First of all, welcome to all our new members! I'm glad to see new stories and names here, lots of which I recognize. Please let me know what I can do to make your experience better.

I've added a button at the bottom of the page to a rudimentary "links" page. Please check it out and give me suggestions for other links. I am not including actor-specific sites do to the volume. Anything relating to Phantom, or Phantom fic, is welcome however.

I also want to bring up the issue of flaming. There has been a little (not much) trouble with personal attacks left as reviews. Not liking a story is a perfectly valid reaction. Leaving a review stating what it is the reader disliked in a reasoned, constructive way is likewise valid. Stating that the author is a bad person or that their story is in some way reprehensible is not. I have not disabled anonymous reviews or censored anything here for a reason, and I don't want to. I encourage discussion and a multitude of opinions--both for and against. If you don't like something, either don't read it or leave a review stating what you think might make the story better. Fandom can be a heated place, and not every topic is something everyone else approves of. That, I think, is what makes it so interesting.

As I said, this problem has been minor, and in all likelihood I am not talking to you. There have been lots of great reviews and author/reader discussion here and that makes me happy. I encourage you to let me know if you have concerns about what you or someone else has written. I want to point out, too, that in the rules I've reserved the right to delete outright flames. I've also reserved the right to delete stories which do not meet with our formatting/grammatical criteria if you do not resolve the issue within two weeks of my contacting you.

Enough business for now. Thanks for all your great stories and your patronage! Keep reading/writing.

Welcome to the launch of The Fifth Cellar! Here are some links to get you started:

Point zero: To submit fic, please join up with your preferred pen name. Then go to "Account Info" in the menu bar and start adding your stories!

First, The Rules. There aren't many, but they're important. So read them carefully!

Next, Ratings. You may have seen these before, but here's a refresher.

Thirdly, here's how to cross-post to multiple canons: after choosing the first one in the left-hand box and hitting the little arrow that places it in the right-hand box, click to go back to the main list in the left-hand box and do it again, until you've got them all. I know that's kind of annoying; it's set up that way so that we could set up sub-levels, which we haven't.

I've added a general "Other" category. Please don't overuse it; if you're drawing from several canons, please stick to the multiple-canon option. If your story is archetypal in nature and truly unrelated to specific canon, you can use the Other category.

Finally, a huge thank you to Christine Daae and the folks at phantomoftheopera.com for this space. Join! Forum!

There will likely be a FAQ built from questions we get these first few months--please don't hesitate to email me (mydaroga@gmail.com) or comment here. And please, be patient with us while we sort everything out. Things may change, but we'll always let you know.

Have fun!

ETA 11/7/07: Email notifications should now be working. If they are not, be sure to check your personal settings, as I've run an update and things may be confused.