the banner entries we’ve had so far for the ‘Artistic Anniversary Challenge’. You guys are awesome!
For your convenience, the uber talented Susan has created a page for the archive, where I’ve been uploading all of the fabulous art for everyone to view and drool over. We have some talented members at Elysian Fields!
Each banner has the accompanying challenge criteria, as provided by the artists. So make sure you read over the info if you’re thinking of claiming one of the pieces. Just a friendly reminder, banner claiming is currently not open. So don’t go emailing me with a preference just yet! We’re allowing another two weeks for banner making time so that artists have ample time to submit their pieces.
To all you wonderful artists, keep them coming!
And to the authors in our community, I hope you've got your thinking caps on!
Wanna see the art? CLICK HERE o/
--Amy on July 22, 2016 05:05pm 0 Comments
Hello everyone!
The tenth anniversary of Elysian Fields is fast approaching--where has the time gone? The mods have decided a challenge is in order to celebrate this fact, and I come to you today with that information to encourage fresh blood and life (of the living and undead variety) to our wonderful community. Also, the challenge will involve both artists and writers.
So here’s the sitch. Authors have banners created for their fics all time. In most cases the art is made after the fic. Well, we’re switching it around. This will be an art before the fic challenge. It’s not a new idea, but it’s one that works, and I speak from experience having run such a challenge for a Livejournal community many years ago.
What will the Artistic Anniversary Challenge entail? Information is as follows.
Artists:
We’re asking you to create a banner with the following specifics.
Dimensions: Width 900px x Height 250px (maximum)
Text: In a small (approx 8 – 10 pt) clear font along one of the edges, Designed for the Elysian Fields ‘Artistic Anniversary’ Challenge. The fic title will of course be left up to the author but suggestions can be posted with the banner (just not on it) if you have something you think fits with the art.
Design: Completely up to you! The banner can be theme or episode specific, whichever works best for you.
Fic Specifications: In a similar style to what you’d find under the challenges section of many eFiction archives. Must Haves, Can Haves, Can’t Haves list. No more than three specifics per category. An example of how it should be laid out can be found below in the rules section.
If you are an artist within our archive community and would be interested in participating, PLEASE reply to this post so we can gauge the interest in the challenge, and so we can all look forward to your wonderful creations. Once complete your banner and specifications are to be emailed to me at the following address, so that they can be added to the Artistic Anniversary Challenge page for the archive: angelic.amy.fic@gmail.com
Authors:
Once the art has been created, there will be a sign up, where banners will go up for grabs. Each banner will ONLY be allocated once, and it will be first come, first serve. So make sure you pay close attention to signup dates. Sign ups will be for your top three banner choices, in case you first or second is chosen.
We’re asking you to write a fic with the following specifics:
Fic Length: Minimum length 1,500 words, maximum completely up to you!
Characters: Buffy, Spike, any other characters shown in the banner.
Content Specifications: Must abide by the Must and Can’t Haves specified by the artist. Obviously the Can Haves is voluntary.
The banner must accompany the fic when it is posted on the archive. Modification of the banner with fic title and author name should be discussed with the artist once the first part/chapter is ready for publishing. Authors, the mods will put you in contact with the artist when we confirm your banner selection.
Banner claims are for new fic only, not to be attached to an existing story.
RULES AND REGS:
1) All entires MUST include BOTH Buffy and Spike.
2) All banner entries MUST comply with size restrictions.
3) All fic entries MUST meet minimum word count.
4) All art entrants MUST accompany the following form with their artwork:
Characters:
Rating:
Season/Episode: (if specific)
Must Have:
1)
2)
3)
Can Have:
1)
2)
3)
Can’t Have:
1)
2)
3)
5) All banners and specifics MUST be emailed to the address provided.
6) There is no limit to the amount of banners an artist can make, nor fics an author can write!
DATES:
Banner creation: 17th of July - 6th of August
Banner claiming: 7th - 13th of August
Banner confirmations: 14th – 15th of August
Writing time (but no posting of fics): 16th August - 30th September
Posting of fics to begin (and of course authors can continue to write/post throughout the month): from the 1st of October
That’s about it. If any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!
Yours in Spuffy,
The Mods.
--Amy on July 15, 2016 02:23pm 28 Comments
We like to think of Elysian Fields as a community, and part of being a community is celebrating together. We already celebrate great stories and reviews, but now we can help each other celebrate birthdays as well! Based on a suggestion by RESPICE FINEM, you now have the ability to choose to share your special day with others at EF. If you head over to your preferences, in the site settings section, there's now a space for you to enter your birthdate. If you enter the date there (yyyy-mm-dd format), on your birthday you'll get a special note in the site info section of the main page, which will look like this:
Your birthday will be shared based on site time (currently GMT-4), not your local time because it's stubborn like that. Remember, this is completely optional. If you'd prefer not to share your birthday, just leave the space in your preferences blank.
--Susan on June 17, 2016 03:51pm 7 Comments
Just a quick news blurb so I don't clog up the shoutbox...
We have a brand new skin here at Elysian Fields thanks to our very own -Ash-. She was kind enough to submit some lovely artwork, and it inspired the new skin called heaven. You can preview it with the drop-down menus on the main page or in the footer. To make it (or any other skin) your default one, make sure to set in in your preferences.
Speaking of wonderful art, we have a number of banner artists here, and Wonder and Ashes added a suggestion asking for a better way for authors to find artists who are willing to volunteer their services to creating amazing artwork to go along with their story. If you are such an artist, you can now make it known that you're available to help by creating a banner artist profile from within your Account Info page. You can specify what information you need from an author if they make a request, and you can add 1-3 samples of your work.
The link to the list of volunteer artists can be found in the top navigation bar. I have my artist profile up as an example of what the profiles look like. I know you'll all want me to make banners for you based on my example, but please, try to restrain yourself. I'm sure many other talented members will join me on the list shortly. If you're an author, please remember to always be polite when making a request, and be sure to give the artist credit in your story notes.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
--Susan on February 05, 2016 04:07pm 13 Comments
I'm attempting a news post even though my brain is now slightly mushy. My apologies for any misspellings or incoherent ramblings.
First off, I upgraded our rich text editor to the newest edition of TinyMCE. I've been wanting to do this for a while since our previous version was very old, and because I thought it might make things a little easier for our authors who write in Google Docs. The new editor will import things like bold and italics easier than our old editor did. Also, it has a handy spell checker built in (no judgement ).
Last month a number of people mentioned that they liked having the reviewer list that highlighted reviewers who go the extra mile with their reviews. I added a link on the bottom of the Members of the Month section on the main page that leads to a list that will update every month with reviewers who have at least 15 reviews of more that 5 words.
Just like the reviewer list, a number of our site features have come from member suggestions. Previously, suggestions would come from the shoutbox, a PM or email to one of the admins or an email to the site inbox. Because we had so many places suggestions might end up, it would be hard to keep track of them, and they weren't centrally located, so it was hard for us admins to get together and discuss them. However, we now have a suggestion box to remedy that situation. We're kind of out of space in our top navigation bar, so the link for the suggestion box can be found down in the footer. Once there, you can submit a suggestion, or you can second a suggestion that has been added (just like you can second a challenge). I have a test suggestion up there now (which will obviously be rejected) just as an example so you all can see what it looks like. The admin team will look over every suggestion that comes in, and will determine if it's something that we're able to add as well as if it's something that a number of our members would use. Please keep in mind that we're all volunteers, so an admin response may take some time. Also, even if a suggestion is popular or seems simple, we may not have the resources or coding know-how to make it happen. Even if it's something that a larger archive has, keep in mind they have teams of coders and lots of money; We have 2 Americans and an Australian . That said, we want to make this your Spuffy home where you love to read and contribute. We hope to use the suggestions to get us even closer to that goal.
Please let me, Megan or Kathleen know if you have any questions. If you notice any technical glitches with any of the new (or old) features, please send me a PM.
--Susan on January 22, 2016 05:30pm 8 Comments
2015 was a very active and prolific year for Elysian Fields, and our stats are here to prove it (for reference, see our 2014 stats here). This year we held our first ever challenge month, and it went so well that we decided to do it again. We attempted to slay the email eating monster (and were slightly successful). We added beta and shoutbox search options, daily email digests, new categories, drabbles, and many other behind the scenes tweaks and fixes to try and help the site keep up with the times and to run more smoothly.
2016 will be Elysian Fields' 10th year online, and it is shaping up to be another big year for us. During the year, it looks like we will welcome our 4,000th story and our 15,000th member.
Thank you to everyone who made 2015 so wonderful: the authors, the reviewers, and even the lurkers !
2015 by the numbers:
Total number of words added: 10,487,862
Total number of stories added: 538
Total number of chapters added: 3,623
Number of new members: 1,987
Number of reviews written: 35,888
Number of words written for reviews: 1,502,228
Ten most prolific authors of 2015:
1. mak324 (679,583 words)
2. myrabeth (407,448 words)
3. Sigyn (395,082 words)
4. sweetprincipale (351,759 words)
5. Wonder and Ashes (284,961 words)
6. DauntlessGrace (261,623 words)
7. -Ash- (261,237 words)
8. Slayerfan (231,752 words)
9. bewildered (223,610 words)
10. reenasas (192,067 words)
Ten most prolific reviewers of 2015:
1. pfeifferpack (156,482 words)
2. magnus374 (154,835 words)
3. Blue Eyes2 (54,549 words)
4. annamatte (53,533 words)
5. acekoomboom (41,068 words)
6. jhiz (38,884 words)
7. ginar369 (37,282 words)
8. Ashinthe (37,134 words)
9. solstice (33,995 words)
10. All4Spike (33,806 words)
--Susan, Megan and Kathleen on January 03, 2016 11:46am 18 Comments
Now that it's January, it's time to congratulate our new members of the month: maryperk (author) and EmilytheSlayer323 (reviewer), and to close the books on another successful challenge month. There were 49 stories added for our Holiday Fic Challenge (4 of which were contributed by first time authors here at Elysian Fields), and 79 members completed the Holiday Review Challenge! Thank you to everyone who participated. Everyone who completed one or both challenges should have a lovely, new, solstice created award in the awards tab on their profile (if you don't have one, but should, it's an oversight, just let me know).
If you're feeling nostalgic, and ever want to look over fics from any of the events we have here, you may have noticed that on the browse page, there's a link titled 'Site Events'. From there, you can view the stories that were created as part of each event.
The start of January means a brand new year as well, and we'll have a 2015 recap post up soon, but I wanted to keep a spotlight on the Holiday Challenges for just one more day.
--Susan on January 01, 2016 04:54am 9 Comments
Let's take a short break from all the holiday goodness to introduce something new here at Elysian Fields.
A short while ago, a number or members were having issues with emails that were sent from our email address. Because of this, I put on my thinking cap, and wound up changing the way that the site sends out emails (instead of sending bulk emails out all at once, we now put them in a queue, and they go out in small batches, which makes the emails less suspicious to spam filters). Based on some comments I've received, it seems that this method has had some success, and the majority of emails are now showing up as they're supposed to (even if they're still being filtered to junk mail, at least they're getting there). The reason I'm bringing this up is because while I was working on the email issues, I also added a brand new feature. From now on, every night at midnight server time (Eastern US time or GMT -5:00), the site will compile a list of new and updated stories, and any new site news items that were added on the previous day. Then, that list will be emailed out to members who have elected to receive it. If you'd like to subscribe to our new daily digest, head over to your preferences, and check the box next to the option that says, "Email me a daily digest with new/updated stories and news items:" Make sure you've added our site email address (elysianfields@dark-solace.org) to your safe senders list to lessen the chance that our emails end up in your junk mail folder.
As always, let me know with a comment below or a PM/email if you have any questions or comments.
--Susan on December 23, 2015 02:27pm 8 Comments
ETA links: Follow these links to see the Holiday Challenge stories and the reviewers who have completed the review challenge requirements.
ETA 2: Just to clarify, for the review challenge, we're counting reviews of any story, not just holiday ones. Also, all awards will be placed into profiles at the same time after the end of the month.
Since December is only a few hours away, it's time to get ready for our upcoming Holiday Challenges! There's quite a bit of information here, so please read this through until the end.
Stories submitted for the challenge should be new stories (they can be sequels to existing stories), that still fit the rules of the site (e.g. Spuffy-centric) and are inspired by, or contain, a December holiday. Please note which holiday/holidays you're including within your summary or story notes. The stories need to be published between December 1-December 31, but they don't need to be completed within that time frame. *IMPORTANT* To make sure that your story is included with all the challenge participants, you must check the Holiday Challenge box in the add story page. The box will only show during the month of December, but here's an example of what it will look like within the page:
Only check the box if your story fits the challenge requirements.
On the browse pages, challenge stories will be marked with a snowflake, so they'll be easy to spot:
For the first half of the month, our lovely pfeifferpack will be featuring existing holiday stories on the main page, and the second half will feature a random assortment of challenge fics. Also, there will be a page to view only the challenge fics. Once we have a few added, I'll edit this news post with a direct link to the page.
Of course we can't forget the other challenge this month, the Holiday Review challenge. For that one, you don't need to do anything extra to participate besides review! We'll keep track off all reviewers who leave more 15 or more reviews that consist of 5 or more words. We'll have a page where you can see all the reviewers who have met the challenge requirements (I'll post the link when I add the challenge fic link to this post). Remember, the reviews are meant to be "gifts" to our authors, so please use this opportunity to let them know how much you appreciate their stories, and the work it takes to create them.
We hope that you have fun with these challenges, any they help put you in a holiday state of mind!
As always, let us know in the comments or with a PM if there are any concerns or questions.
--Susan on November 30, 2015 12:45pm 3 Comments
December is full of holidays, and to celebrate we're having two different challenges throughout the month.
The first challenge is for authors. Your job is to come up with a new story (be it a one shot or multi chapter fic) that includes or is inspired by a holiday in December. Of course there are a number of widely celebrated holidays such as Christmas, New Year's Eve, etc... that you can choose. However, you can also revolve your fic around one of the lesser known holidays in December. For example, did you know that Letter Writing Day, Cat Herders Day, Make Up Your Mind Day and Chocolate Covered Anything Day are all celebrated in December? Don't believe me? See those holidays and more here. Go ahead and start looking for inspiration and start thinking about your story/stories, but don't publish until December. There will be another news post in the coming weeks about how to make sure your addition is counted in the challenge, so keep an eye out for that.
The second challenge is for everyone. What's a holiday without a gift? The authors of EF provide us with the gift of stories year round, and it's our turn to return the favor by gifting them with some quality feedback. To participate this challenge, all you need to do is write 15 reviews that consist of at least 5 words during the month of December. We'll keep track throughout the month, so you can see where you stack up. I expect the list to be filled with reviewer MVPs (I'm looking at you magnus374) as well as long time lurkers who have 142 favorites but only 2 reviews. I hope to have a lot of awards to give out at the end of the month.
Speaking of awards, solstice has gifted us with her incredible talent, and created the awards for both challenges. If you contribute a fic and meet the review limit you can have both these beauties added to the awards section of your profile:
Questions, comment or concerns? Let me, Kathleen or Megan know with a note below or a PM.
--Susan on November 18, 2015 04:59pm 9 Comments
Now that challenge month has come to a close, we wanted to say a huge thank you to all the authors and reviewers who made it a success. We had 39 challenge responses added or updated, and we had 5 brand new authors make their debut with a challenge response in October. You can still view all the Challenge Month entries here: http://dark-solace.org/elysian/browse.php?type=2015challengemonth. All authors who contributed should now have their pretty, new award created by DauntlessGrace listed on their profile page.
As Kathleen mentioned in her birthday news post, we will be taking November off as far as new events. There are many things already going on, such as NaNoWriMo and Seasonal Spuffy, along with the regularly scheduled Elysian Fields goodness that we know you'll be providing. However, we've got some new things brewing for December and beyond. Even though we have some things already planned, we'd love to hear your suggestions as well. If you have an idea or two for future events, feel free to comment below or send a PM to Kathleen, Megan or me.
--Susan on November 01, 2015 07:21am 10 Comments
BIRTHDAY
Elysian Fields is celebrating our 9th birthday on Tuesday, October 27. We want to thank all of our writers and readers because it is YOU who make this site not only possible but a joy. This month we also surpassed the 14,000 member mark! We have 609 authors and close to 4,000 stories. Quite a lot to be proud of and we are.
Megan, Susan and I (Pfeifferpack) are the current active administrators and we strive to keep this a friendly, encouraging site and also to keep it as transparent as possible. In the interests of that transparency we want you to know that the site is paid up for the next two years thanks to all of you. That also means the Paypal site (located by clicking on the Donate button on the bottom of the main menu) is now depleted. Not to worry though because we have plenty of time to raise the needed amount when we need to pay again.
There are some sites that ask for donations all the time and people wonder just” how much it costs to host this site anyway?” I’ve wondered at times myself. So here are our current charges (all in U.S. dollars) and status: the domain costs $21.37 a year. We are paid for this year and next. The Web host costs $167.70 a year and, like the domain it is paid for this year and next. Thanks to your generosity we’ve managed to keep the site up and going. If you would like that to continue I hope you will find it in your heart to chip in a bit over the next year so we can have a balance there to pay next time. Absolutely NO money is touched from this PayPal account except for the charges I just listed. Until it is needed, it sits there looking pretty (and comforting for your poor, literally, administrators).
On another note we are looking at staging another “event” likely in December. The Challenge month was a great success bringing in lots of wonderful new stories and plenty of excitement. With NaNoWrite taking up the time of many of our authors this November we decided not to schedule anything out of the normal and wait until December. More news on that will be forthcoming.
Again, thank you all for making this our happy Spuffy home and keeping our fandom alive and well.
Kathleen
--Pfeifferpack on October 26, 2015 10:20pm 6 Comments
It's October, and that means Challenge Month here on Elysian Fields. We're hoping to have lots of new challenge responses this month, so please join in and celebrate with us by adding a story or by reading and reviewing the new responses! Besides the enormous sense of pride you'll feel if you add a story, your profile page will be the envy of all others because it will sport this beautiful award, made by the incredibly talented DauntlessGrace.
Instead of our usual featured fics in the sidebar, you'll notice we're currently featuring random challenge responses (both old and new), along with a link to the official Challenge Month fic list.
If you're not sure about how challenges work, or don't know how to make sure that your story is marked as a challenge response (it needs to be marked in order to count for Challenge Month), please check out the challenges section of our FAQ. If you haven't written a story yet, don't worry - it's a month long celebration. Go check out the challenges, get inspired, and start writing! What are you waiting for?
--Susan on September 30, 2015 08:01pm 2 Comments
By popular demand (and by popular demand, I mean a conversation in the shoutbox), we are officially making October Challenge Month. This means we hope to have many new fics added next month that have been inspired by the challenges that we have here at Elysian Fields.
So, what do you need to do to participate? Right now, you need to prepare. Look through the challenges and find one that speaks to you (hopefully not literally). We currently have 1,079 challenges listed so surely there's one that strikes your fancy. Remember, you can sort through challenges based on a number of different criteria, and you can save challenges to your own personal list which is accessed through your account info page. It doesn't matter if the challenge has already been filled or if someone else is planning to use the challenge since they can have more than one response. Once you're sufficiently inspired, start writing! You can create a drabble or a novel length tome, that's up to you. Don't publish yet though. Hold off on publishing your story until October to join in the deluge (trickle?) of challenge responses.
Here on EF, the space on the main page normally used to show featured stories will instead show challenge responses. We will keep a running tally of the challenge response stories that are published during the month, and every author that contributes will get a swanky new award on their profile page at the end of the month.
Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Let us know with a PM or a comment below.
P.S. In case you missed my earlier shout, I wanted to point out that some changes have been made to the site skins which mostly affect the mobile view. However, the changes may not go through automatically, and might take a little push to display correctly. If this is the case just refresh your page, and everything should appear as it should.
--Susan on September 11, 2015 08:56am 9 Comments
I know many of you may be new to the fandom world of Buffy fic and don't know some of the conditions regarding award sites. The most active of which is the Sunnydale Memorial Awards. A wonderful site with great people offering their time to showcase good fic.
http://sunnydawards.dragonydreams.com/
Obviously there are rules there as there is here. We have people register if you wish to read/access NC17 and above ratings. We do this to protect the site from legal accusations of allowing underage reading of "porn" or other age restricted material. Because of that rule of ours the Sunnydale Memorial awards site will not take NC17 and above stories if the link is to our site.
As the awards are reader voted upon they do not want the voter to have to register to read. This is stated in their rules with EF specifically mentioned.
If your story is under an NC17 rating you can link from here but if it is NC17 or above you have to have the link to a site where there is no registration needed to read it. This means posting somewhere that is acceptable AS WELL AS HERE (I say that because I really don't want anyone NOT posting here....we value our writers and stories!)
So. If you write and your story is NC17 or above and you want your story to be able to be nominated for an award you need to look into someplace like LJ or your own site or Archive of our Own or FFnet or a site where registration is not required. These are free sites (even LJ) and most user friendly.
If you, reader, wish to nominate one of the great stories or authors here make sure their story is under NC17 or look for another place to link the story.
Hope I haven't confused anyone.
Here are the rules from Sunnydale Memorial BTW:
- Please nominate only one person per submission.
- When you nominate someone for Best Beta, please say who they beta for in the space provided.
- Only ONE character can be nominated per story for the Best Characterization category. Please say which character in the space provided.
- You can NOT nominate an author for both Best Author and Best New Author.
- If you nominate someone for Best Author or Best New Author, please nominate a story of theirs as well.
- A story can not be nominated as both Angst (or) Drama and Comedy (or) Fluff.
- You CAN nominate a story in more than one category.
- You can nominate an Unfinished fic in ANY category.
- You can nominate yourself, but you still can not vote for yourself.
- You can NOT nominate more than one story by the same author in any category.
- An author can be nominated no more than 3 times in a category, and only if each nomination is by a different person.
- If an author (Best Author or Best New Author), story or website was a Winner or Runner Up in the last round they/it is not eligible for that category for the current round.
- You must include a working link to the story nominated - no locked LJ entries or sites you must log into in order to read the stories (like Elysian Fields), as well as a working email address so that the author can be notified of their nomination. If these are not provided, the nomination will be discarded.
--pfeifferpack on August 10, 2015 05:04pm 4 Comments
Based on requests from sweetprincipale and RESPICE FINEM, we have some new categories for stories.
First up are categories for individual comic seasons and for comics in the buffyverse that don't fit within a specific season. Previously we only had one category for all comic based stories, but each season now has its own category. I haven't removed the comic category yet since there are currently 47 stories in that category. If you have a story in the comic category, you can now edit it to reflect the correct season. There is still a post-series category that can cover stories that are both comic and non-comic compliant. Any thoughts about the need to split this into 2 categories (post-series comic compliant and post-series non-comic compliant)? I'm not sure if there's a need for this, but I know some people avoid the comics, so I thought I'd throw it out there.
Next, there are now categories for award winners and award runners-up. There used to be categories just for Spark and Burn award winners, but we opened it up to winners and runners-up of all fandom awards. If you have stories that fit into these categories, feel free to add them accordingly. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway :) , please don't add your stories to the award categories if they don't belong there.
Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or comments.
--Susan on July 25, 2015 05:50pm 8 Comments
We recently received an inquiry about the minimum story length requirement here at EF, which prompted a conversation between the admins about allowing drabbles to be added to the archive. Neither Megan, Kathleen nor I could come up with a good reason to continue to impose the 500 word count minimum, so we are now officially opening the doors to drabbles, poems and other shorter non-traditional story types. You'll now find new category options when adding or searching for a story.
If you're adding a series of drabbles that all center around a similar theme, then you can add one story, and the drabbles can just be separate chapters in the story (it will use less database space that way). If they are not at all related, then they can be published as separate stories.
Please use these new categories responsibly, and don't inundate us with drabbles just for the sake of publishing something (As opposed to me, since my new masterpiece titled, Portrait of a Demon is vital to all Spuffy readers. I'll give you a special look at it in its entirety now: Spike drank. Also, wept. WHERE ARE THE KITTENS?!? THE END (review please!)).
As always. let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
--Susan on June 26, 2015 11:55am 4 Comments
This isn't terribly newsworthy, but I didn't want to cram all this into the shoutbox. Hey, speaking of the shoutbox, I received a request from stuffandnonsense, who asked for the ability to search for shoutbox posts. Based on this request, if you now look underneath the shoutbox on the main page, or at the top of the shoutbox archive, you'll see a link to Search Shouts. On the new search page, you can search for shouts in one of three ways. Using the dropdown, you can search for keywords within a shout, for shouts written by a specific member, or for shouts written in a specific month. Make sure that your search type matches the term you enter, or it won't work properly.
If you have any questions, issues, or concerns, please let me know.
--Susan on June 10, 2015 05:18pm 0 Comments
As feliciacraft kindly pointed out in the shoutbox, ebooks-tree.com has been downloading fics from AO3 (and perhaps other sites) and posting them for download as ebooks, without the consent of the writers.
How you can tell if they have your fic:
Go to ebooks-tree.com and in the top search bar, enter any username that you use to publish your fic. If it says "Searching "username" books (0)", then they don't have anything of yours, but if links show up with your fic titles, they do.
Do not bother trying to download any stories they have because you need to register to do so. During the registration process, they claim that they need your credit card information which is incredibly shady. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION!
What to do if they have your fic:
Go to the contact page at http://www.ebooks-tree.com/info.php?contacts and make the subject line read: "DMCA Complaint". Use the following template with your information (it's recommended that you only use your username they have listed, not your legal name). The parts in italics need to be personalized:
A story/stories was/were copied onto your website without permission. The original story/stories, to which I own the exclusive copyrights, can be found at:
Link(s) to an authorized version of your work (whether on EF, AO3, tumblr, LJ or somewhere else)
The unauthorized and infringing copy/copies can be found at:
Link(s) to the unauthorized works (link to the pdf, the mobi and the page hosting all of it - just right click the links and hit copy link location so you can paste them in)
This letter is official notification under the provisions of Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) to effect removal of the above-reported infringement. I request that you immediately remove the specified story/stories and refrain from posting the infringing story/stories to your website in the future. Please be advised that law requires you to "expeditiously remove or disable access to" the infringing story/stories upon receiving this notice. Noncompliance may result in a loss of immunity for liability under the DMCA.
I have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of here is not authorized by me, the copyright holder, or the law. The information provided here is accurate to the best of my knowledge. I swear under penalty of perjury that I am the copyright holder.
Please send me a prompt response at the email address below indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter.
Thank you.
/s/Your Name
Your email address
How did they get your fic:
It seems that the site probably used bots to mass download from the bigger fanfic sites (especially AO3). AO3 is doing a good job of posting updates about the situation and trying to prevent it from happening again. However, there's only so much they, or any site for that matter, can do. The very nature of putting your work up on the internet makes you susceptible to this kind of thing.
How this affects Elysian Fields:
At this point, it doesn't seem that any work was taken from Elysian Fields, but we're a small fish in a big pond. Chances are we slipped under the bot radar since we're not a giant archive like FFN or AO3. All the story pages are protected under our robots.txt file, but so were A03's. Those files can be ignored by unscrupulous bots. AO3 has an option for authors to choose to only allow their fics to be shown to registered users, and I'm sure I can code something to make that feature available here as well. However, we already lock down NC-17 and AO fics, and we do take a bit of grief just for that. I figured I'd throw it out there as an option and see if it's wanted here. Also, I'm open to any other suggestions you might have to make authors feel more secure about posting stories here.
--Susan on April 14, 2015 06:26am 1 Comment
A few months ago missambermarie asked me about the possibility of adding a way to filter the beta reader listings so that you're only looking at betas who meet your needs instead of having to scan through every member with a beta profile. Well, it took me a while to get around to it, but I just added a new beta search feature. You can access it on the main betas page at the top where it says 'Narrow down the list with a Beta Search.' Once on the search page, you can filter the list with the areas where you'd like help, the ideal average turnaround time for a chapter and your story rating. The final item in the beta search is the ability to only include betas who have been active in the last month. The thought behind this option is that a beta may be more responsive to a request if they have been on the site recently. Feel free to play around with the options and let me know if you notice anything not working properly. The search page is (ironically) un-betaed, so it's certainly possible I missed something (let's consider it a WIP ;) ).
Also, just a reminder in case you missed my posts in the shoutbox, we now have 2 additional skins, kiss and comic. In addition, nominations for April's members of the month are open, so make sure to recognize an author and/or a reviewer whose words have impressed you lately.
--Susan on March 09, 2015 06:04pm 0 Comments
First off, congratulations to our first members of the month for 2015, tempestt and juggler!
Looking back on 2014, we had an incredibly active year. We added the members of the month nominations, and the process has been quite a success due to all of you who have voted. Make sure to keep it up in the new year to continue showing our authors and reviewers that they are appreciated! During the year, we had more new stories, reviews and members added than we did back in 2013. Not too shabby for a fandom that occasionally gets accused of "dying". It looks to me like we're still going strong. On behalf of all the mods, thank you to all our members who made 2014 such a great year in our little Spuffy haven. We can't wait to see what you all come up with in 2015!
2014 by the numbers:
Total number of words added: 4,922,186
Total number of stories added: 239
Total number of chapters added: 1,689
Number of new members: 1,835
Number of reviews written: 12,578
Number of words written for reviews: 416,455
Most prolific authors of 2014:
1. DauntlessGrace (392,807 words)
2. AGriffinWriter (287,870 words)
3. BeneficialAddiction (231,535 words)
4. sweetprincipale (211,095 words)
5. Slayerfan (195,536 words)
6. CupcakeCute (185,131 words)
7. Lilachigh (178,239 words)
8. KittenOfDoomage (177,132 words)
9. pommedapi (152,969 words)
10. stuffandnonsense (146,673 words)
Most prolific reviewers of 2014:
1. magnus374 (33,156 words)
2. ginar369 (23,147 words)
3. Braxen (20,030 words)
4. SoaringClaws (19,461 words)
5. Amasirol (11,109 words)
6. AGriffinWriter (10,768 words)
7. nmcil (10,545 words)
8. jhiz (9,945 words)
9. lambean (9,632 words)
10. juggler (8,385 words)
--Susan on January 01, 2015 09:31am 0 Comments
ETA 12/1/14: Another new sort item is the ability to filter by whether a story is marked as read or not. SoaringClaws asked for this a while back, and it's taken me a little bit to get it set up, but now on most browse pages, if you're logged in, you'll see this option among the top of the page drop-downs:
Remember, you need to mark stories as read for them to be included, since they aren't automatically marked that way if you view a story.
There's an item I wanted to point out just to hopefully avoid confusion. I had a few members ask me to add a new option to the bookshelf sort choices. They wanted to be able to sort their bookshelf by the date stories were added. The reason I didn't add that option in the first place is because the date isn't set in stone. What that means is, the date is added when you add the story to your bookshelf. Then, every time you click on a new chapter of the story, the date changes to reflect the day when you read the story. Since the date is fluid, I didn't want people to be confused but the fact that the stories would frequently appear to be in a different order since the dates would change. However, after a few people asked for the option, I figured that we're all big boys and girls (or we should be ;) ), and that you all could probably figure is out. So, now when you look at your bookshelf, in the sort drop-down, you can now choose 'Date Added to Shelf/Last Read'. This will show the stories in your bookshelf starting with the ones that were most recently added/read.
Also, I added this a while ago, but I don't think I ever pointed it out. For members who like to read on a dark background, I added a darker version of the simple skin called, uh, simple-dark. Creative, I know.
Holidays are coming up, so before the rush starts, be sure to get your Member of the Month nominations in!
Let me know if you have any questions.
--Susan on November 14, 2014 05:07am 7 Comments