After an epic battle of bribery, promises and grovelling -- all of which are absolutely allowed under the rules, in case anyone was wondering -- we have a result for the Drabble Challenge!

By 128 votes to 119, the winners are.... Team War!

Team Peace take the prize for reading the rules, however, since we had to remove almost half of Team War from the final vote ;-)

I think most voters realised what an amazing job both teams and their supporters did, because the result was very close. Thank you to everyone who took part, cheered, supported and voted!

Up next: We'll be posting the final prompt lists for the teams to their respective communities, and after a well-deserved break we will have some activities to keep things going during the writing period.

Thanks again, everyone, and remember you can grab icons here to keep supporting your chosen team throughout the fest!

Wow, the response to the drabble tree challenge has been unbelievable, with a grand total of 468 drabbles in - 217 for Team War and 251 for Team Peace! That's definitely a new record!

A huge thank you to everyone who took part in the challenge, and special thanks to almostnever, ldyanne, altyronsmaker and danceswithgary for each contributing more than 30 drabbles to the challenge. There were many others not far behind them, of course, and everyone who took part did an amazing job. Special thanks also to the wonderful altyronsmaker (again!) for compiling the Team Peace drabbles – your mod was extremely grateful for the help :-)

Now it's time for you to decide which team and their supporters will take the prize for this challenge. You can find all entries linked below, grouped by Team. The threads have been unfrozen now we have everything linked, so feel free to comment on the drabbles - the great efforts involved definitely deserve praise.

You have until midnight GMT on Sunday to vote – we're giving it a little longer than usual since it's almost weekend already. (When is that?) Anyone with an LJ can vote as long as they're not on one of our teams, so round up your friends and blackmail your family, because the winning team will have a slightly longer deadline for the fest – two whole extra days to get their entries in!

Team War has won one challenge already – can Team Peace even the score?

Please note: Since we have teams now, and since there are uneven numbers of participants this year due to co-writers taking part, team members will not be eligible to vote in the poll. If you vote by mistake don't worry about it -- we just won't include your vote in the final totals.

( Drabbles for Team War )

( Drabbles for Team Peace )

Poll #1421485
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which team put up the best showing in the drabble challenge?

And after a truly incredible effort from both teams and their supporters, the drabble challenge is now closed!

We'll have a poll up for readers to decide which team came out ahead soon, just as soon as your mods can link all the drabbles - please bear with us as this might take slightly longer than we originally thought. In the meantime a big thank you to everyone who took part!

This is just a quick reminder that the drabble challenge ends in just under six hours, at midnight GMT.

Not that you all need any encouragement, since we apparently have over 400 drabbles in our drabble tree already! *boggles* Yay teams!

With the exception of a couple of stragglers, both teams now have their prompts and McShep Match is officially underway for another year!

If you're one of those stragglers please head over to your team community and claim your prompt as soon as you can. If you don't claim a prompt by Sunday June 28th we'll assign you one randomly from those remaining.

We also have a final few reminders for all our participants to make sure things run as smoothly as possible, but don't forget if you're not sure about anything – and that especially applies to our artists as that's a new addition to the fest this year – just contact one of the mods or ask on your community.


The deadline for exchanging prompts is Sunday June 28th. You can only exchange with a member of your own team, you need to arrange it on the team community or by email and then both team members need to let their team mod know.

Minimum word count for stories is 1000 per writer contributing (so 2000 if you're co-writing).

No crossovers except with SG1.

No sequels – all stories and art should stand alone. You can post it as part of a series later to your own journal but you should bear in mind that all entries to this fest are posted anonymously.

Voting will be focused on how well your entry matches both the team theme and the prompt you chose/were assigned.


Don't forget the drabble challenge is still going strong – can Team Peace pull of a victory to even the score? Just two more days to go! If you're posting an entry to the drabble tree please do check you've included your team name in the subject line so we assign it to the correct one – if you forget and can't edit just reply to your own drabble with the team name.

And now it's time for our second warm-up challenge here at mcshep_match!

This challenge is to create a drabble tree – a set of drabbles branching off from each other each based on words or phrases from a previous drabble in the tree.

To take part, all you need to do is write a drabble – you can find a great post on drabble-writing here, but basically they need to be 100 words long and include a word or phrase (or a whole sentence if you want) from any drabble in the tree. Then post your drabble as a comment in reply to the one you're branching from, and don't forget to announce your support for either War or Peace in the subject line when you post. The starting drabble for the tree will be neutral and not count towards either team.

Both participants and watchers are welcome to take part – these challenges are for everyone to try!

You can write as many drabbles as you like as long they have 100 words exactly and they fit into the tree. Please post each drabble separately, even if you're branching off from the same drabble. If you don't announce which team you're entering it for the mods will decide which the drabble best fits and assign it to that team when it comes to voting.

As with the icon challenge, everyone will be able to vote for which team produced the best set of drabbles overall, and the winning team will receive a small boost to help their efforts in the fest.

The challenge will run until Wednesday 24th June at midnight GMT (When is that?) and the voting post will go up on Thursday 25th June.

The starting drabble can be found in the comments, please reply to it to start the tree off. The prompt for the starting drabble was: Prank war.

As you've probably noticed, the teams are now both filled. Thanks to everyone for the enthusiastic response and to those who volunteered as backups and betas -- it's great to see people were looking forward to this year's fest as much as we were!

The Top Secret Prompt List of Doom will go out to Team War on Friday 19th June at 8pm GMT (When is that?)and to Team Peace on Sunday 21st June at 8pm GMT, so participants please remember to keep an eye on your Team communities for that -- we'll be posting the prompts for you to claim on the day for your team.

Do please also bear in mind that this is an anonymous challenge, so keep your prompt assignment a secret outside of your team community and your betas.

Next up on this community - the Drabble Tree challenge. Can the Team Peace level the score? Or will Team War take the honours again? It's up to you! And we do mean you -- the challenge is open to all and starts Wednesday 17th June.

If you're not assigned to a team, this is where you can volunteer to help out by betaing stories or art for our intrepid team members.

Please leave the following info to help writers see what you can offer:

Fic, art, or both?
Willing to help with: (This may be characterisation, spelling & grammar, American/Canadian (or other place) knowledge, pacing and so on – whatever you think your strengths are or what you are prepared to do.)
Probably can't help with: (As above, and whatever else you can think of. Please also include any squicks, so if you really can't cope with character deaths or certain scenarios, please do let us know here.)
Fluffy bunny or sabre-toothed beastie? (How tough are you as a beta, or do you have a range of ferocity settings?)
A contact email address: (Not your default LJ one, please.)

On behalf of our participants, thank you! We'll be reminding the teams of this post once their stories are underway.

Participants should take note of the information in the sign-up before contacting any of the potential betas below. Please remember to ask if they have time before sending your entry to them, and do let them know what you would like them to look at if you have particular expectations.

Writers/artists and betas should also both remember that posting will be anonymous, so please keep identities and prompts secret until the voting is completed and the reveal is made.

Any problems, please contact one of the mods.

If you were too late to join the team you were interested in, or you'd rather just be a back up for the fest in any case, this is where you let us know.

If you missed the cut-off on the team posts we will automatically ask you if you want to be listed as a potential back up, but you can sign up here anyway if you prefer.

All you need to do is leave your LJ name, whether you can be a back-up for fic, art or either, and a contact email address (not your default LJ one, please) here. If you have a team preference you can add that, otherwise we will approach you for a slot we need filled on either.

Thank you!

And we're off!

Not been paying attention, or just need a reminder of what's going on? Check out our rules post and don't forget to grab yourself an icon to support your chosen team when you're done!

Remember that places are limited and always disappear very quickly, so if you want to be sure of a place you need to sign up as quickly as possible. If you think the team you want to play for may be filled, it's still worth signing up as long as we haven't officially closed the sign-ups. Just check the most recent comment on the post to be sure.

Please sign up for one team only. Otherwise your mods will go insane trying to work out whether or not the teams are filled!

To sign up for Team War, please head over to this post and leave your LJ Name (or that of the person you are signing up for), whether the sign-up is as a writer or an artist, and an email address (not LJ default one) in a comment.

To sign up for Team Peace, please head over to this post and leave your LJ Name (or that of the person you are signing up for), whether the sign-up is as a writer or an artist, and an email address (not your LJ default one, please) in a comment.

You can sign up for someone else (if they have asked you to do so), but please only sign up one person per comment unless the particpants are co-writing for the fest. If two participants are co-writing, only one person should comment. Please include both LJ names and email addresses, and provide a link to a fic that you/they have co-written together.

Not sure you can commit, or too late for the team you wanted? Then go here and volunteer to be a backup writer – remember to tell us which team you are interested in writing for if you have a preference.

Want to volunteer as a beta? Then go here and fill out the simple form that will help match up writers and betas when the time comes!

*** BOTH TEAMS ARE NOW FULL - THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SIGNED UP! ***

Sign-ups will be opening in one hour!

In this post we'll be collecting all of this year's McShep Match icons, as a one-stop resource for everybody looking for one. We'll link it from the sidebar so it'll be easy to find. :-)

What you'll find here: this year's official McShep Match icons, all the icons from the icon challenge, and any others that have been or will be made during this fest. (There are already a few new ones that were too late for the icon challenge!)

If you create any more McShep Match icons, whether for a team or general ones, just put them in the comments here or link us to them, and we'll add them to this post.

McShep Match Icons – General

( general icons under here )

Team War

( Team War icons under here )

Team Peace

( Team Peace icons under here )

Please remember to credit the makers in the keywords when you upload any of these!

The voting for the Icon Challenge is now closed, and the winner is...

Team War!

Congratulations to the team's supporters (since there won't be a team until sign-ups end) – thanks to your efforts Team War will be the first to see this year's prompt list.

If you have any icons that were too late for the challenge you can still submit them for use in the fest -- just comment on the challenge post and we'll add them to the upcoming icon post.

Next up are the sign-ups (tomorrow) and once those are done the Team Peace will have chance to equal the score with the Drabble Tree Challenge, and win themselves a reward as well before we get underway.

Thank you again to everyone who took part in the Icon Challenge and those who voted, and we hope to see you all tomorrow signing up for our teams! Sign-ups will open at 10pm GMT. (When is that?)

We've had lots of entries in the great War vs. Peace icon contest – but which team do you think came out ahead?

This is where you get to vote, and the winning team will get a head start on the prompt list for the fest - we'll be handing it over a couple of days early for their perusal while the other team can only sit and wonder - and try to get their revenge in the next challenge, of course!

So here they are - the entries in our icon challenge:

Team War

( Team War icons under here )


Team Peace

( Team Peace icons under here )

Thanks to everyone who took part! Please remember to credit the makers in the keywords when you upload any of these - you'll have plenty of chance to use their fabulous work over the next few months!

Poll #1414029
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which team put up the best showing in the icon challenge?

You can vote until 6pm GMT on Thursday. (When is that?) After that, we'll tally up the votes and announce the winning team.

So get voting, and don't forget you can prod, bribe or beg your friends to vote as well, it's open to anyone with an LJ!

We have lots of great entries already for our icon challenge, but don't forget to keep them coming – just comment to the post linked above by Wednesday to have them count for the challenge.

We'll put up the poll to vote on the best icon turn out for the teams as soon as we close the challenge, and the results will be up on Thursday. You'll still be able to submit icons throughout the fest, and we'll collect them all in a central post, but obviously they won't count towards your team's efforts for this challenge.

Have fun, and if you're planning to sign up for the fest on Friday June 12 don't forget to have a read through our rules and FAQ here to make sure you're prepared!

Okay, sign-ups open for McShep Match 2009 – War and Peace in just 9 days, so hopefully you've all decided by now which team you're interested in playing for or supporting.

As usual, we'll have two challenges coming up over the next couple of weeks that will each give the team that comes out ahead a small advantage in the main fest.

Team War (led by the lovely lavvyan) and Team Peace (led by the fabulous kassrachel) and their supporters will be needing plenty of suitable icons to proclaim their allegiance, of course, and although we have our official McShep Match 2009 icons by aesc, we will be needing plenty of alternatives. Therefore the first challenge, which will run from now until Wednesday 10th June, is for icons!

Icons can be with or without team-related text (e.g. 'Team War', 'Team Peace', 'War', 'Peace' etc.) but should be themed to one or the other. They don't have to be specifically McShep, but as the fest is for McKay/Sheppard stories only, please don't submit icons featuring either of them in other pairings! Other pairings without either Sheppard or McKay are fine - if you want to make an icon of Lorne/Zelenka or Teyla/Elizabeth supporting the teams, go for it. Or if you have an idea using stock photography - no problem!

In short, as long as it's supporting one of the teams and doesn't contradict our pairing, it's good.

All you need to do is make a comment to this post with your icons (and details for giving credit etc.) Please make sure you list the team the icons are for in the subject to help the mods.

When the icon challenge closes on June 10th we will compile all icons for each team into groups and comm watchers will be able to vote for the team they think has made the best showing in the contest. Last year we hosted the icons on a mod's website for the voting post and will be doing the same again this year, but if you'd prefer your icons to be hotlinked instead then please mention it when you post your entry.

The winning team (when teams have been determined) will receive the prompt list a day or two earlier and get a slight head start on their planning for the fest, so if you're planning to sign up for a team get busy making your icons or prod your friends to do some - the warm-up challenges are open to all!

What is McShep Match?

McShep Match is a bit of friendly competition between two themed teams of 25 writers – and now 5 artists too. Each team takes on the same set of prompts and creates their entries to fit both their team theme and their selected prompt.

Entries are posted anonymously and readers vote on how well the entries fit the team theme (War or Peace) and the prompt used, as well as how much they enjoyed it. The average score for each entry is added to the overall team score and the team with the highest total is awarded the win. Please note that all individual results are viewable only by the mods and only the final team results are ever announced or viewed by anyone else.

( What type of prompts will they be? How will they be assigned? )

( What are the rules? )

( When can I sign up? )

( How do I sign up? )

( I don’t know which team to join! )

( I won't have access to LJ at that time! )

( Two of us want to sign up to co-write, how do we do that? )

( What happens after I've signed up? )

( When are entries due? When will they be posted? )

And if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

Welcome to McShep Match 2009 - War and Peace!

We’re going to tell you more about our teams shortly, but before we start, we'd like to say a big thank you to the very talented aesc for all her work on the official artwork for McShep Match. As well as the banner above, do check out the header for this community and for the team-specific comms, which you can find at mcshep_war and mcshep_peace!

Just one note: please don't try to join the team communities yet - there may be things to watch there once we start (it's up to the teams) but only those who are on the team itself will be members and they will be added when we announce the final teams. Thanks!

Now it’s time to unveil our official fest icons:



Please remember to credit aesc if you use these icons, of course.

As always we’ll be needing plenty for both supporters and for the mods to post the entries, so we’ll be having our usual icon challenge for those of you who want to contribute to the proceedings that way!

I’m sure many of you already know which team you’re planning to join (whether as a writer or an artist) or which team you’ll be cheering for, but for those of you who haven’t yet decided, our team captains would like to say a few words.


( Team War )

( Team Peace )


We'll be posting this year's rules, including sign-up details, in a minute - and then, next up will be the icon challenge. Watch out for that on Wednesday!

As you might have guessed from this post, we will definitely be running McShep Match again for 2009!

A huge thank you to everyone who took part in our poll, and particularly to everyone who suggested team themes. There were so many great ideas submitted (Ninjas vs. Pirates being a mod favourite *g*) that we wish we could do them all, but in the end we went with…

War and Peace!

Thank you to patk, sorchasilver and several others for that suggestion.

The lovely lavvyan will be taking on the captain role for Team War, while the equally lovely kassrachel has kindly agreed to take charge of Team Peace.

In a change from the previous format, teams for 2009 will consist of 25 writers and 5 artists.

We'll be opening events as always with the icon challenge a few days before sign-ups, but these are the important dates for those of you interested in taking part this year:

Sign-ups open: Friday 12th June
Prompts allocated at latest by: June 28th
Deadline: Wednesday 19th August
Posting starts: Monday 24th August

We'll be posting banners to promote the fest as we get nearer to sign-ups, but in the meantime if you have any questions just ask!

Your mods trobadora (Team War) and fluffyllama (Team Peace).

We may not have a new season of SGA to look forward to this year, but your mods here at McShep Match don't see why that should stop us.

If we run McShep Match this year, this is the plan so far:

- Sign-ups will take place early June, with the deadline in mid-August.
- The fest will include both writers and artists.
- The same number of artist places will be available on each team. If there is more interest than anticipated from artists there may be an increase in team size, but places on teams will still be limited.

We're still mulling over team theme ideas, but we'd love input from participants and readers if you have any suggestions. As a reminder, we've had Angst vs. Romance and Home vs. Away in the past. Remember people will be voting on how well a story or piece of art fits the team theme, so it has to be easily and clearly understood, but it also needs to leave room for creativity and for 20-30 participants to draw/write something for various prompts within the confines of the theme.

Please indicate your interest and make any suggestions in our handy poll!

Poll #1376910
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I'd be interested in taking part in McShep Match:

Even if I can't participate...

I have an idea for team themes:

Feel free to ask questions and make suggestions for this year's teams in the comments too!