femgenficathon

Sat, 15 Mar 2014 22:20:00 GMT

So there are remix challenges happening, which is always exciting, because I love remix!

But remix often comes with issues of not having the ability to specify that you aren't a big fan of slash or mostly write women. While that can sometimes be part of the fun, it's also really frustrating when you've got a bunch of awesome stories about women and one not-as-awesome story about men and that one not-as-awesome story is the one that gets remixed because your author doesn't write women.

So are you into stories about women? Have you written stories about women? Would you like to read and write more of them? Would you like to read and write stories based on other people's stories? Yes? Motherfucking yes? Well then, I want to hear about it!

In short, tielan and theladyscribe are trying to gauge possible interest in a female-centric remix.

The interest-gauging post is here.

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"Blueprints" (Inception, Ariadne, G)

Fri, 25 May 2012 22:22:00 GMT

Posted by: edenfalling

Title: Blueprints
Author: edenfalling (Elizabeth Culmer)
Fandom: Inception
Rating: G
Warnings: background off-screen death of an original character
Prompt: 68) The extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire since the word go! -- Annie Dillard (born April 30, 1945), Pulitzer-prize winning author, poet, essayist and critic.
Summary: This is how you build a castle. This is how you build a life.
Author's Notes: This is not the most belated thing I have ever written -- that dubious honor goes to a fairy-tale retelling I once promised my family for Christmas and did not deliver until Thanksgiving of the next calendar year -- but it's still pretty ridiculously late. :-(

( Blueprints )

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To follow knowledge like a sinking star (Pretty Little Liars, Spencer Hastings, PG-13)

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:23:00 GMT

Posted by: summerstorm.livejournal.com

This is my story for last year's ficathon—as you can see, it got a little out of hand.

Title: To follow knowledge like a sinking star
Fandom: Pretty Little Liars (TV)
Characters/Pairings: Spencer Hastings; Melissa Hastings; Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields; minor Spencer/Toby and background canon pairings as of 2.08 (Hanna/Caleb, Ezra/Aria[/Jason], Emily/Samara)—fic goes AU after that episode
Rating: PG-13 for non-explicit violence
Length: 50,000 words
Prompt: One need not be a chamber to be haunted;/One need not be a house;/ The brain has corridors surpassing/Material place. -- Emily Dickinson
Summary: In which Spencer Hastings solves a few mysteries and slays a few vampires.

Read: Archive of Our Own | Dreamwidth

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Rare Women Fic Exchange

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 11:05:00 GMT

Posted by: aphrodite-mine.livejournal.com

gehayi gave me permission to post here (thanks!) about a winter exchange starting January 1: rarewomen is an exchange for rare women from big fandoms, and rare women from rare fandoms. Het, femslash, and gen are all welcome and encouraged. Discussion is currently happening about big fandoms. Hope to see you there!

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Master List for 2011

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:33:00 GMT

Posted by: gehayi.livejournal.com

Here is the Master List for this year. I want to thank all those who participated--as well as those who wanted to participate but for whom life got in the way.

I'm still expecting a few late entries, but they'll be added to the list as they are posted.

( Master List for Femgenficathon 2011 )

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Clarion, Branwen, PG

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:39:00 GMT

Posted by: blueinkedpalm.livejournal.com

Title: Clarion
Author: Blueinkedpalm
Fandom: Baldur's Gate
Rating: PG
Warnings: Violence
Prompt: #88, Mary McLeod Bethune (not used)
Summary: One who serves warfare must cross the earth to seek it, even after the end. Branwen.

Not yet is the spirit of that pristine valor
extinct in you, when girt with steel and lofty flames
once we fought against the empire of heaven... - La Strage degli Innocenti, Giambattista Marino, trans. RT

( Read more... )

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sew my lips shut, Criminal Minds, JJ

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:06:00 GMT

Posted by: magisterequitum.livejournal.com

Title: sew my lips shut
Author: magisterequitum
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing here.
Prompt: (#113) Wretch that I am, I can do everything I do not want, and that which I want most I cannot do. -- Clemence of Barking (late 1100s), Anglo-Norman nun, hagiographer and translator.
Summary: She holds the truth on the back of her tongue.
Author's Notes: Set in the time between the finale of Season Six and 7.01. Spoilers.

( Secrets, secrets are no fun unless they’re shared with everyone. )

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Something to Hold Onto (PG-13)

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:57:00 GMT

Posted by: annearchy.livejournal.com

Title: Something to Hold Onto
Author: annearchy
Fandom: Sling Blade
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~ 8,350 words
Warnings: Homophobia, domestic violence (mostly implied), redneck asshattery and occasional cursing
Prompt: 20) Some knowledge and some song and some beauty must be kept for those days before the world again plunges into darkness. -- Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930-1999), American author of fantasy novels, short stories and anthologies, poet, composer, editor and co-founder of the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Summary: In a small Arkansas town less than an hour's drive from Little Rock, Linda Wheatley lives a life of quiet desperation. If not for her son, her best friend and, eventually, an odd man named Karl, she wouldn't have much to hold onto.
Author's Notes: The film SLING BLADE was released in 1996 but I didn't see it until August of this year. Linda is the only significant female character, and this is my vision of her story, both before and during the action of the film. Once Karl enters the story, occasional bits of dialogue are taken directly from the script, which I found online. Copyright 1996, Miramax Films and The Shooting Gallery. No copyright infringement is intended (but all grammatical errors in dialogue are intentional). Many thanks to my beta, miss_bowtruckle.

( Something to Hold Onto )

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Her Brother's Sister (Helene Kuragin, PG)

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 12:59:00 GMT

Posted by: alley-skywalker.livejournal.com

Title: Her Brother’s Sister
Author: Alley_Skywalker
Fandom: War and Peace
Rating: PG
Warnings: Character death
Prompt: 124) I caress the withered flower/Fondle the fragrant petals/Trying to bring back the lost time. -- Li Qingzhao (formerly called Li Ching Chao)
Summary: Since she was a child, Helene knew one thing very clearly: she was Anatole’s older sister.
Author's Notes: I was initially worried about posting this fic given the latest confusion over the rules, however, having re-read the rules, I have found nothing there that would lead me to assume that my fic does not comply with them (the rules). Being an older sister myself, I feel like that is a big part of my character's identity as a woman and as a person, just like it is a big part of my identity. I hope you enjoy my story.

( Her Brother's Sister )

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Mod Post: Regarding Late Posting

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 09:38:00 GMT

Posted by: gehayi.livejournal.com

Hi, folks.

A number of people have contacted me because they're going to have to post late. Others have told me that their stories have defeated them and have asked if they'll be able to participate next year. I've answered everyone, but in case there's someone out there who's worried about either question:

1) Yes, you can post late.

I know that real life can get in the way; I know that stories can be uncooperative. Posting late is more than allowed. (And I'll add any late stories to the Master List.)

2) No. There are no penalties if you can't post a story. And you WILL be able to participate again if you have to bail.

If the story proves un-writable or, as above, if real life gets in the way--hey. It happens. Hopefully things will go more smoothly for you next year.

Hope this helps!

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"My Mother, Kyoko" (Black Cat, Kyoko, PG13)

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:03:00 GMT

Posted by: slowmercury.livejournal.com

Title: My Mother, Kyoko
Author: slowmercury
Fandom: Black Cat mangaverse
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Prompt: 91) To have a good enemy, choose a friend; he knows where to strike. -- Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566), French courtier and favorite mistress of Henri II of France. — Prompt unused
Summary: Kyoko is a good mother, if an unconventional one. She gets the important things right.
Notes: You shouldn't need much familiarity with the Black Cat universe to understand this story; all you really need to know is that "Sweeper" is another name for "bounty hunter," the Apostles of the Stars were a very small organization of superpowered terrorists, and that Chronos is the shadowy world government, who enforce their ideals of peace with an elite cadre of 13 assassins.

( My Mother, Kyoko )

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[IndiANNa, Ann Perkins, PG-13

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 23:18:00 GMT

Posted by: kittu9.livejournal.com

title: IndiANNa
author Vern / kittu9
fandom: parks and rec
character/pairing: Ann Perkins
rating: PG-13
warnings: brief references to teenage sex, drug use, and medical emergencies.
summary: No one ever asks Ann why she’d want to live here.
Set somewhere at the end of season two, pre-Traeger-wreck.
notes: I have never been particularly fond of Ann, so when signups came around I thought, this is a chance to try and understand her! Ann’s version of triumph doesn’t necessarily align with my own definition, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t content with the life she’s made.

Prompt 23: “You can’t erase who you are. You can’t erase what you know.” – Sandra Cisneros
(born December 20, 1954), Mexican-American writer of novels, poems and short stories, teacher, counselor, founder of the Macondo Foundation, a group of poets, novelists, journalists, performance artists, and creative writers of all genres who focus on strengthening their communities and changing the world through their writing, and founder of the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation, which awards money to writers of exceptional talent and commitment who were born in Texas, are writing about Texas or who are living in Texas. She was the first female Mexican-American writer to have her work published by a mainstream publisher.

No one ever asks Ann why she'd want to live here.

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"Salt Its Tail" (PG, Jacqueline Roget) by Brightknightie

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:49:00 GMT

Posted by: brightknightie.livejournal.com

Title: Salt Its Tail
Author: brightknightie (Amy R.)
Fandom: Young Blades
Length: ~7K words
Rating (Warnings): PG (violence)
Characters: Starring Jacqueline Roget. (Also with d’Artagnan fils, Ramon, Siroc, Duval, Mazarin, Bernard, and the King.)
Summary: When the Musketeers apprehend some smugglers, the King’s reward is the cardinal’s ruse, and Jacqueline ponders her own imposture.

Prompt: #47 “One needs something to believe in, something for which one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel that one’s life has meaning, that one is needed in this world.” — Hannah Senesh (1921-1944), WWII commando and poet

Preface: May I introduce you to the TV series Young Blades? It’s a “The Three Musketeers: The Next Generation” in which farmer’s daughter Jacqueline Roget poses as disinherited nobleman Jacques Laponte in order to join the Musketeers, avenge her family, and thwart the evil Mazarin. Only the son of the famous d’Artagnan knows Jacques is Jacqueline. (For credits and chatter, please see the endnote.)

“Salt Its Tail” on AO3

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lareinenoire - Sub rosa, (A Song of Ice and Fire, T, Part 2/2)

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:09:00 GMT

Posted by: lareinenoire.livejournal.com

Part I

( Sub rosa, Part II )
( Notes )

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lareinenoire - Sub rosa, (A Song of Ice and Fire, T, Part 1/2)

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:08:00 GMT

Posted by: lareinenoire.livejournal.com

Title: Sub rosa
Author: lareinenoire
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones
Prompt: 138) The more hidden the venom, the more dangerous it is. -- Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615), queen of Navarre and of France, and author of scandalous memoirs.
Summary: The game of thrones is not the only game in Westeros.
Wordcount: 12,500
Rating: T
Warnings: Character death, moral relativism, deeply dodgy politics, references to canonical underage sex, references to canonical incest, emphasizin ur wimminz, royalty in compromising positions, POV minor character, court factionalism, uncivil war
NB: Spoilers for all books (ASOIAF and the Dunk and Egg trilogy) and all episodes of the HBO series. There are more detailed notes at the end. Many, many thanks to rosamund and fuyu_no_fuhei for beta-reading and hand-holding, and to munditia for offering even though my epic deadline fail prevented me from taking her up on it.

Title translates to 'Under the Rose' but is also an idiom meaning 'In secret'. The epigraph is, more accurately, a misquote from Ovid that translates to: 'Often the tender rose produces prickly thorns.' The original is Saepe creat molles aspera spina rosas ('Often the prickly thorn produces tender roses'). Thanks to angevin2 for Latin assistance.

Cross-posted to Archive of our Own.

Saepe creat asperas mollis rosa spinas.
-- Ovid

( Sub rosa, Part I )
Part II

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Fresh Start (Venture Brothers, PG-13)

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:51:00 GMT

Posted by: ananke-adraste.livejournal.com

Title: Fresh Start
Author: ananke_adraste AKA Christina Nordlander Dawson
Fandom: The Venture Brothers
Character: Molotov
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence (eye trauma); occasional swearing
Word count: 1760
Prompt: 146. The triumph can't be had without the struggle. - Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994),African-American Olympian athlete. First American woman to win three gold medals in track and field... and she won while running on a sprained ankle.
Notes: Presumably AU, though that is up in the air until Season 5 comes along. The story of what happened to Molotov after the Season 4 finale.
My friend rise_your_dead came up with Molotov's real name, but I'm not using any other part of her fanon.

( The impact knocked consciousness back into her. )

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Quid est veritas? // Melisse Ortus // T

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 07:01:00 GMT

Posted by: skylar-inari.livejournal.com

Title: Quid est veritas?
Author: skylar_inari / Killaurey
Fandom: Xenosaga
Rating: T
Warnings: Mentions of a (canon) suicide
Prompt: 33) It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. -- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), English novelist and essayist.
Summary: Melisse was never very good at playing it safe.
Author Notes: Set just after Xenosaga: Pied Piper. Done for femgenficathon. Prompt used. I don't own anything Xenosaga related. Thanks to the shiny-awesome puffinmuffin for the beta!

Quid est veritas?

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Legacy (Kelandry of Mindelan, PG)

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 03:08:00 GMT

Posted by: margo-kim.livejournal.com

Title: Legacy
Author: margo_kim
Fandom: Tortall verse
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for Lady Knight, oblique talk of sex, mentioned Kel/Dom
Prompt: 146) The triumph can't be had without the struggle. -- Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994), African-American Olympian athlete. First American woman to win three gold medals in track and field...and she won while running on a sprained ankle.
Summary: Kel and Alanna pass the time at the world's longest Midwinter banquet by discussing boys, girls, wars, the way the world ought to be and the way the world is.

( 'There must be something in our water. Makes all our women loud and crazy.' Alanna tossed her napkin at him, and Neal put up his hands. 'Did I say that was a bad thing? Such temper, Lioness.' )

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Spare Me Your Pity, Lend Me Your Ears (Tar-Miriel, PG-13)

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:13:00 GMT

Posted by: elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com

Title: Spare Me Your Pity, Lend Me Your Ears
Author: elvenpiratelady
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Swearing and non-explicit mentions of rape
Prompt: I picked two. The first fits Miriel very well in this fic; the second sounds more like the life she wanted to lead, not the life she ended up having.

17) What was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do to me was kill me and it seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember. -- Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977), African-American voting rights and civil rights activist who was instrumental in organizing Freedom Summer and delegate to the 1964 Democratic Convention from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

126) As long as I live, I will have control over my being. -- Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1651/1653), 17th-century Italian Baroque painter.

Summary: The Downfall of Numenor was written by those of the Faithful who survived and fled to Middle-earth. The last Queen of Numenor thinks it’s about time someone told the other side of the story.

( Spare Me Your Pity, Lend Me Your Ears )

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Fic: Envy, Undisclosed (Valancy Stirling/Redfern)

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:07:00 GMT

Posted by: h-loquacious.livejournal.com

Title: Envy, Undisclosed
Author: h_loquacious (hardly loquacions on FFN)
Fandom: The Blue Castle (by Lucy Maud Montgomery), character Valancy Stirling/Redfern
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: 11. Nothing is more capable of troubling our reason, and consuming our health, than secret notions of jealousy in solitude. -- Aphra Behn (1640-1689), 17th-century English playwright and spy
Summary:
Envy can be a funny thing, especially if it's a secret. It can be
useful, but it's very rarely good. Nonetheless, most of us know what it
feels like.
Author's Notes: Not much to say here. This wasmy first time writing book!fic. It was interesting, but I'm not sure it
was my favourite medium. Thanks to spyglass_ for the beta, especially on relatively short notice!

Fic is at my journal

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"Solace and Solitude" (Jane Austen) by kellychambliss

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:55:00 GMT

Posted by: kellychambliss.livejournal.com

Title: Solace and Solitude
Author: kellychambliss
Fandom: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Characters: Lydia Bennet, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Anne de Bourgh
Word Count: 3500
Summary: Mr and Mrs Darcy host a house party at Pemberley for Christmas. The invited guests have an interesting variety of responses.
Prompt: There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall. -- Colette (1873-1954), French novelist.
Author's Notes: My everlasting thanks to those best of betas, therealsnape and my beloved partner. La! Writing this story was such fun.

( Solace and Solitude )

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Star; Great Expectations; PG (Part 2/2)

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:35:00 GMT

Posted by: a-t-rain.livejournal.com

Link to Part 1

( Star )

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a_t_rain; Star; Great Expectations; PG (Part 1/2)

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:13:00 GMT

Posted by: a-t-rain.livejournal.com

Author: a_t_rain
Fandom: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (plus a bit of A Tale of Two Cities)
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: Let us not fear the hidden. Or each other. – Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980), poet, political activist, reporter, playwright, translator, and president of the American branch of International PEN, a world-wide association of writers dedicated to freedom of expression and to opposing political censorship and speaking for writers who have been silenced, harassed, attacked, or killed for what they’ve written.
Summary: Estella searches for information about her parentage.
Author’s Notes: Estella’s story takes place in December, 1842, the latest plausible date for the last chapter of Great Expectations (the mentions of “old London Bridge” establish 1831 as the terminus ad quem for the novel’s climax).

I am greatly indebted to the maintainers of the Victorian Dictionary, an invaluable resource. Also to the National Museum of Australia, where I learned about convict tokens.

As will be evident, I have taken Dickens’s revised ending (in which it is implied that Estella and Pip have a romantic future together) as my canon. Despite the conventionally romantic closure, this ending grants Estella quite a bit more agency and independence than Dickens’s original version, in which she remarries “a Shropshire doctor” after Bentley Drummle’s death and evidently retains her own property without having to mount the “determined resistance” she mentions in the revised version.

I don’t really believe that Lucie Darnay ever had a sexual relationship with Sydney Carton, but I suspect her children must have wondered whether she did.

( Star, Part One )

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Parks & Rec fic: I know I'm going to be

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:33:00 GMT

Posted by: torigates.livejournal.com

Title: I know I'm going to be
Author: torigates
Fandom: Parks & Recreation
Characters: Lauren Birkiss, Ron
Summary: That essay hung in every office Ron had over the next twenty years.
Spoilers: Road Trip
Prompt: 7) When I see pitseolaks [sea pigeons, also called black guillemots] over the sea, I say, 'There go those lovely birds - that's me flying.' -- Pitseolak Ashoona (1904-1983), Inuit Canadian artist and Member of the Order of Canada. Featured on a stamp for 1993's International Woman's Day.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2618

It was pretty hilarious, given Ron’s own opinions vis a vis government officials, but that was an argument the two of them had put to rest a long time ago unless of course one or both of them had been drinking.

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Mod Post

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 03:11:00 GMT

Posted by: gehayi.livejournal.com

Some of you may have noticed that catsintheattic's story, It's My Life, about Ginny Weasley giving up her job and becoming much happier as a stay-at-home mother, is now gone.

This does not reflect the quality of the story. And, in fact, there's nothing wrong with such a choice in real life.

The problem is that this is the wrong fest for such a story.

When I founded femgenficathon in 2005, it was in response to seeing story after story about Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Lily and so on putting aside their dreams and hopes to find the perfect man, marry him, and be the mother to his children. While, again, there is nothing wrong with this story, I began to feel that every other story was being drowned out. That girls were only seeing themselves as girlfriends, wives and mothers. I began to feel that girls were only seeing one possible future.

So I founded this ficathon, whose tagline is "Stories About Women Can Focus on More Than Love." As I've always emphasized, women do not have to be the adjuncts in someone else's story. That they have their own stories to tell.

catsintheattic's story was the kind of story that caused me to found the fest in the first place.

Again, this had nothing to do with the quality of the work; the story simply did not belong in this ficathon. The best analogy I can think of is someone submitting a male/female romance to a male/male romance anthology. The het romance could be the best thing ever--but that's irrelevant, because it's not the kind of story that the publishers are looking for.

ETA: 10/19/2011. This does NOT imply that catsintheattic violated the rules deliberately in any way. It means that she genuinely felt that her story was acceptable under the existing rules, which she saw as much more expansive than I did.

I spoke to catsintheattic by private message. She apologized and elected to take the story down.

ETA: 10/19/2011. She did not take the story down because she believed that she was wrong, but because I felt that the story did not fit. I did not realize this at the time.

If any of you have any questions about whether your upcoming stories are appropriate for this ficathon, please feel free to contact via e-mail or PM. I hope that, with good communication, we can prevent such a situation from arising again.

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