We're up to 6 sign-ups and 2 promises on fkficfest/fkficfest!  Sign-ups remain open through this Friday, May 25, 2012. Comments on Dreamwidth:

So in addition to the twentieth anniversary of the first airing of "Dark Knight," FK's premiere, on May 5, this month brought us the sixteenth anniversary of the first airing of "Last Knight," FK's finale, on May 18 (give or take syndication).  I like to post a new piece on the LK anniversary, not in reaction to the episode — at least, not anymore — but rather just to say, hey, we're still here, and the story still lives.

This year, I failed that tradition.  However, for what it's worth, I do have a story waiting in the as-yet-unreleased oldschoolfic queue... and, yeah, it's FK.

Here's to my favorite show, and to all of you!

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This is the story I wrote for rarewomen 2012.  It's the first time I've written Battlestar Galactica (1978), though I've loved the series since I was small.

My recipient, penknife, requested “any Cassiopeia story,” preferably “Cassiopeia and Athena bonding,” “Cassiopeia/Starbuck,” “characters drinking together, characters solving problems together,” and “relatively happy endings,” with Cassiopeia “not ashamed” of her past; I found it very challenging, but eventually a canon window opened to all the components.  I'm curious how the piece may appear to someone properly in BSG'78 fandom (as I drift on the farthest fringes).  If I write BSG again, what should I keep in mind?

My thanks to malinaldarose, wiliqueen, hearts_blood and skieswideopen for encouragement!  Special thanks to Malinaldarose and Hearts-blood for beta-reading on a tight deadline!

Available:	On the AO3
Length:	~3,800 words
Date:	Rarewomen 04/31/12
Rating:	PG
Characters:	Cassiopeia, Athena, Starbuck; tiny cameos by Rigel, Omega
Summary:	When a call to duty interrupts Cassiopeia's date with Starbuck, she unexpectedly finds herself counseling Athena.
Quotation:	“How did you feel when the computer first assigned you to be a med tech?”

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Please forgive my broken-record impression, but this week is the final week of fkficfest/fkficfest 2012 sign-ups!  Please consider playing.  It'll be fun! 

Nick, Schanke, Tracy!  Janette, Natalie, Vachon, Lacroix!  Stonetree, Cohen, Reese!  Screed, Urs, Bourbon!  Grace, Norma!  Alma, Miklos, Briana!  Myra, Jenny!  Feliks, Merlin, Aristotle!  Fleur, Selene!  Francesca, Divia, Thomas!  Emily, Alyssa, Amalia!  Mai, Matthew, Marise, Rebecca, Lily, Catherine, Charles, Lisa!  Erica, Alexandra!

Whether or not you decide to play, might you consider mentioning the game on your journal to let your friends know about it?  I have an invitation in the queue over at oldschoolfic, whenever their mod has an opportunity to release it.  That's the last of the communities on my list to notify.

(We are holding steady at three sign-ups, five promises and two maybes.)

Addendum Tuesday 5/22: We've reached five sign-ups!

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The rarewomen ficathon released on Monday evening (masterlist).  I haven't had time to dig far into it, but please allow me to draw your attention to:

• FK: "Midnight Shakes the Memory" by skieswideopen (Myra & Nick, ~2K) for greerwatson's prompt (I got to beta this.)
• FK: Themed Icons in her faction series by greerwatson
• BSG78: "We Also Serve" by me (Cassiopeia/Starbuck & Athena, ~4K) for penknife's prompt
• HL: "Brush Strokes" by ariestess (Duncan/Tessa, ~1K) for my prompt

Interestingly, due to crossovers and other complications, this ficathon clocks in at 118+ works in 131+ fandoms.

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In case anyone missed it over the weekend, fkficfest/fkficfest 2012 sign-ups opened on Saturday!  (Saturday also happened to be the twentieth anniversary of the first airing of "Dark Knight.")  Players may sign up at any time until 11:59 PM Pacific on Friday, May 25.

I plan to post about the game on oldschoolfic, femme_fic, last_writes and forkni-l (assuming that I receive the moderator's permission, where applicable).  Do feel free to promote the game yourself, too!  Naturally, I plan to spread out my own posts over many days for maximum effect.  It would be marvelous if everyone who decides to play in FKFicFest would say so on her journal and invite her friends to join her, throughout the month!  That would maximize the very best "advertising" of all.

What's new and exciting in FKFicFest for 2012?  The biggest change is that we'll post our stories directly to the community collection on the AO3 (we'll still announce them on LJ/DW).  This gives the community many advantages, including "post once" convenience for authors, ebook downloads for readers, single-post story release (at any length) for the mod, and more, but I'd bet that the most popular advantage of all will be the author's ability to edit even while a story is sitting unrevealed.  I imagine that this ability may soothe some editing nerves and help some people post earlier.  In a smaller change, we've made space for visual artists who may wish to play FK with us (I don't expect any to pop out of the woodwork, but if one does, we're ready to welcome her).

So... will you play? :-)

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According to IMDB, Forever Knight premiered twenty years ago today, on Tuesday, May 5, 1992, with "Dark Knight."  "Dark Knight, the Second Chapter" followed the next night, on Wednesday, May 6, 1992.

In the US, FK's first season aired in CBS's "Crimetime After Primetime" rotation.  "Crimetime" was an unusual programming experiment for a US network, in which CBS aired a different crime drama every weeknight in the same abbreviated timeslot, crammed in between the late local news and late-night chat shows.  Consequently, the first-run first-season US airings were cropped, notoriously missing snippets and scenes that aired in Canada and Germany (to this day, these differences cause confusion in fannish discussions).

First season concluded with "Love You to Death" on Tuesday, March 2, 1993, an extraordinarily long span for a 22-episode season.  FK was then canceled, along with all of "Crimetime After Primetime," because CBS had acquired David Letterman from NBC and given him that timeslot.  That first cancellation, the period between first and second season, is known as "the hiatus."  It lasted eighteen months.  Changing owners and distribution methods, FK returned not as a network show, but as a first-run syndicated series, with "Killer Instinct" officially premiering on Monday, September 12, 1994 (however, being syndicated, it actually aired on different nights in different markets).  FK changed owners again for its third season, and came to its finale, "Last Knight," officially on Friday, May 17, 1996 (personally, I mark that anniversary on May 18, when it aired where I lived).

We've never stopped loving our hard-to-explain, cult-favorite, vampire-cop show.  I hope we never will.

When and where did you first watch "Dark Knight"?

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Please forgive the lateness of this bulletin, and all my delays related to my computer crash. I am still catching up.

Recently in FK in my corners of social journaling:

Ficathons, Fests and Communities

• fkficfest/fkficfest will open sign-ups this weekend!
• rarewomen will release its queue on 5/07. Writers may still pick up pinch-hits and treats (whether or not they played in the main game).
• oldschoolfic is holding its queue for a pinch-hit; release may come at any time.

Fanfiction

• 4/18: gnosticdiva announced "Walk With Me" (G, ~4K words) on LJ and posted it to the AO3. (On 4/19, she posted about it on added a link to ff.net.)
• 5 FK works on AO3 currently show April 2012 publication dates. (One is an unreleased mystery work; two are crossovers; three are new to me.)

Meta (Essays, Analysis, Discussion)

• 4/23: gnosticdiva asked for "badass/awesome" Natalie moments.
• 4/23: gnosticdiva discussed using the yWriter5 application for writing FK.
• 4/23: gnosticdiva mentioned the FK resonance of a song on the Iron Man soundtrack.
• 4/22: greerwatson discussed symbols for non-existant factions.
• 4/21: [Locked] recommended "Serpent's Tooth" by Thomas (PG, ~6K words).
• 4/19: sharpest_asp is making May "the month of vampires" in her ongoing drabble-request project, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of FK's premiere (and other things).
• 4/17: [Locked] remembered a long-ago FK/XF crossover (title and author forgotten) in which Nick briefly battled aliens.
• 4/12: rhi mused on an FK/Lost Girl crossover story idea.
• 4/07: greerwatson posted about an essay about Lacroix by a Ken H.
• greerwatson is continuing to share FK faction userpic icons: 04/03, 04/11, 04/14, 04/15, 04/18 and 04/27.

Actors
4/12: [Locked] mentioned the opening day at Stratford's Shakespeare Festival.

Airings
Chiller has no FK scheduled for May or June. Bleah.

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My computer has crashed. Suddenly. Frighteningly. I came home from mass this morning to a computer that wouldn't turn on. And I was an idiot and didn't back up for months. It may be just the power supply, but I am not personally tech-savvy enough to know. (Obviously, I am on someone else's computer right now.)

Fannish Obligations Status:

• FKFicFest: The opening of FKFicFest sign-ups will just have to continue being delayed for a little while longer. Y'all can think of prompts in advance, right? :-)


• Rarewomen: Due 4/30. Fully drafted, ~4K words, with beta-reader. One way or another, from one borrowed computer or another, I shouldn't have to default on this game.


• Oldschoolfic: Due 4/30. The incomplete rough draft existed only on the now-crashed computer. I intended to spend the day finishing it! Instead, I've spent that time panicking and driving to fix-my-computer land. I will request an extension...


• Recommendation o' the Month: Nope, you didn't miss it. I got way behind and failed to post it. If I can't get to it tomorrow, this will have been the first month without an FK fanfic rec since 1999. I may indulge in back-dating when I catch up...

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As you may know from f-locked posts, the opening of fkficfest/fkficfest sign-ups has been temporarily delayed by my difficulties in learning to use the AO3 system for two-at-a-time mystery-gift story release (rather than all-at-once), among other things.  My apologies!

With help from Greer, PJ and Hearts_blood, I believe that I've figured it out!  Knock wood and pending final tests by volunteers — it doesn't work precisely the same when the collection's owner submits — I believe that the issue has been that the "moderated" setting conflicts with the "unrevealed" and "anonymous" settings.  That is, when a collection is "moderated," stories submitted to it are visible all over the AO3 except in the collection itself, not veiled as "mystery stories," until the collection accepts them.  So the solutions in need of testing are to either (1) set the collection "unmoderated" or (2) sign up each player as a "member" of the collection.  Neither is hard! Well, now that I know...

(As a side note, FKFicFest won't use the AO3's automated matching system this year.  I'm aiming rather just to consolidate posting and feedback for writers, consolidate queue management for me, enable MOBI downloads for e-reader users, and duck technical difficulties like LJ's DDOS firestorm last year.  Stories will still be announced on LJ/DW (and forkni-l, for that matter), just not posted there.  And I'd be able to release stories in a snap on AO3 first thing on waking up, even if I didn't have time to post the LJ/DW/forkni-l announcements until evening.)

Again, I have AO3 invitations for any and all FKFicFest writers, beta-readers and groupies who do not already have AO3 accounts.  No one will be left behind!  (If someone loathes and shuns the AO3 for some reason, she can post to LJ or DW, as before; we'll work it out. See how easy-going a mod I can be? I know; I'm shocked, too. ~grin~ Need sleep...)

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