Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Challenge #13

TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.

I'm going to talk about two communities that are near and dear to my heart (so near & dear that I'm the current mod for both of them).

First is the first fandom space that I ever participated in- hardtime100, a drabble writing community for HBO's OZ. When I started as a participant over on LJ, the challenges were weekly and the community was hopping. I made my first fandom friends there and it was a wonderfully supportive group of people that put up with a lot of my non-canon, non-main focused pairings. I looked forward to the new prompts every week and would happily dash off a drabble and then wait around for the next week's prompts. I'm currently tagged as having written 265 pieces for it and I still get a kick out of writing and reading what everybody else has written. The prompting calendar has slowed down a bit, but anyone coming in could write for any prompt at any time and we no longer limit things to just 100 words.

Second is the community for the fest that's coming up in just a few days - halfamoon. For fourteen days, people post fics, art, vids, meta, etc. about female characters in fandom. I've been part of it for probably close to ten years now and mod for the last three. There are so many different fandoms involved- some people like medical dramas, some sci-fi, some kids shows, but no matter the fandom, they showcase an amazing bunch of women. The fest has grown from about 75 works to over 200. So, stop by, check out the prompt list (it's the top post) and think about joining us on February 1. You'll be glad you did.

One of my favorite things to do, particularly in HBO's OZ fandom is to take a minor or barely seen character from the ensemble series and flesh them out. Take the details found in canon and then create a backstory from those details. I did this to great extent in my (still unfinished) fic series "Great Risks", where I took Dino Ortolani, a character featured in just the pilot, in which he's the star, until he *spoiler alert* gets killed at the end of the episode, and envisioned a whole backstory connecting him to Ryan O'Reily. There are also the families and significant others of the characters who can interact in therapy sessions, regular visitation, or conjugal visits. And don't get me started on the staff who are never seen outside the prison walls (yet I have a very vivid image of Sean Murphy's place in my mind.)

I think it's one of the gifts that we have as fanfic writers that we can breathe life into characters who might have been a throwaway line or passing through in just a couple of scenes. It brings more to the table and even have people looking at a character or a relationship in a new way.

All this to say, I wrote a thing for the Public Works Bingo - By Proxy - which involves Mavis Woodson (aka Jefferson Keane's bride). Check it out.

halfamoon will be underway from February 1-14. Please consider joining us either as a creator or a cheerleader for this 14 day fest celebrating female characters. The daily themes are in a pinned post on the community page so you can jump right in or get ahead of things or be a rebel and do something completely different.

Hope to see you there.

Here's what's happened in the last week and change:

( update )

If you're around and about, I'm running some word sprints over at 1_million_words on LJ starting at 1:30 CDT.

Grab some prompts or some WIPs and come join me. Post is here

halfamoon is happening this year! 14 days of celebrating women with art, writing, recs, meta, etc. This year's fest has the following themes, which will be posted every other day:

War and Peace
Politics
Time and Space
Arts and Letters
Borders
Sickness and Health
Games We Play

You can create something on one of the themes or create something on your own between February 1 & February 14. Check out the intro post for more info. Come join me!

It was a good year for oz_magi - 16 wishes in all, 21 stories for Magi proper, 8 stories and 1 artwork for the Party in the Dress Factory.

I wrote things:
Sleep Kissing - Miguel Alvarez/Ryan O'Reily for the Party in the Dress Factory
Sleeping In - Claire Howell/Sean Murphy for the Party in the Dress Factory
Good Enough - Tobias Beecher/Ryan O'Reily for the Party in the Dress Factory
Transformations - Tobias Beecher/Chris Keller/Kareem Said
Seize the Day - Richie Hanlon/various

People wrote me things:

trillingstar wrote Season's Scuttlebutt, which showcases the prison rumor mill as it relates to McManus & Murphy adding layers of intimacy before finally getting to the couple in question at the end. It's lovely and I may not get the names "Moses" and "Goose Guy" out of my head any time soon.

shabby86 wrote this for the Party in the Dress Factory, where Sean gives Tim a present to remind him of their first date (with a lovely memory of the date)

vanillalime wrote this for the Party in the Dress Factory, in which sets of keys are exchanged and two of my favorite pairings are showcased. ETA: Now with a sequel in which Sean, the closet dom, makes an appearance.

Check out these and any of the other great fics at oz_magi

Come take part in the Snowflake Challenge this year! It's a lovely low-key way for people involved in various fandoms to interact.

Here's the link to the Intro Post if you want to see what all the fuss is about.

Hey fellow OZ peeps who may not be on DW. They are running a new OZ drabble tree over at oz_wishing_well on DW. There are several entries already, but come on over and give the OZ drabble tree a hug (and a hundred and so words).

Here's the entry - OZ Drabble Tree Needs A Hug

The Halfamoon Fest (14 Days of Celebrating Women) is currently running over at Dreamwidth. For those who have never participated, Halfamoon is a festival that focuses on women characters and artists. This year there are prompt tables for reccers, podfics/audio creators, writers, and artists. Even though we're a few days into the month, you can still go back and work on items from previous days or just go off the table altogether.

Come join in the fun over at halfamoon!