#KiScon2023

[kiscon]

PHILON AWARDS

KiScon is honoured to host the Philon Awards. Established by Jenna Sinclair and Shelley Butler in 1997, they were an annual event organised by The K/S Press to honour outstanding authors and artists in K/S fandom. With the permission and support of Jenna and Shelley, KiScon is resuming this beautiful tradition.

Philon Awards 2023 Winners (officially announced on 5 Nov 2023, at KiScon) Short fic (word count under 10K): 🏆 Gold: Spock 🖖 by vaksur & WerewolvesAreReal 🏆 Silver: One In A Myriad of Little Dwelling Places by CampySpaceSlime

Long fic (word count 10K-50K): 🏆 Gold: Red is by spirkme 🏆 (ex aequo) 🏆 Gold: Rain Dogs by gunstreet 🏆 (ex aequo) 🏆 Gold: Milk and Honey by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin) 🏆 (ex aequo) Silver: Untouched by SButler

Novella/novel (word count over 50K): 🏆 Gold: First, Best Destiny, Part Two by Ophelia_j 🏆 Silver: Time After Time by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin)

Podfic: 🏆 Gold: Communicators Can’t Scan (or, how Jim Kirk learned to stop worrying and love the Vulcanese) by 1lostone 🏆 (ex aequo) 🏆 Gold: Injured by 1lostone 🏆 (ex aequo) Silver: Interior Harmony by 1lostone

Traditional art: 🏆 Gold: Marooned? Honeymoon? Honeymarooned? by subterraneanna 🏆 Silver: Spock by the Pool by SButler

Digital art: 🏆 Gold: The Meddling Captain (Comic) by lorvee 🏆 Silver: Heaven… when I held you again. How could we ever just be friends? by BataSann

Poetry: 🏆 Gold: The Mountains I Climb by USS_Queertastic 🏆 Silver: Come Home With Me by ForFucksSakeJim

Zines: 🏆 Gold: The AOS Renaissance Zine 🏆 Silver: Legends #10 by Dovya Blacque (Ed.)

Philon Awards 2023 Shortlist (in alphabetical order of the title; shortlist based on the results of the nominations phase)

Short fic (word count under 10K):

An old earth custom by pkrosche

Can We Always Be This Close? by ForFucksSakeJim

Fatal Vision by ikoliholic

I [43M] wish to tell my friend [40M] that it’d be logical for us to get married by Smile_Edgeworth

One In A Myriad of Little Dwelling Places by CampySpaceSlime

Spock 🖖 by vaksur & WerewolvesAreReal

The Tropiest of Tropes by Spirkme

Long fic (word count 10K-50K):

already, and always by flipthebits

Catspaw of Another Kind by Borealisblue

Distance of Time by yassifiedjimkirk

Home in a Mug by Lizzy0305

Milk and Honey by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin)

Rain Dogs by gunstreet

Red is by spirkme

Reservations — A Sequel to Desire/Reserve by Herself_nyc

Social Graces by gunstreet

The Prince and The Vulcan by TonightNoPoetryWillServe

Untouched by SButler

Variations on a bitter theme by OrpheaAria

Novella/novel (word count over 50K):

First, Best Destiny, Part Two by Ophelia_j

The Promised Land by gunstreet

This Must Be the Place by gunstreet

Time After Time by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin)

to assess the equation of you by uhuraprime

Podfic:

Communicators Can’t Scan (or, how Jim Kirk learned to stop worrying and love the Vulcanese) by 1lostone

For the Greater Good by cookiemom6067

Injured by 1lostone

Interior Harmony by 1lostone

Mistletoe Kisses by 1lostone

Traditional art:

AOS Spock Portrait by Nic

Blooming Kiss by Purple_Enma

Marooned? Honeymoon? Honeymarooned? by subterraneanna

Spock by the Pool by SButler

Spock's Lyre by lorvee

The Golden Couple by Purple_Enma

Digital art:

A little sweet, a little spicy: k/s gingerbread cookies by PageofWands

Heaven… when I held you again. How could we ever just be friends? by BataSann

The Honeymoon Postcard by lorvee

The Meddling Captain (Comic) by lorvee

TOS Kirk/Spock in SNW Dress Uniforms by BataSann

Poetry:

Asleep by alainanmccoy

Come Home With Me by ForFucksSakeJim

Diamonds for You by Orabla

I’m the X (Reprise) by eigenvectrix

The Mountains I Climb by USS_Queertastic

Zines:

The AOS Renaissance Zine 

Legends #10 by Dovya Blacque (Ed.)

[1lostone]

Not too bad for a rough draft. Adapted from this pattern.

I can’t do EPP to save my life so I’m kind of winging it with standard quilt blocks and appliqué. After a biiiiit more practice, I’m going to offer the quilt up for auction,

So stay tuned!

[1lostone]

Signal boooooooost!

Philon Awards 2023 Shortlist / Voting Form

(in alphabetical order of the title; shortlist based on the results of the nominations phase)

Short fic (word count under 10K):

An old earth custom by pkrosche Can We Always Be This Close? by ForFucksSakeJim Fatal Vision by ikoliholic I [43M] wish to tell my friend [40M] that it’d be logical for us to get married by Smile_Edgeworth One In A Myriad of Little Dwelling Places by CampySpaceSlime Spock 🖖 by vaksur & WerewolvesAreReal The Tropiest of Tropes by Spirkme

Long fic (word count 10K-50K):

already, and always by flipthebits Catspaw of Another Kind by Borealisblue Distance of Time by yassifiedjimkirk Home in a Mug by Lizzy0305 Milk and Honey by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin) Rain Dogs by gunstreet Red is by spirkme Reservations — A Sequel to Desire/Reserve by Herself_nyc Social Graces by gunstreet The Prince and The Vulcan by TonightNoPoetryWillServe Untouched by SButler Variations on a bitter theme by OrpheaAria

Novella/novel (word count over 50K):

First, Best Destiny, Part Two by Ophelia_j The Promised Land by gunstreet This Must Be the Place by gunstreet Time After Time by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin) to assess the equation of you by uhuraprime

Podfic:

Communicators Can’t Scan (or, how Jim Kirk learned to stop worrying and love the Vulcanese) by 1lostone For the Greater Good by cookiemom6067 Injured by 1lostone Interior Harmony by 1lostone Mistletoe Kisses by 1lostone

Traditional art:

AOS Spock Portrait by Nic Blooming Kiss by Purple_Enma Marooned? Honeymoon? Honeymarooned? by subterraneanna Spock by the Pool by SButler Spock's Lyre by lorvee The Golden Couple by Purple_Enma

Digital art:

A little sweet, a little spicy: k/s gingerbread cookies by PageofWands Heaven… when I held you again. How could we ever just be friends? by BataSann The Honeymoon Postcard by lorvee The Meddling Captain (Comic) by lorvee TOS Kirk/Spock in SNW Dress Uniforms by BataSann

Poetry:

Asleep by alainanmccoy Come Home With Me by ForFucksSakeJim Diamonds for You by Orabla I’m the X (Reprise) by eigenvectrix The Mountains I Climb by USS_Queertastic

Zines:

The AOS Renaissance Zine  Legends #10 by Dovya Blacque (Ed.)

Rules

Voting is open from 10 September to 1 November, 2023 (11:59 p.m. EDT). You do not need to be a registered KiScon member in order to vote; voting is open to every K/S fan.

In each category there will be a Gold (first place) and a Silver (second place) winner.

The winners will be announced during KiScon 2023 (3-5 Nov). Each winner will receive a certificate and a small prize; we will contact the winners after the convention weekend.

You need to be logged into your Google account in order to submit the voting form; this ensures that people do not vote multiple times for the same work. If we suspect sockpuppet activity, we will get in touch for clarification. We keep the voting process completely confidential! Only the KiScon concom will see the submitted forms.

In each category you can pick one work.

You can submit the form only once, but you can edit your responses if you need to add or change something (just follow the link in the email you receive after submitting the form). You cannot edit your responses after voting has closed, so make sure you have picked your favourite in all categories that are important to you.

Yes, you *can* vote for your own work(s). We won't judge you. ;-)

And here's the link to the voting sheet!

[ao3feed-spirk]

Ghosts That We Knew

read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/51704518 by 1lostone Spock is hurt. Jim... is not well. Words: 2043, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: James T Kirk, Spock (Star Trek), Leonard "Bones" McCoy Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock Additional Tags: Way too much thinky Jim, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Spock, Bones is kind of an asshole, KiScon2023 Zine, Embedded Art by Nightcrawler, Pining, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Podfic Welcome, i blame jlm for everything, KiScon2023, T'hy'la, Space Husbands, spirk read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/51704518

[kiscon]

K/S Advent

Guess what time it is? Yes! @ksadvent ...the long-standing k/s tradition of spirky goodness is almost upon us!

The due date is November 20th, but we can negotiate! 😅 Instead of setting it up so you have one fic a day, we run it slightly differently, so that (ideally) you have several things revealed on each day in December!

You can see the prompts here: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/KS_AdventCalendar2023/requests

Please signal boost if you're so inclined and help us get the word out!

[kiscon]

KiScon Zine Call for submissions!

Hello, friends! I would very much appreicate the signal boost to help get the word out there!

We are still taking KiScon zine submissions!

Fic: (no minimum word count, drabbles welcome), poetry, dialogue, epistolary, meta. Maximum length 10,000 words. Please have your text beta-read before submitting it!

Art: traditional (as a high-res scan or photo) or digital/computer-generated art. All styles welcome. Photo manips are only allowed if they are clearly transformative (so not just a screen cap with filter applied). Art needs to feature Kirk and/or Spock in some way (one or both of them, additional characters welcome). Please submit your work as .png or .tiff file (300 dpi). The zine will be letter-sized, i.e. 8.5 by 11 inches (215.9 by 279.4 mm); your artwork can go up to this page size. Smaller-sized artworks are of course also welcome; larger artworks will be scaled down to fit. For special projects like multi-panel comics, please get in touch with us to discuss the details.

Universes: Any (TOS, reboot, SNW, AU, mirror, crossovers), as long as K/S are the main pairing. K&S gen is accepted, but no Kirk or Spock pairings with Others!

Ratings: All welcome.

Contributions: You may not submit any work that has been published or posted elsewhere. It should be a completely new work for this zine.

This con zine will be given to all convention members and to all contributing authors and artists as a .pdf; however, we will also offer a print version for sale, if you crave the feel of a traditional paper zine.

Please submit your work via this form; you can directly attach your file (.doc or .rtf for fic, .png or .tiff for art) or include a link (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive). You are also welcome to send a backup copy to 1lostone at zine @ kiscon .org. Please use this email also for any and all questions you may have about the zine.

Deadline (hard): August 1st, 2023.

[mllebleue]

@kiscon

I'm going to extend an olive branch to every other fandom and "apologize" that every time there's a Tumblr shipping tournament, the entire Star Trek: The Original Series fandom and our famous benefactors come out of the woodworks to lecture about fandom history, and it somehow works every time.

[kiscon]

Con Farr is intensifying! Here are instructions on how to register with Conline!

This is our second year using Conline for the fully online convention. Please let us know if you have any questions, either here or on our KiScord!

[kiscon]

The K/S Gazette

Dear K/S friends,

Greetings! Spring is here, more or less, and we have shaken off the last traces of hibernation (mostly with the help of caffeine and slash). Preparations for KiScon 2023 are picking up speed and intensity, and we are excited to share a few announcements with you.

1. KiScon 2023 Registration:

Since we opened sign-ups on Valentine's Day, registrations have been steadily coming in. You can join KiScon 2023 by following the link on the KiScon website, or go directly to Conline. There are three membership tiers available: Attending (entirely online, of course), Dealer (same as Attending but in addition you get dealer space to sell your merch, art, collectibles etc, and ad space in the con book), and Supporting (if you can't attend the con, but would like to support us).

Feel free to get in touch with us, if you need assistance with signing up: concom@kiscon.org. We will happily walk you through the process.

2. New KiScon Logo

If you follow us on social media or had a look at our website recently, you have already seen it: the gorgeous new logo that the talented @page-of-wands11 created for KiScon! Isn't it absolutely breathtaking? <3 

You can find Page of Wands on Tumblr and the AO3. She also created the stunning banner artwork for K/S Advent, with both TOS and reboot Kirk and Spock in X-mas jumpers.

We will offer merch with the new logo soon (seriously, I NEED this on a mug!!). Stay tuned for the announcement.

3. KiScon 2022 Zine

A week ago, in time for K/S Day, we sent out the .pdf of the second, revised edition of the con zine to registered members of KiScon 2022 and contributing authors and artists. If you haven't received it, please check your spam folder, or let us know. 

We also maintain a collection on the AO3, with the goal of gathering as many KiScon zine contributions as possible, going back all the way to the first convention in 1980. Should you want to put your fic or art from past KiScon zines on the AO3 (the archive also accepts artworks via embedding!), please add it to the KiScon Zine collection – if you haven’t already ;-) We are happy to help if you need assistance with getting your work online.

The e-zine is also part of the 2022 goodie bag that we still keep on our Google Drive till end of October; then we will empty it to make room for the new goodies; please see the post-con report for the download link.

4. Seeking submissions for the Kiscon 2023 Con Zine!

Our new editor 1lostone is looking forward to working with you.

We are looking for: 

Fic (no minimum word count, drabbles welcome). Maximum length for written works: 10,000 words. Please have your text beta-read before submitting it!

Poetry, dialogue, epistolary, meta

Art: traditional (as a high-res scan or photo) or digital/computer-generated art. All styles welcome. Photo manips are only allowed if they are clearly transformative (so not just a screen cap with filter applied). Art needs to feature Kirk and/or Spock in some way (one or both of them, additional characters welcome). Please submit your work as .png or .tiff file (300 dpi). The zine will be letter-sized, i.e. 8.5 by 11 inches (215.9 by 279.4 mm); your artwork can go up to this page size. Smaller-sized artworks are of course also welcome; larger artworks will be scaled down to fit. For special projects like multi-panel comics, please get in touch with us to discuss the details.

Universes: Any (TOS, reboot, DISCO/SNW, AU, mirror, crossovers), as long as K/S are the main pairing. K&S gen is accepted, but no Kirk or Spock pairings with Others!  Ratings: All welcome. Contributions: You may not submit any work that has been published or posted elsewhere. It should be a completely new work for this zine. This con zine will be given to all convention members and to all contributing authors and artists as a .pdf; however, we will also offer a print version for sale, if you crave the feel of a traditional paper zine. Please submit your work via this form; you can directly attach your file (.doc or .rtf for fic, .png or .tiff for art) or include a link (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive). You are also welcome to send a backup copy to 1lostone at zine@kiscon.org. Please use this email also for any and all questions you may have about the zine. Deadline (hard): August 1st, 2023. 

5. Masterlist for K/S Spring Fever:Kirk/Spock Spring Fever is over, but the enjoyment of the works that were created for it is far from over – not least because there are 74 (!) of them and we are still making our way through the collection. That's about 2.64 times the number of works in 2022.

34 creators made 56 fics, 16 artworks (we count fanwork pages here, not the actual number of images), 2 pieces of cake art, and 1 vid. (If you think the numbers don't add up, this is due to one of the works having art in addition to the fic). Check them out via the masterlist below or just visit the 2023 collection on the AO3. You can find the masterlist also on DW and Tumblr. Reblogging is appreciated.

We could have made a tally of the word count, but life is too short and we'd rather continue our trek through the collection (still so much to read!) than play with numbers; if you want to calculate the total word count of all the fics, though, please be our guest and share your result with the class. <3

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the Kirk/Spock Spring Fever 2023! Authors, artists, beta-readers, readers, and reviewers – thank you for turning our little K/S Day fest into such a wonderful experience! 

[kiscon]

Deadline approaching!

I have two quick announcements. The first is that we are less than a week out from the August 1 deadline for the KiScon zine! Time went by suuuuuuuper quickly. You can find all the submission info here: https://kiscon.org/zine.html

Just as a quick note- it never occurred to me that I would need to specify in the zine rules, but the KiScon Zine is not the right place for the AI-generated fanworks (even if the original piece was your own.) As the editor, I feel like using images (or words) that are, in most cases, pulled from places without the consent of the original creator is problematic, and featuring them is not appropriate for this particular publication. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions! 💕

[kiscon]

KiScon panels that still need mods!

Please reach out on Discord or here if you'd like to moderate!

The Mary Sue phenomenon – A new, positive look at it

Twitter fic and Tumblr bits –

Fanwork production on social media (and the quest to preserve it)

It’s Personal: the big old question of Real Person Fiction / Real Person Slash

Fic mining, art theft, or creative tool? The challenges of AI

Vulcan brows and Klingon blush: Cosplay make-up for beginners, advice and anecdotes

The digital playground – Star Trek Online, K/S Sims, video games

[kiscon]

KiScon Zine submissions

Hello, friends! I'd like to take a moment to remind you that the KiScon Zine is now accepting submissions for the 2023 KiScon Zine. Submission information can be found here.

I look forward to your submissions! <3

~lost

[kiscon]

Dear K/S friends, Greetings! For many of us, it's a sweltering summer, but there is one thing that is both cool and hot, and that is the concept of K/S. The concom is working hard behind the scenes to prepare a great convention, and it's high time for more announcements and deadline reminders. If you are an active member of our Discord server or take part in our weekly events (Pub Night, Cinema of Squee), then most of this newsletter won't be actual news to you, but we strive to reach out to the K/S fandom as far and wide as possible. KiScon 2023 is only 116 days away, and while that might sound like a damn long time, experience shows that time flies by faster the closer we get to the con weekend. (Seriously, there must be a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, or just take our word for it...) Unfortunately for this lovely newsletter, tumblr is being a bit ... annoying about me posting the entire post, so please don't hesitate to check out the newsletter here!

[kiscon]

Registration for KiScon 2023 is now open!

You can find all the information here at our webiste: https://kiscon.org/.

I look forward to seeing you there!

[kiscon]

THE PHILON AWARDS ARE BACK!

KiScon is honoured to announce the relaunch of the Philon Awards. Established by Jenna Sinclair and Shelley Butler in 1997, they were an annual event organised by The K/S Press to honour outstanding authors and artists in K/S fandom. With the permission and support of Jenna and Shelley, KiScon is resuming this beautiful tradition.

There are 8 categories:

Short fic (word count under 10K)

Long fic (word count 10K-50K)

Novella/novel (word count over 50K)

Podfic

Traditional Art

Digital Art

Poetry

Zines

For each category the voters will determine a Gold (first place) and a Silver (second place) winner.

Rules

Nominating and Voting:

Nominations are open until 31 August, 2023. Each fan can nominate up to 3 works per category, but you cannot nominate the same work twice.

For a work to make it onto the voting ballot, it needs at least 3 nominations. Before we add it to the ballot, we will get in touch with the creator to ask whether they are fine with this!

Voting is open from 10 September to 1 November, 2023.

The winners will be announced during KiScon 2023. Each winner will receive a certificate and a small prize.

Nominating and voting both take place via Google Forms, and you need to be logged in in order to submit the form; this ensures that people do not nominate or vote multiple times for the same work. If we suspect sockpuppet activity, we will get in touch for clarification. We keep the nomination and voting process completely confidential! Only the KiScon concom will see the submitted forms.

You can submit the nominations form only once, but you can edit your responses if you need to add or change something (just follow the link in the email you receive after submitting the form). Please make sure to include every fanwork you want to see on the shortlist. You cannot edit your responses after nominations have closed.

Fanworks:

The work must focus on the pairing Kirk/Spock or Kirk & Spock. Slash (romantic and/or sexual relationship) and gen (friendship) are equally eligible. If a fic includes Kirk and/or Spock in relationships with other characters, be they canonical or original, this does not disqualify the work for the Philon Awards, as long as the focus is clearly on Kirk and Spock’s relationship.

Art must feature Kirk or Spock or both of them; additional characters in the artwork are allowed, but no depiction of Kirk/Other or Spock/Other.

All universes are welcome: TOS (series and movies), TAS, and reboot, Discovery and Strange New Worlds. AUs and mirror universe are equally allowed. Crossovers between different Trek franchises or between Trek and other media are permitted, as long as Kirk and Spock are the work’s main characters.

RPF works (e.g. Shatnoy) are not eligible.

All ratings and genres are allowed. If a work among your nominations includes strong elements that would merit a warning on the AO3 (e.g. rape, major character death etc.), we’d appreciate a heads-up on the nominations form, so that we can make sure to include the warning on the shortlist.

The work must be complete. It can be part of a series, but the work itself must not be a WIP (missing chapters or a draft/unfinished sketch).

The work must have been created and published (print or online) after KiScon 2022. So everything from 7 November 2022 onwards until the end of the nomination phase (31 August 2023) is eligible. Reprints or uploads of earlier works (e.g. a fic you wrote and published a few years ago and uploaded to the AO3 only recently) cannot take part in this contest.

For podfic the creation/publication date of the actual podfic counts, not of the written fic that inspired it.

AI-generated fic is NOT allowed.

Traditional art means that it was hand-drawn or hand-painted; scanning or photographing the finished work in order to publish it online is allowed, of course.

With digital art, we mean art that was created by a fan artist directly on a tablet or computer, or art that started out as hand-drawn and underwent significant digital alterations in the next steps. We do NOT allow AI-generated art! Manips based on still images or photos of the actors are not eligible in this contest.

Zines: Both e-zines and print zines published between 7 November 2022 and 31 August 2023 are eligible.

Last but not least: these awards are meant to be fun and a celebration of the K/S fandom. The shortlist will double as lovely rec list! We get to talk about our faves and let the creators know that we love their works.

You can fill in the nominations form embedded on the KiScon website, or (if your device does not display it properly) you can find it directly at this link.

[ao3feed-spirk]

[Podfic] All that we have

read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/51416353 by 1lostone Even in a perfect relationship, there are moments of doubt. Words: 27, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: James T. Kirk, Spock (Star Trek) Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock, James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock Additional Tags: Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Audio Format: Download, Adorable Spock is Adorable, Triumvirate pre-slash if you squint., possessive vulcans, KiScon Goodie Bag Pods!, KiScon2023, KiSCon, Even Bones respects the t'hy'la. read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/51416353