Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Welcome into October!  A most excellent time of the year, one of my favorites!  Ahead we have the new Review Hunt, but first, our winners from the last one were hoodwinked in first place and Gibraltar in second!  Congratulations, folks!

As for our October Review Hunt, you can sign up here or on Discord; just let me know you want to join and that's all you have to do!  And read and review!

And since I'm setting up flash challenges for the month, this month will be four and a half weeks of celebrating fics that the authors AND the readers love; everyone on Discord gets to nominate one of their own stories and one from someone else, and those will have double points!  The first run of it will end on October 8th, at 5:30PM Eastern, so spread the love!

State of the Archive

Growth remains steady and the September Review Hunt is underway!  First prize being a full-color portrait of a character of your choosing, second prize being a black and white portrait of the same, or you can bank wins for a bigger piece of art!  Or you can toss me a wishlist, too.  Any which way, don't be shy about signing up; it costs nothing and you only have to read and review to participate!  In the meantime--

Weekly Challenge #19: Empathy

Be it an actual psionic ability, or just the ability to feel as others do, go ahead and write between 100 and 700 words on empathy! Interpret as liberally or strictly as you like. When you post it to the archive, tag it with Weekly Challenge: Empathy.

Challenge ends September 8th at 11:59PM, Eastern.

State of the Archive

Still pretty chill!  Not a lot of stories added this week, but for a lot of people -- students, parents, etc. -- we're heading into the season where things start to get more hectic with school.  Which, speaking of:

Weekly Challenge #18: Back to School

So, in honor (or lament) of returning to classes, this challenge is all about that theme.  Continuing education for your faves?  Or maybe we step back to when they were wee and see what they were like in primary or secondary?  Whatever you do with the prompt, it's between 100 and 700 words.

Post it to the archive under Weekly Challenge: Back to School and don't forget to add it to the collection!

Challenge ends on September 1st at 11:59PM Eastern.

State of the Archive

Aside yours truly losing her mind due to work (and football season), all's going well!  Challenges are going good, review hunts are great and the archive is pretty stable.  Come on over and join us here or on our Discord!

Weekly Challenge #16: Heat

The dog days of an Earth Summer. Vulcan's Forge. Or maybe something less weatherly: Maybe the heat of battle. Or maybe the heat of sex. Write between 100 and 700 words based on some kind of heat and post it to the archive!

Add it to the Weekly Challenge collection and tag it: Weekly Challenge: Heat.

Challenge ends on August 25th at 11:59P Eastern!

State of the Archive

A decent week! We're steadily gaining new users and have a pretty good participation in both the weekly challenges and the Review Hunt! I'm so happy you're all here. Anyway, we're still occasionally running into indexing errors, etc, so if you go to use the site and it throws you an error, it's not an instability issue, just a minor bug we're still chasing. Everything's safe in the database.

Weekly Challenge #14: Wind and Water

Ever have someone show up on your doorstep when you had no idea they were coming? Or how about that time you were cruising that nebula and suddenly a warship decloaked. Or what happened that time someone actually stood up at a wedding and interrupted?

Anyway, your challenge is to write between 100 and 700 words about unexpected appearances, as prompted by DaraOakwise. And when you post it to the archive, tag it Weekly Challenge: Unexpected Appearances

This challenge ends on 8/18 at 11:59PM Eastern.

State of the Archive

Generally, still moving. We're still getting to the bottom of the issue that has a background process shutting down unexpectedly, but that's relatively minor and more annoyance than anything else. Especially for an archive our size. Things have been going great on Discord, with interesting discussions about future sociology, whether we do or don't like musicals and it's been great seeing new people come in, too! We're very welcoming, so stop on by!

July Review Hunt Winners and August Review Hunt!

Our winner for the July Review Hunt was BeatriceOtter, who scored over 20,000 points, an absolutely astronomical effort! Following right up, though, was hoodwinked with over 17,000. Both of them did a stellar job. Now, with August's Review Hunt underway, let's see how we do! Right now, things are slow to start, so if you want to join in, drop me a line just about anywhere and I'll add you to the list!

Weekly Challenge #15: What's Left Behind

What do we leave behind? Either as we move to another stage in life, or as we leave it all for whatever comes after. A feeling or an object or a letter. Or anything. Write a story between 100 and 700 words -- I mean it this time, Gibraltar! XD -- talking about just that. Interpret it as strictly or as loosely as you like. Add it to the Weekly Challenges collection on the archive and tag it Weekly Challenge: What's Left Behind.

Challenge closes on 8/11 at 11:59PM Eastern!

Everything's going good! We have a few snaffus when we do our server maintenance, but I think it'll turn out okay. Still if the archive acts a little funny, just wait until I can cycle it and it'll start behaving again. In the meantime, we've had some excellent stories added to the archive, so go browse and maybe leave a review!

Weekly Challenge #14: Wind and Water

For this week's challenge, let's do something environmental; write between 100 and 700 words under the theme of wind and water! Stranded on an ocean world? Or just caught in the riptide of memory? Interpret as liberally or strictly as you like! When you post it to the archive, add the freeform tag Weekly Challenge: Wind and Water.

Challenge ends on 8/4 at 11:59PM Eastern!

August Review Hunt Signup

Time to sign up for August's Review Hunt! First prize is Paypal (or similar) or a color portrait of a character of your choice (doesn't need to be a Trek character), second prize is Paypal or a black-and-white portrait of a character of your choice.

I am also reasonably negotiable if you're interested in saving up "wins" for multiple months for a full piece of artwork, like something full-body.

So, feel free to comment on this post if you want to join in, or hit the emoji on our Discord, or however you like!

All's well!  Things have kind of quieted off on the posting/archiving front, but remain apace in terms of our Discord and our weekly challenges!  The Review Hunt is also going great, with people racking up points on their way to winning the month's two offered prizes, too!  Not much else to say, except it's great to see the archive and community active and I'm looking forward to seeing more and more of your creativity.

Weekly Challenge #13 - Altered States