Snapedom

I've just signed up for the Hermione Big Bang, a fic and art celebration on livejournal for her 30th birthday in September (which won't be interesting for most of you here, since so many here hate her). And then it occurred to me: It's Severus' 50th birthday next January.

And thus I ask:

Does anyone know about plans for a Snape Big Bang?

I can't be the only person who noticed that. If someone plans to organize it, I'd like to know where, who, how etc. If we can help promote it here, I'd like to do it, or help in any other way, if wanted or needed.

This month's challenge was suggested by greedslayer. Details about that suggestion can be seen here.

Apparently Severus was Voldemort's right hand man. Was he really? Why? Was that intentional and pushed by Dumbledore or not? How did Severus' ego react to that position? Did he like it, hate it, not care about it? Did it affect his relationship to other Death Eaters? Was he always a trusted servant or only after the second rising? And, and, and...

So, after several lighter topics, we're having a heavy one this month. I'll make my way through your suggestions and try to alternate between lighter and heavier.

The tag for this challenge is march09

This is meant to help me revamp the rules:

our normal, traditional monthly contest goes like this:

The winner of the past contest is the host of the next one, that means they set the theme and give out a prize if they want to, the prize is optional. In the past, the winner also chose the winner of their new contest.

Now, when we had the first contest here on snapedom, things got a bit confused. severed_lies did an admirable job of starting the first contest here and introducing it, and I can't thank her enough for that, since at the time I was overwhelmed with RL, as so often.


But: the chosing of the winner got confused. She chose the winner through the number of comments on each post, which was something I wanted to use to replace the polls. Polls, however, only were used for special contests, never the regular one. Confused already? Bored? No? ok... ;)

If we keep up the chosing according to comment number, the winners lose one of their priviledges: chosing the next winner. And so I'm asking you what you prefer, you who participate regularly: do you want the *regular monthly contest* winner determined by the host or by comment numbers? Please comment here with 'host' or 'comment'. If you couldn't care less, well...

Thank you for your attention, dear Underground, and of course I'm just smoke-screening the fact that I don't have your banners ready yet. But almost... ;)

Currently I'm going through older posts and organise tags. As long as I have time. You'll know by now that that can change and I'm buried in work and vanish for weeks again... but that's the plan anyway.

After I've done that, I'll get the link lists organized, taking off the older challenges and making a summary page for those.

Since no one seems to have objections, we now allow art. Link to your Snape-related art or post it here whenever you want. And by all means, enter the snapeartcontest. You don't have to be an artist to do that. Grab your mouse and scribble away. Stick figures can be as funny as masterpieces.

Please keep recs for other people's art to Fridays as usual. It's not a crime if you don't, but you'll be reminded for next time. I think we did well enough with that policy over the last year.

I'll look over the rule section and will ask for your input frequently, since I want to have it a bit less confusing than it is now, but that's in the future.

In February, perhaps from the 12th to the 17th, we'll have a Valentine's party, our chance to cover Sev in pink and hearts. Snort, how he'll love that. ;)
We've had a lot of fun with it last year, let's do it again.

We're still growing slowly but steadily in numbers, so giving you a bit of homework is in order, I think. Severus wants to take the Underground register again, and that's your opportunity to introduce yourself, self-pimp, tell us what you like and give us a list or make a page with the Sev-related art/fic/meta you do, here and elsewhere. We did that at the beginning of snapedom, with the Underground member essays, but it may have been forgotten. How about refreshing that list now or making a new one?

I wonder if finding old entries would be easier if I give users name tags to use? Should be doable, unless there is a limited number of tags on paid accounts, too?

I tried to cheat and look old entries up in google, but there's so much... and I once again got caught up on STFU. Gosh, I didn't think the idiocy of fandom_wank could be beaten, but I was wrong. STFU has to be the tops. And boy, do they love us there. I'm almost tempted to invite you all to spork the funniest of their gems... but wouldn't that be a waste of time and better spent writing fic, meta, doing arts and crafts, because we're a FANdom? I suppose they are as passionate about their, ah, insights as we are about Severus. ;)

It's about the Friday recs. You may remember that we've agreed on this in the past. We want fic recs on Fridays, because we want to keep the focus on the discussions on snapedom.
We also included art and vids into that rule. Which was fine until now.

Now, however, we have the snapeartcontest here. And the artists who contribute to the contest should and are posting whenever they made that art. Telling other artists not to link to their art whenever they finished it and allowing the snapeartcontest to do so would be unfair, I think.

So melusin and I were thinking that we should allow the linking to your art whenever you want to. Please keep the rec-ing of other people's art to Fridays, as always. Since we don't have that much art, that shouldn't 'fill' the community too much and distract from the discussions.

And: if we remind you of the Fridays, you don't need to take your posts down. Just remember it next time

What do you think?

I know, I know, you're all tired of fests, the sshg exchange has started, other things happen in the fandom... but don't forget to raise your glass and post a bit of silliness and/or serious wishes for the second birthday of our so not-dead Severus. Come on, Underground!

And thank you to all who posted comments about the snarc/snapedom merge and other things, thanks severed_lies for starting the new contest, thanks esmestrella, for putting up the masterlist!

Ahem, it's cold outside and the Summerfest is finished.

I'll get to all these things in more detail tomorrow, hopefully. And now, let's party!

Before I post the first Snarc Contest on

snapedom, I am going to repost sylvanawood's guidelines:

 

1. The most important rule for the Contest is to keep it funny. We make fun with Severus, not so much about him. Almost always he has the last laugh.

2. The paintings can be made with any media of your choice. If you do not have an art program on your PC, you can try ArtPad and other alternatives listed here. Photomanips will still be excluded, however.

3. Artistic talent isn't required, only imagination and humour. Stick figure Snapes are perfectly acceptable.

4. Snape must be in the picture, in recognizable form. Follow the contest prompt directions regarding other characters, architecture, etc. In general, dialogue is optional.

5. Since the contest used ArtPad from the inception, and ArtPad prohibited pornographic art, it has been customary to refrain from such.

6. Post your entry, in a new post, before the deadline, including links to ArtPad or other programs which show the process of drawing in animation. Multiple entries are welcome.

7. The deadline for the contest is midnight wherever you are on the date set by the host.

8. The winners will be determined by number of reviews to each entry up to a set date.

snapeartcontest merges with snapedom.

The Society for Nonsensical ArtPad Enthusiasts (S.N.A.P.E.) has played with Severus for years. It's been a fun time, with great entries and wonderful people.

I can't maintain three communities, though, and since not many people play on snapeartcontest at one given time (it's more a spread through time), we can easily welcome them into our fold and have fun.

The snapeartcontest will have monthly contests that either center around a famous work of art or some theme chosen by the winner of the previous contest. Rules will be posted with the first contest. It's severed_lies' turn to post a contest, I think.

As a new rule, entries won't be restricted to ArtPad art, but can now also be made with any media of your choice. Photomanips will still be excluded, however.

The most important rule for the snapeartcontest is to keep it funny. We make fun with Severus, not so much about him. Almost always he has the last laugh. And in this sense:

Welcome, snapeartcontest!

...and we want to have a party, don't we?

We had one last year, and it was fun. Why don't we just continue with the same?

We'll celebrate Severus' birthday together from January 7 to January 13. His birthday is January 9.


For entertainment:

- Write drabbles/ficlets. Possibly about a good birthday moment, or some other good/decent moment for him. There was misery enough, we want to see him smile (even if it scares us). Let's make it a 1000 word limit.-

- Write and paint/make postcards. This can be joint projects between artists and writers.

- Make art, sing a song, dance a dance, knit a plushie... but show us the pictures here.

- I'm not going to organise a snail mail campaign with birthday cards for Severus to JKR... you'd have to do that on your own. ;) I m of the opinion the less she says, the better.


For food and drink:

- Post your favourite Severus-party recipe.
- Post your favourite drink or cocktail recipe (alcoholic)
- post your favourite non-alcoholic recipe.

Try some of them and raise your glass to the wizard. What you do on this community on the day of his birthday is up to you. :D

As usual, this will be a very informal party.

I'm always looking for ideas for new challenges. If you want to see something in the monthly challenge, please post your suggestion here.
You can see the old challenges by looking at the side bar, or by using the tag challenge.

to all of you, most of you, I guess, celebrate something.
I'll be away until Dec. 29th, back for two days and then off again until January 6th.

I hope you all have a great time, and please don't break Snapedom. ;)

The Yule party remains open until next year. My crystal ball tells me that a birthday party will be coming soon, too. In that sense....

No, don't worry. Just a bit of giving and sharing in the spirit of the season, whether you follow a tradition of not.

I invite you to a small and informal Yule Party!

I've seen memes on individual journals where people post their wishes and get some fulfilled by people on their flist.
I've seen comments here and there that people don't have any icons, would like a banner, an illustration, a drabble, something else.
Does that sound like another exchange to you? No, no, it isn't, not really.

What I want you to do is this: reply to this post and post three ideas or wishes. I'll post my own underneath in a reply so you can see what I mean.

Make us laugh, make us cry, entertain us.

(But don't annoy us––as an aside to the sporkers. ;) ) ETA: Please post your gifts in a separate post. That way we'll all pay attention and can admire properly. If you're not a snapedom member, I can post them in your name. But chat as much as you like on this thread here. :)

Hello everybody,

I see with great pleasure that you all are still discussing our monthly challenges with fervour. There have been great and interesting discussions during the past months, I just wish I had more time to participate. But reading is fun, too.

A great part of last summer's fun were Torino's questions of the week. However, for the moment, these questions are on hiatus, Torino doesn't have the time at the moment. Which is ok. The questions will be back when she has more time.

Which brings me to the next part:

If you have something like 'Torino's Question of the Week' you'd like to post on a regular basis here, post or contact me and we'll get it going. Everyone can suggest new activities. This is your asylum, Underground!

Eventually, I'll get around to reshuffle the layout a bit. I need a few things more visible, and others pushed a bit further down. I need to get the summerfest summarized and all the links into a post instead of a side bar. I need time. Anyone got some to spare?

And there'll be a few new things, watch the next post.

...and it could be useful for you, too. Duh if it is old news, but for me it was a problem until now.

Did you notice, when you looked from LJ at our snapedom feed posts, that the lj cuts didn't work? I apologize for spamming you with all these banners yesterday!

More under the cut. ;)

Just a reminder: there's one month left for your Snapefest entries. No pressure. ;)

If you haven't heard/can't find/lost contact with your assigned partner, or want to drop out (no problem with that as long as you tell me) - drop me a line at sylvanawood [[[[AT]]]] googlemail.com

Of course you can also drop me a line to tell me that everything goes well - that'd make me happy, but you don't have to. ;)

And another reminder, should it apply: pinch hitters don't need to meet the end-of-August deadline. They have time to post until the end of the year.

venturous has kindly agreed to help with the pimping of the community. I so suck at this, and she is good with it. We are doing fine, but a bit more presence on newsletters and such is always good. Thank you, venturous and welcome to the mod-team. :)

Since I see people struggle with it from time to time:

If you want to put part of a post behind a cut, please use exactly the same code as you would for LJ. ij-cut doesn't exist, neither does ij user. It's in both cases LJ-cut and LJ user

I know, it doesn't sound logical, but IJ is based on the same software as LJ, and the basic code is the same.

I'm posting this for annietalbot from OWL


It's under the cut. ( Read more... )

And it amounts to: please review, review, review. (I'm one to talk, I know... :( )

I put a link to mercurychaos's tutorial into our FAQ. It explains better than I could how to log in using your livejournal or any other OpenID handle.
It's in the FAQ to make it easier to find if that question comes up, which happens from time to time.