10TH ANNIVERSARY KITTEN FIC CHALLENGE (WINNERS!!)

[Foomatic]

Just updated the links to each fic on the first post so they can be easily found. Thanks to everyone who has already voted!

[Kajun]

Special THANKS to AMBER BENSON for her very generous donation of Benson Entertainment’s Exclusive Triangle Tara dolls for the 10 Year Kitten Anniversary Celebration Contests! Thanks to Xita, WillowTree252 and Foomatic for all your work on these fun contests. Thanks to the Pens Authors who put their hearts and souls into creating amazing, heartwarming Willow and Tara Holiday Stories we will enjoy for years to come. And mostly, Thanks to ALL KITTENS.. you make this community the best site in all the world wide web!

The Kitten votes are in and the fic challenge winners, in no particular order, are:

Finey_McFine
Laragh
vanessa
LonelyTara
Katharyn

Winners: Please PM your name/address to Xita.

The contest may be over, but everyone is welcome to continue this holiday fic challenge by writing stories and, of course, leaving feedback for our authors!!

THANK YOU all for writing, commenting, voting, and making the Kitten’s 10th Year Anniversary an exciting, fun celebration.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

[LonelyTara]

Hey all,

I just wanted to take a second to say thanks! I'm super-flattered to have been announced as a winner, especially with such fine company!! Thank you to everyone who voted, and thank you to the moderators for having this fic contest for us!

A special congrats to Laragh, Finey_McFine, vanessa and Katharyn!

[Katharyn]

Hey, congrats to everyone who entered this. It's a wonderful thing that the Kitten and Pens does for us. In my case it gave me a place to be creative, allowed me to develop a skill that enjoy exercising and (of course) gave me chance to play with the girls *cough* I love the fact that it seems to do the same for other people and think that Pens role in getting people to become writers (even if just for a few thousand words in a fic challenge or a oneshot fic) is one of the most special things about this place.

Since I entered this purely as a challenge and happen to already own a signed Triangle Tara (from Amber's movie fund-raising some time ago) Mods please either extend the pool of doll winners or add that doll to the Trevor Project auction (if that is still ongoing)

Best wishes for the holiday season to all.

Katharyn

[Finey_McFine]

Hi,

I just wanted to say a BIG CONGRATS to everyone that entered this contest and to the winners as well! Since this was only my second fic contribution on the board and considering the first isn’t even complete yet, I was pretty surprised and humbled to see my name up there with this awesome group of writers.

An extra thank you to the mods for all their hard work in making this contest possible:)


Congrats to the winners and thanks again voters!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

[Vivienne]

Many congratulations to all of you!!! Terrific stuff! What a wonderful collection of stories! I so much enjoyed reading them all. I loved taking part in this, thank you from me and from Wayland (who is away for Christmas) for the experience.

A very happy Christmas and lots of love to you all!

Vivienne

[Laragh]

Wow, what an honour to be included among such wonderful talent!

The KB really is just a wonderful community and I'm blessed that I'm able to be a part of that.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!

[mmmh-Hot-Sauce]

Wow ... I am quite literally speechless. This is such an honor. I just want to say thank you to everyone and congratulations to Finey_McFine, Laragh, LonelyTara, and Katharyn as well. I can't believe my name is up there with some of the greatest writers on this site. This is so amazing.

Once again, thanks! And I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

[taralicious]

Glad to see that those who have actual talent in writing Willow and Tara stories including Finey McFine, whose story of Tiny Toons Willow and Tara was adorable and Laragh, who gave us Willow as an elf and Tara as an angel.
If there is a fiction challenge next holiday season, I may foist another tale upon the board but for now I shall go back to writing my own stories and content myself with reading the works of others here and confining my writing to leaving feedback.

[wayland]

Congratulations to all the winners and to everyone who took part, writing and reading.

The challenge was great fun and a real confidence boost. I mean, how many new writers can boast of feedback from three continents?

Thanks again to Xita and the mods.

Same time, next year, everybody?

[Dub]

Dubs Festive Advent Challenge – Day 7

Tara counted in her head, a silent tally of

Uncle Dave’s snores before he stops breathing for a bit and then continues the snores. It’s great you can sleep with a full belly Dave but the rest of us can’t concentrate on anything else. Who says counting snores isn’t a fun game for all the family, not Uncle Dave, dude needs a CPAP. Instead he asked Santa for a Lynx gift set apparently, because that’s what Santa got him.

The fire was the girl, and the girl was the fire

Ok Grandma, let’s put the G&T away and get you a nice cup of tea.

very movement of her body seemed an amazing blend of purpose and instinct, immeasurable in its elegance.

The Queens speech is always a cracking show. One for the series link.

girl barred the door with a thick oaken plank.

Never a good sign when the host does that, it’s a sure way of telling everyone that entertainment participation is mandatory.

Her feet were white, the edges of her toenails purple-blue with cold.

No matter where you go its either too hot or too cold but you can’t ask for the heating to be changed or keep your coat on as its deemed rude and you constantly get the question “going somewhere?”. From experience replying without skipping a beat “home” does not go down well.

The blonde gasped as pins and needles shot from her knees to her toes. “I’m sorry, I know it must hurt,” Willow murmured.

Locked in a cabin with snow outside. The host is touching your feet. Misery vibes. Don’t touch the penguin Tara!

They sat in silence, for how long Tara couldn’t say

Best outcome. Just sit, stare and wait for the time to go home.

Aunt Rosalie found her sitting on the dresser in my old room, and so she decided to give her to me.”

That’s how you do gifts, it free, you know they want it and it gets it out of your house. Environmentally kind too.

Challenge aside, I had to stop amusing myself with messed up humour because it just got to the point where I really felt disrespectful doing so while reading this. Lonely Tara you have such vision, your use of words is pure artistry. All your pretty little words create a whimsical feel on top but then through the story you have a very heavy intense feel grounding the whimsy.
It feels like a stage play, I can see myself siting in the theatre watching it and giving a standing ovation. Your story is led by emotion not actions and at the end you do feel kind of emotionally exhausted but in a good way. For example the top reveal, we should laugh but I was just lost on the heavy intensity it almost felt rude to laugh still.
The insecurity of Tara is portrayed absolutely superbly.

Two of my favourite lines because they cut so deep:

a terrible tapestry of wasted years, of loneliness and silence.

you shouldn’t be burdened with someone who is only a memory.”

It’s said in the comments already but this story really is poetry.

[Dub]

Dubs Festive Advent challenge – day 12

in that childlike wide-eyed way

You know that way. The way you imagine poor little filth covered orphans. Their wide eyes larger than their starving shrivelled stomachs. It’s Christmas so you're told to think of the less fortunate which ultimately means Oliver Twist. Maybe we could do with less and share the wealth, let others in on our joyous celebration. The inevitable question is asked. More? The wide eyed Oliver is in your mind and somehow, you become Oliver and shovel a couple more roasties on your plate with a slice of turkey adding lashings of gravy and a massive dollop cranberry sauce on top. Yeah we could share but that means no fifths.

"I know what we can do today,

Where’s Perry?

They even had a Christmas Queen.

A Christmas Queen? You mean the kind of people who show up nearly an hour late, don’t bring anything to contribute. Is dressed to the nines and wants to be waited on hand and foot because it’s a special day and they’ve had a tough year and want to relax. Then they get so drunk you have to question if you need to wipe their arse later like the real queen. I couldn’t possibly know anyone who would do such a thing. Top up Sandra?

they were always either too drunk or too busy fighting

‘Tis the season.

growing ever more resentful that her childhood memories of the majestic pageantry of the Christmas

“Christmas is for the kids.” Said to me aged five.

the decayed fossilized skeleton of what had once been the parakeet

Bonus, put off sorting the Christmas decorations for so long you end up finding new Halloween ones. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

I must have picked up some bacterial infection from the ground."

No one’s buying it Sandra, we all know it wasn’t Santa drunkenly stumbling in at 4am this morning. Please stop fingering the nibbles!

Challenge aside, I like how you look back at Christmas without the rose tinted glasses, the dry wit throughout this segment really helped cement the mood. It’s like a muted realisation, you still have the good memories but at the same time knowing you can’t remake them anymore.
Must say though I’m not sure Nurse Tara is qualified. If a nurse tried to rub melted butter on me Id highly doubt it would stop the infection. I’d take bloodletting and trepanning over butter burns.

[Dub]

Dubs Festive Advent Challenge – Day 22

The sound of thudding footsteps down the staircase woke her

Don’t forget the yelling about wanting to do breakfast but all the dinner prep is in the way. They should have waited until breakfast was done until they started the 4 hours of prep but the breakfast maker won’t get up 4 hours earlier to do breakfast. Double standards.

“She’s passed out,” Buffy said with a smile.

Poor thing all that boozing and ranting about microchips in vaccines not helping boost her Wi-Fi signal when she was in the countryside must of tuckered Sandra out.

decided the night before what china she wanted to use for their meal,

It’s always the china you use once a year because for some reason our chipped plates aren’t good enough for essentially a pimped out roast dinner. Somehow even in the back of the most awkward cupboard to get into the plates all have a thick layer of dust and the sink is already filled with stuff along with the dishwasher cycle already on so you give it a quick wipe down and place them on the table anyway. Yum, dust bunnies.

I turned my back for a second

You fool. Never turn your back on your Christmas cracker. You have spent hours shaking each one and trying to get a peek inside to try and decipher which one has the tiny screwdriver set. Everyone at the table knows this. The moment you look away they will swipe it and swap it out then that person can never look away. If you know you have the right cracker don’t blink. Blink and you’ve got a puzzle you will never solve because it will always be taken from you the moment you unpack it so they can try it.

“Ah, well ain’t that a Kodak moment.”

It’s not Christmas without product placement. Comment brought to you by Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola we made the old guy in the green suit turn red and no one remembers but its ingrained into your pop culture and tradition.

“Did you just call my child a monster?”

It’s the spawn of you, you’re lucky I am being polite Aunt Wendy. If I went to your house and left the mess your son just made in the bathroom, you’d ring an exorcist.

Challenge aside, It’s a fun little romp of minor what can go wrong, does go wrong.

Taking the rest of her pita, she ran it along Maggie’s arm before exiting the room, the sound of Willow’s voice chasing her.

“Hey!” Willow hollered as she ran to the kitchen doorway. “Don’t use my daughter as a condiment!”

This bit stole the show for me. Waste not want not. Plus it could have turned into a little Buffy cannibalism if she decided arm was a suitable pita filling. Its Christmas, the time of indulgence.