The Primeval Ficathon Community

First, please use this post if you'd like to offer to beta for one of our writers. You can put what pairings, situations, etc., you're comfortable editing, to help folks can narrow down their options if you'd like.

Second, a reminder that stories are due on March 31! If you don't think you'll be finished by then, please let alylicious or myself know as soon as possible so we can make arrangements for a pinch hitter. Remember, if you default and don't let us know before the last two weeks before stories are due that you can't finish, barring a really excellent reason, you will be banned from participating in future ficathons.

Many apologies to the people who have just been spammed by assignments. We tested the mail, sent it out and...

...discovered a glitch that only shows up when it goes live to multiple recipients.

It's times like these when I feel very like Zaphod Beeblebrox and want to reprogramme everything with a large axe.

So, please delete any e-mails you may have received, and we'll send your real assignment out shortly.

We're considering this a learning process, although the large axe remains a possibility.

Update: Okay, they've gone out, correctly this time, and are labelled 'Your real Primevalathon Assignment' ::g::

Feel free to delete everything else.

Sign ups are now closed, since I've got the assignments done, yay! *g*

However, there's that pesky time zone issue, so alylicious won't get to check and make sure I didn't make any major mistakes in the queries I wrote to match everybody up until tomorrow. Ergo, assignments won't go out until tomorrow afternoon my time (MST).

If you haven't received your assignment by 12:01 a.m. GMT on February 5th, please let us know. :)

Only one day left to sign up, peeps! Sign ups close at midnight tomorrow!

Sign up info here and actual sign up form here.

1) The server my site is on is currently experiencing issues (watch as A kicks it out the window), so you cannot access the sign up form at the moment. I'll update this post when it's fixed after the hosting company gets back to me. And nearly as soon as I've posted, it's back up. Go figure. ETA: And it's back down. *shakes fists of rage in DreamHost's direction*

2) Sign ups close on Saturday!

Sign ups are now open for the Spring 2009 Primeval Ficathon!

( What's a ficathon )

How it works

We have a new shiny sign up form, which will enable us to match authors to assignments on the basis of the information given. Some information on how to use the form to indicate which characters and/or pairing combinations you would like is provided here.

When sign ups close, you'll be mailed with your assignments.

When the big day arrives, you post your work either to the primevalathon community or, if you're not based on livejournal/insanejournal, to another journal site or your webpage, letting us know the location so we can make a post to the community. Then aithine and I put together a master list of all stories.

Then we read ::g::

How long does the story need to be?

At least 1,000 words minimum. There is no maximum.

When does it have to be done by?

Sign ups are open until 31 January.

Assignments will be sent out in the following week.

Stories are due on 31 March 2009. That means you'll have around 8 weeks to write something.

What if I don't have a livejournal? What if I don't have a webpage?

The community exists both on livejournal and insanejournal, so you can simply post your story to the primevalathon community on whichever journalling site you use. We'll be posting the masterlist to both places.

If you don't have a livejournal or an insanejournal, you can still play. Just sign up as normal and then, when the day of posting arrives, you can either send aithine or I the link to your work or comment with the information on one of the admin posts. As long as we know where the story is, it doesn't matter whether it's posted to livejournal/insanejournal, the web or another journalling site. We'll make a post to the main community with your story details so that no one misses it.

If you genuinely don't have a place to post it, please let us know and we can arrange to host it on one of our websites and link it in the same way.

( Any Other Questions? )

Cool. What do I need to do now?

Simply read the character/pairing guide and then go and sign up!

Questions?

If you have any other questions, please just let aithine or I know, either here or, if you're more comfortable, by PM.

Anything else?

Yep. Go forth and pimp, my pretties ::g::

I know we said we hoped that they'd open today, but aithine is wrestling with last minute testing to make sure everything goes okay and winning, while I'm wrestling with a migraine and losing.

So I'm leaving aithine to work tirelessly into the night to test her shiny sign up page, as well as making sure that the post I drafted is actually in English, while I go wimpily to bed.

Sign ups will therefore open tomorrow. Honest.

::does not look at all shifty::

We'll be opening up sign-ups for the next primevalathon Primeval Ficathon next Monday (19th Jan), with a view to keeping them open until the 31st Jan, with stories being due on 31 March. However, as we may have already mentioned, we've been thinking about how we can make sure that things run a little more smoothly this time. So there are going to be some slight tweaks to the rules, which will hopefully help us to avoid some of the issues we experienced last time.

( Automation is the key )

( Defaulting )

( Pinch hitting and beta reading )

( Shared universes, crossovers and adult material )

( WIPs )

ETA: And because we've been reminded, ( Sequels, missing scenes and remixes )

I think that's everything, but please let us know if you have any suggestions that might help make the next ficathon run a little more smoothly than the last one, and in aithine and I keeping what little remains of our sanity!

I've gone through and taken out the prompts that were filled in stories this round and have reposted the rest here. Anyone is welcome to grab a prompt (or two or five) and fill it, even if you didn't participate in the first go around. All that we ask is that you post a link here when you're done. :)

( Get your prompts here! )

Yay, all the stories and pinch hits for the 2008 autumn primevalathon have been posted! The master list of all stories for this round has been updated and is available here. Please go forth and offer our authors some love! *g*

alylicious and I would like to thank everyone who participated this time and we hope everybody's looking forward to participating again next spring. :)

Title: Mirror'd
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Mostly gen, but with hints of Abby/Connor
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: Season 2 and vague references to Season 3 casting spoilers
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~8,000.
Status: Complete
Warnings: No specific warnings, but it might be considered a bit creepy.
Author's Notes: Written for the primevalathon Primeval Ficathon as a pinch hit for temaris, whose prompt was Connor and Abby are monitoring an anomaly late at night -- nothing seems to have come through, but first the power goes out, and then they lose contact with the others....

Summary: The Devil's in the details.

Mirror'd

Angels who wait for us to pause by Aithine

Recipient: Máire (spoons1899)

Requests: "Stephen and Nick, working late at/into the night in the lab. Reflection on the relationship between them from either POV. May include or imply pre-slash or slash," and "a little darkness."

Pairing: Nick/Stephen, past Nick/Helen

Rating: all ages

Summary: Eight years of anniversaries.

Disclaimer: Primeval is not mine. I'm just borrowing the characters for a bit.

Title: Jumping the Gun
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Connor/Ryan
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~2,000.
Status: Complete
Author's Notes: Written for the primevalathon Primeval Ficathon as a pinch hit for fififolle, whose prompt was Ryan teaches Connor to shoot and who also wanted Connor/Ryan.

Many thanks to aithine for the beta services.

Summary:
This is my rifle, this is my gun.
One is for fighting, the other for fun.

Jumping the Gun

First of all, thank you all for taking part. :) I'm sure people are busy reading the stories that have been posted so far, but in the interim, I'd like to make a few adminny type points:

Tagging

Please ensure that you tag your posts, as this enables people to find your stories in future. This isn't something that only the mods can do - it's one of the perks of membership, meaning that all members can tag their posts.

If you're not sure how to tag posts, you can use the 'edit tag' button after you've posted. It's next to your post on the main community page (and maybe even your friends page as well), or alternatively you can go to the actual post page itself and it will be at the top - it's the one that says 'tag' with a little pencil above it. You simply select tags from the list, and if you want to choose more than one, you hold down the ctrl key while selecting them all with your mouse. For this round, you should also tag the story with the year: 2008 autumn tag, as well as the author, genre and pairing tags.

If you are a new author who doesn't have an author tag or are writing a pairing that doesn't yet have a tag, we have a couple of 'new' tags that will enable us to pick them up and create tags for you. These are:

- author: new author; and
- pairing: new pairing.

WIPs

If, for some unavoidable reason, you've been unable to finish your story by the deadline but wanted to post what you have so far so that your recipient isn't left without a story at all, please ensure that your post to the community is marked as a wip. This will ensure that readers know in advance that it isn't finished so that they can make a decision on whether or not to read the story now or, if they're wip-avoidant ::g::, leave it until it is finished. We're also considering marking the masterlist with stories that aren't yet finished to help with that, so please feel free to post the rest of the story to this comm as well as you're finishing it. And if we miss that the last part has been posted, please just poke us and we'll go and change the masterlist accordingly.

Stories not yet posted

Unfortunately we're missing quite a few stories this time around and we've not yet heard from those authors whether we can expect a story and if so when, or whether we need to arrange a pinch hit to ensure that their recipient receives a story. If you could please let us know as soon as possible one way or the other, either in a comment to this post, a reply to the comments we've left elsewhere or via PM, that would be much appreciated :)

And if you've already delivered your story but you're willing to step in and pinch hit, could you please let us know that as well :) It will make everything a little easier for aithine and I.

Thank you.

Orphan prompts

Once everyone has a story, we'll do the same as we did last time and collect together a list of the unused prompts in case they inspire anyone to write, so watch this space :) Everyone - whether they have participated in the ficathons or not - is more than welcome to use anything that inspires them, and the orphan prompts posts are also handily tagged as such ::g::

Posting to other comms

Just in case these needs to be said, you are, of course, actively encouraged to cross post your fics to other comms if you want. We'll be doing an announcement post for the masterlist when it's more complete, but don't let that stop you.

Future ficathons

It's become clear that this ficathon hasn't gone quite as smoothly as the last one, and I knew we shouldn't have counted our chickens when we were so lucky last time ::g:: aithine and I are going to be talking about what we can do in terms of tweaking the way the ficathon is run to hopefully improve things, and we're probably going to propose a few changes in terms of requests, responses and the like. So again, watch this space.

We'll be inviting comments when we make that post, so if you have anything you'd like to suggest, please watch out for that post and we'll be more than happy to pull them into consideration. We can even screen comments if people would prefer to give their feedback in private.

And finally, please don't forget to leave feedback on all of the wonderful stories that have been posted! I'm looking forward to reading them all once I've stopped the adminly flailing ::g::

Three points for a win by Aithine

Recipient: moonlettuce

Requests: "One of the SF team starts flirting with Stephen. Nick realises how very jealous he is" and "Nick and Stephen in a lift. Smut ensues..."

Pairing: Nick/Stephen

Rating: All ages

Summary: He knew he had no reason to be this possessive of Stephen, but logic never seemed to stop him when he felt this strongly. (Takes place between 1.5 and 1.6.)

Disclaimer: Primeval is not mine. I'm just borrowing the characters for a bit.

Title : Measured Steps
or How Stephen learned of his deep affection for Professor Nick Cutter and what happened thereafter.
Author: Tauna
Recipient: wizefics
Pairing: Nick/Stephen
Rating: PG

please come and enjoy;

Title: Life, Interrupted
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Nick/Connor (past), Abby/Stephen (past implied), Nick/Claudia (past), Abby/Connor (present), Abby/Connor/Nick implied and references to canon relationships
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: Set post 2.7
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~17,000.
Status: Complete
Author's Notes: Written for the Primeval Ficathon for toestastegood

Summary: All biological life undergoes a process of evolution. The trick is surviving it.

Life, Interrupted - Part 1 of 2

Life, Interrupted - Part 2 of 2

aithine is being written for by merihn	-- [ Stranger in this lonely town ] (Nick/Stephen, R)
[ pinch hit by curia_regis ]	-- [ Timelines ] (Gen, PG13)
alylicious is being written for by spoons1899	-- [ Too Much, Too Soon ] (Abby/Connor, PG13)
blktauna is being written for by rodlox	-- [ Torrid Above Freezing | Part 1 | Part 2 ] (Gen, K+/M)
caitidid19 is being written for by thefakebook	-- [ Past Is Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 ] (Gen, PG13)
fififolle is being written for by tenpa_neko
[ pinch hit by alylicious ]	-- [ Jumping the Gun ] (Connor/Ryan, PG13)
galindaxxxx is being written for by caitidid19	-- [ Ripples ] (Gen, PG)
good_lioness is being written for by wizefics	-- [ Utterly Predictable ] (implied Nick/Stephen, G)
lsellersfic is being written for by galindaxxxx	-- [ Nick Cutter's Guide to the Strange and Unusual ] (Gen, PG)
merihn is being written for by moonlettuce	-- [ Crazy Little Thing ] (Connor/Nick/Stephen, NC-17)
moonlettuce is being written for by aithine	-- [ Three points for a win ] (Nick/Stephen, All ages)
rodlox is being written for by fififolle	-- [ Something Better | Part One | Part Two ] (Helen/Nick, K+)
spoons1899 is being written for by good_lioness
[ pinch hit by aithine ]	-- [ Angels who wait for us to pause ] (Nick/Stephen, past Nick/Helen, All Ages)
temaris is being written for by alyse [pinch hit]	-- [ Mirror'd ] (Gen with overtones of Abby/Connor, PG13)
tenpa_neko is being written for by temaris	-- [ Punctuated Equilibrium ] (Connor/Nick pre-slash, G)
thefakebook is being written for by lsellersfic	-- [ A Romantic Night Out ] (Claudia/Nick, U)
toestastegood is being written for by alylicious	-- [ Life, Interrupted | Part 1 | Part 2 ] (Nick/Connor, Abby/Connor, implied Abby/Connor/Nick, PG13)
wizefics is being written for by blktauna	-- [ Measured Steps ] (Nick/Stephen, PG)

When posting your story to the community tomorrow, please be sure to include the following information:

Title
Author
Recipient
Prompt(s)
Pairing(s)
Rating
Summary
Disclaimer

Thanks! :)

Stories are due this Saturday, November 15th. :)

Once it's the 15th in your part of the world, please feel free to post your story (or link) to the community. We'll make a master list up toward the end of the day showing who's writing for whom, and tags will be available to help organize posts. (We'll have "pairing: need new tag" and "author: need new tag" tags to catch any that need to be added, so be sure to use those if you can't find the right tags for your story.)

Have any questions? Please feel free to ask.