And finally, it's time to reveal the results of the Guess the Author/Artist contest.

deltacephei correctly guessed 9 participants from Team War, a very impressive score to take first place! A member of Team War (Team Captain lavvyan has volunteered, subject to inspiration!) will be happy to write you a prize fic to whatever prompt you agree on, and you can also find an adorable art prize by chkc under the cut.
( Most correct guesses on Team War )

Team Peace managed to fool most of our guessers, but first prize goes to chkc with 4 correct guesses! Again, a member of Team Peace will take on a prompt for your prize, and you can also find a gorgeous first prize banner by monanotlisa under the cut.
( Most correct guesses on Team Peace )

We have a number of other prizes to award for the most correct guesses on each row of our prompt table, so if you participated in our guessing contest or on the open guessing post, check below to see if you've won!

Team War Guesses
Row 1 winner: deltacephei
( Prize )

Row 2 winners: argosy, carolyn_claire, deltacephei, eleveninches, less_star, springwoof
( Prize )

Row 3 winners: anatsuno, deltacephei, gaffsie
( Prize )

Row 4 winner: deltacephei
( Prize )

Row 5 winners: cindyjade, deltacephei
( Prize )

Row 6 winners: berlinghoff79, deltacephei
( Prize )

Team Peace Guesses
Row 1 winner: gaffsie
( Prize )

Row 2 winners: chkc, lavvyan
( Prize )

Row 3 winners: lavvyan, springwoof
( Prize )

Row 4 winner: chkc, lavvyan, sabinelagrande
( Prize )

Row 5 winners: chkc
( Prize )

There were no correct guesses for row 6, so we are dedicating the prize to all our readers, voters and guessers. hyperfocused took on every single prompt from this year's fest – in haiku form!

( McShep Match 2009: War and Peace – the haiku version! )

Thank you once more to our team members who created all the prizes you see above, and to everyone for making the fest so much fun and so full of talent – we hope to see you all again next year!

Yes, this is it for another year, folks - just these results to announce and it's all over until 2010, when we hope we'll see you all back again!

Just a quick note on scoring before we announce the results – the average for each category over all fics is totalled to make the results, so since each is scored from 1-9 the final score is the number of points out of 27.

As always, the result was close, and like our first McShep Match in 2007 we could easily call it a draw. We prefer to have a winning team if we can possibly manage it though, so despite the narrow margin we will be awarding our first and second place prizes as usual!

The final scores were:

Team War: 23.15
Team Peace: 23.11

Congratulations to Team War for their victory, but also to Team Peace, for making it such a close result!

All that remains is for the Team Members to collect their 1st and 2nd place banners and icons made for McShep Match by the fabulous anna_luna.

First place:

( click here for larger banner and icon )

Second place:

( click here for larger banner and icon )

Thank you anna_luna, and thank you once more to our Teams and Team Captains for making McShep Match so much fun. Also, we have to say a huge thank you to everyone who read, commented and voted - we wouldn't be here without you either!

Finally, all participants can now post their stories wherever they like - those of you with art and long stories that were uploaded to the website for the duration of the fest please let us know the new address for your entries (whether LJ, archive or your website) and we'll replace the links as soon as we can.

Watch this space tomorrow for the results of the Guess the Author/Artist contest!

The polls are now closed and votes will be counted as soon as possible - look out for the results coming to this community on Thursday.

Entries for the guessing game are also closed, and we'll be announcing the winners of the contest on Friday.

All particpant names should be on entries now, along with any beta thanks and other author notes you included with your submission. If we've missed any, or if you want to add beta thanks, please just let us know. Same applies if you spot any errors, though we've checked as best we can.

Please note that the fest is not over yet – you'll be able to post your entries for the fest to your own journal and/or website once the results are up, but please wait until then.

Before we head off to tackle the massive pile of votes, we'd like to say a huge thank you to our fantastic Team Captains lavvyan and kassrachel for all their hard work, to our artists aesc (who made the artwork and icons for this year's communities) and anna_luna (whose fabulous prize artwork you'll be able to admire soon) - and of course to everyone who took part and made the whole fest possible. Special thanks also go to our fabulous backup volunteers callmerizzo, curia_regis, gblvr and roaringmice. We can't possibly express how grateful we are for your help.

We'd also like to thank all our participants on both teams, who not only made that the shortest list of backup volunteers we've had yet, but organised their own interviews and volunteered themselves to offer prizes for the winners of the guessing contest. We always know we're lucky to have great participants in this fest, but you all went above and beyond and your enthusiasm for every part of the fest was very much appreciated by your mods.

Now for the masterlist of entries, and although I'm sure the voters had as much difficulty choosing as we would - may the best team win!

( McShep Match 2009 Masterlist )

Voting closes for McShep Match tomorrow Tuesday 29th September, so you have just over 24 hours left to read and vote!

Polls will close at 10pm GMT (When is that?) on Tuesday, and results will be announced on Thursday 1st October.

Entries for our Guess the Author/Artist contest close at the same time, so don't forget to get those spreadsheets mailed in. Alternatively you can fill in your guesses in our public post here instead. Either way we have some gorgeous prizes from our team members coming up for the best guesses! You can find all the details here.

Don't forget that participants are more than welcome to take part, as long as they only guess for the opposing team.

Have fun!

Just a reminder that the voting closes for McShep Match this Tuesday 29th September, so you have only four days left to read and vote!

Polls will close at 10pm GMT (When is that?) on Tuesday, and results will be announced on Thursday 1st October.

Entries for our Guess the Author/Artist contest close at the same time, so don't forget to get those spreadsheets mailed in! You can find all the details here.

Have fun!

Have you been guessing along throughout the fest? Or do you just have suspicions that you've been keeping to yourself?

Either way, it's time to get all your guesses together and maybe throw in a few wild stabs in the dark, because it's time for our very first official McShep Match Guess the Author/Artist contest!

You can see the entry form at Googledocs here, and you can download it from there as Excel (no other format please), although as it doesn't always keep the formatting we'd prefer it if you download from our McShep Match site as a spreadsheet or simple text file. Please right click and 'Save as' to download.

Once you have your file you need to replace the 'enter your guess here' text associated with each prompt with your guess. Don't forget you can find all our team members listed here as well as check up on your previous guesses if you made any during posting. Please be careful not to change the order or position of any of the prompts shown as it will make scoring very difficult.

Please note that each copy of the spreadsheet/file has enough spaces to guess the prompts for ONE team, so if you want to guess the entrants on both teams you will need to fill out two copies. This means, of course, that if you're participating the fest as a writer or artist you can enter guesses for the opposing team. The important part: when you email your files to us you need to put the name of the team you are guessing in the subject of your mail.

Send your completed entries to: mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com. They need to reach us by the time polls close on Tuesday 29th September, but the sooner you get them in, the better.

You don't need to fill out all boxes if you have no clue at all, but you might as well take a wild guess – there are prizes at stake, after all!

We will be awarding two main prizes to the people who have the most correct guesses for each team – they will be able to submit a prompt for a volunteer from the team to write or draw them the prize of their choice.

Our teams have also been hard at work while we've been posting their fest entries creating some smaller prizes for those who have the most correct guesses on each row of the spreadsheet. If you are using the text file version, it is the most correct guesses for each group of prompts shown.

All winners will be announced on Friday 2nd October.

Good luck!

The final entries have been posted, and now it's time to make sure you've voted for every entry you want to – only one week left to decide which team will take the honours in McShep Match 2009:


OR


Thank you to anna_luna for the gorgeous team pics!

Now, here's how we're going to be wrapping things up this year.

Tuesday 22nd September (yes, that's today) - The stories for the final prompt will be posted. The Guess the Author/Artist contest officially opens (see following post for more details).

Tuesday 29th September – Polls will close, the Guess the Author/Artist contest will close, the Masterlist will be posted, and the author names (and beta thanks etc. where provided) edited into the individual posts on this community. The mods will bravely delve into the polls and start working out the results.

Thursday 1st October – Time to break out the champagne -- the winning team will be announced, and participants will be able to collect their Winner/Runner-up banners and icons! Please wait until the results are announced to post your entry to your own journal, as that is the end of the fest.

Friday October 2nd - The winners of the Guess the Author/Artist contest will be announced and prizes awarded.

As always our teams are encouraged to beg, bribe, and blackmail for votes, but remember it's meant to be a bit of friendly competition!

Anyone who had to drop out because they couldn't meet their deadline but still managed to finish their story in the end, or who wrote any extra stories for their prompt – we'd love to post your stories on the community if you finish them in time. Please submit such stories by September 27th if we don't have them already and we'll include links on the Masterlist.

Any questions or problems please just ask, but in the meantime – read, enjoy, vote, and don't forget to guess!

Title: Coda
Author: callmerizzo
Team: Peace
Prompt: Swan Song
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Summary: The silver Swan, who living had no Note / when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat. (Orlando Gibbons, The Silver Swan)

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

( Coda )

( Vote for this entry )

Title: Except For A Few Small Bruises
Author: justbreathe80 (interview)
Team: War
Prompt: Swan Song
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Summary: He'd been living like this long enough to know what being scared felt like, and yet this wasn't like any of that. Rodney hadn't wanted to know so that he could hurt John or laugh at him or pigeon hole him as the bratty rich boy. He'd wanted to know John, and John knew that if he could keep from running, he might finally be free.
Notes: Many, many thanks to cold_poet, who never fails to come through, and seemed to actually enjoy how rough the draft was that I sent her. *g* Thanks also to strangecobwebs and riverlight for reading through and letting me know that you thought I’d hit the mark. And to busaikko, for kicking me in the right direction when I needed it.

Please note: This story is hosted on a temporary website. If linking to this story please link to this post and not the story itself to ensure you don't end up with broken links after the fest ends. Thank you.

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

Except For a Few Small Bruises

( Vote for this entry )

A few people had noted that the text was a bit hard to read on yesterday's Team War artwork entry, so we've uploaded large versions of the artwork. They are now linked from the original post, but here they are as well if you'd like to check them out:

Page 1 - page 2 - page 3 - page 4

Be aware these are very large files and definitely not dial-up-safe!

Title: This Side of the Mountain
Author: wickedwords (Rachael Sabotini) (interview)
Team: Peace
Prompt: Tooth and Claw
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Zombie Apocalypse, 10 years later. A fusion with World War Z
A/N: Many thanks to my betas: sherrold and my wonderful team leader, kassrachel

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

( This Side of the Mountain )

( Vote for this entry )

Title: Stargate Atlantis, War Stories, Comic add.
Artist: ladyamarra (interview)
Team: War
Prompt: Tooth and Claw
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG to slight NC-17
Warnings: A little nudity on page three, mindcontrol by a Wraith.
Summary: This is a preview for a part 9 of a 15 part fictional graphic novel called "Stargate Atlantis War Stories", presented like you would see it on Amazon or other pages. There are a few pages to preview the different colouring styles, and give a teaser of the plot. You will be able to follow the Atlantis Expedition in their struggles of war, cought between the Binary's Wraith fleet and the Replicators, and especially the story of Dr. Rodney McKay and John Sheppard who are the leading characters throughout the entire graphic novel.

Please note: This artwork is hosted on a temporary website. If linking to this artwork please link to this post and not the artwork itself to ensure you don't end up with broken links after the fest ends. It also ensures you have the header information, of course. Thank you.

Once you've viewed the artwork, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.


page 1 or large version

page 2 or large version

page 3 or large version

page 4 or large version

( Vote for this entry )

Title: De Las Fantasmas
Author: gblvr
Team: Peace
Prompt: Skeleton in the closet
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: John has a secret....
Author's Notes: This story is *not* a crossover but certain aspects of it were influenced by the CW's Supernatural; you *do not* need to be familiar with Supernatural canon for those aspects of the story to make sense.
Notes: Many, many thanks go to my beta readers, elmyraemilie and meansgirl -- your comments were really helpful, and made this a much better story. Any remaining mistakes are my fault, as I am stubborn, and didn't take all of their advice....

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

( De Las Fantasmas )

( Vote for this entry )

Title: Stars Against the Sun
Author: almostnever (interview)
Team: War
Prompt: Skeleton in the Closet
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: BDSM
Summary: Fighting the Wraith turns out to be the easy part.

Please note: This story is hosted on a temporary website. If linking to this story please link to this post and not the story itself to ensure you don't end up with broken links after the fest ends. Thank you.

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

Stars Against the Sun

( Vote for this entry )

Title: Till It Shines (The Secret Life of Rodney McKay)
Author: wesleysgirl
Team: Peace
Prompt: Alter Ego
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Summary: In an alternate universe where John Sheppard is a science fiction writer, he's getting his ass kicked by writer's block and moves to a small town in Maine for a fresh start in the form of one Rodney McKay, who as it turns out is more than meets the eye.
Notes: Many thanks to altyronsmaker for the spectacular beta and title. All remaining errors are my own.

Please note: This story is hosted on a temporary website. If linking to this story please link to this post and not the story itself to ensure you don't end up with broken links after the fest ends. Thank you.

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

Till It Shines (The Secret Life of Rodney McKay)

( Vote for this entry )

Title: It Doesn’t Take a Genius
Author: roaringmice
Team: War
Prompt: Alter Ego
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slash, swears, comedy.
Summary: Rodney is a man with a mission.

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

( It Doesn’t Take a Genius )

( Vote for this entry )

There was a bit of a glitch with converting the Team Peace story yesterday - it needed uploading at the last minute as the header and poll sections put it over the LJ limit, so in the rush we didn't notice that some breaks were removed. If you found it confusing this should now be cleared up in the shiny new uploaded version.

Title: Heroes With A Plan
Author: monanotlisa (interview)
Team: Peace
Prompt: Carpe Diem
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard (plus canon pairings of Season Five)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Summary: The present was yesterday.

Please note: This story is hosted on a temporary website. If linking to this story please link to this post and not the story itself to ensure you don't end up with broken links after the fest ends. Thank you.

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

Heroes with a Plan

( Vote for this entry )

Title: Memento Mori (Seize the New Day)
Author: neevebrody (interview)
Team: War
Prompt: Carpe Diem
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Adult Situations, Language, Futuristic Earthside AU
Summary: Disgraced and shunned, Rodney McKay finds a way to fight back with the help of a rogue cop and a motley band of scientists.
Notes: Huge thanks and four vats of aged roos wine to my fabulous beta, mischief5. I could not have done this without her. This story is a homage to my favorite sci-fi authors and is very loosely based on one of my favorite stories, "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury.

Please note: This story is hosted on a temporary website. If linking to this story please link to this post and not the story itself to ensure you don't end up with broken links after the fest ends. Thank you.

Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.

More details about the voting procedure can be found here.

Memento Mori (Seize the New Day)

( Vote for this entry )

First of all, it's great to see the guesses coming in on the Guess the authors and artists post - we can't say how well you're doing but there are definitely some interesting guesses!

As promised, we have a contest for you to pull all your guesses together, as well as maybe take some chances on ones you're not sure enough to post about in a comment here.

When we post the final entries for the fest on this community on Tuesday 22nd September, we will post a link for you to download a spreadsheet for each team. We can provide a .txt alternative for those who need it. We'll give you full details on how to submit your guesses then, but all you need to do is replace the titles shown with the name of your guess for the author or artist, and submit your final guesses by the deadline: Tuesday 29th September.

The person who guesses the most entries for each team will be able to offer a prompt, and a member of that team will write or draw them a prize.

There will also be smaller prizes (drabbles, icons, drawings etc.) offered for those who correctly guess the most authors or artists from each column in the spreadsheet/list in the .txt file. Our team members are hard at work creating these already, and they will be posted here when we announce the results of the fest and the guessing contest on Thursday 1st October.

Please note: participants can take part in this contest, but only submit guesses for the opposing team, obviously!