Big Bang Blackout

WELCOME TO THE BIG BANG BLACKOUT -- HP fandom's Sirius-centric big bang challenge!

Our SRS writers have been writing their Sirius-centric stories since February this year (and some even earlier than that), our SRS artists have been working on illustrations for these stories since July this year, and now we, your SRS mods, are happy announce that the BIG BANG BLACKOUT is officially open so that SRS lovers and SRS fen can enjoy the results of everybody's hard work.

The BIG BANG BLACKOUT is based on the Big Bang, Baby -- a Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy-centric challenge. Since the original, the big bang challenge has been adapted to numerous other pairings and fandoms. Fan-authors write loooooong fanfics, submit their drafts, and then collaborate with fan-artists who provide fanart to go with the fanfics.

In January 2009, midnitemarauder, mindabbles and red_squared (oh, fine -- and sirius_mod) decided that what fandom needed was more long, illustrated Sirius-centric fanfiction, and so we organised the BIG BANG BLACKOUT to ensure that Sirius received the banging attention he so thoroughly deserves. 

There are twenty-four stories in the archive, written by twenty-three participating authors, and illustrated by twenty-two participating artists. We have plot; we have smut; we have alternative universes, alternative realities, canon-compliance to the letter, and EWE; we have gen-fic, het-fic and slash-fic; but most importantly of all -- we have Sirius Black, in just about every variety possible.

What we need now are people to read, review, and rec -- and that's where YOU come in! Click on one of the links below to start reading -- and don't forget to click back to bigbangblackout to leave feedback for the author and the artist.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The mods would like to thank all of the sirius_writers and the sirius_artists for participating in this challenge and helping us bang Sirius Black -- there wouldn't be a Big Bang without all of you! 

We'd also like to especially thank remeciel and nk_aoede for generously donating their time and their art to be used in the community and milestone banners, hrymfaxe and glockgal for pinch hitting, and vwl for helping us get the banging started, and creating the word count widget used by our sirius_writers.

Finally, we'd like to thank all of YOU who are reading this. Don't forget to tell of your friends about us ;) Just copy and paste the code from the following text box:

<DIVstyle="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><Ahref="http://community.livejournal.com/bigbangblackout/"><IMGsrc="http://lambchop.iwillsing.net/BigBangBlackout/BBB_text_only.jpg"></A></DIV>

---

( LIST OF BIG BANG BLACKOUT SUBMISSIONS )

Hi all!

As I speak, my trusty minions co-mods midnitemarauder, mindabbles and red_squared are uploading fic and art to the archive, hunting down any stragglers with a nine-iron, and coding up the master list.

This is just a reminder that there's ONE WEEK TO GO before we launch the website. Once it's done, we'll have twenty-four long, beautifully illustrated, Sirius-centric stories for your entertainment, created by our amazingly talented SRS writers and SRS artists (and one freakishly talented individual who manages to combine the two).

In that light, we would like everybody who's following this community to please SPREAD THE WORD that the Big Bang Blackout is getting ready to go public. Everybody's worked so hard, we'd like to get as many readers and as much feedback for all of our participants as possible.

In order to do so, you can use the following link back button:



Just copy and paste the code from the following text box:

<DIV style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><A href="http://community.livejournal.com/bigbangblackout/"><IMG src=" http://lambchop.iwillsing.net/BigBangBlackout/BBB_text_only.jpg"> </A></DIV>

Or if you prefer pretty pictures, you can use one of the banners -- code for which is over here

Finally, we've had a comment pr0n post on sirius_writers and a drawble thread on sirius_artists, but neither of those have seen much action, presumably because they were locked to participants only, and while you were working on your final submissions at that. As a result, I hereby announce that:

THIS POST IS OPEN FOR SIRIUS-CENTRIC COMMENT PORN AND (CRACK!)DRAWBLES

Go nuts, people. We'll be back to restore order once the website goes live (in less than week's time).

Drunk with power,
sirius_mod (on behalf of midnitemaraud_r, mindabbles and red_squared)

Doesn't if feel like just yesterday that it was the 13th of July, and you'd received your match up?

Wait, really? It does? Because that was weeks ago!

We're already starting to receive final versions of stories and art (THANK YOU early people!), and this is just a SRS-modly reminder that there's one week to go until the deadline.

Submission guidelines for artists and for writers can be found over here.


And if you want to promote this challenge, under the cut is the text for our banners.

( Are you banging Sirius? )

GOOD LUCK with your last week of SRS-banging! If you have any questions, you know how to reach us!

-- Sirius Mods (red_squared, midnitemaraud_r, mindabbles, and the terminally lazy sirius_mod)

Hi all!

Authors and artists, you will have received an email from sirius.mod telling you who you've been matched with -- please check your email (and your spam and trash filters if you don't find anything), and reply to let us know that you've received it.

You can get in touch with your artist/author. You can also tell other people who your author/artist is. We wanted the matching up process to be anonymous, but now that that's done, you can tell other participants. The only thing we ask is that you not discuss the details of your story/art outside of the writers' and artists' communities -- otherwise there shall be no sekkrits left for the launch, and where's the fun in that?

Now that we're in the SRS BZNS part of the Big Bang, you'll need to keep watching this community for modly announcements and updates, but we also ask you to keep an eye on your respective writers'/artists' communities, as we'll be making posts there as well (and will link to them from here when necessary). On that note:

SIRIUS WRITERS please see this mod post and also this mod post.

SIRIUS ARTISTS please see this mod post.

And for both of you, there's a banner under the cut for you to post to your LJ/IJ/DW/userinfo to let everybody know that you're banging Sirius.

( CLICKY! )

So for now, the next deadline is 12 MIDNIGHT GMT, MONDAY 24 AUGUST 2009, when we want the finals of your fic and art.

Enjoy banging Sirius -- and if you have any questions, you know how to get in touch with us!

-- Sirius Mods
(midnitemarauder, mindabbles, red_squared, and modly sock sirius_mod)

Hello Sirius Artists!

All of the drafts and synopses (and other pertinent information) have been posted to the Sirius-Artists Dreamwidth Community. (sirius_artists)

If you are not a member, please join so that we can approve you. If you need a Dreamwidth account, comment here with your email address, or email us at sirius DOT mod AT gmail DOT com and we will send you an invitation to create an account.

Please note that dreamwidth has not yet implemented the function that allows open id accounts to join communities, so you must have a Dreamwidth account. All pertinent posts to that community are locked.

Artists can still sign up, but choices are due on Saturday, July 11, 2009 at midnight GMT - which is 8 p.m. Eastern daylight savings time. Assignments and author contact information will be sent to you by Monday, July 13.

We had 24 authors submit stories for you to choose from. Further information and instructions can be found HERE! Come and play!

As always, if you have any questions, please leave us a comment or email us.

FORMAL AUTHOR SIGN-UPS NOW CLOSED

It's an hour and a half after the deadline, and we haven't received any further submissions or pleas for "just a few more hours", so author sign-ups are now officially closed. If you emailed something in, you should have received a reply acknowledging that we got your email.

Formal sign-ups for artists and betas are still open. We're extending sign-ups for artists until MIDNIGHT GMT ON 11 JULY 2009, which is when we want artists to tell us which fics they'll illustrate.

For now, we'll be going through submissions, reading them and uploading them to sirius_artists on Dreamwidth -- if you think you should have access to the artists' community but you don't, then send an email to SIRIUS.MOD AT GMAIL DOT COM.

If you're a writer and you've had a computer crash or some major drama and haven't got your submission into us as yet, we can use our modly discretion to swing you an extension of a couple of hours (MAXIMUM) but there are no guarantees, and naturally, the official bigbangblackout policy on modly discretion applies:

Q: THAT SOUNDS VERY SUBJECTIVE.

A: It does.

Q: ARE YOU OPEN TO BRIBERY?

A: Of course.

Q: WILL I BE ABLE TO BRIBE YOU?

A: Probably not.

Q: WHY NOT?!

A: You can't afford us.

Q: HUGH JACKMAN OWES ME A PERSONAL FAVOUR...

A: Like we said. This is a grey area. Email us the details, and we'll... work something out.

Thanks to everybody who's signed up so far, we'll be in touch, and watch this space for further announcements!

So far we've got 11 authors and 18 artists formally signed up -- we're expecting more of both, so if you're holding out on us, be sure to get your info into us within the next 24 hours, because formal sign-ups close 12 MIDNIGHT GMT, MONDAY 6 JULY 2009*.



*If you're on the east coast of the USA, that means 8pm Monday night 6 July.
If you're on the east coast of Australia, that means 10am Tuesday 7 July.
And if you're in the UK, that means 12 midnight, 1 minute after 11:59pm on Monday 6 July.

Give or take a couple of minutes, but FORMAL SIGN-UPS ARE NOW OPEN, and will remain open until 12 MIDNIGHT GMT, MONDAY 6 JULY 2009!

How do you sign up? What do we mean by midnight? What is the timeline?

Those and all of your other questions are covered in the rules, or in the FAQ -- please read through these before you sign up!

If you still want to bang Sirius (and he wants to be banged, believe you me), then head over to one or more of the following posts to sign up:

AUTHOR SIGN-UP | ARTIST SIGN-UP | BETA SIGN-UP

And for authors who are still trying to decide whether or not they can make the formal sign-up deadline, here's some extra incentive for you -- the 20,000 words milestone banner:



Generously provided by the lovely nk_aoede#, and yours if you get 20,000 words or more of Sirius-centric fic to us by the deadline (yes, even if your fic isn't complete, you'll still get the banner).

#Temporarily on hiatus -- don't panic.

FORMAL SIGN-UPS -- COMING SOON TO bigbangblackout

Yes, you read that right. On 12 MIDNIGHT GMT ON 29 MONDAY JUNE 2009, bigbangblackout will open for formal sign ups from authors and from artists.

( WANT TO KNOW MORE? CLICK HERE! )

Hi all,

Writers -- the third milestone claiming is now closed. If you put in a claim, you should have received an email from sirius.mod confirming that we have seen your email.

Everybody else -- WATCH THIS SPACE for information about formal sign-ups -- we'll have more information for you shortly!

Any questions or comments can be commented here, or emailed to us.

Thanks!
-- Sirius Mods

...THIRD MILESTONE CLAIM, closing in one week.

This is a preview of the third milestone banner -- with art one again generously provided by remeciel.



Want it? Then give us a 15,000 word long, Sirius-centric fanfic snippet by 12 MIDNIGHT GMT MONDAY 1 JUNE 2009, and make sure you meet all of the other requirements (check them out here and of course, the extra Q's and A's in the FAQ, the Mini-FAQ, the other Mini-FAQ and the other, OTHER Mini-FAQ here).

For those who've claimed before, the only major difference is that we want 15K words minimum this time. And those of you who have already sent in 15K+ fic snippets for earlier milestones will NOT need to re-submit/re-claim.

Send all claims to sirius DOT mod AT gmail DOT com.

As always, we'll reply to your email as soon as we get your claim -- if you don't hear from us, email again or leave a comment here.

-- Sirius Mods

Claiming is now closed for the 10K milestone banner. If you sent one in, you should have received an email acknowledging receipt.

Watch this space for further announcements!

Hi all,

We've been getting some questions about the second milestone claim, so here's another mini-FAQ to answer those questions. If there's something that's not covered here, have a look through the instructions on how to claim and the earlier FAQs. If you're still not sure, post a comment here, or send us an email if you're shy.

-- Sirius Mods

( Second Milestone Claim -- Mini FAQ )

Hi all,

This is a preview of the second milestone banner -- with art kindly provided by remeciel -- showing Sirius studying for his N.E.W.T.s.



The instructions on how to claim are the same as the last time (with extra Q and A in the Mini-FAQ here). The only difference this time, of course, is that you need to send us a 10,000 word long Sirius-centric fic segment.

But to save you from scrolling and clicking, here they are again, ( under the cut )

Good luck with your claims (those of you who intend to claim -- by no means compulsory) -- you'll have two weekends between now and when the claims are due. And for those writers who haven't started writing yet, a (gentle!) reminder that we're getting close to the half-way point.

-- Sirius Mods

Heya!

Just letting you know that we're closing off claims for the first milestone.

We've received over a dozen claims, and everybody who sent in a claim should have received a reply from sirius.mod.

Since each of these claims will be more than 5000 words long (and some are even longer than that) it's going to take us a little while to work through them. We'll be sending you your banners (or letting you know why you didn't qualify) over the next week.

Next milestone claim will be for 10,000 words, and it'll close MIDNIGHT GMT MONDAY 4 MAY 2009. But more on that later.

For now, that's all from us!

-- Sirius Mods

Hi all!

We've been getting a lot of the same questions from people (frequently asked questions, if you will) about the milestone claiming, so under the cut is a mini-FAQ.

Before that, though, two things:

1. We will reply to all milestone claim emails, letting you know that we've received it. If you haven't heard back from us within a reasonable* time frame, leave a comment to one of our mod posts, and we'll look into it.


2. This (milestone) deadline is not like the submission deadline for fic exchanges or fests. If you don't meet the deadline or the requirements, it doesn't materially affect the outcome of the challenge. So the mods are not going to chase you if you miss this deadline. We're also not going to chase you if your file is password locked, or in PDF formatting and in wingdings font, or doesn't contain 5000 words, or isn't Sirius-centric or what have you -- you'll simply be told that your claim isn't eligible and why. So check over your claim to make sure it's both eligible and legible before you send it in!

( Mini-FAQ )

Finally, we've updated the interests for the community. If there's a Sirius pairing (one-to-one pairings only, please -- if we open ourselves up to the permutations and combinations of threesomes/moresomes, we'll be here all night) that should be on there that isn't, please let us know and we'll add it to the list.

And finally, finally: we strongly encourage everybody to add "big black-vera-wang-gang bang" to their own interests.

*Use your own judgement.

Hi all!

Thanks to all of the artists who've signed up, and to everybody who's helped pimp the challenge and spread the word -- much appreciated!

This post is mostly for authors, to announce that we're opening up milestone claiming for the first milestone -- 5000 words.

What do you get if you claim? nk_aoede has generously donated the following picture of Sirius being Sorted:



It'll be banner-ised and emailed out to those who successfully claim the first milestone (with mugh higher resolution and without all of that inconvenient text marring his pretty, pretty face, naturally).

Interested? Then let's get down to the nitty gritty.

( How to claim )

( Pre-emptive answers to any other questions you might have )

Questions? Comments? You know how to reach us!

-- Sirius Mods

Hi all! Just a speedy, drive-by mod post to bring some things to your attention:

1. The first milestone check in for writers is coming up in two weeks. More information will be coming soon, but basically, if you can show you've written five thousand words or more of your epic by 12 MIDNIGHT GMT, MONDAY 6 APRIL, well... There could will be something in it for you.



2. BIG BANG BLACKOUT -- NEEDZ MOAR ARTISTS. All watchers and participants who've signed on so far, if you know any artists who draw Sirius, and they haven't mentioned BBB so far, maybe you could bring BBB to their attention?
   
   While we have your attention on the art, a reminder that the artists' community is open for posting -- sirius_artists -- both on LJ and IJ. If you've signed up as an artist, you should have an invite. Go here (LJ) or here (IJ) to accept your invitation, if you haven't already.
   
   There's one mod post on there that's locked to the community that artists (and potential artists) might be interested in.
   
   And in case it wasn't clear, we're still taking artist sign-ups over here.



3. There are some abandoned bunnies at the drop off point, which will hopefully inspire any writers who are currently on the fence to sign on and contribute fic. More (bunnies and writers) are welcome!



4. And finally, we have BBB icons for writers, arists, betas and participants. Click on the cut to see.

( Icons, icons, get 'em while they're... square )

That's it from us for now -- we'll leave you to get on with banging Sirius.

-- Sirius Mods

Hello fabulous Sirius artists!

For those of you who have not noticed, the Big Bang Blackout Artists' Community is open on LJ and also on IJ. You have been sent an invitation to join both, if you are on both IJ and LJ.

These communities are just for you. Only those signed up as Big Bang Blackout Artists have access to the communities. This is the place to get to know your fellow artists in this challenge--to chat with each other, to rave about Sirius' beauty, and anything else you wish.

If you have not received an invitation to either comm, email us at sirius dot mod at gmail dot com. There will be a post there later today that you might want to see.

Cheers,

Sirius_mods

Icons, icons, we need icons!

Here's a mini-challenge for those who have srs technical-type icon making skills, or, you know, can just make icons. We need some Sirius icons!

But, how should I do this, you ask? Create an icon (or severus, I mean several) featuring Sirius, or words or images related to Sirius or the bigbangblackout, and post it at your journal. Then comment here with a link to your post. You will win nothing less than the appreciation and admiration of your fellow participants and the satisfaction of a job well-done.

You have no idea how to make icons, you say? Well, you can still participate! Leave a comment here with a suggestion for a phrase or image that would make a fabulous icon for the bigbangblackout. We'll start it off, shall we?

1. Sirius-centric: because Black goes with everything.

2. Sirius Black Gang Big Bang. Don’t forget the lube.

3. Bring Back Black – with a bang!

4. This time it's Sirius. Srsly.

(See, you can do better than that last one…)


Milestone Challenge, with…PRIZES!

Right, so you are wondering what you get—other than the satisfaction of a job well done—if you keep up with this frantic pace. It is a lot of work after all, immersing yourself in Sirius for months at a time. Well, some lovely and talented artists have offered to create Milestone Banners! That's right, if you meet the following schedule, you too can have an official bigbangblackout banner for each one. Simply email us the draft of your fic by the date listed below (sirius dot mod at gmail dot com):

5K words by 6 April
10K words by 4 May
15K words by 1 June
20K words by 6 July



And if you claim any milestone along the way, your fic will be included in the archive/masterlist even if it doesn’t make 20K.*

--Sirius Mods

*Obligatory small print: It won't qualify for accompanying art, of course, and it will need to meet all of the other criteria (Sirius-centric-ness, completeness, etc) for inclusion.

Just a quick note letting you know that informal author sign-ups are now closed.

If you're an author and you haven't signed up, you'll still be able to participate -- there'll be milestone claiming/check-ins along the way (more on that later), and of course, formal sign-ups won't close until 12 MIDNIGHT GMT, MONDAY 6 July.

So heaps of time to spare! Good luck with your submission, to all who've signed up and who're thinking of signing up.

And for artists and betas: informal sign-ups for artists will remain open until formal sign-ups are opened, and sign-ups for betas will remain open indefinitely.

Just a reminder that informal author sign-ups are scheduled to close 12 MIDNIGHT GMT ON MONDAY 9 MARCH.

As we've said everywhere else, failure to sign up at this stage doesn't mean that you can't participate in the challenge. The formal sign-ups will close in July, and will require you to submit a draft of your submission. At this stage, we're mostly trying to get a rough idea of how many submissions to expect in July.

What's in it for you to sign up now?

( Well... )

We realise at this stage the focus is very much on the authors, but THANK YOU to all of the artists and betas who have signed-up, and to everybody who's watching the community and helping to spread the word.

Sign-ups for artists will not be closed until we get into the formal sign-up and matching stages. Sign-ups for betas will be open indefinitely.

In other housekeeping, don't forget we still have the bunny drop for abandoned/unwanted plot bunnies -- if you have a story idea you don't want to write up yourself, kick it over here in case it inspires someone else.

---

Any questions or comments? You know how to contact us!

Just over one week into sign-ups and we're getting steady sign-ups from authors, artists and betas. We're also pleased to see people discussing the challenge and promoting it in their own LJs, communities and newsletters.

For authors participating in the challenge, one of our clever mods has programmed up a Word Count Widget, which you can use to show how you're progressing with your fic. Like so:

500 / 20000 words. 3% done!

It's linked to from our Resources Page, which also links to other useful web pages for people participating in the challenge. Go check it out! And if you have any suggestions for things we could add to it, let us know.

With that out of the way, moving on to the main point of this post:



One of the things we've seen a couple of people bring up in these discussions is the following:

A Big Bang for Sirius? I soooooooo want to participate! But I can't think of a plot/story idea for a >20K word fic!

Being the benevolent mods we are, and wanting to maximise participation in the challenge, we're opening up this post for you (yes you, reading this right now) to drop off your plot bunnies to be adopted by one of our putative authors in bigbangblackout's PLOT BUNNY DROP OFF.

( A couple of guidelines for those contributing the bunnies )



Contact the mods by sending an email to sirius.mod AT gmail DOT com OR post a comment to the Community FAQ.

Hi all! Sign-ups for artists, authors and betas have been coming in steadily ever since we opened them up, and it's great to see this comm and the challenge being pimped around LJ.

We've noticed that people are eager to discuss their fic ideas, and so we've set up a community on LJ for authors to post their ideas, discuss their progress, and offer support to one another over at sirius_writers.

Membership is by invitation only, and if you've signed up to the challenge as an author (which you can still do here), you'll receive an invitation shortly. Go here to pick up and accept your community invite.

The reason for the new community is because the author-artist match up will be anonymous on both sides. That is, authors won't know which artist(s) will be illustrating their fic until the archive goes live, and artists won't know which author(s) fanfic(s) they've provided illustrations for until the archive goes live.

While we'd like to enforce anonymity as much as possible, we also realise it's close to impossible to work on such a large fic submission without discussing it with someone, so here's the space for you to do so.

If you have any questions, as always, you can email them through (sirius.mod AT gmail DOT com), or comment to the FAQ.

The Big Bang Blackout is based on the Big Bang, Baby -- a Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy-centric challenge.

Since the original, the big bang challenge has been adapted to numerous other pairings and fandoms. So far, Sirius Black has managed to avoid being "big bang"-ed -- a state of affairs that is both unacceptable and unsustainable.

So.

Welcome to the latest big bang challenge: BIG BANG BLACKOUT: This time, it's Sirius.

Big Bang Blackout on LiveJournal will be the main community for sign ups and moderator posts, but this community will be updated simultaneously, if you'd prefer to monitor activity from here.

---