A Can of Worms

So, I haven't been really active on Livejournal - just an occasional crosspost - for a long time, and I thought about deleting it several times after the servers moved to Russia, whom I trust even less than the US :) The new TOS finally gave me the kick in the pants I needed. I have many fond memories of the Livejournal, which was for me really the first site for a more in depth engagement with the fandom, especially Highlander fandom, and I am sad to leave, but it hasn't been the same for a long time.
I have imported the content to DW long time ago, so now it was just the matter of downloading both my own LJ and the Highlander100 community that was started by other fen and that I ran in the end for a while - I will see and try about getting that content up to AO3 one day, per the old community rules- (I used BlogBooker) and deleting both the community and my account. I chose the option to also delete all my entries and comments in other communities.
So, one chapter closed. I will now go and donate to AO3 and continue keeping a paid account here on Dreamwidth - and maybe try posting here more often, and hang out on Tumblr (which is a shitty place though if one wants to have any fannish discource in addition to reblogging pretty pics.

via astolat

You may have seen this elsewhere, but Taselby, whom many of you may remember from Highlander fandom and from vidding and Escapade, has just lost her sixteen year old daughter Parker to a pulmonary embolism. God, I can't even imagine what she's going through. To make matters worse, they racked up huge medical bills because Parker was hospitalized twice this year trying to figure the problem out, and now they don't even have enough for funeral expenses.
The gofundme fundraiser is here. Please signal boost if you can.

...is also calime. Most of what's up there (and most likely what's going to get written in the future) is Highlander.

After frantically wracking my brains on what I'd be good for (I mean, I'm not a reliable or good ficcer and I doubt anyone'd want an English-Estonian or vice versa translation done), have finally come up (or, well, shamelessly copied others) with these two offers.. Basically, I'm offering to be your veterinary Agony Aunt for a month (I'll give advice over email or IM or phone or provide you with background info for fic,if you want). The second offer is for a care package from here, Estonia - with an option for the buyer to choose what will be in it.
So, hey, I hereby pimp Live Long and Marry, a fandom auction to benefit marriage equality. Go ye and bid, or offer!

This is the summary of the chat about future possibilites that could be offered by squidge.org, basically, some ideas that could be good to be incorporated into some kind of a fannish hub/fannish social networking base. So, if you're interested, please check it out, comment, there will probably be another chat some time soon as far as I'm aware.
I'm interested in aforementioned project for the following reasons: I was and to a big extent, still am, basically a reader/lurker. My participation in fandom activites would likely never had come to pass if it wasn't for the LJ with it's easy comment feature and the possibility to collect people's blogs on the flist. Seeing how there are several fanmade projects in the works (fanarchive, Scribblit, fandom_flies etc.) and people move to different blogging services like Insanejournal or Greatestjournal or incorporate blogs within their own websites, I'm kinda confident in that authors will find their new safe spaces to display their creations. I'm interested in something that would make it easy for readers to follow them - a kind of all-in-one place that could host content, but also serve just as an address book. So, for me the squidge project sounds very appealing. What do you think?

If you're interested in alternative outlets for fandom due to the recent strikethrough business on LJ, you could be interested in
the chat the owner of squidge.org is having about the issue and some possible new services from Squidge.
Please, do read, pimp the link, participate!

I'm pretty much convinced that in case of the things going belly-up for the fandom on LJ, GJ and IJ are only temporary refugees - they'd be quite likely to suffer the same kind of pressure - won't they? The idea of 'our own fannish hub' would be ideal, of course, so here's for hoping that something comes out of for example the fanarchive project, or this, or this, or the Fanworksfinder...
I keep thinking that maybe I should duplicate all my f-lists as feeds on GJ and IJ too... only it'd be a lot of work (I use flist a lot as a bookmarking system, too, and filter it). Other people like elke_tanzer have good linky posts on the matter. Me, I'm just grumbling under my breath and trying to keep my eyes open and my belongings packed Lj backed up, so's not to miss the train. *sigh*

Huh. A stretch of a rather frantic worky time should be over now, or at least I hope so. Meaning that after recuperating, I might be able to return to important things in life, like fandom, and fic and backlog of the aforementioned...well, you get the picture. Also, chat. Which I had withdrawal symptoms of. And the backache might wanna go away, too.
We've been having rather stormy weather around Estonia and Finland and the Baltic sea, with storm warnings, and ship traffic paused, and sea level rising. So far I hear no big damage in the news...and here it's just been howling wind and some snowy slush and beautiful sky with cloud rags screeching over the skyline like maniacs. The beautiful stuff. Makes me half want to be in the summer house by the sea - autumn storms are really beautiful there in some ways. But I sure am glad our storms are just tiny, and we don't get any of those tropical monsters up here.
Also, on an unrelated note, it's so much fun when you discover that someone you've known on the lines of uni and vet profession and stuff knows HL, and not only know, but has once upon a time been fannish about. Even in this small remote corner of the world. Makes one all warm and fuzzy inside. And ready to share the DVDs *grin*.
ETA: In the connection of the abovementioned fact, in chat with sparklebutch and holde_maid the need for some secure method of ID'ing the fans was put forward. We discussed the relative merits of advanced communicating bracelets (to the betterment of taking over the world) and a tattoo as a marker. We could not decide where the tattoo should be, though. The idea of a dragon on butt has some serious pro factors, as in loyalty, beauty and comfort sense, but could be hard to display. But then, one could always design pants/trousers/skirt with a comfy, see-through window. Hmmm. *Cali contemplates another dragon tattoo* Whaddaya think?


Also, if anyone should ever try to tell you that the concept of 'manana' can only be applied to certain southern-europe-hispanic countries, don't buy it. It's a damn valid concept in certain high-welfare societies situated up north on a rocky peninsula. Believe me, I've experienced it, to my detriment. Argh.