Dear sga_flashficcers: I'm sorry that I've been such a bad mod lately; I have been thinking about what to do with this community in the future, and might put up a poll soon reflecting various options, so stay tuned. (Suggestions are also welcome if someone has any great ideas of what we could do with this space, or if people think maybe it's time to let go.)

But in the immediate future: it is AMNESTY TIME. You can write on ANY CHALLENGE we have ever had; there is a complete list in the tags. Get that Harlequin out of your system! Folklore! Skirts! Culture clash. So many great challenges, so little--okay, actually there's time. But you get my drift!

Please be sure to tag entries with the relevant tag as well as Amnesty 2010!

Finally closing the Aliens-Made-Them-Do-It challenge; you can read the responses here and here.

New challenge: linziday suggested that, since its the start of the holiday season, we do a gift giving challenge: "team gifts, good gifts from outsiders, bad gifts from the Ancients, gifts of life or love... so many gift possibilities!" (Not to mention The Gift!)

Today's November 26; this challenge will not close before December 15 at midnight.

Turns out a picture was worth just about a thousand words: you can read the 4 challenge responses here and here. (But never fear: we are in challenge season, competing with the SGA big bang and McShep Match and kink_bingo and cliche_bingo etc. etc., so we'll just keep beating on against the current, etc.)

malnpudl dropped us a line noting that, "I was just reading a fascinating article. New research opens a window on the minds of plants about how plants appear to respond to their environment in ways that meet many definitions of intelligence.

This looks like inspiration for SGA fic to me. The show's budget limited it mostly to humanoid "alien" species, but fic lifts that limitation. How about an "inhuman intelligence" challenge in which the SGA folks encounter or explore life forms that are entirely unlike us, whether animal, vegetable, mineral, or something even stranger?" (Icon only a suggestion, but whales FTW!)

So how about it? Stretch your worldbuilding imagination and discover intelligent life of a different kind. Today's the fourth of July; I'll probably leave this challenge open a bit longer considering its challenge season, but we certainly will not close before July 25, 2009.

I think I'm finally coping well enough to close the Coping Mechanism Challenge. You can read 13 stories: 10 on Livejournal and 3 on Dreamwidth.

New challenge (to minimize cross-posting) RIGHT HERE:

Prrreesenting: the A Picture's Worth 1000 Words Challenge

enviropony asked for a Picture challenge: Give words to a picture, whether it's a screen cap from SGA, or an image of something totally unrelated. Describe an image that a character has, or creates, or sees in someone else's possession. Attach a story to the pictures in Rodney's quarters, or the painting Ronon took from Sateda, or tell us what Lorne did with the one he was working on during "Sunday."

To be clear, this is not an art challenge: all submissions should feature words, but you can submit words PLUS a picture (screencaps, art, etc) or words ABOUT a picture (meaning a story about an image, a photograph, a painting.) You don't have to give us a thousand words, but all entries must feature some words.

Today's June 3rd; this challenge will run until at least June 17th at midnight.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled sga_flashfic challenges to bring you--well, the natterings of your Admin's increasingly deranged mind.

sga_flashfic has been going for a couple of years now here on LJ, and we're a happy and vibrant community, etc., but we're not, in this new world of multiple journaling platforms, interoperable. It may turn out that we can't be interoperable, but I found myself wondering if there's a way to make fic and other fannish communities like this one, of which I have always been a strong proponent, more interoperable as people choose multiple journaling platforms.

And so: an experiment. What I'm proposing is not that complicated, though it might sound so at first. If it works, awesome. If it doesn't work: no harm, no foul, ok?

I have created a mirror to sga_flashfic over on Dreamwidth. It's here: sga_flashfic. This is the Dreamwidth home of the community.

I have also created a couple of feeds.

One is a feed to THIS LJ COMMUNITY, sga_flashfic, for use over on dreamwidth. It's here: sga-flashfic-feed. This is for reading LJ's sga_flashfic comm on your DW reading list.

The other is a feed to the DREAMWIDTH version of sga_flashfic for use here on LJ: it's sga_flashfic_dw. This is for reading the Dreamwidth sga flashfiction comm on your LJ flist.

If you add the original sga_flashfic LJ community, there are now FOUR links associated with sga_flashfic: a LJ community, a DW community, a feed to the LJ community, and a feed to the DW community.

Here's what I--in my crack-addled state--am suggesting.

1) If you have a primary reading page (LJ or DW), subscribe to the COMMUNITY housed on that site and to the FEED of the opposite site.

That is to say, if you're reading on LJ, subscribe to sga_flashfic and to the flashfic FEED on DW sga_flashfic_dw. This will let you get all stories on both sites.

If you're reading on DW, subscribe to sga_flashfic on Dreamwidth and to the FEED of the LJ version: sga-flashfic-feed. This will also let you get all stories on both sites.

If you do not have a primary reading page, which is to say, you're reading two flist/reading pages, you can just subscribe to both comms and no feeds: sga_flashfic and sga_flashfic on Dreamwidth. You'll see the DW stories on your DW reading page and the LJ stories on your LJ page.

With me so far?

2) All ADMIN posts will be posted to BOTH COMMUNITIES, and this is important: only ADMIN posts will be crossposted. Why? Because seeing double of everything SUCKS, so we want to keep it to a minimum. Which leads me to #3.

3) Challenge responses--i.e. stories!--can be posted to EITHER community but NOT to BOTH communities. In other words: pick ONE: post EITHER to LJ's sga_flashfic OR to DW's sga_flashfic. Why? Because if everyone does what they're supposed to vis a vis #1, everyone will get ONE COPY of every story posted to THE GREATER ENTITY OF SGA_FLASHFIC on either community on their flist/reading list of choice. Comments will be centralized at one place, too, because there will only be ONE POST for every story.

Everybody with me on this? The goal here--let me be totally clear!--is for people to be able to pick the journaling platform they're happiest with and not have to deal with the other one if you don't want to. If you're a LJ person, one click and you get all the DW stories without having to pay any attention otherwise to DW. If you want to be a DW person, one click and you can get the stories posted to LJ's sga_flashfic community delivered to your door and never deal with Frank the Goat again.

OK, problems I can already forsee:

Q: Dreamwidth what, huh? WTF are you talking about?
A: Dreamwidth, like Journalfen and Insanejournal etc, is a new journaling service. Some fans are getting secondary accounts there or moving there. If you don't give a shit about dreamwidth, that is totally fine and you have three choices for this next challenge: 1) ignore it totally [downside: you might miss some stories that are posted to DW and not to LJ during this experimental challenge] 2) subscribe to the DW feed [upside: one click, and you will then not miss any stories] 3) subscribe to the DW and also get a DW account and/or an open-ID account for commenting [downside: more work; upside, you can also comment on the stories on DW with an iconed identity.] But seriously, ignoring it for this one challenge until we figure out if this is going to work or not is also totally fine.

Q: But commenting! I'm not a member of DW and I don't have an open ID there and so how can I post?
A: Opening an Open ID is really pretty easy peasy if you have a LJ account, so I'd do that--it means you can comment with icons and receive email notifications of replies to comments without being a Dreamwidth member, but I've also enabled anonymous commenting on the DW community for the time being. Yes, it sucks, but at least it means you can comment if you want to.

Q: But I have both LJ and DW accounts! and now I don't know where to post my flashfic! Where will more people see my story? Where will I get more comments?
A: Dude, I don't know; this is all pretty experimental. If you're really worried, post to LJ the way you've always done; I haven't seen many unsubbers, and with the feed, you should get read by the DW converts too. Or might I suggest writing two stories for the next challenge and posting one to each community if you've got both as a sort of test? *g*

Q: But--but--tagging?
A: This is probably the trickiest. I'm still thinking this through: atm, I'll be tagging/memorying each on each site, but I'm debating just moving the whole tagging thing over to delicious. Anyone have thoughts on this, let me know.

Q: I hate change and I hate DW and I hate YOU.
A: I know I know I know. I hate change too, and I hate myself sometimes. I just thought it was worth a try. If it doesn't work, or there are howls of rage, we can figure out something else.

I'm sure I've missed a bunch of other potential problems, but I'm in a "nothing ventured, nothing have" kind of mood. So let's give this a shot. I'm going to post a version of this also to DW, and then shortly after, we'll get the next challenge posted to BOTH communities and see how it goes. Please please do give me feedback over the course of the challenge--and I'll be requesting it specifically at the end--to see if this works and maybe shows a way forward or was just a colossal pain in the ass. Thanks for your patience and <3 you all.

Edited to add: I'm sure this list will keep growing, as you guys are smart and know things I did not!

1) Don't comment on the feeds! Ideally, the feed will take you to the story, and you should comment there. That is a tricky thing, but I'm sure we'll get used to it!

2) There is some question as to whether LJ feed will respect DW-cut tags (I've set the DW community to respect the LJ cut tags already). I haven't had anything to test it on, and it could be a real dealbreaker if it doesn't: nobody wants a whole big story cluttering your flist. I'm hoping that as with other feeds, LJ might just cut DW stories into a para and a "read more", but hopefully there's a code wank for this, because this could bring down the whole house of cards. *shakes fist at the sky* Update: A couple of solutions--including using the LJ-cut tag at DW--look possible; stay tuned.

3) I'm already wondering if I made the wrong choice about posting ADMIN to both places, or if its only because I just made two large posts (mostly challenge and closing posts are pretty small.) I want the ADMIN to be NEUTRAL, dammit, but even doubles of two posts a challenge might be too many! Maybe I can alternate in the interests of fairness...? Feel free to weigh in.

aries_taurus proposes an oldie but goodie: a drunken/alcohol challenge. She notes that, "It makes us do things, say things, see things. It alters us, changes us, makes us explore things in a new light and discover things, makes us unguarded and vulnerable. It cleanses wounds, numbs the soul, tastes like the God's nectar or the worse horse's piss." (Really, they--and we--have so much to be drunk about, haven't we?)

Bottoms up, guys! Stories are due by...wow, I've got no credibility there at all, have I? OK, say this: challenge will not close before April 15, 2009 at the earliest. :)

thefourthvine backed up by auburnnothenna and cathalin and others has requested an "Oh Those Skeevy Ancients" challenge. TVF writes: "Think of it! Ancients being baaaad! Ancients using population genetics for deeply unfortunate means! Ancients destroying 5/6ths of a solar system! Ancients leaving extremely dangerous and/or sexual-preference-changing technology lying temptingly in wait! Ancients abducting John Sheppard and taking him to a higher plane for dirty Ascended purposes! (You may say they have left the pleasures of the physical plane behind, but I say that, in that case, they've found even skeevier pleasures on their current plane.)" Auburn offers us: "Ascended Ancients pretending to be Greek gods - you know that's how the ATA gene ended up in the populace." Sex toys, porn rooms, fake lesbians--oh, those skeevy, skeevy Ancients! *shakes head disapprovingly*

Today's Feb 22; challenge will close March 8th or thereabouts.