The Basilisk Cafe - Fanwork Archive ::

Recent Upgrades

As most visitors will have already spotted, we've been upgrading the archives of late - both visually and under the hood - which should make things a slightly more reliable, user-friendly experience. :) There are still a few bugs we're in the process of squashing - we've only just corrected everyone's story counts, for example - but if you spot anything we've missed, let us know.

--TBC Crew on 25/04/2009 04:55:26 pm 0 Comments

Valentine's Day Contest 2008!

That's right, the annual celebration of making those of us in relationships feel smug and those of us not feel lonely is almost upon us - at the time of writing, we're about 3 weeks away from Singles' Awareness Day. Love is in the air, people - despite our best efforts to shoot it down. (Evasive little bugger, that cupid.) Since we're all going to be spending the next couple of weeks feeling either very loved-up or very lonely, we wanted to give everyone their due opportunity to flex their creative muscles, and to show us some of our favourite characters in the true spirit of the 'season'. For this contest, we're looking for entries where romance is the main feature - feel free to show some of our best-known characters getting their heart's desire, or show us just what becomes of the brokenhearted. The choice, as they say, is yours!

Your entry doesn't specifically have to be set on Valentine's Day, but it must include a strong romantic/heartbreak element to it. As with our previous contest, we're opening this up to any fanwork that's based around a member of the glorious house of Slytherin - be it the Dark Lord himself, Snape, Malfoy, Slughorn, etc., etc. The usual TBC Contest rules apply, and entries should be uploaded to the TBC Fanwork Archive by 11.59pm (Board Time/Central US) on the 14th of February. (Wow, I bet nobody saw that deadline coming...) Our contest page is now live, and can be found here, along with the usual challenges to try and get everyone's juices flowing. Judging will take place right here on the forums, and anyone who has any questions, comments, and so on can find a lovely little button marked 'Add Reply' just down there...

--TBC Crew on 03/02/2008 05:05:53 pm 0 Comments

Missing Moments Contest!

It's now been 12 weeks since the release of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so by now we're sure that everyone has had a chance to read, re-read and inwardly digest. So, clearly it's time for us to get on with our first contest of the post-DH world, and we're sure that you've all been wondering what said contest was going to be. We had a few ideas for a contest - a Next Generation contest, another table of random motivations taken from the book, and many more that you'll probably be seeing around here over the coming months - but predictably we ended up right back at the very first idea we had - a 'missing moments' contest.

While reading Deathly Hallows - or any book, for that matter - we're sure everyone occasionally started imagining some of the events that happen 'off the page', unseen by the reader. For example, while reading Order of the Phoenix, you might find yourself wondering what Mrs Weasley's reaction to the Flight of the Weasleys would have been, or some other tiny event that just slips into your head, and nestles among the events you've just read. These 'missing moments' are often the basis of some of the best fanwork we've read, so now we want to see just what additions to the plot your own imaginations can come up with, and get them out there for all to see.

We've also relaxed our rules slightly this time around - from now on, we're opening our contests to all makers of Slytherin-centric fanwork, not just those who concentrate on Tom Riddle. (Now that the Dark Lord is dead, it seemed like a good time to open things up to the wider Slytherin House...

) Apart from that, all the normal TBC Contest rules apply, and all entries should be uploaded to the TBC Fanwork Archive by 11.59pm on the 28th of October. The usual selection of challenges and more detailed rules can be found on the Contest page, so make sure you swing by there before you get started!

But don't take too long - just 3 weeks to get yourselves organised, remember...

--TBC Crew on 09/10/2007 01:23:41 pm 0 Comments

Small Fault

Thanks to everyone who emailed to us to let us know about the issues with authors responding to their reviews - for anyone who hasn't noticed, authors have been unable to leave responses to their reviews for a little while now, so if you've left a review that's gone unresponded, that's the reason why.

We're working on solving the problem, and should have it repaired soon.

--TBC Crew on 30/04/2007 01:35:39 pm 0 Comments

And now, the end is near...

...and so we face the final curtain. Or the final book, at any rate - that's right, after 10 years, 7 books, 5 films, and more money than you could normally obtain by legal means, the Harry Potter saga is finally coming to an end. Specifically, it's coming to an end this summer, when the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. But let's face it - you knew all that already. You'll probably also know that this ending of the series bodes fairly ill for our favourite Dark Lord - these are, after all, children's books, and he is the bad guy. The end of the series rarely ends well for those.

So, since it looks like we're going to see Lord Voldemort cast into an unwanted and much-feared oblivion, we thought we might as well take matters into our own hands, and do it our own way. If Voldemort must die, then it will be at our hands first, and please spare us the innuendo, just this once. Your challenge for this contest is to write or draw the demise of Lord Voldemort. You can do it in any way you please - it can be funny, emotional, sympathetic, dramatic, tragic, anything you like. You can have him blasting his foes right until the end, or you can have him repenting before suffering a Ministry-enforced snog with a Dementor. It's all down to you.

As usual, the full details of the contest, along with a small list of potential challenges for you, can be found at our Contest Page, but the description above should tell you just about all you need to know. Entries should be uploaded to the correct category - 'Contest Entries > FanArt' or 'Contest Entries > FanFic' - with 'Voldemort's Demise Contest' in the description/author's notes, by Sunday 1st April. Good luck, everyone!

--TBC Crew on 25/02/2007 09:05:51 am 0 Comments