anythingbutgrey | war stories ficathon

War Stories: A Comment Ficathon

Welcome to the war stories ficathon. Some quick guidelines:

What can I prompt and how do I do so?

Basically whatever you want, as long as there's a core component of a war story therein. Can be pre-, post-, or intra-war as long as it is, at its core, about the war. I'm pretty general with my concept of fictional conflicts, so if you've got a battle or a zombie apocalypse or a revolution, you're good to go. That means you can take a fandom that has a canonical war (like, say, Harry Potter) or you can take a fandom that doesn't have a war (like, say, New Girl) and plop them into a Hunger Games war AU or a zombie apocalypse. Have fun with it. I'm grim about my war stories but you don't have to be.

Prompts should contain the following format:

Fandom (not optional, can be multi-fandom or crossover) - Characters/Ship (optional) - Timeline (optional) - Prompt (which may be a plot, song lyric, quote, etc., but is not optional)

In other words, you can leave a character and/or a ship, and/or a timeline, which are optional, and a prompt, which is not. If you want, you can just leave a set of song lyrics and see what people do with them. If you want, you can just leave a timeline with those lyrics, or a just a character, or all three.

How do I respond?

There are no restrictions in terms of word count, format, tense, point of view, etc. Please title all of your response fics as such in bold at the top of your comment (make sure to close the bold tag!) since LJ took out comment titles because they're dumb:

Title - Character/Ship - Timeline

Presumably, your fics will contain these three things even if they weren't in the prompt. You can also fill prompts that have already been filled. If something speaks to you, as it were, it doesn't matter if there's already fic for it. You can write your own.

How do I promote?

Here's a tumblr post (gen image if you have no idea who Mako Mori is in which case go see Pacific Rim ASAP and thank me later)

Promotion link with image:

Other banners:

More incoming

Text link:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Any (preferably Hunger Games or Harry Potter), any, when the next war comes (because it will)

when the next war comes (because it will)

There is nothing but fear and concern and worry; tension threads in her shoulders and flinching silently at too loud noises and ever-increasing wards on the house (the houses). They are settled into the world, have jobs and cats and go drinking on a Friday night. They dress up in smart robes, and suits, and pretend not to have runes embedded in their skin, their minds, their eyes. Claim to have dealt with it, moved on, come to terms with what I did and the Ministry's hastily dragged in and undertrained (and doomed to die because they have no wards, and their wand is in a desk drawer, and Hermione wants to draw them a map of all the ways they are dooming themselves) psychologist signs them off with a flourish and sends them back to work.

They meet in secret, one night every month. Never in the same place and never at the same time, and never with everyone. There are secrets in their secrets. Collaborate, share information, try to make sure that the sides will be defined if nothing else. No one is sure where this war will come from, who will be at each other's throats this time, but they know it will happen. Look at the children on the platform skipping off to school and think of every horror that the castle holds, and feel their stomachs roil and rebel. Clamp down on the wand-hand twitch and wave to younger cousins, send them off to a place that never protected anyone. Not really. The letters say that they've dealt with the security hazards, that all of the hidden dungeons and tunnels have been investigated, and Pansy laughs, long and hard and harsh because the greatest threat was never the animals or the ghouls, but the darkness and horror in the hearts of wizards and witches.

There are public information campaigns. "We're all the same", "we bleed, we breathe, we laugh", "The Ministry is here to help you!" and they work on them. Write blase press releases, pretend there is something good at the core of the world and fight in abandoned rooms and warehouses and practice Muggle martial arts because maybe this war will be fought with tooth and blood and claw and not magic and isolation. Maybe they will have to defend themselves with their bones and their breath and no one ever taught them that. They watch the Quidditch and pretend that Ginny hasn't taught her team defensive drills disguised as set pieces. Pretend that these wouldn't be effective against an army from the skies and that they are cheering the Seeker. Neville's greenhouse is charming and quiet and Muggle tourists come and tour the grounds of his house, and Luna keeps the animals at bay. This war will be fought on all fronts and if a Venus flytrap can eat a fly then they can breed a plant that will eat a witch. "Don't walk on the grass" reads the sign, and no Muggle can. One did, last year, and there was grim satisfaction that the plan had worked at least. The wards were changed after that.

You can't let go of awareness at the root of your spine, too aware of small spaces, people with their hands in their sleeves, a cold hard look behind the eyes and you can't get out of the habit of looking round the corner before going forward, keeping a defensive spell at the tip of your tongue and a knife in your boot. Left, right, left, right and keep your eyes on the prize: life. The next war will come, and you will be ready, and there is nothing left to do but wait and stay ready.

Edited 2013-07-22 12:30 (UTC)

Oh man, this was great. I love that they're meeting up and also individually preparing themselves--it's like a second go at Dumbledore's Army.

Thank you for this!

war stories ficathon

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