Here be Dragons!

[pensnest]

Yes, gentlefolk, it is D-Day, and you know what that means?

*eyerolls* Okay, what you'll find on Google *is* a bit different, yes. But as far as Pen's Nest is concerned, D is for Dragons. The Dragon Challenge stories are available for your reading pleasure, fourteen stories with literal, metaphorical, figurative or, um, other DRAGONS.

Enjoy them here!

The authors are anonymous, for a week. The FEEDBACK link comes back to this post, so please, let these lovely people know their efforts are appreciated, yes? And of course, speculation on who wrote what is also welcome. You can always sneak back to the signup post and see who the possibilities are...

ETA: A couple of people have commented below that they're doing feedback in their own journals, to avoid presenting spoilers. An excellent plan.

Authors, if you want to reply to anything, don't forget to keep it anonymous, for now.

Thank you again to everyone who participated.

PS I'm viewing in Safari, on a Mac. It's possible that there may be formatting awkwardnesses if you're reading in IE or something else - if you see any, please let me know so that I can fix it all.

Comments

[ephemera-pop.livejournal.com]

hurray for dragons! Hurray for Pen!

[ephemera-pop.livejournal.com]

and I have devoured stories all afternoon. My comments were spoilery, though, so I've posted them here, under a cut tag - FB for all of them, because dragons!

[pensnest]

A very sensible idea, btw - thanks!

[pensnest]

Indeed yay for me, because I got to read them *first*!

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

Happy, happy birthday! Thank you for doing this, it's fun!

[pensnest]

It is! A splendid collection of dragon stories to enjoy, makes for a fine birthday. :-D

[sola-fiamma.livejournal.com]

Dragons! Eeee! So exciting! And I see my story made it to you in time. I kept checking the World Clock site and thinking, OMG, what if it's wrong???

And you got so many stories! How cool is that? I can hardly wait to get home from work and dive in -- and start guessing. I love these "blind" challenges!!!

/abuse of exclamation marks

[pensnest]

Yes - no problem! Though I had a moment of sheer horror when, just as I was about to upload the page with all the links on, Freeway *froze* and died and when I restarted, just to be on the safe side, the *mouse* didn't want to work! However, I poked at things, and all was well. And it was a good incentive and made me copy everything to Beast's computer. Enough rambling.

I'm very chuffed to have so many stories - so many that I *really* like, too. Enjoy your reading.

[nopseud]

Happy birthday, dude! And congratulations on running such an excellent challenge.

[pensnest]

Thank you! And yay, it has worked out *very* nicely, I must say.

[ravenbat.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping that your birthday turned out wonderful.

I've finally gotten through all of the stories and let me say that they all were well done. :) I was so pleased to find that they were all so different and I definitely enjoyed spending the day reading them at my leisure.

[pensnest]

Dragons turn out to have been a really good subject for a challenge. I suspect that there are more dragon stories to be written, but it's been a delight to have such a variety here. For my birthday!

[silveryscrape.livejournal.com]

A yearly challenge, perhaps. Hmm? Hmm?

[pensnest]

That's a dismayingly tempting thought. I mean, Dragons... I was trying to think of some alternatives, but though Dogs are okay, Dinosaurs just aren't sexy and nobody likes Dwarves.

We'll seel.

[nopseud]

Dolphins, djinn, desert, desserts, divinities, dopplegangers, demons, daffodils, Death, Disney, the Devil, Daleks, Dracula and ducks.

Dude.

[pensnest]

You'll be up for a daffodils challenge next year, then?

I can see some promise in desserts, divinities and Disney...

[nopseud]

And dolphins. I mean, we have canon dolphin-love.

[pensnest]

Yeah, whereas the canon dragon love is, arguably, hard to find...

[ninjetti75.livejournal.com]

Bwah!

Why was I unaware D-Day was your birthday?!?

Well, Happy Belated Birthday, and I hope it was fabulous!

[pensnest]

It was a pretty good birthday, having a bunch of Dragon stories to read made a very nice start! :-)

[turloughishere.livejournal.com]

Now I've read them all - they're all so different! Much more than I could ever have imagined, some weren't really my thing, others I loved, but they're all very, very good! This challenge is really a great success!! Now I'm going to try and write something about my impressions of every story (and a few writer guesses :-) and post in my own journal because I think I'm not going to be able to avoid some spoilers.

[pensnest]

Heh. I think you'll guess, um, at least one of them.

[turloughishere.livejournal.com]

Well, I know who wrote one of them and I have a very strong hunch as to who wrote another, but the rest is pretty much a toss-up. I'm sooo not good at judging who wrote what :-)

[daisydust.livejournal.com]

Thank You! This was such a great challenge and I really enjoyed reading all the stories. If folks are interested, my initial thoughts are here: http://daisydust.livejournal.com/28849.html

My comments do contain spoilers so don't click if you haven't read yet.

[pensnest]

Thanks for leaving the link. :-)

[frausorge]

I've commented on a few of my favorites here:
http://lesasoja.livejournal.com/63585.html

What a cool challenge - thanks for organizing it!

[pensnest]

It has turned out very well, I think. Thanks for the link.

[turps33.livejournal.com]

Dude, I suck.

I forgot to leave congratulations here, which you so deserve.

Thanks so much for such an awesome challenge!

I'll be posting what I thought in my journal very soon.

[pensnest]

Dude, I suck.
Nonsense! You wrote a fine Dragon story! Suckage is incompatible.

Thanks so much for such an awesome challenge!
It's worked out very well, hasn't it! I'm very pleased. And I look forward to seeing your feedback.