Dark Star's Journal

Is anyone still there? If so...

scribesds — Mon, 19 May 2025 22:51:10 GMT

It's that time of year again, here I am with my annual reminder for those that still take part. (New participants always welcome!)

How are you all?

Happy Cookie Day!

May 20th is Cookie Day!

On May 20th 2003, the episode Chosen aired. This was the episode that contained Buffy’s cookie dough speech, and perhaps by now she has finished baking. To commemorate this, in 2010, I organised our very first B/A Cookie Day. Want to join in?

You can take part by:

· Telling everyone it's Cookie Day!
· Sharing your favourite cookie recipes.
· Eating cookies
· Sharing cookies
· Buying cookies
· Making cookies
· Sharing your B/A cookie drabbles and stories
· Making some cookie-related artwork.

· Spread the Cookie Love!

I don't know if anyone is still playing along, but...

scribesds — Mon, 20 May 2024 14:31:46 GMT

Is anyone still there? If so...

Happy Cookie Day!

May 20th is Cookie Day!

On May 20th 2003, the episode Chosen aired. This was the episode that contained Buffy’s cookie dough speech, and perhaps by now she has finished baking. To commemorate this, in 2010, I organised our very first B/A Cookie Day. Want to join in?

You can take part by:

· Telling everyone it's Cookie Day!
· Sharing your favourite cookie recipes.
· Eating cookies
· Sharing cookies
· Buying cookies
· Making cookies
· Sharing your B/A cookie drabbles and stories
· Making some cookie-related artwork.

· Spread the Cookie Love!

Goodbye Jo

scribesds — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 01:09:37 GMT

I heard today that Jo, also known as The Librarian, has passed away. For those unfamiliar, she wrote many stories, including the hugely popular The Nature of the Beast – and this was all the more special, because it was her first ever fanfiction.

At one time, I had many fan projects on, so many balls in the air to juggle, and I couldn't have done it without her loyal support every step of the way. She was such a wonderful, warm human being and I miss her so much.

RIP, my friend.

scribesds — Sat, 20 May 2023 15:22:26 GMT

I don't know if anyone is still playing along, but...

Happy Cookie Day!

May 20th is Cookie Day!

On May 20th 2003, the episode Chosen aired. This was the episode that contained Buffy’s cookie dough speech, and perhaps by now she has finished baking. To commemorate this, in 2010, I organised our very first B/A Cookie Day. Want to join in?

You can take part by:

· Telling everyone it's Cookie Day!
· Sharing your favourite cookie recipes.
· Eating cookies
· Sharing cookies
· Buying cookies
· Making cookies
· Sharing your B/A cookie drabbles and stories
· Making some cookie-related artwork.

· Spread the Cookie Love!

Cookie Day 2021

scribesds — Wed, 19 May 2021 22:00:52 GMT

11 years of Cookie Days?? wow...

After the year we've all had, I think we deserve some cookies, don't you?

Happy Cookie Day!

May 20th is Cookie Day!

On May 20th 2003, the episode Chosen aired. This was the episode that contained Buffy’s cookie dough speech, and perhaps by now she has finished baking. To commemorate this, in 2010, I organised our very first B/A Cookie Day. Want to join in?

You can take part by:

· Telling everyone it's Cookie Day!
· Sharing your favourite cookie recipes.
· Eating cookies
· Sharing cookies
· Buying cookies
· Making cookies
· Sharing your B/A cookie drabbles and stories
· Making some cookie-related artwork.

· Spread the Cookie Love!

The Vampire has Risen!

scribesds — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 23:43:32 GMT

Been a while since I posted site news!!

Scribes of Angel was launched nearly 20 years ago, in various homes, and it went down a couple of years ago, due to our old coding being incompatible with the site hosting. We didn't have time to make all the alterations needed to bring it up to scratch, and we thought that was the end of it. However, the fans still love it, and I was still getting lots of pleas to not let it die. So we came up with a compromise! We managed to get an A-Z list of stories (over 900!) back up for everyone to enjoy. Sadly we had to ditch the database, so it isn't searchable and some of the outside links don't work (I have no control over those) but there are plenty of great stories to get your teeth into! We decided to leave the original closing message in place and just added our updates – we thought it was important to keep Scribes' history intact.

Scribes of Angel

A reminder that Project Paranormal has had a tidy up and the story links all work on there, too.

Project Paranormal

In addition, our homepage has been updated for links to all of the my 'current' sites, and there may well be some changes and alterations to those sites soon, too.

Dark Star's Portal

Anyway, we hope it brings you some pleasure in these trying times.

Character Bios

scribesds — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 22:33:40 GMT

One for the writers among you - I think you should know your original character inside out, so sometimes, I like to play with Bios. I thought you might like to take a look at my latest version - feel free to use if you wish, or if you have suggestions for great questions I would love to hear them!

I'm going to assume that you already know your characters' name, and a rough idea of what they look like. But here are some ideas to get you thinking more deeply about who they are – and of course, ignore anything that you don't like or isn't relevant.

1. Do they have any tattoos or piercings?
2. What kind of clothes do they wear?
3. Any scars? How did they get them?
4. What family do they have?
5. What is their relationship with their family?
6. Place of birth?
7. Where do they live?
8. Where have they lived?
9. What is their job?
10. Do they have any specialist training? Qualifications?
11. Do they have a natural talent for something?
12. Do they like to travel?
13. Where is their favourite place?
14. Who is their best friend – or friends?
15. Who was their best friend/s as a child?
16. What happened to those friends? Are they still in contact?
17. Does this character like him/herself?
18. Are they in good health?
19. Any minor health issues?
20. Favourite food?
21. Food they don't like?
22. Favourite book?
23. Favourite soft drink?
24. Alcoholic drink of choice?
25. Favourite movie/film/play?
26. Any hobbies or pastimes?
27. Do they play any sports? Are they any good?
28. What might this person do in their spare time?
29. What would be a great gift for this person?
30. Do they have any pets?
31. Favourite childhood pet?
32. Can they drive? Do they have a favourite vehicle?
33. Idiosyncrasies?
34. Most embarrassing thing that ever happened to him?
35. Are they more optimistic or pessimistic?
36. Are they introverted or extroverted?
37. How do they display affection?
38. How do they react to praise?
39. How do they react to criticism?
40. What is their greatest fear?
41. When was the last time they cried?
42. Would they prefer to be indoors or outdoors?
43. What is their best childhood memory?
44. What is their worst childhood memory?
45. Are they in a relationship?
46. How do they behave in a relationship?
47. Has your character ever been in love?
48. Have they ever had their heart broken?
49. How do they respond to a threat?
50. What is their choice of weapon?
51. What is their favourite animal?
52. Which animal to they dislike the most?
53. What is the most beautiful thing they have ever seen?
54. What is on their bedside table?
55. What is in their bag/purse/wallet/pocket?
56. What is their most treasured possession?
57. Are they minimalist or a clutter hoarder?
58. What do they do first thing on a weekday morning?
59. Are they comfortable with technology?
60. What is their most powerful memory?
61. What might they have for breakfast?
62. Can they – do they like to – cook?
63. What would you notice first about this character?
64. Favourite childhood toy.
65. Have they killed anyone? Who was the first?
66. What would be a good way for them to spend a day?
67. What was their first experience of death? Who, or what, was it?
68. Do they have a hero or role model?
69. Do they like music? What kind?
70. Do they have any birth marks, moles or freckles?
71. Favourite cafe/restaurant/pub/public place?
72. Do they take any regular medication, or have any allergies or intolerance's?
73. Is there something this person can't, or doesn't like, to do?
74. Does this person have a dream or goal to achieve?

Fandom website musings

scribesds — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 00:30:31 GMT

As most of you know, I've been known to make websites. And for the record, I've had enormous fun doing so.

Recently I was poking around some fan posts, where one person commented that in the old days everyone had their own websites, but nowadays people use the likes of Fanfiction or AO3. She wasn't being rude, but I got the impression that she was saying that individual websites were somehow... inferior to the big multi sites.

I know I haven't been in the game for a bit... but... is that really the case? Does nobody make their own sites now? If so, that's... appalling. I'm aware I'm something of a dinosaur but I don't like the big fan sites. I tried Fanfiction.net, I think I have a story on there somewhere, but I hated it; I don't use AO3, and I definitely don't want to join anything just to read some stories.

For me, part of the fun of running your own sites is control. (Yes, I have been called a megalomaniac before!) Its fun planning how you want it to look, how you want people to view it, what you want on it. From what I've seen, the big sites are white, bland, and impersonal. They feel soulless to me. One thing I loved to do on Scribes was find the little gems that nobody else had found. Often the author was shy, or frightened of the archives, or lacked confidence – and that kind of author would never be found on the biggies. All those brilliant stories lost. And every time I asked for a story – Scribes had around 900 stories and every one of them was posted with the authors' permission (that was a lot of emails, I can tell you!) - the author was so thrilled to be chosen that it made their day – and mine, for that matter.

Perhaps arrogantly, I'm proud of my part in the Buffy fandom. Authors have told me I've given them confidence to write more, to learn, and try new things. My fiction challenges have inspired thousands of stories that wouldn't have existed at all. Friends have written stories simply because I've asked them to, and we've shared ideas and plot bunnies and generally leant on each other, and its horrifying to me that none of those stories would exist without the small friendly archives. My stories wouldn't exist, either. It took Mike weeks to persuade me to post my first offerings online, and that, friends, is how my first website came to be.

Of course, its entirely possible I've got the wrong end of the stick and am getting my knickers in a twist over a silly misunderstanding. I hope so.

Have I got it wrong? Do you like the big archives?

Project Paranormal

scribesds — Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:56:26 GMT

I've been meaning to post this for days! So many things to do...

While many of my Angel sites are, sadly, no longer open, Project Paranormal most definitely is. It had been suffering from the same coding issues that took out Scribes and the forum, but, we've given it a bit of a spring clean, Mike has updated the coding, and, we hope, it shouldn't be affected by that particular problem again. We've also altered the entry pages so that readers come into the story on season one, which makes more sense.

In addition, while I was scurrying around my old Project files, I found lots of oddments that may be of interest to readers. Notes on behind the scene stuff, pictures, sillyness, ideas we had, that kind of thing. If anyone would be interested, I could maybe put them up on our old journal, projectpara Of course, after all this time people might not care very much, but I thought I'd put the idea out and gauge the reaction.

And talking of old LJ communities, what happened to all the header pictures? My old coms have lost their graphics - I assume you have to pay for them nowadays, but its sad when all the nice graphics have gone.

10 years of Cookie Days!

scribesds — Tue, 19 May 2020 21:55:21 GMT

I have no idea if there are any B/A fans still hanging around here, but just in case:

Happy Cookie Day!

May 20th is Cookie Day!

On May 20th 2003, the episode Chosen aired. This was the episode that contained Buffy’s cookie dough speech, and perhaps by now she has finished baking. To commemorate this, in 2010, I organised our very first B/A Cookie Day. Want to join in?

You can take part by:

· Telling everyone it's Cookie Day!
· Sharing your favourite cookie recipes.
· Eating cookies
· Sharing cookies
· Buying cookies
· Making cookies
· Sharing your B/A cookie drabbles and stories
· Making some cookie-related artwork.

· Spread the Cookie Love!

Happy Cookie Day!

scribesds — Mon, 20 May 2019 14:54:10 GMT

Happy Cookie Day!

May 20th is Cookie Day!

On May 20th 2003, the episode Chosen aired. This was the episode that contained Buffy’s cookie dough speech, and perhaps by now she has finished baking. To commemorate this, in 2010, I organised our very first B/A Cookie Day. Want to join in?

You can take part by:

· Telling everyone it's Cookie Day!
· Sharing your favourite cookie recipes.
· Eating cookies
· Sharing cookies
· Buying cookies
· Making cookies
· Sharing your B/A cookie drabbles and stories
· Making some cookie-related artwork.

· Spread the Cookie Love!

Oh, and not a B/A fan? Have a cookie anyway...

New Things!

scribesds — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 11:18:29 GMT

I have a brand new jewellery website that I am just about to launch. If anyone would like to have a quick look around, tell me what you think, and tell me if you see any problems or spelling mistakes, etc, that I've missed? No need to buy anything!! There isn't too much there yet in the nature of products, a bit low after Christmas, but I'm working on filling it up.

I still have my Etsy shop, and since many of my items are one-off, I had a bit of a problem deciding what to put where, but I think the new website is going to lean more heavily on brass, slks, ceramics and other quality materials.

https://www.rosebayjewellery.com

Thank you!

Also, my son Mike, he who laboured on my Buffy websites for nigh on two decades (he doesn't even watch it!) has now got a new game trailer out. It won't be available till next year but if you would like to see the trailer you can view it on Youtube and Steam:

Trailer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esjXezkVWqc
Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1023560/Cornflake_Crisis/

Also if you've got a Twitter account, and wouldn't mind retweeting for him, you can find that here: https://twitter.com/mikehive/status/1093206741926449152

So, what's new with you?

Is it really 20 years?

scribesds — Sat, 11 Mar 2017 01:15:21 GMT

Probably not going to be a surprise to any of you, but the BBC are running this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39229395

My husband, who has never seen Buffy, said, "I never realised it was supposed to be so good. I thought it sounded a bit silly..."

But we know better, right?

Happy Cookie Day!

scribesds — Thu, 19 May 2016 21:42:31 GMT

My fan fiction archive

scribesds — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 22:25:24 GMT

White Carousel has been updated, tidied up and been given a new logo. Does anyone want to have a look?

Scribes of Angel

scribesds — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 23:21:16 GMT

If you have been by Scribes of Angel recently, you will know that there is not a lot happening there right now. It's not for want of trying, I can tell you...

In January I got a new computer. The computer is lovely, Windows 10 is a pain in the behind. At the same time, I installed one of those free word.doc things which works just fine, except, between the new Windows system and the new office format, it has completely screwed up all of my site files.

Mike and I are looking into it, but neither of us have much time nowadays and we don't get together all of that often – so I hate shoving him in front of the computer as soon as he walks in – seems a bit rude...

Anyway. We know you (some of you, anyway) are still visiting and are disappointed at the lack of updates, but we are trying to sort it out. It just might take a while, so, please be patient with us!

Mind you, there are nearly 900 stories on site so its not as if you have nothing to read...!

Scribes of Angel is back!

scribesds — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 22:32:33 GMT

Scribes of Angel Has been updated twice this week. There should have been a third, but there was a glitch with the site that needed a wee bit of tweaking. Mike (thank you!) has now done this, and I’m aiming to get back to some semblance of regular posting from now on. Watch this space!

Happy Cookie Day!

scribesds — Wed, 20 May 2015 19:44:38 GMT

Happy Cookie Day!

For those who have no idea what Cookie Day is, it’s a little bit of fun inspired by Buffy’s cookie dough speech in Chosen. In 2010 I started the first B/A Cookie Day, and if you want to join in, here’s how:

You can take part by:

· Telling everyone it's Cookie Day!
· Sharing your favourite cookie recipes.
· Eating cookies
· Sharing cookies
· Buying cookies
· Making cookies
· Sharing your B/A cookie drabbles and stories
· Making some cookie-related artwork.

· Spread the Cookie Love!

Oh, and not a B/A fan? Have a cookie anyway...

Livejournal hates me

scribesds — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 16:38:58 GMT

What??

My journal has dropped more than 9,000 places in three months.

How does that work??

Site update

scribesds — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 21:46:39 GMT

Haven’t done a weekly round-up for… um. A bit longer than a week, but I’ve been a good girl and updated:

writers_toybox - with a new 4-part prompt, and
Scribes of Angel has had a new mini story added. (B/A)

Does anyone still want to read these updates? If so, I’ll try and be more regular. And if anyone says ‘prunes’ I’m off…

The earth is doomed.

scribesds — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 17:04:19 GMT

I’ve got something I’m working on, and I’ve come to a bit of an impasse. So… Can I ask for assistance, please?

What I want are any words, keywords, descriptive words, phrases, quotes, prophecies (including biblical) pertaining to an Apocalypse.

Any kind of apocalypse. The cause, for my project, isn’t particularly important, and can even be mystical, zombie, whatever. Doesn’t matter.

My question, really, is if you were describing an apocalypse, what words would you use? Or if you were reading a news report, what kind of thing would you expect to see?

Yes, kind of vague, I know. But what comes to mind for you?

Anyone want to play?

Thank you kindly, folks.

Normal service has been resumed…

scribesds — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 00:13:55 GMT

Anyone who has been trying to access my sites will know that some of them have been down, following a server update which sent them collapsing like a pack of cards…

However, I am pleased to say they are all back up now.

You might find one or two glitches in the system, and if so, please let us know.

Normal service has been resumed…. Thanks for your patience.

Important Message regarding IWRY 2014

scribesds — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 23:05:05 GMT

Important Message regarding IWRY 2014

iwry_marathon

Sadly, I don’t think I’m going to be able to run the annual I Will Remember You Fiction Marathon this year.

It would be such a shame to see it disappear for ever.

Would anybody be interested in taking it on?

My fandom participation

scribesds — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 20:47:12 GMT

I’m in a retrospective mood, and been pondering on my fandom activities over the years. Most of my participation has been for the character of Angel or the Buffy/Angel relationship. I doubt I would have done any of this without the support of my family – all of whom I’ve roped in to write stories, make graphics, help with ideas, etc, and in particular – Mike’s technical know-how and support has been staggering. Friends have also learnt not to ask if they can help, because I do take them up on it! Over and over…

So – I made my fandom debut online in January 2001. I have made a total of 17 places for you to visit and enjoy, including websites, journals and a B/A forum. Not all of these were a success, I have to say, and some have closed or are no longer being updated.

Some could not have been done without a tremendous amount of support from friends and other fans, and to those people, I want to say thank you. You know who you are.

I’ve also hosted lots of popular events like Midnight Madness, Cookie Day and IWRY.

I’ve made (with huge support from Mike and my husband) a load of pictures, wallpapers, animated gifs and avatars.

And a whole variety of other content, including:
Games, e-cards, Advent Calendars

I’ve written and posted 98 stories – though some are better than others!

In addition, I’m really proud of the fact that over the years I have held dozens of fiction challenges and therefore provoked hundreds of new stories and graphics.

But the best thing about all of this? Meeting so many of you through my endeavours – its made all that hard work so worthwhile.

Thank you all for being there.

Happy Cookie Day

scribesds — Tue, 20 May 2014 17:29:25 GMT

Happy Cookie Day!

On May 20th 2003, the episode Chosen aired. This was the episode that contained Buffy’s cookie dough speech, and perhaps by now she has finished baking. To commemorate this, five years ago I organised our first B/A Cookie Day. Want to join in?

You can take part by:

· Telling everyone it's Cookie Day!
· Sharing your favourite cookie recipes.
· Eating cookies
· Sharing cookies
· Buying cookies
· Making cookies
· Sharing your B/A cookie drabbles and stories
· Making some cookie-related artwork.

· Spread the Cookie Love!

Oh, and not a B/A fan? Have a cookie anyway...