Mod!Challenge Representing the Underrepresented: A Special Mod-Challenge

*please be kind with any mistakes made in this post. I'm currently having an allergic reaction, I can't feel half my face and drugs are making me very tired.


Hello and welcome to phase 2 of the Underrepresented Challenge!

First off, thank you to the wonderful authors for the submissions! We have a total of 13 stories for our awesome participants to review. Given this number, we've decided to enforce the "max 2" stories per author rule. But I have started an additional/post-challenge index in the OP for any non-required story; I hope we can add to this index for any author still wanting to contribute to representing the underrepresented (I plan to!). Also as a note, we were fairly lax with the exact time of the due date of submissions as since the "competition" isn't about the fics; it's about the reviews!


And now, please give a big round of applause for our participants @Kahara @Ewok Poet @Findswoman @Raissa Baiard @Sith-I-5 and @AzureAngel2



Here's the official reading list (also in the OP)! Once you have read and reviewed all the stories (besides your own), please PM mavjade, Mira_Jade, and I with your list of awards - one for each story (please keep the list in alphabetical order! Just copy and paste the below list). You have until September 15 (11:59 PM PST) to send us the PM (however, if everyone gets their PMs in before, we will announce the winners early!)

Checkpoint by Lady_Misty
Cinders by Ewok Poet
Destiny by TheRynJedi
Eternal Darkness by CaraJinn
"Evermore" by AzureAngel2
Force a wit y' by GregMcP
Keeping It Real by WarmNyota_SweetAyesha
To Have Survived by Findswoman
Respawn by Ewok Poet
The Founding by brodiew
The Lost Prince and the Captive Knight by Raissa Baiard
Under Pressure by AzureAngel2
...You Can Hire The A-Team by Sith-I-5

 

I can't recall ever having seen thirteen challenge entries! Wow!

Послато са SM-J510FN уз помоћ Тапатока

 

I am very glad to see so many submissions!

Also, just a small edit, I forgot to add Mira_Jade to the people participants should include in their PM.

 

Aww, I missed that one, need to explore the boards more for open challenges. I have a story I wrote years ago that was inspired by a Celtic song, and never posted anywhere, would have been fun to do another.

 

Mod challenges in general.

@Briannakin, Under Pressure should be the second last on the list. And I hope your allergy will be better. Same problem here, just woke up (hence robotic typing) and can barely breathe. Out of eye drops.

 

Weird. I blame that on Microsoft word Sort Text. That was not me, nor was that the drugs (it wasn't those kinds of allergies... I ate something and now I know never to eat it again).

 

My bad! I didn't even know that such a feature existed. I'm a Word-moron. The NATO bombardment started on the day we were supposed to have a Word exam in IT classes at high school (I would've gotten an F, plus we didn't even have a computer at home), so I never learned it properly. That's why I have @Findswoman - she improves people's lives and I give her five out of five stars.

Those are even worse.

And I just noticed so.many.great sub-discussions in this thread that I...did not see before. Whoa. Amazing stuff.

 

In relation to my story's underrepresented population in the real world, a post from my friend of Romani descent about Romani/Sinti Holocaust Remembrance Day, Aug 2.

https://www.travellerstimes.org.uk/features/remembering-zigeunernicht-night-gypsies-august-2nd-1944

EDIT: fixed link

 

@TheRynJedi, I will send this to my Romani friends here, if you don't mind? Serbia has QUITE a Romani population.

 

I'm (okay, my muse) is a bit late, but this was going in the additional/post-challenge index anyways, and I really wanted to write it. Just Dad is a The West Wing fic, but it has all OCs and features a father who is physically disabled (plus it had some pretty bad dad-jokes).

 

11 stories to review. This is beautiful.

 

And I brought order, order into my chaos.

My fic "A new hope" made me chose to deepen Vader´s problem with texts and letters and so I wrote a contribution to this very challenge here.

It´s called "Under pressure" and to my own surprise it had three little sequels.

* "There might be dragons"
* "Every child is special"
* "Hallo darkness, my old friend"

But the Barin Samye fic "Evermore" still stands on his own and is about people with dwarfism in the Star Wars universe.

 

I watched a daytime television show once, with the premise that some wealthy person would spend an episode with the down-and-outs in the US, get to know them, determine if any of them deserved a cash gift or something.

One woman intrigued me. Homeless, living on the streets near her beach. She had been a business owner, running a bar or something like that, then during a party on the roof, had been sitting on the railings, as you do, and fallen back off it, broken her back, and her medical bills had made her destitute.

See, this is a thing that as an overseas observer in a country that has a national health system, that I understand that every first world nation has, except for the United States, that I don't think gets explained that well.

And until we observed Barack Obama attempting to create a suitable system, we did not see how bad the situation was. Or, as David Tennant's Doctor once suggested, "Perhaps we're a bit thick".

So, US-specific here:
Any time someone in film or television media is threatened by thugs on public transport, the line given is that "My friend here needs an operation."

In Archer, Mallory Archer not giving her apartment building's maintenance person any tips for Christmas, apart from a potato, means that his young son is not going to get that operation.



From Cordelia Chase in Angel, and then noticeably more shows, new or prospective employees asking if a job comes with "dental" or "insurance".

It took a train derailment in New York, I think, a few years ago, for the message to get through to me, watching the flashing red light beacons of attending emergency services, public officials saying that their hearts go out to the families; that these people are ******!

Here, in Britain; if you survive something like that, get carted to hospital, there is time on the ward, days or weeks, physical therapy, return to work, but unless you are in a specific job where you need to be working to earn money, there is no financial hit that threatens your ability to have a roof over your head.

And that means that every disaster or crisis that we see on the news from that country, there could very well be victims and casualties, that are going to be having very real problems well beyond when they get released from hospital.

 

Some quality stories, and some great writers.

I am find it very hard to come up with meaningful "Awards", for some of them.

 

Just a little note to let everybody know that I did not forget about the reviews that I need to write, as well as the award PMs. Life's been hectic!

 

My apologies for how AWOL I have been.

Just a reminder, participants have until September 15 (end of the day) to submit their reviews and awards!

Also, just a note. I do really hope we have a few more of our participants submitting, but if you just don't have the time or DRL has a hold on you, don't sweat too much, we all understand. As mentioned in the opening post, this was an experimental challenge and these things have varying degrees of success.

 

I was about to ask if there is a way to get a small extension.

I realised that I did not gather enough money for my site's hosting and it's due tomorrow, I also have a couple more DRL things that are urgent and I'm out all later afternoon and evening up to 1-2 AM today and busy with the backups etc. tomorrow.

And I really, really, really want to leave those reviews. I've been wanting to do so for a couple of weeks.

 

If @Ewok Poet needs more time to comment, and her comments are always a treat, then you can might make that possible, dear @Briannakin.

(Has plenty of time at home, due to the capsular rapture of her left foot, but spends it reading off-line and resting the foot that hurts non-stop.)

 

I am mentally exhausted, completely read and reviewed out, so cannot get my mind into that mode now.

Probably why you made that part of this, the actual challenge.

If yours is one of my last two stories, and I haven't left much of a comment, I may come back after the deadline, when I'm better, to give it another go.

Edit: Turns out, I won't be needing an extension. Still mentally exhausted though.

 

The mods have discussed this and, sorry, we can not extend the due date. We don't mind people asking because we understand DRL, and sometimes we pick arbitrarily due dates that can be extended. But in this case we picked this date because Mav, Mira and I all knew we were going to be swamped with our own DRL obligations in September and October and September 15 was the latest we could give everyone and still have an appropriate amount of time to judge.

But just because the due date has passed, doesn't mean you can't still read and review these wonderful stories.

 

So, basically, September 15th counts? If so, it's doable. <3

 

I'm also planning to try to catch up tomorrow (well, today now ) -- wish me luck!

 

Good luck, @Kahara!

I'm about halfway done myself.

 

Good luck, both of you. Looking forward to seeing two more reviews on mine.

So, mods, are you solely judging the award PMs?

Or the PMs, and the contents of each participant's reviews?

Or the PMs. and simply confirming that the participant had left a comment of some kind in each thread?