The Amazing Kitten Race

[tarawhipped]

Now I'm thinking ... if we had another Kitten Race with "family members/ teams of four", what are the likely teams?

Unless you are actually contemplating a "TAKR: Season 2," I refuse to play along with your little game of "what if." I'm still disgruntled about being left in the hotel room during the TARCon. Though Car's right...I do like my pretend people best. They don't sass me.

So anyhoo...did I ever tell you how much I enjoyed this fic? Well I did. You took a show I hadn't the slightest interest in watching, and knew almost nothing about, and turned it into a thrilling, romantic, funny, and actually educational (love all those links) fun-filled adventure! Really a treat to read. My hat's off to you and Carleen. Thanks, pals.

-Cam

[FineyMcFine]

Okay wattypants, I finished TAKR and owe you some feedback! I have never watched The Amazing Race before and still haven't, although your story has intrigued me to the point where I am contemplating Netflixing season 1. It's funny that with all these reality shows like TAR and Survivor the first season is the best - they had real people on, not a bunch of models like they do now.

Anyway, this story was just a real pleasure to read. It took me a few chapters to get into the groove because I also have never read any Television Without Pity, so I wasn't too sure what was going on. I was imagingin that TAR was broadast with a running narration of snarky comments. Then I read the disclaimer you posted and finally clued in.

It's weird trying to give feedback for an entire story rather than chapter by chapter - I feel like I'm not going to be able to give the kind of in-depth feedback that I would like to.

Anyway, I really really enjoyed seeing Willow and Tara in this setting. I especially loved their talk where they agreed they want to move in together and live in the same town rather than to continue their long-distance relationship. I was seething with angst when their flight was delayed in Seattle. Why, watty, oh why on earth must Willow and Tara lose in every reality show they're on? I should go back and read your replies to find out why you set it up that way.

I loved the snarky comments from Sars and the commentary by Carleen - I also see that Carleen elevated at some point to co-writer so again I say bravo and congratulations.

[the hero factor]

Watchers - Giles, Wesley, Quentin Travers, woman in glasses smitten by Spike

Oh, for Watchers, you can't forget Gwendolyn Post. Faith's Watcher in the ep "Revelations." Instrumental in Faith's eventual turn to the dark side, IMO. Plus? She's hot.

And looking back, I realize I haven't left fb for the last update, which is just wrong. Loved the TARcon. It was great to catch up with all the teams. And Willow and Tara are engaged. Or might be engaged, anway. So lovely.

Great story.

[watty]

I wrote the replies, saved it to my flash drive then completely forgot to post!!! That was at least 3 weeks ago. Sorry sorry sorry. Thanks Sally. Thanks the hero factor. Thanks to everyone who read the story.

btw, I looked through the earlier part of this thread and some of the posts are out of order, most likely due to the board move. If anyone is still reading (not many, perhaps enough to fill a teacup) and confused, PM or email me.

~~~~~


Elvis

Congrats on getting the last dibs! Gee, that sounds kinda ominous doesn't it? Heehee.

Twenty things. Ok, I’ve never read Miss Ali’s TarCon recaps. Honestly, and I’m bit embarrassed to admit this, I never knew there was such a thing. So this is the pre-ordained format for it?

It's not pre-ordained, but Miss Alli has written about past TARCons in this manner and I thought it's a good format to use. Don't worry about not having read the twop recaps, it's not like you have ooodles of spare time, like some of us without families and kids to take care of.

post-modern blending of levels of reality. I mean snarking on reality TV using relatively real “characters” from the board and your life

Full of inside jokes I am.

Anya looked a little pregnant

Really, is there such a thing as a little pregnant? It’s binary you know.

Yes and no. I'm thinking that during the first two months she might just look to have gained some weight around her middle? If she says nothing, only very eagled eye people (and may be gynecologists) can tell. But what do I know about pregnant women?

I feel like your writing this story has forced me to be a more thoughtful, involved, and committed writer myself. And really, isn’t that what the KB, what any writing group should be about?

Turning serious for a moment, yes, that's exactly what the KB should be. God knows membership, updates, views and feedback have been dismal lately and I wish there is something we can do to get kittens all excited about the fics here on Pens again. Oh wait, we did. We got 7 writers and 2 betas together and we wrote a kick-ass series. Hey, you got more than 20 comments for Water!

How are your shelves coming anyway? I’ve got 2 of 7 finished and part of an extra one too.

I think you're up to 3.5 shelves? Me? I only have may be the bottom frame of one made up. I think I need to find some better quality timber. Or build another set of smaller shelves to get me inspired for these main ones.

What I will say is that this rocks! It’s awesome and you did a fantastic job and thank you thank you thank you.

No, thank YOU! And we should nip this never-ending mutual thanking in the bud, till the next fic, okay?


~~~~~


justin

You've never seen my Kim Possible style puppy dog pout

Now that we know you’re into Zombies you’re gonna be in so much trouble!

why Car is so obsessed about semi colons. I mean, surely they're just commas with delusions of grandeur, right?

That’s my trusty beta for you. I do admit I have a serious semi-colon issue, I tried to get help but the receptionist at the Institute of Semi-Colon refused to take my call cos I don’t use them enough.

The TarCon sounded fun. Dammit, why do I have to live in Engand? I miss all the great events like that.

Yeah, sorry about that. Hooking Chris up via satellite used up all our satellite budget and we couldn’t get another guest spot. Besides, can you image all these Americans trying to get over not one, but two, “foreign” accents in one evening?

This was a brilliant story. If I'm not careful I might end up watching reality shows, which would be bad. Mainly because I would be forced to shoot myself.

Well, some of them aren’t too bad. Especially if they have familiar characters. Most are naff, I must agree.


~~~~~


Sally

I was looking at the last page of this fic, and was intrigued by the different colored fonts and was reading trying to figure out what was going on

You’ll tell me when you’ve figured it out, won’t you? Cos I don’t quite know either, it’s like I met Car and we decided to do snark on snark and it became a huge juggernaut that spun out of control.

They totally went bezerk with the grab bags this year. May be they got sponsorship or something. {*I heard they were leftovers from Ubercon 05, they just scrubbed off the Xena labels and put TAKR ones on.*}

LOL!

How could I have resisted such a generous offer from the organizers of Ubercon ’05, for their surplus?


~~~~~


Irene

Miss ya too! Hope you can come back and amuse us soon. The Insano Triplets need to stage a come back tour!


~~~~~


Cam the Pirate

You two are seriously nuts....you know that, right?

And still you hang out with us. What does that say about you?

I now feel compelled to write a reality show fic in which Willow and Tara finally win. *grumble grumble glaring at Watson and Debra....yes, you too Debra! grumble grumble*

I’m waiting and waiting and waiting for that fic to arrive on my screen one day. Don’t make us wait oh Cap’n Cam’ron.

Loved all the shout-outs in this last one, even if you did put me in there as some sort of antisocial weirdo. Umm...that's actually... Just for that I'm gonna make a little SimWatty and SimCar, force you to marry each other, have quintuplets, and NOT get you a nanny! HA!

Do it. That’s the second challenge you’ve set yourself. Again I say, do it if you dare. I want screenshots.

Thanks for your support, my friend! *hugs and kisses.*


~~~~~


Chris the master Pirate

First off, awesome action figures! When are they coming on the market? I must arrange to have some smuggled out of the country. I don’t have an action figure collection myself but those will be a good place to start.

I liked how Willow and Tara behaved, especially about their... engagement?

Are they really engaged? I deliberately left it vague, it’s up to the reader to interpret as they see fit. But I agree with you about their privacy, now that they’ve become public figures, it’s even more important that they try to keep parts of their private lives private, no matter how difficult it may become.

Faith exercise DVDs

Yes, definitely, she’s perfect.

And... well, the Race is over. And no Amazing (non-Kitten) Race on TV either. I miss it, lame finishes, airport bunching, Ugly Americans (tm) and all.

The new season started, and if you get AXN it’s shown on Wednesday night but it’s kinda … sucky. Can’t remember if Australia has AXN though, most of Asia has. I miss writing it too, doing the research, planning the route, coming up with the tasks, getting frustrated at myself when I’m being the Amazing Producers. But it’s a lot of work and I put Lamplight aside to do this, and now I’m working on other stuff Lamplight is suffering. (Both the fic and the story, what am I talking about?) Thanks for coming along for the ride.


~~~~~


Willow~Rosenberg

Hi! I’m glad you made it. Thanks for your words about the TARCon atmosphere, it’s basically a party where people get together to watch the finale, but I wanted to make it fun and impart some interesting gossip and rumors about our racers, for instance

the tidbit about someone asking Willow if she was going to marry Tara and then later, Tara having a ring on her left ring finger. *sigh* I love happy endings.

Well you see, someone thought they saw a ring on Tara’s fingers, so there is no confirmation. And the Lovebirds are not saying anything! I’ve deliberately left it vague, so it’s up to your imagination. Plus they’re really private people, they would want to keep that between them.


~~~~~


Cyd the unreliable hussy under the table

No, no, no! You’re the genius! Get out from under that table immediately! You have work to do, stuff to write and post!

good to see that no disgruntled kittens decided to bounce a stale bagel or anything else particularly lethal off your head.

I don’t think anyone was paying attention, cos … did you see the woeful lack of feedback from people who are not friends? Not many, sigh. They were probably so disgruntled at Tara not winning Survivor that they’re thinking … not another one, and are boycotting reality fics anyway.

Plus much snark…much, much snark. Yay!

I love me the snark. This was probably the only opportunity I could get of snarking in a fanfic. Glad you like it, O Mistress.

But I feel so bad for you watty...Car is so mean to you...no wonder you usually keep her in a cage.

Yeah, I ordered a 3 by 3 wooden cage special for her. She’ll be screaming Master at me in no time!

lots of gratuitous drooling and staring at hotties...sounds like a good ending to me.

The BEST ENDING, I think.


~~~~~


Therapist Mary

THANK YOU! Thank you for stopping by this thread, I feel so moved now. *wipes tears off face and blows nose all over new T-shirt.* You’re probably in the majority of readers, in that you don’t watch reality shows. Perhaps between KR and SAI we’ve managed to convert some, but it’ll be kinda disappointing to watch an Amazing Race and not have Asshat Riley or Lovebirds or Team Efficiency.

how in the name of Franklin Planner did you keep everything organized?

Cos I’m really anal? A dork? And have a brain that can store all sorts of useless information? And did I mention I’m really anal? Well, having lived and traveled all over the world helped too, I think I’ve visited around 75% of the places the Race went to, I love traveling and I’ve been very lucky with my jobs too.

The snark element, of course, was a thing of wild, fierce beauty.

Wow, Mary, that was beautifully worded, and I’m blushing now. We never see snark in fics, it’s hard to do with the Buffyverse setting. I think the snark factor has carried the fic from its humble beginnings. Without the snark it’ll just become a long, confusing narration of a group of people in a competition are traveling to different places around the world. It’ll be boring as hell. I don’t get the readership like certain other people – you, Debra or Car for instance, and without the snark I think this fic would have sunk to the bottom of the archives very quickly.

And Car's inclusion just took it to a whole 'nother level. Was that really her, or were you impersonating her?

I’m far too short to impersonate Carleen, that is her, in all her glory. You may have an advantage since you read the fic without interruptions, did you notice a change in style roundabout Episode 8 or 9? The earlier snark were directed at the racers and I think less sharp. The later snark also included me, the recapper. The difference? Roundabout April this year I met Car, that’s why.

It's clear you know this show and you know how to render the lingo.

Thank you, Mary. That comes from being a complete TAR geek (you’re talking … having seen all seasons and read all of Miss Alli’s recaps and a frequent visitor to TWoP before I discovered the KB. The whole running a race around the world touches something inside me, it’s my wanderlust I suppose.

my first out-loud laugh came when you described Randy's cheekbones as threatening to poke through your TV

I must admit this is from TWoP, where Spike and Marsters are constantly derided for a) scenery chewing presence and b) having sucky cheekbones from hell.

I'll be leaving fb on "Common Areas" tomorrow.

*tries to stay quiet about “tomorrow” being several weeks ago, don’t want to pressurize the great Mary.*


~~~~~


Debra and family KR

Singers: Tara, Giles, Spike, Anya
Bad-singers: Willow, Xander, Buffy, ?
Pains-in-the Ass: Harmony, Dawn, Snyder,
Vapid bitches (a rock band if I remember correctly): Cordy, Harmony
Closet cases: Fred, Jenny, ???
Hotties: Robin, Faith, Spike,
Cuties: Oz, Larry, ???

OMG. We so should do season 2.


~~~~~


Cam again

I'm still disgruntled about being left in the hotel room during the TARCon. Though Car's right...I do like my pretend people best. They don't sass me.

But do they fire you up? Okay, enough of Elemental jokes.

You took a show I hadn't the slightest interest in watching, and knew almost nothing about, and turned it into a thrilling, romantic, funny, and actually educational (love all those links) fun-filled adventure!

really? thanks dear. I hope I haven’t inspired you to watch the current series cos it’s a poor representation of TAR.


~~~~~


Sally

Another non TAR watcher, thanks for reading. If you do watch, go for season 1, it’s not as refined as the later seasons, but it’s the original.

they had real people on, not a bunch of models like they do now.

Word.

I was imagingin that TAR was broadast with a running narration of snarky comments.

what about the recapper actually traveling with the Racers, popping up with her giant mic onscreen and giving a running commentary.

It was a big undertaking for me to write. I’d only had the one fic and was relatively unknown. And it only took around 6 months to write, that’s pretty fast. I’m glad I included the Extras – it gives more substance to W/T, otherwise it hardly qualifies as a W/T fic.

I especially loved their talk where they agreed they want to move in together and live in the same town rather than to continue their long-distance relationship.

Heehee, that was Car. Rather, her idea and she helped write a lot of it. She did get elevated to co-writer, cos she deserved it. The “Sars” and gf snark were me though.

I was seething with angst when their flight was delayed in Seattle. Why, watty, oh why on earth must Willow and Tara lose in every reality show they're on? I should go back and read your replies to find out why you set it up that way.

I expected a Kitten backlash, but oddly enough I don’t feel arrows shooting into my back. Perhaps Debra took most of the hit. Perhaps people were just relieved KR was finished. Perhaps not many people were reading. Anyway, the finishing order was decided even as I started writing the Introduction. I took the 6 teams I want to be at the bottom and the 6 teams I wanted to be at the top, then did a random draw. I didn’t like the top 6 results so I drew again. Rupert & Randy came up first both times, it was fated.

Thanks for reading, it’s a lot of words, congratulations on getting through them.


~~~~~


the hero factor

OMG how could I forget the inimitable Mrs Post. She’ll have to be included, probably at the expense of woman in glasses smitten by Spike. Or Wesley. Imagine the dynamics of that team!

Thanks for the TARCon words. Thanks for still remembering this fic.

And Willow and Tara are engaged. Or might be engaged, anway.

Yes, deliberately vague. You may infer as you wish. Me? I think they are, yep, underneath this dorkiness I’m a romantic.

[br]

[AntigoneUnbound]

*tries to stay quiet about “tomorrow” being several weeks ago*

The attempt appears to have been unsuccessful, Watson...

The point is well-taken, however. I'll get you some fb after my update is done--promise.

Mary

[histchic]

First off, thank you watson et. al. for this lovely riveting amazing wonderful great fic! Oh, let me count the ways of it's greatness.

1. I'm a recent TAR fan, it's actually probably the only show I try to watch on a regular basis...well, yknow other than BtVS reruns. I like it because you get to see the world....and experience the world...if only in pre-fab situations, and through the magic of television. Also (to my limited knowledge), there isn't nearly the same level of cunning(with the exception of Rob/Amber). They actually *gasp* help other teams. To have that happen, in a genre started by Survivor, maybe there is hope for the world.

2. You made this fic seem like a recap of an actual season. Riley is the token asshat, Ben and Glory as the bumbling team that bumble too much, AAbot as the team that manages to muddle their way past any reasonable point, Faith and Robin as the uber-athletes, and Xander and Anya and Wilow and Tara as the couples you genuinely root for and want to win.

3. Willow and Tara goodness. *slight drool* One of my favorite things about them, both in canon and in fics, they aren't obnoxious about their situation. One of the first episodes of TAR I watched was the season of Lynn and Alex, and good grief, big ol' signs around their necks would have been less obtrusive(of course, if it had been suggested, I'd wager they'd do it).

4. References to Smut Bunnies!!!!! The timing is impeccable, I was just catching up on Smut Bunnies, having finished the part about the costume party....then read this fic....no wonder those of us with KB addiction have such a hard time keeping stories straight!

So anyway, pitching in my two cents, if a little late. Thanks again watson and carleen!

Toodles, and take care.

[watty]

I'll try to keep up with the feedback this time.

Mary - I was teasing! Feedback for CA will be very welcome, because (aside from the fact that I wrote it) it's one of those a small little fics that deserves more attention than it receives, but I shan't complain.

histchic - another TAR fan! Yay!!! Doesn't TAR:FE suck? Well, compared with earlier seasons anyway. If you have Netflix you should considering putting Season 1 in your queue.

You made this fic seem like a recap of an actual season.

Wow. Thank you. To be compared with 1) an actual TAR season and 2) Miss Alli the recapper. It was twisted in a way, I'd plan the route out (bunching and all), then I'd snark about it. I put the teams together, then I snark on them. It was fun in a schizophrenic sort of way, and I kinda miss it now that it's finished.

Willow and Tara goodness. *slight drool* One of my favorite things about them, both in canon and in fics, they aren't obnoxious about their situation.

Absolutely! Even in a W/T heavy community such as here on the KB, they're never "in your face" about their relationship, that is as much due to the actors as all the ff writers. But my dear, only slight drool? Tsk tsk.

[Re: Smut Bunnies:] no wonder those of us with KB addiction have such a hard time keeping stories straight!

I'm so grateful to Chris for allowing me to borrow the SB universe and setting. It's one huge inside joke that I guess will be difficult to explain to anyone not familiar with the fics here, but it was FUN FUN FUN to write! Glad you enjoyed.

Feedback is never too late, trust me. Thank you for stopping by.
[br]

[histchic]

watson, Family Edition seems more like a ploy for ratings than anything, which is really sad for such a good show. Trading Spaces did the same thing a few seasons ago....and it's just not the same with kids. As for TAR.....the challenges aren't quite as challenging....and one family has the parents doin' all the work while the kids fill the family requirement(the little girl is too short to do anything). Other than the kid factor...having more people has made the show better, IMHO, because it's more and varied personalities, and alot of young adults who can do the harder challenges. So we'll see. I should put S1 on my list anyway, because I haven't seen it yet.

What made your recaps so realistic is you went shot by shot. And the snarkiness....*gets all warm and fuzzy*

As for Willow/Tara being IYF(in your face), you are absolutely right that it has to do with the writers here. The author of any fictional story is the god(dess) of that domain. As such, whatever flows onto that computer screen is from our imagination, therefore an extension of the author. None of the authors here that I've read seem to carry that gloryhound trait. The vibe I get here is that if there weren't a KB, we'd all be sitting around talking about W/T. Also, it would have to be a drastic change in character for either girl to suddenly become obnoxiously outspoken about anything. *gets starry-eyed* Willow and Tara *major drool*

So anyway, just thought I'd leave those thoughts with ya.

Toodles, take care

[bytrsuite]

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