News
Reading NC-17 Fics

UPDATE: This issue appears to be resolved. Let the Mods know if you still experience trouble logging in, staying logged in, or accessing certain fics.

Hi EF,

Today has been a mixed technical bag for the archive, and while most systems seem to be normal at the moment, there is one thing we’re still working on. And that is the rather inexplicable error that redirects users reading NC-17 material back to the first chapter rather than the subsequent one.

All users experiencing this issue: please note that you can bypass the pop-up entirely by editing your site preferences and confirming at the bottom of the page that you are old enough to read NC-17 material. Those pop-ups will go away forever.

In the meantime, we appreciate your patience and understanding. We’d also like to remind you to please send technical questions to ssolace@gmail.com as you encounter them. The Shoutbox can move quickly and isn’t the most reliable place for technical questions. Likewise, fic comments are not an appropriate place to report these issues and will be deleted.

Thank you!

 



--Holly and the Mods on July 10, 2023 02:16pm 3 Comments
Further Clarification

When writing out the rules for our Drabblemania event, I asked participants to label which drabble related to which prompt in their chapter notes. This is so that the Mod Team can see which prompts have been ticked off at a glance, from the table of contents page. But what I totally forgot about was the fact that EF has both a 'chapter notes' and a 'chapter end notes' section. 

So, to clarify, I meant the first one. 

Also, I want to reiterate: one prompt per drabble, and one drabble per chapter! 

Thank you. 



--EllieRose101 and The Mods on July 08, 2023 03:40am 4 Comments
Drabble Clarifications

Hey, gang! The Mod Team is so thrilled at how enthusiastic you’ve already responded to the prompts. You’ve come up with ideas and questions beyond what we could have imagined, and we want to answer a few of those questions here. 

The main thing we need to clarify is the prompts themselves:

There was a little debate about this (and individual Mods may have given differing answers at different times, so apologies) but we all came together to agree that it’s the spirit of a prompt that matters, more so than semantics and technicalities. 

What this boils down to is, if a prompt sparks your imagination, we’re now allowing more wiggle room on being liberal in execution. 

Example: The Faith and Oz squares were intended as character prompts, BUT if you instead want to go for the other definition of faith and have a character exploring a belief structure? That works. If you want to send your characters to the Land of Oz rather than throw in a randomly appearing Daniel Osbourne? That’s fine too!

And if you do decide to go for the character definition, said character does not technically need to be in the drabble, so long as they are intrinsic to it. In other words, someone could be dreaming about that character, or recalling a memory of them. If someone is just talking about them, it needs to be a smidgen more than a two-second reference. Make the mention of them significant. 

What exactly does it mean to be intrinsic or significant? If you were to take out your reference to the character, and the rest of the drabble no longer makes sense, congrats, you’ve made that character significant enough to be intrinsic to the fic working!

For the diary prompt, you could write a diary entry. It does not need to include the word diary.

In the case of the prompt about Buffy complimenting “Spike’s blue shirt,” you could take this as a reference to the blue shirt he wore that one time in Season Seven, or you could have him wear a blue shirt––any blue shirt––at any time or place, and have Buffy compliment it to count.  

For the prompts that consist of a dialogue line, there is now also some wiggle room. E.g. you could have “Oh, bugger,” said Buffy. Or “Oh,” said Buffy. “Bugger!” 

Your fic does not need to be marked as complete by the end of the event (on July 31st). Whatever award you get will depend on whichever level (bronze, silver, or gold) you’d hit by that deadline, but you are free to carry on posting after the event end.

If you're writing a story that has multiple parts/chapters, it needs to follow site rules regarding Spuffy prominence––i.e. it doesn't need to be in each individual chapter, just the fic overall. But if each drabble is self-contained, they must individually follow the Spuffy prominence rule.

If you want your drabbles to form a narrative, and you’ve picked out five prompts to go for silver, but need to add more chapters to make everything work, you can include “filler drabbles” that follow your own, self-selected prompts, in between drabbles that match event prompts. Just clearly label which is which!

Similarly, when using Wild Card prompts, please label them as such. 

Are your drabbles self-contained and not part of a narrative, but you want to post them as “chapters” of a single fic anyway? That’s fine. (Doing so actually makes it easier for us to track, as a Mod Team.)

A couple of people have asked if you can share copies of the drabble board literally showing which squares you’ve ticked off, and yes, you can. Either do this in your story notes or include the screenshot as part of your banner––but do not make it your entire banner, and keep to the recommended banner dimensions. 

That’s all of the questions we can think to answer right now, but if (when) you have more, we’ll likely come back and update this post.



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on July 01, 2023 01:48pm 12 Comments
Drabblemania Prompts!

Here they are! What you’ve all been waiting for! Prompt Board One:

Prompt Board Two:

Prompt Board Three:

You can click any of the captions above to see larger versions of the images that you can zoom in on, and if you’d find a written list easier to look at/deal with, for any reason, you can find one here

Or if you are reading this post and have absolutely no idea what’s happening, see the announcement post here, and the details news post here

Happy drabbling!

*** 

Edited to Add: We've had lots of questions, which we've now answered in a follow-up post linked here



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on June 30, 2023 01:00pm 19 Comments
More Drabblemania Details

We know so many of you are excited for our first-ever drabble event, since you voted for it a year ago, so here are some things you’ll need to know. (Or if this is the first time you’re hearing about our drabble event, please see our announcement post here.)

Firstly, I will draw your attention to the gorgeous banner above and the beautiful awards below, all designed by scratchmeout.

The event skin, conveniently titled “Drabblemania,” is now live. You can preview it from the homepage, like so:

To select it as your default skin, (rather than just using it temporarily) visit member preferences, set “Drabblemania” as your default and hit “Submit” at the bottom of the screen.

(Also, big hand to cawthraven who designed her very first site skin; it’s beautiful)

Awards, Drabbles, and Awards for Drabbles

As promised, there are Bronze, Silver, and Gold participant awards alongside our standard Beta, Commenter, and Artist achievements.

To win the bronze award, you must complete a single prompt––any prompt––from the official event boards, and post your work to the site during the month of July, ticking the box to indicate it’s part of the event. (More on this in a minute.)

EF defines a drabble as a work of 1,000 words or under. If you’re submitting artwork with no words, obviously don’t worry about this. If you’re submitting something with both words and pictures, the word cap applies. 

Minimum word count: 50 words. (Because if a prompt is, for example, “Spuffy get ice cream” you will need to do a little bit more than writing, “Spike and Buffy went for ice cream,” to qualify.) 

And yes, we know that sometimes the site word count will not exactly match that of Microsoft Word and/or Google Docs, so there will be a little wiggle room to account for this. 

To win silver, cross off five prompts from a single board in a line, going any direction i.e. horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. If your line goes through the ‘wild card’ square (previously called ‘free space’), you can write a drabble on a prompt of your choice or use another prompt from any of the boards to count for that square.

The three prompt boards will go live at midnight on 1st July, site time (currently GMT). You can always check what the site time is under the Shoutbox on EF’s homepage. 

To get a gold award, you must cross off all of the twenty-five prompts on a single board. Completing twenty-five prompts across all three boards is cool, and totally allowed if that’s where your muse takes you, but it won’t equal gold. 

On that note: this is supposed to be fun, so if you get inspired to write three drabbles or thirty-three, go for it. If the added challenge of trying to hit award targets reminds you too much of assignments and stresses you out, just ignore that part and enjoy whatever shinies you get when the time comes. 

You can post any time from 0:00 on July 1st to 23:59 on July 31st, during which a tick box will appear on the ‘add a new work’ page, as demonstrated in the screenshot below:

Note: if you’re submitting an artwork-only piece that is also for the event, just click the event box and not the artwork box. The way the site is set up, you can only have one ticked. If you’ve accidentally ticked the wrong one and need the Mod Team to change it, reach out and we can do that for you. 

Works that are part of the event will all appear together on the page linked here, and they will also get a little quill icon appearing beside the title, as shown in the example here: 

Also, we have gotten a few questions about whether event-specific content can be posted in other spaces over the duration of the event. At Elysian Fields, the answer is always YES. It's your work and your decision about what you want to do with it. You will not be penalized for sharing far and wide.

Finally, for the sake of the Mods issuing awards, please state which prompt you’re answering in your chapter notes. And please, please, please credit your betas and/or banner artists in your story notes so they get credit for the event. 

If you have any questions, let us know!

*** 

Edited to Add: For previous events, you had to write fifteen comments of at least fifteen words each to win the commenter award, but for this event––because the focus is on having smaller things in greater amounts––the requirement is twenty-five comments of at least five words. 



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on June 27, 2023 06:21am 6 Comments
Site Donations Live Again!

Hi EF,

Over the past year, many of you have asked about site donations, which we ceased taking at the start of 2022. There were several reasons for this, primarily the changing tax code in the United States and then, in March, the departure of the Mod who had previously overseen EF’s finances. Getting things untangled took time, but we’re pleased to announce that, as of today, anyone who wishes to contribute to the site is once again able to do so.

As always, donations to Elysian Fields are enormously appreciated but will never be expected or solicited. The site is in good financial condition even after 18 months of suspended donations. That said, the Mods did promise to let the membership know when donations could resume, and that time is now. Currently just through PayPal and Venmo, but we will be exploring additional options over the coming months.

Please let us know if you have any questions!



--Holly and the Mods on June 10, 2023 05:24am 3 Comments
Drabblemania Event Announcement

What’s five-by-five and lots of fun? That’s right, our next event! 

Way back at the end of July last year, when we were wrapping up Mystery Month 2022, we asked you all to vote on whether to keep Mystery Month as an annual thing or switch it out for a drabble event. What the majority of you did instead was pick a third option, in which we’d alternate between a drabble event and Mystery Month each year. 

So, Mystery Month will be returning for July 2024, but for July 2023 we are so excited to bring Drabblemania to life! We’ve workshopped the specifics a little since the first announcement, and can now reveal the plan as such: 

The Mod team is going to take unused story prompts that the membership submitted for Mystery Month last year, and create three prompt boards. Imagine Bingo boards with five squares across the top and five down, making twenty-five squares in total (where the middle one is a free space). 

To take part, you must write a fic (or create some Spuffy fan art) based on at least one of the prompts. Drabbles are usually defined as stories of 100 words or less, but here at Elysian Fields, they need to be under 1,000 words to qualify. 

If you write one drabble, you get a bronze award. If you’re able to mark off a line of five prompts (in any direction), you get a silver award, and if you’re able to blackout an entire prompt board, you win gold. We’re not planning a platinum award for completing all three prompt boards, but if someone actually manages to do it, we’ll make sure you get the recognition you deserve. 

Drabbles can be entirely self-contained, or interconnected. As such, you can post the drabbles written for this event as one shots or as a multi-chaptered fic, so long as those “chapters” are individual drabbles that are under the 1,000 word limit. 

There will of course also be awards for commenters, artists, and betas. 

Any questions, let us know! 



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on June 05, 2023 04:13am 9 Comments
New Warning

Hi all,

As we must from time to time, we have expanded the list of warnings to include Gun Violence. Firearms in Buffyverse are seldom used. Add to the fact that there has been an alarming increase in shootings and other gun-related incidents, particularly in the US, we thought it appropriate to add this so readers can continue to curate the experience they wish based on all available information.

This warning comes with the following definition: contains depictions of firearms being aimed and fired at individuals, often (but not always) resulting in injury or death

Authors are encouraged to update past works as needed to accommodate this warning, especially if it applies to a story still in progress. All future works for which this warning is applicable must be tagged with the warning with no exceptions.

As a reminder to the membership, the warning tags are the only tags that must be included with each story, and all warnings must be added at the time of first posting OR as soon as the author knows their story will contain applicable content. As our warning list is never considered finished, it's highly likely there are stories on the archive that were posted before certain warnings were added to the existing list. Members are always encouraged to reach out to us if they stumble across older stories that need warnings they don't currently have. The Mods will review and add applicable warnings as needed.



--Holly and the Mods on June 04, 2023 08:36am 2 Comments
Site Update: ePubs now include images!

We have been working on a number of site updates and improvements behind the scenes, but the one I’m most excited about is that when you download an ePub of a story that has images in it, the images are now included in the ePub. This means you can download artwork submissions, comics, and mixed media stories and not lose any of the gorgeous images our artists create and share with us. For authors/artists, please note that art must be in the body of the chapter; anything in the summary, story notes, chapter notes, or end notes will not be pulled into the file.

To ensure ePubs with images work correctly, we also added a default cover image that will be included with each ePub download. HappyWhenItRains was kind enough to create a cover for us that we hope you will enjoy as much as we do! Here is a preview.

ePub Cover

In the future, we’re hoping to incorporate the ability to add your own cover image to your story, so watch out for more improvements! Please let us know if you’re having any issues with downloading ePubs at ssolace@gmail.com

Also, we do have a known issue that we are working on resolving related to certain characters that our site considers to be “special characters,” though some of them seem bog-standard to us. Until we are able to implement a fix, if your story title, summary, or chapter titles include these special characters, then ePub files may not open after a reader downloads them. The main culprits seem to be “smart quotation marks”, which are when Word or Google Docs see you typed a single or double quotation mark and make it curl in toward the words. We are attempting to write code that will automate this, but in the meantime, you will need to either re-type the quotation mark in the field (on desktop) or copy/paste in a straight single or double quotation mark from elsewhere (on mobile). As I mentioned, we are working to correct this but do not yet have an estimate on when the fix will be available. If you download an ePub and it won’t open (especially if you get an error message about a formatting issue), please reach out to the mods and we can work with the author or make the edit ourselves. We are also available to help authors troubleshoot their own fics should they need help.



--cawthraven and the Mods on May 26, 2023 11:50am 12 Comments
Welcome cawthraven (Stiney) to the Admin Team!

It’s possible that you might have already noticed some site improvements that have been made over the past couple of months. If you haven’t, don’t worry—we haven’t formally announced them, though we are compiling a list to be shared at a later date. The only reason I’m mentioning it here is that these improvements were largely aided by cawthraven, working directly with me and DarkVoid116 (mostly Dark, if I’m being completely honest) to iron out kinks, improve functionality, and just overall enhance the EF experience.

In fact, cawthraven has been so instrumental in helping us improve the site that we all, independent of one another, started thinking the same thing. When we eventually shared our thoughts with each other and realized we were riding identical wavelengths, well, the only logical step was to see if cawthraven was interested.

We’re delighted to announce that the amazing cawthraven has joined the Elysian Fields Administrative Team. In addition to general Mod responsibilities, cawthraven will be assisting Kathleen (pfeifferpack) with story validation, monitoring stories in general, and providing any updates to tags. She’ll also be around on the EF Discord keeping an eye on things with DarkVoid116EllieRose101, and myself. She will also continue to help with back-end stuff, which is great news for everyone because the overall site operations are now a shared venture. Essentially, should one of us be hit by a bus, that person will have time to recover knowing that others can help keep the site running.

Seriously, guys, she’s already done so much and given so much time to EF, it’s crazy it took the rest of us this long to add her to the team.

Many of you may already know cawthraven, but for anyone stumbling across the site just today and wondering what all the fuss is about, here she is in her own words:

"I’m Christine but you probably know me as Stiney or maybe as "oh no it's the one with all the puns and cat gifs again." I had given up on the show after S1 when it was airing because it was so different from the movie, but thankfully a friend insisted I had to watch more of it. She showed me Once More With Feelings when I was in my 20s so that I would watch it (and so I'd be a Spuffy fan, she was smart and had good taste!) Anyway I did watch and was of course a Spuffy fan. But it wasn't until I rewatched in the pandemic that I became consumed with the need for Justice for Spuffy. I started mainlining fic in April 2021 and haven't stopped since. And then I wrote "just one" fic in February of 2022. 15 months later...I haven't stopped. I'll read most anything Spuffy but my favorites are HEA because I want them to get the happy ending they were robbed of in canon. I live in Boston where I stare out the window at Other People's Dogs and wish my lease allowed dogs, and also work in edtech from my couch."

Please join us in welcoming cawthraven to the team!



--Holly and the Mods on May 11, 2023 05:59am 23 Comments
Wrapping Up April Challenge Month 2023

Folks, we did it again!

April Challenge Month is over for another year, and I’m pleased to say y’all brought your A-game. 

During the event, the site saw the addition of 56 challenge fics, made up of 140 chapters, consisting of 384,594 words, and written by 48 authors.

28 artists and 28 betas got an award, while 54 members completed the commenter challenge, with 1,591 comments left on event stories during April, not to mention 2,679 likes!

Many thanks to everyone who took part, as always. 

All awards are now issued, but if you seem to be missing one, or anything else seems not quite right, please drop us a line at ssolace@gmail.com

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

Until next time, happy reading!



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on May 06, 2023 10:18am 4 Comments
Wrapping Up Finishing Months

Well, folks, Elysian Fields’ first ever ‘Finishing Months’ event has ended, and we are pleased to say that many of you stepped up to the challenge. 

Specifically, twenty-one of our members earned a commenter award, nine members earned a bronze award, and three earned silver. (Note: silver award winners have had both bronze and silver shinies added to their profiles.) 

In total, fifteen longstanding works-in-progress got marked as complete, the oldest dating back to January 2007! 

For my fellow stat nerds out there, and to be even more specific, what the above boils down to is a total of 83 new chapters, containing 235,982 words, which received 812 comments and 1,757 likes combined.

Members left a total of 3,590 comments (containing at least 15 words) across not just those stories, but all eligible works, 2,454 of which were left by the aforementioned commenters who earned the award. 

The Mod Team would like to thank everyone who took part. Writers, artists, and commenters, we hope you feel accomplished, and readers, we hope you have found satisfaction in newly completed stories. 

As we’ve stated previously, we will not be running this event again in 2024, but if you would like to see it possibly return in 2025 or beyond, please let us know! 



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on April 03, 2023 11:12am 5 Comments
Event Icon Change & Event Banner Reminder

Hi EF,

We have changed the event icon set for April Challenge Month from a puzzle piece to an umbrella, following member feedback. To the Mods’ collective embarrassment, we overlooked the unfortunate fact that puzzle pieces have a historically problematic relationship/association with autism.

As administrators of the site, we are committed to ensuring that our space here is safe and welcoming to all individuals. Discomfort of any kind should not be a part of the EF experience. We are very grateful to the member who stepped forward as well as the members who seconded these concerns for helping us correct our oversight.

Your April Challenge Event fics will be marked with this icon:

And a reminder to authors and artists: Please make sure that ‘Written for the Elysian Fields April Challenge’ is on your fic banner! This was added to our news post in an edit earlier this week but not included in the original publication.

Thank you!



--Holly and the Mods on April 01, 2023 10:45am 1 Comment
Final Details about April Challenge Month 2023

The time has come! This post contains everything you need to know about next month’s challenge month. (If you missed the announcement, see here.)

Once you have picked the challenge you wish to respond to and created your work (either fic or art), you will need to upload at least the first part between 00.00 on April 1st and 23.59 on April 30th (site time). During that time, a tick box will appear on the upload page that, when checked, marks your work as part of the event.

When you have uploaded, you then need to navigate back to the challenge you’re responding to and click the link at the bottom of the relevant page that says, ‘respond to this challenge’ so that the challenge and work are linked. 

Event works will appear on the page linked here, be eligible for the author and/or artist awards (pictured at the top of this post), and get a little puzzle piece icon beside them (pictured below in Holly’s, frankly, hilarious example). Many thanks to bewildered for designing both the awards and event icon.

NOTE: If you are uploading artwork for this event, we recommend ticking the event box and not the artwork box, as the site only allows you to pick one or the other. (If you have any questions or issues with this particular aspect, or indeed anything else, of course get in touch!)

Authors, please credit your beta readers and/or banner artists so we can issue them their shinies. Commenters, you will need to leave at least 15 comments containing at least 15 words each to be eligible for your award. 

Art-only challenge responses must meet all criteria of the challenge it is answering or have the blessing of the challenge issuer to have made amendments. For the purpose of this event, all art challenge responses will earn both an author and artist award, as the artwork will be telling a story even if there are no accompanying words. 

Please remember, members who respond to their own challenge(s) are not eligible to take part in this event. 

Finally, during April, EF’s default skin will change to the newly updated ‘Kisses in the Rain’ theme, designed by kats_meow. (Rain - April Showers - April Event Month. Get it?) 

Happy writing/arting! 

** Edited to add, please have "Designed for Elysian Fields Challenge Month" written somewhere on your banner. 



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on March 27, 2023 02:03pm 0 Comments
Event Announcement: April Challenge Month 2023

We promised a new event announcement, and I’m here to deliver! 

For the month of April, 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 have posted the first installment between midnight on April 1st and 23.59 on April 30th (site time). 

And you can respond to as many challenges 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 is recommended that you contact the person that 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 private message. Further details, including what the awards will look like, will be posted closer to the time.



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on March 09, 2023 08:10am 2 Comments
Finishing Months Check-In

Inexplicably, January and February are gone and March is upon us. As such, we are now two thirds of the way through Finishing Months. 

At the time of writing this post, eight stories have been marked complete, by a total of six participating authors––two silver award winners and four bronze. Meanwhile, seventeen members have so far earned themselves a commenter award for this event.

If you’re still hoping to claim an award, this is your reminder that you have ONE MONTH left to take part, and that we won’t be running Finishing Months again in 2024. 

If you’re ineligible to take part in Finishing Months, or have already finished taking part, look out for our event announcement for April, coming soon!



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on February 28, 2023 12:04pm 0 Comments
Satisfaction-athon Wrap Up

It’s fair to say, our very first micro-event has been a huge success! 

In the space of forty-eight hours, 32 works (stories and/or art) were shared by 27 participants. That’s a massive 175,143 words!

Well done, all! Everyone should have participant awards now on their profile, but if you discover any issues, get in touch. 

Not caught up on the wealth of satisfying Spuffy yet? You can find them all linked here.



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on February 16, 2023 10:48am 2 Comments
Final Deets of the Satisfaction-athon

Assuming you caught the announcement post that went live a month ago, I can only assume you’ve all girded your loins and are ready for our mini Valentine’s Day event. If you’re still unsure about a thing or two, this is the post for you. 

Firstly, here is the award up for grabs:

Secondly, the mod team has decided to extend the timings of the event to better cover the range of timezones represented by you, our wonderful membership. 

You can start posting from NOON site time (which is currently GMT aka UK time) on Monday 13th February until noon site time on Wednesday 15th. That translates to 7am EST, and gives a total of 48 hours for you to take part. 

As stated in the original news post (linked above), you may post one-shots, art, or multi-chapter fics, BUT to be eligible, whatever you post must be new and complete. No WIPs here.

When uploading, you will see a tick box to indicate your fic is part of the event, and everybody who ticks that box will have their story listed on this dedicated event page and get a little heart icon beside their fic title, as designed by bewildered. 



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on February 12, 2023 10:44am 5 Comments
More Details About Finishing Months

First and foremost, I know what you’re all wondering. What do the awards for this thing look like? Well, here you go!

Keen observers will notice that there is a commenter award, when I previously said there wouldn’t be one. This was mostly down to logistics, but my awesome fellow-mod DarkVoid116 decided to take on the challenge of the complex coding after all.

To qualify for the Finishing Months Commenter Award you must have left at least FIFTY (50) comments of at least 15 words between January 1st and March 31st 2023 on fics that were started but incomplete before 1st January 2023. 

Dark has also coded a page to track members who have met this criteria (linked here), as well as an event page (here), and list of winning authors (here). 

What this means is that a lot of the hard work in figuring out who is eligible for what has been done for you and me both. All qualifying fics and authors should appear on the relevant pages without you needing to email us with details as we originally planned. 

That said, if you finish a fic and it does not appear where you expect, of course get in touch!

And on a final note, the Mod Team would like to say here and now, that we are not planning to run this event next year, as we don’t want to inadvertently incentivise the temporary abandonment of fics. 

Let’s finish those WIPs, folks!



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on January 17, 2023 09:54am 7 Comments
Event Announcement: Satisfaction-athon

As our favorite vampire once asked, "Satisfied? You know, I really hope so because God knows you need some satisfaction in life besides shagging Captain Cardboard and I never really liked you anyway and... and you have stupid hair."

Which is to say, we have a new event for you! 

For one day only, this Valentine’s, we’re asking that you flood EF with ficlets and art in which Buffy gets to be happy. (By or with Spike, because this is a Spuffy archive, after all!) 

You can post comics, drabbles, one-shots, or even multi-chapter fics if you wish, so long as you post the complete work.

There shall be no minimum word count. No maximum. Participating in this mini-challenge does not make one eligible for a ‘challenge complete’ end-of-year award. There will be no special skin, no commenter awards, and no award for banner artists, BUT there shall be a small icon for everyone who ticks the relevant box by the end of Valentine’s Day (according to site time), and participants will get a shiny. 

Got any questions, post them below!



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on January 10, 2023 01:54pm 11 Comments
2022: A Year in Review

It hardly seems possible, but it is indeed that time of year again. That is, the start of a new year, and time to look back on the journey we have taken over the last 12 months.

I want to start by personally saying this was a challenging year in many ways. Elysian Fields experienced some turbulence, not aided by the host’s update in March of 2022, which upset a lot of our systems for a good amount of time. We have not entirely recovered from that and are continuing to explore our options to avoid repeats. That said, with whatever we faced, we (the Mods) are endlessly thankful to you (the membership) for your support, encouragement, and patience.

Here are some things to come in 2023:

  • New and/or reshaped events, courtesy of the irreplaceable EllieRose101, who was a force of nature as Events Mod over the course of her inaugural year in the role. 
  • The registration of EF as a non-profit. This will allow us to recommence site donations (and thank you so much to everyone who has reached out, asking why donations were discontinued last year)
  • More information about SpuffyCon 2024
  • Continued site improvements and additions, including the History of EF page

As stated above, 2022 was a challenging year. We said goodbye to two Mods. While kats_meow was not a Mod for long, she made an indelible impression on the team and her absence has been strongly felt (though we understand work comes before play, much as we would wish it otherwise). And of course, OffYourBird, who founded, initiated, led, or managed many of the features that make EF, well, EF (including but not limited to the weekly sprints, the Friday check-in, the Secret Santa Event, watch parties, the Discord server, and the Facebook group before that) stepped down as Mod. I think it’s especially important to recognize the enormous contribution she made to EF, and how even though she has moved on to other things, she set into motion and enhanced so many of the aspects of the community we enjoy today.

Suffice it to say, it was not easy filling these shoes, yet we ended up with a successful, joyful year, courtesy of DarkVoid116 and EllieRose101 who joined the Mod team in March 2022. They have been irreplaceable additions to the Mod team and are directly responsible for the wonderful state of the archive today, working both behind the scenes and taking center stage. If you enjoyed your time at EF in 2022, you have them to thank. I, personally, will never stop.

We made some additional changes in 2022, including the retirement of site skins (many of which had been with us since our founding) and the addition of new site skins with art provided by some of the most talented, active artists we have in the community. We also rolled out the inclusion of artwork-only submissions for storytellers and artists alike—the more ways to tell Spuffy stories, the better.

Then there were our four site events. Challenge Month in April, Mystery Month in July, Road Trip Challenge in October, and our third Secret Santa Fic Exchange in December. The response was overwhelming, as the numbers will show.

So it’s time to start issuing awards.

In the third year of recognizing the milestone that is Completed Fics, we had 110 authors complete a total of 387 fics; that’s 27 more fics than last year. 

All authors who completed a fic (one-shots count!) in 2022 have been issued this award: 

2022 Completed Fic Award

The other award seeing its third year is the Challenge Complete Award. This was awarded to site members who completed any site event challenge in 2022 (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.

 2022 Completed Challenge Award

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

We had 47 event stories, which garnered 1,196 likes and 581 comments. And as a last-minute addition to the awards this year, we also awarded commenters who provided more than 15 story comments comprising 15 or more words with an award as well. So all participants who completed their fics should now have their participant award on their profile; those commenters who met the requirements should also have an award.

 

P.S. If you haven't read the fics yet, you can find them all on their site event page, which is also accessible by going to Events >> 2022 Secret Santa.

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

2022 Top Ten Most Prolific Author 2022 Top Ten Most Prolific Commenter

In 2022, we added:

  • 9,820,415 words
  • 488 stories
  • 2,586 chapters
  • 1,641 new members
  • 89,909 new likes
  • 32,741 new comments to the archive (comprising 1,628,229 words)

That is a lot of content, all made possible because of you guys.

Top 10 Commenters

Top 10 Authors

Our most prolific author for 2022 was scratchmeout!

2022 Most Prolific Author

Our most prolific commenter for 2022 was magnus374

2022 Most Prolific Commenter

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

Guys, it was a hell of a year. We are so thankful to the members who make up our wonderful community. Thank you so much for your contributions—fic, art, betaing, commenting—and your company. We look forward to a great year ahead.



--Holly and the Mods on January 04, 2023 12:13pm 12 Comments
Announcement: Finishing Months

*ignore this line of text. It is placed here just to try and fix a formatting error* 

Guess who's back, back again? That's right, ME! With a brand new event announcement. 

Starting from today and running until the end of March, Elysian Fields is hosting Finishing Months, in which the goal is to either complete a story (or stories) started for any of the previous challenge months*, OR finish off a longstanding WIP.

We're defining a longstanding WIP as a fic that was started prior to 1st January 2021.

If you complete one qualifying fic, you will get a bronze award. 

Complete two and you get silver.

Three or more: gold, baby! 

No shinies for artists, betas, or commenters in this specific case. (Sorry!)

People who feel they are eligible for an award must email EF (ssolace@gmail.com) during the first week of April with details we can verify. We need to know your username, we need link(s) to the relevant fic(s), and brief sentence detailing how/why it qualifies (eg "This fic was for April Challenge Month 2021," or "I finished a fic started in June 2020").

*Finishing abandoned Secret Santa gifts or Mystery Month stories that were not posted by their relevant deadlines do not count towards this event. (Unless they also meet the 'longstanding WIP' requirement.)

Any questions, drop them below!

 

Edited to add/clarify: for longstanding WIPs to be eligible, some part of them must already be posted. Before the aforementioned date of 1st January 2021. This is simply so we can verify their eligibility. If you've been working on a fic for five years but not shared any of it, we have no way of knowing!



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on January 01, 2023 10:39am 17 Comments
Reminder from Santa

Evening, folks! December is moving crazy fast, so the Mod Team would like to take this opportunity to check in with everyone participating in our Secret Santa event this year. 

At the time of writing this, fourteen participants have shared gifts, which means the site is still expecting a further thirty-three pieces (whether written stories or visual art) in the next two weeks. 

Reminder: gifts must be posted by 11.59pm site time on December 31st. 

If you cannot make this deadline, please get in touch with a Mod ASAP!

Conversely, if you wish to put yourself forward as a rescue writer or artist and haven’t already done so, drop us a line.

All gifts shared so far can be found here



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on December 15, 2022 10:29am 0 Comments
Final Details for 2022's Secret Santa Event

I am very pleased to say that 47 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, put themselves forward as rescue writers and artists anyway. 

Hopefully, all participants have their assignments by now. Most of you have replied to my email to confirm you have, but I do have two responses outstanding. If you have signed up but haven’t seen a message from me, please check your spam inbox. And failing that, please reach out to the mod team! 

Participants must post their fics (or art work, if applicable) between 12:01 am site time on December 1st and 11:59 pm on December 31st. If something goes awry and you cannot meet the deadline, again, 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 of our aforementioned rescue writers and artists. 

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 (pictured above), if you need it. If you use the default banner, please credit MillennialCryBaby, or if you're including a custom banner with your fic, it must have "Designed for Elysian Fields' 2022 Secret Santa Event" written somewhere legibly on it.  

Reminder: only participating members will get an event award for Secret Santa. There are no shinies for betas 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. Optional, but you may like to add the prompts you are meeting in your story end notes. 

We recommend members reach out to their giftees 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:

One last reminder: Each fic should be a “one-shot” size (or be posted as a single “chapter” in the case of art). That is, the fic must be under 14,750 words in length. 

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



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on November 28, 2022 02:11pm 8 Comments
2022 Secret Santa Event Announcement

I know we wrapped the October Road Trip event literally yesterday, but I am very excited to jump right into our next one and, apparently, I’m not alone! When I asked on Discord if you guys wanted a little breather before the next announcement, you all basically said, “Who needs breath? Gimmie!” 

So, here we are. 

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 art!). 

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 this in the Google form if you’re only interested in written fic). Each fic should be a “one-shot” size (or be posted as a single “chapter” in the case of art). That is, the fic must be under 14,750* words in length. 

*While the chapter word limit is technically 15,000 words here on EF, variations in processor word counting created a lot of work (and many workarounds) previously for Holly, so we're keeping it lower to assure there won't be any further issues.

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. This year, it (and the custom banner art, displayed at the top of this post) was kindly designed by MillennialCryBaby.

NOTE: There are no additional awards for betas, artists, or commenters. Both authors and artists will receive the same ‘2022 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 not be eligible to participate this year, but may participate again in 2023.

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 Sunday 20th Nov.: Sign-Ups close 
  • 22nd & 23rd Nov.: Assignments Distributed
  • 1st December: Participants can start posting
  • End of 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.

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 ssolace@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 02, 2022 02:55pm 15 Comments
Road Trip Event Wrap Up

We did it, gang! Our road trip event has ended, which is of course sad, but I think we can agree it was a wonderful success. Especially since it was our first ever event including artwork only stories!

There were 6 of those and 26 traditional (i.e. written) stories, as made via the collaborative effort of:

  • 23 Authors
  • 20 Artists (both comic and banner artists)
  • 23 Beta Readers 

And in another first for Elysian Fields, we’ve included Sensitivity Readers in the beta stats. 

Between them, participating authors wrote 175,485 words across 69 chapters (including comic chapters). A total of 450 members left comments throughout the month of October, of which 212 commented specifically on event stories, and 42 commenters met the requirements for an award. All comments for the event totalled 645, and the new stories generated for this event received a total of 1,110 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 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 ssolace@gmail.com



--EllieRose101 and the Mods on November 02, 2022 04:03am 2 Comments
Even More New Skins

Hello EF!

We’re back with more new skins!

First of all, thank you for the lovely reception our artists and new skins received last week. We understand no one likes change and getting used to a different aesthetic can be an uphill battle. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, one of the goals of the facelift was to help modernize the experience in a small way. We’ve talked before about how old our software is and…seriously, in internet years? We're dinosaurs. The new skins don’t change the functionality, but they do accommodate the current trend in websites, particularly the desktop experience, which has evolved past the broad borders and empty space that defined our previous skins.

Second of all, we want to thank all the members who chimed in last week to let us know what gaps remained in the new skins designs. The member experience is so important to us, and since everything here hinges upon reading and readers’ visual comfort, we were happy to accommodate the needs that were brought to our attention. With that said, we’d like to thank MillennialCryBaby, loveisntbrains_mcgnagallsarmy, and scratchmeout who reached out to the Mod team following last week's announcement with offers of fresh art to help fill those gaps.

We now have:

  • Two skins with a mustard yellow theme (“mr and mrs summers”; “how to train your vampire”)
  • Four skins with alternating colors between story lists (“mr and mrs summers”; “what happens at restfield”; “other worlds than these”; “becoming us”)
  • One skins with color combinations new to EF (“what happens at restfield”)
  • Two neutral skin options (“best night of my life”; “other worlds than these”)
  • Two additional blue-themed skins (“primal solarized”; “till the end of the world”)

All skins are live and available for selection. In order to set one of the new skins as your default, visit Edit Preferences under Account Info

Here are previews of the skins that have been added since last week. 

  • Skin name: Becoming Us
  • Banner artist: Irandamay

  • Skin name: Other Worlds than These
  • Artist: scratchmeout 

  • Skin name: Till the End of the World
  • Artist: scratchmeout 

The older skins that we reuploaded last week (not-without-a-fight, smile, and spuffy1) have been removed once more.

Thank you again to our artists and our wonderful membership.



--Holly and the Mods on October 22, 2022 02:15pm 11 Comments
A New Art and Skin Era at EF

Hello, EF! 

We’ve been hinting at this for a while now, but it’s about to get very real. On October 14th, one week from today, a number of site skins will be permanently retired. The skins being retired were chosen for a myriad of reasons, including age, appearance, and out of respect for the artist. 

In the endeavor to replace these skins, we looked at the existing color schemes and reached out to artists in the EF community to see if they would be interested in providing new artwork, and we’re delighted that all artists we approached were eager to help us beautify the site. Now, we’re ready to share what those skins look like in anticipation of next week. Not ALL skins are ready just yet—as with everything else, artists have volunteered their time and some haven’t had much of that to volunteer, so more skins will be added throughout the rest of the year as artists contribute their pieces and we have time to program them into beautiful new skins. 

Many members who access the site on desktop will also notice a dynamic change in how the skins take up the screen. The new skins have been built using the simple and simple dark templates, which greatly reduces the border/empty space. It’s a small thing but it does help modernize the look and feel of the site while allowing members to enjoy some of the amazing artwork provided by our group of artists. 

Here is a comprehensive list of the skins that are being retired:

  • comic
  • the time in between
  • smile
  • not-without-a-fight
  • spuffy1
  • heroes
  • elysian
  • drinking buddies
  • soft
  • kiss
  • big bads
  • called
  • mystery

And here is a preview of the skins that will replace them. Please note, the screenshots were captured off EF’s test site (where the Mods can play around with various changes without worry of breaking the actual archive) so some of the menu options will reflect EF Days of Old and not the archive as we currently know and love it.

So, without further ado…



  • Skin title: Everyday
  • Artist: Holly

  • Skin title: Everyday-light
  • Artist: Holly

 

 

 

 

  • Skin title: Out of My Mind
  • Artist: teragramm

 

 

 

 

  • Skin title: Where it Began
  • Artist: Irandamay

 

 

Again, this isn’t a comprehensive list. In addition to the artists who still intend to provide us artwork, there are two pieces of art provided by the existing pool of artists that have yet to be turned into skins. So keep an eye out for those, and please join us in thanking the artists who took the time to create something beautiful for EF. We’re so fortunate to have you in our community.



--Holly and the Mods on October 07, 2022 01:15pm 17 Comments
Artwork for the Road Trip Event

Hey, gang! 

Since launching the Road Trip event and opening it up to art-only submissions, it turns out that our system won't allow the artwork icon to run in conjunction with the challenge icon. So, for artwork-only submissions for events, we’re asking the affected parties to tick the box for the event instead of the one for artwork. This way, all the event subs show up on the event page. 

The Mods will adjust the back-end of the site for event artwork already posted, unless you tell us you’d rather have the art icon than the event one. 

You’ll get the event artist award either way.



--EllieRose101 and The Mods on October 04, 2022 12:19am 1 Comment
Everything you need to know about the Road Trip Challenge

October is almost upon us, and that means it’s time to get your engines revving, because in just three(-ish) short days, our road trip challenge sets off. (I said I was gonna stop punning, I lied!)

If you read the event announcement, you should already know that: 

  • fics for this event must be a minimum of 1,500 words. *
  • your stories must include or address road trips 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. 

On October 1st, from 0.01am site time (which can always be found under the shoutbox on our homepage), you will see a tick-box appear when adding a new story. This is to indicate your story is part of the challenge, to make sure it appears in the official list of challenge fics, and so it can be featured alongside the others throughout the month. 

It looks like so:

Additionally, if and when you’ve ticked that box, a special icon of some car keys will appear beside your story, as depicted in the example here:

Note: while sequels (or indeed prequels, or companion stories) to existing fics can be eligible to be part of this event, it’s important that they are a new work, as in not previously shared elsewhere already.

Now, in the aforementioned event announcement we gave a lot of details for how banners were going to work, but––in case you missed it––we heard your feedback and your desire to arrange banners yourselves, and so that element has been dropped from this event. 

If you plan to make your own banner, the dimensions 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 2022 Elysian Fields Road Trip Challenge.” 

If someone else has made you a banner, please credit them so they can get an award for their profile. Please also make sure to credit your betas. The awards, lovingly designed by MillennialCryBaby, are as pictured at the top of this news post. 

There is a custom site skin for this event, also designed by MillennialCryBaby, which we showed in the event announcement post. But, speaking of site artwork, Holly has been working hard to bring to life a number of new skins.

There are a number of site skins we are permanently retiring and replacing with skins that better reflect the current membership (they’re made with art supplied by our members!) and where we are taking the archive in the future. But don’t worry—there will be options for everyone. Light, dark, and monochromatic will all be represented.

Of the current site skins, these are the ones we’re keeping:

  • Better Together
  • Dead Poet’s Society
  • Fierce
  • Trapped
  • Kisses in the Rain
  • Holiday
  • Secret Santa
  • Simple (Light and Dark)

Keep your eyes peeled for a follow-up announcement regarding the new site skins shortly.

In the meantime, and as always, happy writing! 


*UPDATE: Since we recently made accommodations for Elysian Field's many talented artists to post artwork-only pieces, we have been asked if they can take part in this event and still be eligible for an artist award, even if they don't make banners. This was such a good question, and of course the answer is yes! As such, we've removed the word count requirement. 



--EllieRose101 and The Mods on September 27, 2022 04:25pm 7 Comments