You may recall that last year I did my best to save as many Forever Knight sites as possible after FortuneCity disappeared. Mr. Happy's has been back on the web for about a month now. However, I haven't updated on the other sites that have been added to the Forever Knight Website Archive. (There are quite a few, actually.)

Let me tell you, restoring these sites has sometimes been a real pain in the neck. For many, I'd had to use Google's cached pages as my source; and not all pages (or their graphics) had been cached. To fill in gaps, I therefore resorted to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine—which helped enormously, but never quite had everything I was looking for. In addition, just recently, FortuneCity.ws has appeared on the web. Like GeoCities.ws, it's a large-scale project that collected many of the old sites before they were deleted. Yet even that is not as useful as one might think, sadly, since they often only got the index page. Nevertheless, I did find a few more missing things.

So what has been added to the Archive so far?

Most importantly, the faction site for The Cousins of the Knight is back up. So too is the Official Kickstart the Knight Website.

In addition, we have added to our miscellany of personal sites, tribute pages, minor faction sites, and the like.

• Alexa Knight’s Page
  
• Annastia's Forever Knight Home Page
  
• The Ben Bass Page: Jay Stern's tribute page
  
• B.J. Turner's Forever Knight Page (NOTE: except for the first page, this is in very incomplete condition.)
  
• Cousin Miranda’s Forever Knight Page: includes the
  Disciples of Divia Temple (floor plans) and the Cousins District (maps)
  
• Embracing the Knight: Volta's site
  
• fkf's Forever Knight web site: Sylvie H's site
  
• Forever Knight Early Birds Webpage: links to the Forever Knight Early Birds Yahoo!Group
  
• Lee Ann Pultz's Forever Knight site
  
• Mysterie’s Cafe
  
• Mystical Sanctuary: a multi-fandom site with a Forever Knight section (NOTE: only the FK page was saved.)
  
• Nick knight and natalie lambert
  
• Tanya's World of Wonder (NOTE: only the FK page was saved.)
  
• Vicki's GWD Page
  

Other things that were saved include:

• Forever Knight on Video Online Petition: originally organized by Calliope
  
• Seventh Kickstart the Knight Auction
  
• ''City Hi-Lighter'', Number 11, Vol 1, 1 Mar 1999: FortuneCity district newsletter for Lavender Hill district: Mr. Happy's was the featured website that month
  

This isn't quite the lot, though. There are a few small GeoCities sites still to go, yet more FortuneCity sites, and also some sites that have been restored from the Wayback Machine (often with material that has been saved by other fans).

So there are more announcements to come.

It was way back in January that Forever Knight fans (or at least the mailing list fandom) held its fourteenth war. Hard to believe it's nearly the end of June already! Six months, pretty well; and I've only just finished writing the article for War 14 for the Forever Knight Wiki.

War is always both energizing and exhausting—though, admittedly, I'm speaking from the vast experience of having played in only two wars. At any rate, the "war buzz" kept me going through the editing of my own contributions, which have been on my website for months now. When it came to writing up the article on War 14 for the wiki, though, that was another matter entirely.

You see, I wanted this time to do the job properly.

Of course, I had to include the basic information: what the premise had been, and which factions had played. And a link to the archive—which, since the War Mistress didn't make a warsite means the automated Yahoo!group archive of all WAR posts. Indeed, most of the wiki articles on the previous wars include this sort of information.

However, I also wanted to provide a synopsis of the war, pretty well day to day. No war write-up had so far included that level of detail; but, for our (rather smallish) current wars, it seemed feasible. And, indeed, it has been done...piecemeal...and been up since some time in February.

That left the final part of the article—and that was where I got distracted by minor duties elsewhere (such as writing a couple of stories for rarewomen). Nevertheless, it has been nagging at me that I left the article unfinished. You see, War 14 did have its problems; and I felt it was important to write those up as well.

Now, anyone who has been in a War will probably say at this point that all wars can, at times, get a bit fraught. If you didn't participate in War 14, though, you won't realize just how bad it got. By the middle of the second week, the players were on the point of mutiny. You see, our War Mistress was a micro-manager—and War is not supposed to be played that way!

Anyway, the question of having another war came up this week; and, as a result, my conscience smote me and I returned to the article and finally finished it. The "Behind the Scenes" section (at the bottom portion of the page) is extensive and detailed. However, it is more than merely descriptive but also analytical. I hope it is also reasonably dispassionate as to p.o.v., but not expressed without humour.

You can find the article here.

For those Forever Knight fans who keep track of the old websites (or occasionally dip into the archive), I am pleased to announce the return of Mr. Happy's Forever Knight Site.

First created by Frédéric Ferland when he was a student, Mr. Happy's quickly became established as a major hub for Forever Knight fans, with information on on-line fan activity, actor bios, episode guides, and zips of fan art—not to mention a weekly question about the show, for which fans' responses were archived. Mr. Happy's was one of the earliest Forever Knight sites (a counter suggests 29 March 1996), and was active for about three-and-a-half years. After that, it sat—preserved in amber, as it were—until FortuneCity disappeared last year.

Now it is back. Update your links: you can find it in the Forever Knight Website Archive at http://www.foreverknight.org/MrHappy/

Also....

Right at the moment, for reasons unknown, the main archive (Mel's archive) is unavailable. (Its account has "been suspended".) So Stephanie has once again uploaded a mirror site to http://www.foreverknight.org/www.fkfanfic.com

Although this does not contain the small amount of material that has been added to Mel's new version of the site, it does include some ancillary sections that she lost at some point, such as the War 8 archive, the guest book, the webrings page, and the report on the Forever Knight Bookcover Contest.

When I first joined the FORKNI-L mailing list, people used to ask me what faction I belonged to; and I always said that I didn't have one since, in order to write a virtual season, I had to be able to write all the characters without playing favourites. Not surprisingly, then, I've played as a Die-Hard in the last three FK Wars (if that means anything to you).

I like all the characters. Okay, some a bit more than others: inevitably not every character gets the same loving attention—neither from me, nor from other fans. In fact, there are some about whom there has been very little fanfic written at all. That includes the police captains, and Schanke's wife, and Feliks Twist. Recently, it's also included Vachon and his friends—and even Janette! Sadly, I only have three prompts (and one of them has to be a pairing); so I can't ask for everyone.

On the whole, I prefer gen. (This makes the requirement that one of my prompts be a pairing a bit of a nuisance.) Not that I ask anyone to ignore canon, you understand; but I'm not so interested in romance as the plot, and I don't much care for "adult" (i.e. explicit) stories of any persuasion. I've no objection if you want to slash Nick with Lacroix (or Vachon, for that matter). Though I personally don't think anything like that is happening in the present, they are vampires and hence, of course, have a very, very long history.

I prefer stories that are canon-compliant, but do feel free to ignore "Last Knight" if you want. I'm always happy to ignore it!


General Guidelines

What I Like:
* Plot and/or character (both being the ideal, of course!)
* A sense of humour and being able to recognize the ridiculous when it pops up; also wit and wordplay, if the story calls for them. (Having said that, I totally leave it up to you whether you write a serious or comic story—or a serious story with comic interludes.)
* Stories that are true to canon (though I've certainly enjoyed some flat-out AUs)

What I Dislike:
* Poor spelling, bad grammar and punctuation, and blatant Americanisms uttered by British characters (unless they're aware of what they're doing, which is another matter entirely)
* Explicit sex, especially if long and detailed. No objection to hints, but I'm not into plumbing.

My Own Writing:
If you want to have a look at some of my own Forever Knight stories, you can find them on my website.

I've just added two more ficlets to my website, both based on Mary Renault's The Charioteer. The first, "Wings of Bim" is actually a drabble that my sister wrote for Brigit's Flame. However, I tweaked it a bit; and she liked the result so much that she said she considered it to be co-authored (which is rather generous, really). The other, "Faded Valentine", was written for the Valentine's Day Challenge on maryrenaultfics.

"Wings of Bim" may be nominally the thoughts of a character from The Charioteer; but, in truth, it could be any airman from the Battle of Britain. At any rate, I decided that I wanted a sky background. Nothing I had in my files suited. (On the whole, sky graphics don't tile well: the repeat is too obvious.) So I decided instead to use a gradient. On it, I positioned two little fighter planes, a Spitfire and a Messerschmidt, derived from photos that I got from Wikimedia Commons.

For "Faded Valentine" I initially thought I'd go with a traditional (if not trite!) red or pink hearts'n'flowers theme. However, most of the hearts I had were far too modern. Instead, therefore, I used a rather pretty white rose background that is clearly bridal—but, as the story is about Laurie's mother's memories of her romance with Michael Odell, whom she married, this isn't inappropriate.

For the fancy border, I decided to modify a gradient that I got ages ago from Syruss.com. Given the breadth of modern browsers, it's too narrow to be used as the background for a webpage; but it is still suitable for the sort of border that I put around stories, provided I specify the width of the table. Two variants are actually used, one slightly pinker than the other.

I also modified a clipart rose, which I used to decorate the title of the story. The rose was originally a rather strong (though lightish) pink; but I created a series of variants in softer shades of pink, peach, apricot, cream, and white, and then used the one that seemed most suitable to the colour scheme.

First off, thank you for writing me a story about one of these women. While not all are equally "rare" in their respective fandoms, that's only because the fandoms are rare in their own right.

Suggestions, speculations...I've put quite a few of these under the cut, since I know a lot of people find them useful. In truth, there are many things that intrigue me about these characters; so I'm just throwing out suggestions in case you don't have an idea in mind already and are looking for something to inspire you. I wouldn't even call them "optional details"—though you'll gather that they're all more or less gen.

I know you'll write something I love!

( So...what would I like to see? )

Well, it has been a while since I last posted, hasn't it? In the interim, I've written several stories for Yuletide, enjoyed a family Christmas (my sister having come over from England to join us for the holiday), and played in the latest Forever Knight War on FKFIC-L.

Yes, indeed. I have been busy. I'm not sure that counts as an excuse; but it is an explanation.

First off, let me say that Yuletide was as satisfying this year as last. I received a delightful story by Tolakasa, "Rondeau", in which Captain Cohen reluctantly attends the office Christmas party. Reluctantly, because her husband is there—and he has a wicked sense of humour. We never met him in canon (and only know that his initial is "D" because it's on the Missing poster in "Black Buddha" under Next of Kin). Tolakasa has invented him from scratch; and he's quite delightful. Strongly recommended!

My own assignment was to write a story for Juliandarling based on Mary Renault's The Charioteer. This proved to be such a very plump plot bunny that I started to wonder if I'd get it finished by the deadline. Indeed, since my beta (my sister, fawatson) declared that, if I was going to introduce packages then readers would definitely want to see them opened, I wound up adding another 2K between the upload deadline and the reveal, for a total of 12K. (Agggh!!!) As the title, "Exit Stage Left, a Wounded Warrior: The Lost Chapters of The Charioteer" suggests, the story represents itself as the next two chapters of the novel, bringing Laurie's story up to Christmas 1940.

I managed to squeeze out enough time, between duties on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, to write a few treats, as well as ficlets for fkcommentfic and maryrenaultfics. All but the last have now been HTMLed and added to my website. (The latest of my appleficlets is only No. 4, with two more parts to go; so I'm waiting until I finish the entire series.)

I figure the best thing to do is just try to get caught up. So I'm going to comment here on all these stories.

( Read more... )

People subscribed to FKFIC-L will probably have read "To Be Thankful" last month, for I posted it for Thanksgiving (and here in Canada, of course, that's the second Monday in October.) However, although I immediately put its webpage on my site, I haven't yet mentioned it here or discussed the graphics.

Which are pretty straightforward, really. I looked through my collection for a nice autumnal background (a sugar bush, from the look of it), and then gave the central panel a border in warm brown tones, finishing the whole thing off with maple leaves.

The story was actually inspired by one of the prompts in this year's fkcommentfic, asking what Stonetree would do when he retired. I wrote half a bad ficlet and scrapped it; but it did make me wonder a little about his relations with his family.

With all the impending change at LiveJournal, I decided to see what the grass looks like on the other side of the fence. If you are looking at this on LJ, the little note at the bottom of this entry will tell you that I've posted this from Dreamwidth.

Oh, I'll still be on LiveJournal a lot: that's where maryrenaultfics is, in particular. Also, I'll want to check my friends list. However, Dreamwidth journal entries can be automatically cross-posted to LiveJournal, but not vice versa.

The fact that one can import one's journal, comments and all, was critical in making the decision. (If I couldn't take my goods and belongings, I really would be a refugee!) However, until today, I still had doubts: there wasn't one of the Dreamwidth layouts I fancied, even after I'd tweaked the colours.

Does that sound utterly trivial? Well, as my sister knows, I hate change. I may not have been using my actual journal for very long; but I've been looking at the same Friends Page for years. As a result, I'm very accustomed to those tidy blue-grey blocks, neatly nested, each finished off with a trim line all round. The flat, border-less Dreamwidth layouts offended my sense of the aesthetic. (On my website, all tables come with borders.)

Fortunately, as it turns out, it is possible to import a LiveJournal style to Dreamwidth. A bit of googling came up with parapsychic's journal entry describing exactly how to do it. Which I did.

Do you realize that I posted the first faction icons back in February? It's hard to believe, isn't it? In all, there are over a hundred designs, some of which are available with alternative faction names. Although there are not that many posts (for I have usually discussed three or four icons at a time), it does mean that they've got spread out well over my blog.

So, for the benefit of anyone who is simply looking for the icons themselves, I've decided to add a page to my website so that the whole collection can be found in one place. (If anyone is still on dial-up, it will therefore take a while to download; and you will just have to be patient.)

I've divided the icons into related groups to make them easier to find. All the ones for Nick's factions are together, for instance—well, except for the couple factions, which have their own section.

Most of the icons are also links. If you click on them, you'll get the larger-size version (usually 350px, but occasionally smaller). The exceptions are the icons for the Lurkers and the Mikies, which could only be made in the 100px size.

I hope that having the icons all together like this will be handy!

  So, here we are at the last icon!

Feeling that it would be best to end this project on a high note (by which I mean the icon for one of the larger factions), I've been saving this one for months. The Forever Knight Mercenary Guild is not one of the original six; but it was created a war or three later, and has been a popular faction ever since.

I immediately decided that, as with other early factions, the Mercs' icon would need to incorporate a version of the old symbol that was created for them back in the 1990s:



This appears as a header on the Merc Central site; and, as soon as I brought up the question of icon design with their Grand High Pooh-bah (admittedly very much ex post facto), she immediately said she thought it should be included. So it's just as well that I'd already done so!   ( A bit of history.... )

Once the basic design of the icon was done, I added the name of the faction, looked upon my handiwork, and—decided that something was missing.

After all, if the Mercs are associated with anything besides gold, it is chocolate. How could I possibly do a proper Mercenary Guild icon without chocolate?

I googled "chocolate".

Well! Most of the images were of truffles. (Strange but true.) And truffles, let me tell you, do not reduce acceptably to icon size. All you get is a little brown blob. Even truffles with squiggles on top turn into unrecognizable blobs.

I did in the end discover, though, that chocolates in paper cups do reduce to a minute size yet remain recognizable.

So here (blare of trumpets) is the icon for the Forever Knight Mercenary Guild.



( And here is the big version...! )

I specifically started this project to create icons for Forever Knight factions. However, it wasn't long before people started asking me to show versions larger than the basic little 100px square so that they could see more of the detail.

Okay, there are a few cases where this isn't possible; but there are certainly many icons that lose a lot of detail in the final miniaturizing. Over the past months, therefore, I've posted several collections showing the designs at a larger size, usually 350px square. Now, though, the icon project is almost at an end.

Obviously this collection contains the newest icons. However, looking through past posts, I realize that there are some older icons yet unseen. So there are a round dozen here, for factions both old and newly created.

( The final collection of enlargements.... )

Dear Author, let me thank you right up front for the story you are going to write. I know that many people like a bit more to go on than just the prompt; and, if so, I hope this letter will prove helpful. Whatever you write, I'm sure I will love it!

Being lazy, I'm going to copy part of this from last year's letter, starting with some general likes and dislikes.

What I Like:
* Plot and/or character (both being the ideal, of course!)
* A sense of humour and being able to recognize the ridiculous when it pops up; also wit and wordplay, if the story calls for them. (Having said that, I totally leave it up to you whether you write a serious or comic story—or a serious story with comic interludes.)
* Stories that are true to canon (though I've certainly enjoyed some flat-out AUs)

What I Dislike:
* Poor spelling, bad grammar and punctuation, and blatant Americanisms uttered by British characters (unless they're aware of what they're doing, which is another matter entirely)
* Explicit sex, especially if long and detailed. No objection to hints, but I'm not into plumbing.

My Own Writing
If you want to have a look at some of my own stories, you can find them on my website.


( And a bit about my requests.... )

It's been a while since I last posted any faction icons. However, during the factioneering back in September, there was actually quite a flurry of interest among the Vaqueras. Vachon's motorcycle and guitar are particularly cherished; and they wanted to create factions for them. Nor did I have much difficulty coming up with designs for the icons.

Nevertheless, there has been quite a delay, for—as the Vaqueras themselves would be the first to admit—they are a slackerly lot. Oh, the name "Triumphants", which I suggested might be suitable for the motorcycle faction, proved immediately acceptable. (Vachon's motorcycle is a Triumph.) A name for the guitar faction was another matter.

One obvious possible name was "Gibson Girls" (for Vachon's guitar is a Gibson). However, this has a fatal flaw: it is really only appropriate for female faction members. Admittedly, there do seem to be only women in the group at the moment. However, it was generally agreed that that is no excuse for excluding potential male members. Then waltd came up with quite a little list of possible alternatives. Among them, "G-Strings" (referring, of course, to guitar strings) immediately struck the eye. However, it elicited a strongly polarized response, with a few people loving the pun, while others found the name quite offensive.

So all had to wait while the membership was polled at their leisure—and, as I said, the Vaqueras are a slackerly lot! They have eventually decided, though, on the non-sexist "Gibsons".

( So here are the icons.... )

Although, when fkcommentfic opened, I quickly posted a couple of drabbles, I always intended to go back and linger a little over some of the other prompts. However time passed, and more time passed, and then the deadline loomed....

On 27 September, I finally posted a ficlet, "To Dine in", based on one of amilyn's prompts, “Janette deals with amorous advances from a stranger”. It was duly posted to FKFIC-L, and provided with a webpage. However, my trip to Stratford interrupted things pretty thoroughly: not only did it take up a whole day, but left me feeling very tired and stiff from the bus trip; and the kinks did not work out with a good night's sleep. And Saturday brought its own schedule, entailing rather too much walking, leaving every old cramp re-knotted.

However, the next day was the final day of fkcommentfic; so I simply had to go back to the prompts. I wound up spending hours writing, and finished no fewer than four ficlets: "The Church of the Holy Blood", "Truth and Consequences", "Rat's Tail", and "Trilemma". One or two other prompts looked mildly tempting; but not enough for me to be able to churn turn out a story in the time available.

All have now been posted to my website. ( Each of the webpages has its own design. )

I never expected to be going to Stratford this year. I don't have a car; and, in any case, it's a long day's trip on your own. However, I have a friend, Norma R., who is a member of the Arts and Letters Club. (For those who are Forever Knight fans, the auction in "Queen of Harps" was filmed in their building.) They had laid on a special day trip; and she asked me if I'd like to come along as her guest. Well, of course, I said yes!

Now, I'd already read foxy11814's review of Henry V; so I knew a bit about the current production, which was what we were going to see. However, there were other entertainments arranged as well. Before the show we were scheduled for a trip to the Archives; then to have lunch. After the show we attended the actors' chat, before boarding the bus for the return journey. (In this post, I'm just going to talk about the Archives. The play, I'll leave till later.)

Of course, to fit all this in, the bus was going to leave Toronto at 8:30 a.m. Now, I'm hardly an early bird! I had to be up before seven (eep!), snatch a bite to eat, and then walk down to Norma's apartment. We shared a taxi to the club, where they had coffee and cookies for us to nibble while the company assembled. Then we were loaded into the bus. It took quite a while to wend our way through the city up to the 401: in all, the trip was a couple of hours. However, I have to admit that, once we got on the highway, I napped most of the way. The seats were comfortable enough as far as padding was concerned; but I think you get more space in tourist class on an airplane.

Once we got to Stratford, our first stop was at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Archives. This is a huge warehouse with walls of some sort of plainish siding and no windows. Inside, of course, it's all climate-controlled.

They have a limit on the size of parties they take round. Most people went straight into the back area for the talk; but the last people were told to wait. I don't think they'd counted heads, for the two groups were of quite uneven size. It did mean, though, that a handful of us—maybe eight or so—were left hanging around by the entrance, feeling rather bored, but wary of wandering off where we weren't supposed to.

The entrance area itself had a front desk and washrooms; but then you turned a corner into the area where they store costumes from previous productions. I mean, it looked like acres of costumes! Not literally; but the ceiling was high, and there were tiers upon tiers, and, when you looked down the main aisle, you could see side aisles going off. It was like some big box store, just for costumes! Everyone was obviously longing to take off and look round; but we knew we weren't supposed to. Nearest to us, though, there were a couple of costumes that had been set up on mannequins so you could see them properly. They'd obviously been selected for their weirdness: one was a mermaid costume from a production of Peter Pan, and the other was a dinosaur costume, complete with a gigantic toothy head.

Eventually, one of the women working there decided we needed amusement, and led us off to an area that had been set up with chairs. It didn't take much long-distance reading of labels to realize that most of the things there came from last year's production of Camelot. And I'd heard a bit about Camelot, of course, because foxy11814 had gone to it, and later reviewed it in her blog.

We then got a little talk, followed by a short Q&A. I stuck up my hand, and asked if one were permitted to take pictures. The answer was yes! ( So those who are interested should peek behind this nice lj-cut. )

After we had the little speech, I wandered around the demo area, snapping quite a few pictures from different angles. However, I didn't have time to head back into the main aisle of the storage area, because some of the people from the first tour group came out of the Archives proper; and another curator came and told us it was our turn.

First, we were taken to a room with several round tables for the audience; and there we got another talk, this time about the history of the collection, and what it contains. Stratford has the largest collection devoted to a single theatre, though there are bigger general collections. It has a huge library of newspaper reviews, all bound into volumes. It has many of the costumes. It has "representative" props selected from every production. And it also has much of the preliminary, preparatory material.

For example, every costume has its own "book"; and every book is stored. They include all of the preparatory sketches, samples of all the cloth used, and the actor's measurements, as well as photographs. When a show is in production, the costume department has a sheet for each costume, with a photograph of the actor dressed up, and a list of every piece involved "from the skin out", so that the dressers can be sure to have everything on hand. And, after the show ends, it all goes to the archives. We were told, though, that many of the costumes can be rented for new productions. (Not for Halloween! I know that because someone asked!) How much they charge depends on who is using them. I gather they let high schools have them fairly cheap; and the kids are, of course, thrilled to get real costumes to use.

As we got the talk, we kept being interrupted by small clusters of people from the first group, who had lingered, and now were slowly drifting out. Finally, one of the organizers from the Arts and Letters Club came out, shepherding the last of them, and warned the curator that we'd have to leave in about fifteen minutes. So we were hurriedly ushered into the back to see the selection of props that were on display. And yes, I asked if we could take photos. I was told, "Not usually, but for you we'll make an exception." ( Which means, of course, that there's another lj-cut. )

Well, because we were in the second group, we had much less time to inspect the actual props. On the whole, though, we didn't do too badly. I don't think anyone was actually chivvied out before getting around the whole room—though I guess anyone wanting to look at everything really closely was out of luck.

After that, we all piled back on the bus to go to the theatre, which was only a few blocks away, where we all had a buffet lunch. There were only a few free minutes at that point—Norma went to the shop, and I browsed round the gardens—and then the play began.

But more of that later.

Yuletide is now open for nominating fandoms. (Yippee!) This means, of course, that I now definitely have to decide what I'm going to put in the form.

I asked earlier whether other people were planning on nominating Forever Knight. I intend to do so myself; and foxy11814 has also offered, though not, I gather, planning to participate. It would be really nice if some third person also chipped in—all that's needed is to be on AO3, which is true of everyone who did fkficfest this year.

Now, you may be wondering why Forever Knight needs more nominations.

As a fandom, of course, it doesn't: once one person has asked for it, then it's in. (At least, it's "in" assuming it's approved, as it has been in previous years). However, one is only permitted to nominate four characters. Four characters per nominator, that is. If there are two nominators, they can name up to eight characters. If there are three nominators, they can name up to twelve. And, as we all know, Forever Knight has a lot of characters, since the line-up changed each season.

Why is this important?

Well, when it comes time for people to put in prompts for their gift, they can pick up to four fandoms. (Yes, you can only nominate three, but you may ask for four.) It is quite possible, therefore, that someone who did not nominate Forever Knight might nevertheless ask for it. Indeed, this has happened most years. However, they are only permitted to mention characters who are on the nomination list. It is important that this list have the characters most likely to have broad appeal, since they're the ones most likely to inspire prompts.

So we have Nick, Natalie, Lacroix, Janette, Schanke, Tracy, Vachon.... As you can see, we're already up to seven!

Now, I'd like to request Amanda Cohen. I also have a soft spot for Feliks Twist. If foxy11814 does make a nomination, we can cover eight. If someone else nominates Forever Knight (and, as I said, it doesn't have to be someone who plans to do Yuletide this year), we can get four more characters in: maybe the other captains, or Urs, or Screed, or Divia, or.... (Well, there's plenty of choice.)

Since foxy11814 has asked for instructions on nominating (and others may need it too), I'm putting them ( behind this lj-cut. )

After you're done, please come back and tell us who you nominated. That way, we can avoid duplications. (Duplicate names don't count, you see.)

And THANK YOU!

There are people on my f-list who are also on FORKNI-L—and I'm sure they've been worried for a couple of days, and now are feeling a bit annoyed. So let me explain.

Back in the spring, there was talk of war. However, it was pointed out that April would not be a good time, what with Easter and Passover; and somehow, after that, things never got brought up again. The summer was, of course, busy with fkficfest. Autumn seemed like a good time...if people got interested in war again.

So I got together with Mildred C., the Grand High Pooh-bah of the Mercenary Guild, and suggested a strategem to get people inspired. That was about a month ago; and, after we'd e-mailed each other a few times, I contacted Don and McLisa, since they'd have to agree to it. And they did.

At that time, I'd thought the whole thing would be starting in early September. However, people got so fascinated with the idea of naming factions for Nick's fireplace and the duck lamp (and then Vachon's guitar and motorcycle) that I didn't want to cut things short. So time passed.

Now, we'd worked out that I'd cue the joke by posting the icons for the MacGregors, Friends of Gillian, and DracPack factions. Since so much time had gone by, I e-mailed Mildred a couple of days ahead of time. Then I posted the icons, e-mailed her again, and also gave the list mods the heads-up that things were starting.

And then I made that fateful post about my computer giving me a funny message, followed by another saying that I'd got a tech in. I assumed that, simultaneously, Mildred would post.... Well, she missed her cue; and I figured she'd decided to change the script a bit. So I posted again, making sure to slide in references to McLisa's brother, Larry—that being intended to reassure people that this was all a joke.

Um. Not only has enough time passed that people don't seem to have picked up on the reference, but Mildred still didn't post anything—and, understandably, those not in the know were getting nervous about their own computers.

Now, as it turns out, Mildred hasn't been checking her e-mail lately. As a result, she missed that this was OUR little joke, and actually got caught up in the computer scare herself!

I can only say that it was supposed to be obvious within hours that it was all something Mildred and I had cooked up between us. We were supposed to post a veritable flurry of posts in quick succession. At this point, though, the joke is quite "unfunny" indeed. It's caused a lot of people worry.

Obviously, I should have waited until I got an e-mail back from Mildred before starting the joke.

I can only apologize.

No truly new icons in this post. Rather, a couple of old icons with new logos, and another old icon revised to look better.

Although I've done two versions of the Ravenettes icon already ("Ravenettes" and "Raven/ettes"), I decided that I ought to do a third one specifically for any members who prefer to be known as "Ravens". Since this is a shorter name, I had to shift it sideways a bit; however, the icon is otherwise the same as before:




Then we have the Stonetree-ites. Now "Scorpions" was an early suggestion for a faction for Stonetree. Indeed, it still has a member or two. However, it never gained a large membership. Believing it to be defunct, someone put forward another name couple of years later. Mind you, "Stonetree-ites" really doesn't have the same pizzazz. (What it is with the "-ites" names, I don't know. They're surely an admission that the proposer lacks imagination.) Nor did the faction gain many adherents this time, either. After all, Stonetree had, by then, been replaced as captain, first by Cohen and then by Reese. If I'm doing icons for all factions though, the Stonetree-ites have a right to one. However, as they are essentially only a temporary successor to the Scorpions, I've simply given them that icon with a new logo:




Finally, I've straightened the Unnamed Faction. (Wait! Hang on! Let me rephrase that!) I've rectified the UF icon. (That's better.) I realized a while back that the letters in the logo didn't line up properly. They're vertical, and I didn't—as I should have done—drop a guide line so I could get them properly centred. Well, it's now been done:




( Naturally, all three also come in a larger size.... )

Among the various tiny Forever Knight factions of the "miscellaneous assorted" variety, these are the last three to get icons. I think it's fair to say that they are very "miscellaneous".

The Friends of Gillian take their name from one of the scriptwriters on the series, Gillian Horvath. More than once, she wrote fans into the show by using their names for characters (though I think the faction can also be claimed by those whose names were used by other writers). From what little is written about the Friends of Gillian, I gather that fans could sometimes be quite enthusiastic in assuming that an identical personal name meant they'd been honoured by character-dom. However, it definitely did happen a few times for real.

The DracPack are fans of both Forever Knight and a slightly earlier show, Dracula: The Series. Geraint Wyn Davies appeared in a couple of its episodes; and quite a number of guest stars were also in the show, either as regulars or as guests. The DracPack is, however, not affiliated with the actors but with the various characters these actors play in Forever Knight.

As for the MacGregors: they're actually fans of Nigel Bennett, and got their name after he read a Beatrix Potter story aloud at a convention. Not a formal fan club, but a purely fan thing, they are generally counted among the factions.

( So here are their icons.... )