2011 DCU Fic/Art Halloween Challenge
Okay, it’s that time of year again! You can feel a little bit of crispness in the air, the late-afternoon shadows displaying that autumnal golden glow, and leaves are starting to turn colors. The wind whispers through the trees, promising the approach of that most magical of nights, All Hallows’ Eve.
I’ve tweaked the Challenge so please make sure to read the guidelines, and take note of the new extended posting date! :)
This is BIG, folks! ;)
The complete Master List is here.
*opens the Book of Shadows*
First, just a reminder to PLEASE put your entry’s header info and link on this Main Page so that I don’t miss you! There will be a Master List for easy reference to all the entries.
I kept the template from last year but added some new prompts and scenarios. Hope they inspire you! :)
This Challenge is open to writers and the ‘visual and audio artists’ who create: illustrations, manips, icons, wallpapers, story covers, vids, fanmixes, etc.
POSTING DATES: SEPTEMBER 1-NOVEMBER 3O, 2011*
All right, let’s turn the pages of the Book of Shadows and start stirring that bubbling cauldron!
Header
Title:
Author/Artist (Choose one, of course, unless you do both in the same entry! ;) ):
Characters/Pairings: Slash (m/m and f/f), het, and gen. Threesomes and more welcome! ;)
Continuity: Comicsverse (All eras: Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Modern)
‘Toonverse (All the usual suspects, including The Wonder Woman Movie)
Movieverse & TVverse which can include the following in addition to the usual stuff, like Smallville in the TV realm, for instance:
1940s: Max Fleischer’s Superman cartoons
Live-action Superman serials (Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill)
Batman serials (Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft)
1950s: The Adventures of Superman (George Reeves, Phyllis Coates or Noel Neill)
1960s: Batman (Adam West, Burt Ward)
1970s: Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter, Lyle Waggoner)
Superman I (Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder)
1980s: Superman II-IV (Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder)
Supergirl (Helen Slater)
Batman (Michael Keaton)
1990s: Lois & Clark (Dean Cain, Teri Hatcher)
Batman Returns (Michael Keaton)
Batman Forever! (Val Kilmer, Chris O’Donnell)
Batman & Robin (George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell)
2000s: Smallville (Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum)
Batman Begins (Christian Bale, Gary Oldman)
Superman Returns (Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth)
The Dark Knight (Christian Bale, Gary Oldman)
2010s: Green Lantern (Ryan Reynolds)
Crossovers welcome! Cross the DCU with Marvel, or with shows like Supernatural, or anything your cauldron bubbles up! Just make sure the DCU gets at least equal ‘screen time’.
Genre: All welcome, from romance and fluff to hurt/comfort, drama, PWP, AU, etc. Horror is a great fit for this holiday! For fic, any length.
Rating: G through NC-17
Warnings:
Spoilers:
Disclaimer:
Word Count:
Prompts Used: (If too many were used to reasonably list here, give us a little heads-up to let us know that. Can you be creative about how? ;)
Author’s Notes:
Prompts/Categories
(These are NOT claims,
so one can be used by several people.)
Any prompts in the singular can be used in the plural, and vice versa.
For All Participants: Please use a minimum of TWO prompts from ANY of the six categories. So that means with the dozens of prompts available, you only have to use two (NOT two from each category).
Of course you can use more than one prompt and as many categories as you please.
Food and Drink (can you smell the freshly-picked apples in wooden baskets, the delicious aroma of baking pumpkin bread in the kitchen, or rich candy in the chocolate shop):
1. Apples (Candy apples, pies, muffins, breads, etc.)
2. Candy corn
3. Chocolate/candy (I get a kick out of dark chocolate M&M’s shaped like the Addams Family, myself. ;) )
4. You know how stores really go all-out for Halloween promotions? In New England, pumpkin is the flavor of the day, and there are special offers of pumpkin muffins, doughnuts, lattes, etc. Use pumpkin flavor for different foods and drinks! Create an atmosphere that says Halloween even if it’s just background.
Colors (of course I’m not asking people to limit their colors, just to use at least one of the following in some way):
1. Black
2. Orange
3. Black-and-Orange
4. Yellow
5. Red
6. Silver
7. Gold
8. Purple
Traditional Elements (listen to the leaves whispering along the sidewalks as the breeze blows, and see the moon shine down as darkness falls on this magic Night of Nights):
1. Witches (Zatanna-like magic)
2. Wiccans (Modern practitioners of the Old Religion)
3. Pumpkins and/or Jack O’Lanterns
4. Jewelry (Perhaps with magical significance? Amulets, scarabs, crowns?)
5. Bats
6. Black cat(s)
7. Bells
8. Books on Halloween and/or magic (ancient or modern). Book Of Shadows.
9. Candles
10. Cauldrons
11. Costumes
12. Masks
13. Crystal ball
14. Scrying mirror
15. Pentagrams
16. Goblets/Cups/Chalices
17. Sword/Dagger/Scimitar/Athame
18. Fall foliage/Trees (ancient oaks, gnarled old apple trees, etc.)
19. Houses decorated for Halloween
20. Trick-or-treating
21. Masquerade Ball/Halloween party
22. Ritual
23. Moon/Moonlight
24. Haunted house(s)
25. Ghosts/Spirits
26. Mummies
27. Vampires
28. Werewolves
29. Zombies
30. Tarot cards
31. Wands
32. Potions (Love is always popular!) Or maybe Ivy mixes in a little sex pollen with the punch? ;) See my Strange Brew. ;)
33. Patchouli/Incense
34. Capes/Cloaks/Robes
35. Cemeteries/Mausoleums
36. Crypts/Coffins
37. Ghost Stories/Legends
38. Mists/Fog
39. Spells/Curses/Hexes
Potpourri (Miscellaneous):
1. Fishnet stockings (nod to Zatanna)
2. Red silk
3. Black lace
4. Kohl
5. Glitter
6. Victorian ephemera
7. Halloween greeting cards
8. A dark and stormy night
9. Enchanted apple (or other food)
10. Crown/Tiara/Circlet
I read about a wonderful Halloween tradition in Pauline Campanelli’s The Wheel Of The Year: the family would answer the door trick-or-treating and feast while watching an Addams Family marathon. In that spirit, here’s some TV shows or movies to include if you’d like:
That’s Hollywood!
1. The Munsters
2. The Addams Family
3. Bewitched
4. I Dream Of Jeannie
5. It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
6. The Twilight Zone
7. Frankenstein
8. Dracula
9. The Phantom Of The Opera
10. Night Of The Living Dead
11. Lots of other slasher/horror flicks (too numerous to mention)
Setting:
1. Salem, Massachusetts
2. New Orleans
3. Gotham City
4. Metropolis
5. Smallville (Of course, in Smallville, it’s Halloween every day! ;) )
6. Off-world (as in, could the North American Halloween tradition work on Rigel or Orion? ;) )
Suggested Scenarios (NOT required, but could help start the bunnies)
1. Victorians loved holidays, and Halloween in particular. Set a tale in Victorian New York or Boston or New Orleans, for example. Or what about foggy London? And there’s the Gotham By Gaslight Elseworld.
2. The circus/carnival/Cirque du Soleil
3. Harry Potter ‘verse (where the DCU characters are HP characters)
4. Selina as Morticia Addams? Kara as Marilyn Munster? (where the DCU characters are those of another show or movie’s world (See That’s Hollywood! above for suggestions)
5. The Twilight Zone (Examples: Rod Serling introduces a world in which Bruce Wayne wakes up and he’s working for a major metropolitan daily in Metropolis, or Zatanna works in a circus and befriends a young boy in the star trapeze act before they arrive in Gotham).
6. The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Can you see the DCU characters as these characters? ;)
7. A lot of fans are Wiccans. Want to incorporate some of the religion in your story/art?
8. Dusty old bookshop.
9. New Age/Wiccan shop, filled with all kinds of magical goodies!
10. Antique shop with a magical object just waiting for someone to find it.
11. Bizarro World-can be the literal DC Bizarro World, or a world or dimension in which everything is different, skewed, puzzling…frightening. The old Twilight Zone trope of waking up in a Bizarro World could work. ;)
12. Telling ghost stories around the campfire. The woods can be a very spooky place!
13. What if one of the most beloved places in the DCU was haunted? Wayne Manor, the Kent Farm, Paradise Island/Themyscira, the Watchtower…
So, my challenge to you is: how much of an atmosphere can you create? Can you describe costumes at a masquerade ball or the taste of a pumpkin muffin? Are the jewels you’re thinking of amulets or pendants or rings? How can Halloween be the centerpiece of your fic or art?
Is your fic or art funny, romantic, or frightening? Are you using real magic or just the illusion? Are you enjoying a traditional holiday of trick-or-treating and masquerades, or have zombies started to walk the earth?
Now, if you can’t come up with something after all that, you’re as Muse-less as a zombie! ;)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
* Late Entries Policy
counters
I’ve tweaked the Challenge so please make sure to read the guidelines, and take note of the new extended posting date! :)
This is BIG, folks! ;)
The complete Master List is here.
*opens the Book of Shadows*
First, just a reminder to PLEASE put your entry’s header info and link on this Main Page so that I don’t miss you! There will be a Master List for easy reference to all the entries.
I kept the template from last year but added some new prompts and scenarios. Hope they inspire you! :)
This Challenge is open to writers and the ‘visual and audio artists’ who create: illustrations, manips, icons, wallpapers, story covers, vids, fanmixes, etc.
POSTING DATES: SEPTEMBER 1-NOVEMBER 3O, 2011*
All right, let’s turn the pages of the Book of Shadows and start stirring that bubbling cauldron!
Header
Title:
Author/Artist (Choose one, of course, unless you do both in the same entry! ;) ):
Characters/Pairings: Slash (m/m and f/f), het, and gen. Threesomes and more welcome! ;)
Continuity: Comicsverse (All eras: Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Modern)
‘Toonverse (All the usual suspects, including The Wonder Woman Movie)
Movieverse & TVverse which can include the following in addition to the usual stuff, like Smallville in the TV realm, for instance:
1940s: Max Fleischer’s Superman cartoons
Live-action Superman serials (Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill)
Batman serials (Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft)
1950s: The Adventures of Superman (George Reeves, Phyllis Coates or Noel Neill)
1960s: Batman (Adam West, Burt Ward)
1970s: Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter, Lyle Waggoner)
Superman I (Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder)
1980s: Superman II-IV (Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder)
Supergirl (Helen Slater)
Batman (Michael Keaton)
1990s: Lois & Clark (Dean Cain, Teri Hatcher)
Batman Returns (Michael Keaton)
Batman Forever! (Val Kilmer, Chris O’Donnell)
Batman & Robin (George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell)
2000s: Smallville (Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum)
Batman Begins (Christian Bale, Gary Oldman)
Superman Returns (Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth)
The Dark Knight (Christian Bale, Gary Oldman)
2010s: Green Lantern (Ryan Reynolds)
Crossovers welcome! Cross the DCU with Marvel, or with shows like Supernatural, or anything your cauldron bubbles up! Just make sure the DCU gets at least equal ‘screen time’.
Genre: All welcome, from romance and fluff to hurt/comfort, drama, PWP, AU, etc. Horror is a great fit for this holiday! For fic, any length.
Rating: G through NC-17
Warnings:
Spoilers:
Disclaimer:
Word Count:
Prompts Used: (If too many were used to reasonably list here, give us a little heads-up to let us know that. Can you be creative about how? ;)
Author’s Notes:
Prompts/Categories
(These are NOT claims,
so one can be used by several people.)
Any prompts in the singular can be used in the plural, and vice versa.
For All Participants: Please use a minimum of TWO prompts from ANY of the six categories. So that means with the dozens of prompts available, you only have to use two (NOT two from each category).
Of course you can use more than one prompt and as many categories as you please.
Food and Drink (can you smell the freshly-picked apples in wooden baskets, the delicious aroma of baking pumpkin bread in the kitchen, or rich candy in the chocolate shop):
1. Apples (Candy apples, pies, muffins, breads, etc.)
2. Candy corn
3. Chocolate/candy (I get a kick out of dark chocolate M&M’s shaped like the Addams Family, myself. ;) )
4. You know how stores really go all-out for Halloween promotions? In New England, pumpkin is the flavor of the day, and there are special offers of pumpkin muffins, doughnuts, lattes, etc. Use pumpkin flavor for different foods and drinks! Create an atmosphere that says Halloween even if it’s just background.
Colors (of course I’m not asking people to limit their colors, just to use at least one of the following in some way):
1. Black
2. Orange
3. Black-and-Orange
4. Yellow
5. Red
6. Silver
7. Gold
8. Purple
Traditional Elements (listen to the leaves whispering along the sidewalks as the breeze blows, and see the moon shine down as darkness falls on this magic Night of Nights):
1. Witches (Zatanna-like magic)
2. Wiccans (Modern practitioners of the Old Religion)
3. Pumpkins and/or Jack O’Lanterns
4. Jewelry (Perhaps with magical significance? Amulets, scarabs, crowns?)
5. Bats
6. Black cat(s)
7. Bells
8. Books on Halloween and/or magic (ancient or modern). Book Of Shadows.
9. Candles
10. Cauldrons
11. Costumes
12. Masks
13. Crystal ball
14. Scrying mirror
15. Pentagrams
16. Goblets/Cups/Chalices
17. Sword/Dagger/Scimitar/Athame
18. Fall foliage/Trees (ancient oaks, gnarled old apple trees, etc.)
19. Houses decorated for Halloween
20. Trick-or-treating
21. Masquerade Ball/Halloween party
22. Ritual
23. Moon/Moonlight
24. Haunted house(s)
25. Ghosts/Spirits
26. Mummies
27. Vampires
28. Werewolves
29. Zombies
30. Tarot cards
31. Wands
32. Potions (Love is always popular!) Or maybe Ivy mixes in a little sex pollen with the punch? ;) See my Strange Brew. ;)
33. Patchouli/Incense
34. Capes/Cloaks/Robes
35. Cemeteries/Mausoleums
36. Crypts/Coffins
37. Ghost Stories/Legends
38. Mists/Fog
39. Spells/Curses/Hexes
Potpourri (Miscellaneous):
1. Fishnet stockings (nod to Zatanna)
2. Red silk
3. Black lace
4. Kohl
5. Glitter
6. Victorian ephemera
7. Halloween greeting cards
8. A dark and stormy night
9. Enchanted apple (or other food)
10. Crown/Tiara/Circlet
I read about a wonderful Halloween tradition in Pauline Campanelli’s The Wheel Of The Year: the family would answer the door trick-or-treating and feast while watching an Addams Family marathon. In that spirit, here’s some TV shows or movies to include if you’d like:
That’s Hollywood!
1. The Munsters
2. The Addams Family
3. Bewitched
4. I Dream Of Jeannie
5. It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
6. The Twilight Zone
7. Frankenstein
8. Dracula
9. The Phantom Of The Opera
10. Night Of The Living Dead
11. Lots of other slasher/horror flicks (too numerous to mention)
Setting:
1. Salem, Massachusetts
2. New Orleans
3. Gotham City
4. Metropolis
5. Smallville (Of course, in Smallville, it’s Halloween every day! ;) )
6. Off-world (as in, could the North American Halloween tradition work on Rigel or Orion? ;) )
Suggested Scenarios (NOT required, but could help start the bunnies)
1. Victorians loved holidays, and Halloween in particular. Set a tale in Victorian New York or Boston or New Orleans, for example. Or what about foggy London? And there’s the Gotham By Gaslight Elseworld.
2. The circus/carnival/Cirque du Soleil
3. Harry Potter ‘verse (where the DCU characters are HP characters)
4. Selina as Morticia Addams? Kara as Marilyn Munster? (where the DCU characters are those of another show or movie’s world (See That’s Hollywood! above for suggestions)
5. The Twilight Zone (Examples: Rod Serling introduces a world in which Bruce Wayne wakes up and he’s working for a major metropolitan daily in Metropolis, or Zatanna works in a circus and befriends a young boy in the star trapeze act before they arrive in Gotham).
6. The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Can you see the DCU characters as these characters? ;)
7. A lot of fans are Wiccans. Want to incorporate some of the religion in your story/art?
8. Dusty old bookshop.
9. New Age/Wiccan shop, filled with all kinds of magical goodies!
10. Antique shop with a magical object just waiting for someone to find it.
11. Bizarro World-can be the literal DC Bizarro World, or a world or dimension in which everything is different, skewed, puzzling…frightening. The old Twilight Zone trope of waking up in a Bizarro World could work. ;)
12. Telling ghost stories around the campfire. The woods can be a very spooky place!
13. What if one of the most beloved places in the DCU was haunted? Wayne Manor, the Kent Farm, Paradise Island/Themyscira, the Watchtower…
So, my challenge to you is: how much of an atmosphere can you create? Can you describe costumes at a masquerade ball or the taste of a pumpkin muffin? Are the jewels you’re thinking of amulets or pendants or rings? How can Halloween be the centerpiece of your fic or art?
Is your fic or art funny, romantic, or frightening? Are you using real magic or just the illusion? Are you enjoying a traditional holiday of trick-or-treating and masquerades, or have zombies started to walk the earth?
Now, if you can’t come up with something after all that, you’re as Muse-less as a zombie! ;)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
* Late Entries Policy
counters