Moonbeam's Fanfiction Predilections -- LiveJournal

The Gdoc of Doom(tm), the impressively huge and quickly developed document within which everyone and their dog put in their own two cents after Pinboard's owner foolishly invited suggestions (ha! he totally didn't see us coming!), has been condensed and contabulated and converted into an easy-peasy form. The simple three question survey is from what Maciej will be picking and choosing which new features to implement based on highest demand for them. So, yanno, if you're interested in a quality service catered to your fandom needs, do it and get your voice heard! Go vote and demand something!

CLICK FOR YOUR LIFE --> Pinboard Features Request Survey! <-- Oooh, baby, do me!

Further detail and explanations of what is included and what got left out by general opinion is all available on the pinboard community. Have a look and make sure you do the survey! C'mon people, God Maciej is actually watching! And listening! And, even better, doing stuff in answer! So go ask for somethin', he actually cares! Plus it only takes, like, a minute of your time... and it's for the Good Of All Fandom. \o/

Survey closes Oct 7th, 2011. Vote now to optimize Pinboard for your fic searching/reccing needs!

... not panicking. ;)

Okay, so as pretty much the entire intarwebs knows by now, Delicious' new owners Avos revealed their new "beta version" to almost universal outcries of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!1!!"

Day or two later, some small hope is returned. Their Beta Status Blog indicates that the much-loved and essential features such as tag bundles and subscriptions are due to return. Special characters like the "/" for pairings, the exclamation mark (!), ampersand (&), period (.), colon (:) and even certain symbols like the heart (♥) and triangle (▲) are now working. (Although, apparently only for some people? Mine just came back a few hours ago, so maybe all it'll take is a bit of time to settle things.)

That said, thousands more fen are now participating in the Great Delicious Migration (add your name to the GoogleDocs Spreadsheet so we can keep track of you!) that first started last December with Yahoo!'s plans to shut down our lovely bookmarking tool. Some are heading for Diigo's free alternative, but there one must think about censorship concerns over random privatizing of porny links. Which isn't really very practical for most fen.

Many others are shelling out the small one-time fee ($9.44 at the moment) for Pinboard. I did too -- come see moonbeamsfanfic on Pinboard and feel free to add me to your network! (Don't forget to change your settings to show subscriptions!) Entry-cost aside, Pinboard is seeming to be the next best alternative to an as-yet nonexistent fan-made bookmarking tool. At least Maciej, the founder/creator, is being very friendly and welcoming to fandom invading his doors en-masse as we are. He's even open to suggestions as the in-progress GoogleDoc demonstrates.

Plus he's been very understanding of our crazy quirks even as it took no time at all to Rule 34 him with anthropomorphic crackfic in which Pinboard steals Delicious' girlfriend, Fandom. Which has been shared everywhere, and even Maciej has tweeted about it in good humour. For him and his awesomeness alone, I am happy with Pinboard!

In conclusion... I am not giving up on Delicious. The beta-version site relaunch was obviously WAY too early, but I'm hopeful things'll return to some semblance of normal. Fairly quickly too, if the other "fixes" implemented in the last 24 hours is any clue. (Granted it doesn't solve the problem of why they took them away in the first place, but meh... no harm, no foul in my bookmarks.)

In the meantime. watch deliciouslymad for updates and come find me on Pinboard!

So I finally got to read Ghost Story, the latest book of the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. Yes, I know, I work in a library, why the hold up? Uh, because I work here? Duh! Staff don't actually get half the privileges you folks do, you know. We have to wait our bloody turn. Except we don't pay late fines, which is kind of a great trade-off as these things go. So, anyway, late though it may be, the book was definitely worth the wait. Yay! \o/

( Overall impressions, effectively spoiler free... you'd have to know it to get it! )

Oh hey, I just noticed that the Dancing Stickman icon doesn't work so well with Queen music as the background soundtrack, pooh. The beat's too slow. Hmm, maybe...? No, that's too fast. Oh geez, this is harder than I thought. I know I've got songs the same tempo as that icon, I've seen it before but here I am cycling through my entire collection and everything's just off enough to be... Oh wait, you've gotta kidding me?! Candyman by Christina Aguilera is in time? That can't be the only thing that works! Okay, there, Lady Gaga works too, that's a bit better. What else have I got? Mmm, Late Nights and Street Fights by Dirty Vegas is pretty sweet, and Boney M's Ra Ra Rasputin is just so fun it makes me giggle. Oooh, ha! Fall Out Boy really rocks it! Heh.

And so does Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO. Perfect! Okay, we'll stick with that for a bit.

;)

It's 2:00am and I just finished reading a very good Supernatural/Criminal Minds crossover. It a WIP, but there's already enough meat to the story written to sink nicely into. I enjoyed it completely, and am eagerly looking forward to the rest when it gets posted.

Like a good little reader, I fully intended to write a review. Gotta keep encouraging those authors to churn out my daily allotment of entertainment, yanno? I'm all for the provision of feedback! But thankfully I managed to stop myself from posting this one:

Hey, this is not too bad at all! So far, so good - everybody's behaving in character, no one's secrets are being spilled, nobody's a long lost relative or had suddenly-remembered past supernatural encounters which make them instant believers. Add in a case with actual elements fit for both teams, an even combination of mystery suspense and fun banter, and some pretty darn top notch writing and I think we have a winner! Sweet mercy, but this might be one of the best SPN/CM crossovers I've ever encountered!

Which means the only thing left to say is: Thank you!

Upon rereading, it's possible that little review might be revealing juuuuuuuust a little subtle bitterness. A somewhat hidden disgruntlement, perhaps. Evidence of a stealthy build-up of resentment due to too much exposure to such aforementioned bad and cliche type stories to which I have developed an aversion. Just a little. Maybe.

Erm...

You know, I've noticed this odd quirk of mine before. Most other people, the more they read, the longer they spend in fandom, the broader their tolerances get. New ficcers might suddenly discover slash isn't half so squicky as their heteronormative selves initially thought, or long-time ficcers branch out into other pairings or relax their standards on grammar. Not me though. I seem to be the only person I know who has gotten more selective as the years went on. These days I'm down right picky.

What's up with that, I gotta wonder? Even as I constantly add more and more fandoms in my relentless search for fic (Dresden Files, Leverage, and BBC's Sherlock in the last month alone, for example!), my definition of "good fic" has reduced to the point where I only actually read about 1 in 100 stories I click on. Including from many of the highest-rated ones that everybody else seems to think are the bomb.

But why am I so picky? It's not hubris; it's not like I think I can write better than them, 'cause I totally know I can't. Heck, that's one of the reasons I haven't written much at all for the last few years -- I usually feel my skill level is inadequate to tackle the ideas that hop my way in a manner worthy of their nature. Yet something makes me judge each story by tighter and tighter criteria, and while it might mean that each story I do read and rec is the best of the best, I can't help but feel like I'm missing out on something.

Or maybe it's just really late and I should go to bed before my brain drips out my ears.

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea too. ::nods off::

The parental units have arrived safely home and report all is calm -- busy, but calm. Not even any smoke in the air, so the wind is blowing favourably for them. Although they have gotten another influx of refugees as some other small towns & hamlets in the fire's ongoing path are now being evacuated their way.

Mum's church hall is operating as a donation centre, so she'll be crazy-nuts busy organizing everything for the next few days. Word is they won't let anyone in Slave Lake to assess their losses until at least the weekend. Early estimates say over 900 homes are destroyed, as well as dozens of businesses. At this point, the fires in town are still burning but are contained and somewhat under control.

Since the relief aide is overwhelming in some places, there's a great well-organized blog at Rebuild Slave Lake that's keeping track of who needs what where. And I've asked at my Library if there's anything we can do for our unfortunate sister institution who went up in flames within the first few hours.

It's kinda funny, actually. There's not even a notice on the system catalogue yet that hey, those books you want which say they're available in Slave Lake? Yeah, sorry, not so much!

Looks like the wind shifted over night so it's now blowing at 50km/h SE instead of 70km/h NW. As sorry as I am for those who've already lost their homes and businesses in Slave Lake, I am personally glad that this means my parent's home may now be out of danger. Mum was up at 6am this morning to check the news. The official reports still suck for details.

Still don't know if they'll be able to go home on Wednesday as was originally planned yet.

The dude on Twitter I was following last night, an EMS who was one of the last evacuees on the scene until four hours ago, seems to have done more than anyone to keep the world updated. He's listed as having 360 followers right now -- it was 179 when I went to bed last night. I'd bet it was only a fraction of that before the fire started. And that's not even including all of us who don't have Twitter accounts but we're still stalking his tweets.

So kudos and huge respect and thanks to @thisguydeya for not only his work on the ground, but his frequent updates and photos. You kept the world in touch last night, man. Thank you!

Holy shit. Manitoba might be underwater with the floods, but my province of Alberta has gone up in flames. 97 forest fires, at least 40 of which are out of control, and one in particular which is going to change the lives for thousands of unfortunate people.

My parents arrived to visit this evening. They arrived just in time. A massive forest fire raging across northern Alberta is currently in the process of utterly destroying the town of Slave Lake and its neighbouring communities. Over 7000 people evacuated, at least 80% of the town already confirmed to be burning.

My parents live just north of Slave Lake. They had to drive through the town on the way out to visit me. Mum said she even saw lots of smoke as they went, but at the time it was still okay. Not so much anymore. They're watching the news avidly for any mention of the fire's progress, hoping everyone makes it out safely. The only highway in and out, HWY 2, was closed for a while but they opened it up again to help evacuate everyone.

There aren't many pictures yet, but Twitter's alive with on-the-spot reports. The local radio station made one last announcement at 9pm confirming their own building in the downtown core was on fire. The Town Hall and Public Library are both confirmed casualties. The Hospital was evacuated, but as of an hour ago was not yet ablaze.

Will be watching the news and the web for updates for a while, me thinks.

Why did I not know that last week's episode of Supernatural was actually hijacked and written by a cracked-out fanfiction author? Seriously?! Dean and Sam are actors Jensen and Jared in an AU reality who play Dean and Sam on TV? That can't possibly be a real episode! It's a FANFIC plot! I know it is, because I'm pretty damn sure I've read that story already!

Wow. Just wow. I know the show has a history of fanservice, but wow. That's, it's like... RPF is now officially canon. WTF?

::is totally weirded out::

I couldn't even bring myself to watch the ep because just the five minutes of it I did see was enough to completely freak me out. Gimme back my Fourth Wall! I can't handle the meta!

WHAHHHHHHHHH!
I'm actually kinda glad I stopped watching in Season Five now, because this? Would have killed me if I were still an active fan. Dead, I tell you! DED!

I'm not gonna get into how big a FAIL this new 'upgrade' is because everyone else is doing a good job loudly calling bullshit on it, so I'll just say:

If you do use Facebook or Twitter, may I respectfully ask that you NOT cross-post your comments from my LJ, please? Thank you!

I don't think it'll be much of a problem as most people seem to be in agreement over how much of a violation of privacy this new trick is, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Also, I kinda hate Facebook as a business just on general principles, so would really prefer to not ever be associated with it for any reason if at all possible.

::sigh:: I'm gonna have to get off my duff and make a Dreamwidth account, aren't I? Eh, maybe this weekend -- if they're not too swamped. Still not leaving LJ though.

I totally just wrote this today because shade_shifter wanted it dared me to. Hi, Shifty! ::waves:: Look what I did! Don't worry if you don't get all the TF nuances... neither does Dean. XP

ETA: Now with bonus cracky comment-fic, because people keep daring me to! ACK! *eg*

Title: Never Never Land
Author: Moonbeam’s Predilections
Fandoms: Supernatural/Transformers ’07 Movieverse Crossover
Genre: GEN, Crossover, Outside POV, sorta Humour
Rating: PG
Word count: 2,377 words
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate strange sightings at a car show.


( Breaking your teeth on the hard life coming/Cutting your feet on the hard earth running... )

Am still sick. Still badly congested, still have a fever, still exhausted, and still feel like death would be a step up from my current condition.

I may not be going to work tomorrow at this rate. We shall see how I feel in the morning. ::goes off to cough up a lung::