The Archive of Our Own is now in Open Beta. I've been playing around with it this morning, and it's amazingly awesome. I have an invitation available that I will send to the first person who comments. Comments are screened.

ETA: Taken!

I have five Dreamwidth invite codes for anyone interested.  First five commenters get them--comments are screened.

This entry was originally posted at http://mchand.dreamwidth.org/5412.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I'm testing the dreamwidth crossposting feature right now....

ETA: It worked!

I have an extra Dreamwidth invite code. I'll happily give it out to the first comment here.

ETA: Claimed!

Dear Amazon,

You just lost a customer.

Amazon Rank

I was lucky enough to get an invite code for Dreamwidth (randomly selected after logging on with an Open ID). I'm mchand over there for those of you migrating. Next, I will figure out how to crosspost.

Via Feministe again--

WARNING: YOU MAY CRY


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Via Feministe--

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/01/29/a-story-in-pictures/

Here's a site with U.S. electoral maps going back to 1792. I think it's fascinating, but sometimes I'm a real geek about stuff like this.

Sorry for all the political posting, but this made me smile on a week when I've gotten really worried about the November election.

Via Andrew Sullivan:

Not counting states driven through or had layovers through...



visited 24 states (48%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Well, it's been over a year since I last updated. I've been lurking and reading tons, but haven't felt the energy to update. (I've mostly been doing the bandom and supernatural thing...)

Still, I have a rare day at home alone (husband has Child at his mother's for the day and night), and I'm actually taking the time to update my LJ layout and entries.

I'm also watching a ton of "Burn Notice" that my Tivo thought I'd like. I enjoyed Jeffrey Donovan in "Touching Evil" and always love Bruce Campbell so it's the perfect mindless entertainment for a dreary 4th of July day.

Is there a new "Doctor Who" in the US tonight? I need to check. I've remained disciplined about being spoiler-free for the UK ones. Hopefully, this will last with a day of unlimited computer access.

I'm so excited about the ongoing Archive of Our Own project.  It seems to get at exactly the issue (disappearing stories) that I was talking about several posts ago.  This is a nonprofit that I will be proud to support, I think.

A group of fanfic fans is forming to set up a nonprofit organization for collective fannish projects, including building a central fanfic archive. We are setting up shop in the fanarchive community on livejournal, located here:

http://community.livejournal.com/fanarchive/

A couple of big updates have been posted today (Monday June 4), including the basic outline of our organization structure and our call for volunteers. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, please stop by, give us your thoughts, and sign up for announcements!

Here are the two posts:

The Organizational Structure
http://community.livejournal.com/fanarchive/5634.html

Willingness to Serve
http://community.livejournal.com/fanarchive/5913.html

If you don't have an LJ account, you can subscribe by email with this handy free service:

http://www.rssfwd.com/

All you need to do is paste in the following URL:

http://community.livejournal.com/fanarchive/rss

(If you use an RSS newsreader, you can use that same URL to subscribe to the news feed.)

You also do not need an LJ account to make comments on posts -- please just remember to put your name/pseud somewhere in your comment, so everyone knows who is talking, and include your email address so others can reply to you directly if you want.

If you would like to catch up on the last week or two of discussion, a helpful summary post is up here:

http://community.livejournal.com/fanarchive/5406.html

I haven't yet read any other episode commentary, but here are my two cents:

 Congratulations! You've been put in charge of a brand new television network, dedicated to bringing canceled shows back to life for a new season. You've got ten hours of prime time to fill per week, and any show, regardless of how long ago it went off air, is eligible. What's playing on YOUR network next fall?

Okay--no new content after my first two posts. Now, I've started posting again with a meme.

I've been reading fanfiction for about five years now. Mostly I stick to "active" fandoms, but about 6 months ago, I got bored with what I was currently reading and dipped my toe into reading RPF--popslash (NSYNC popslash, to be specfic). I was completely hooked, but I realized how hard it is to suddenly start reading in a fandom that many of the authors have moved on from. Mostly I limited my reading to recommendation lists, but there was a slight problem. Becuase many of these stories were written three, four or five years ago, the stories are no longer there.

This made me think about the transient nature of the internet. I've never been one to save files as I read them--I've always counted on them being there if I ever wanted to reread--like a favorite book that I can pull off the bookshelf in my office. It's never been an issue for me in active fandoms, where website and livejournals are being continuously updated, but I was shocked at how frustrated I got when following a recommendation to a dead link. And it's even worse, when I find another recommendation of that same story!

It's really made me reevaluation how I read fanfiction online. I've become much more prone to download stories that I loved because they might not be there tomorrow.

This is a brand new journal. I'm hoping to keep it updated with my thoughts on media (fanfic, tv, movies).