liz_marcs | *insert evil laugh here* Three Queens *insert evil laugh here*

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insert evil laugh here Three Queens insert evil laugh here

It's now official.

mara_sho has invited me on board to be one of the mods for I Need a Parrot, the XanderZone for the BtVS Writers' Guild.

I'll be joining

othercat in wielding ~~dictatorial~~ ~~god-like~~ mod power to approve or reject stories for inclusion in the archive.

Of course our standards aren't, like, a mile high. It's more like, "Does it at least try to adhere to English standards? Does it even look the littlest bit like Xander? Is there a blessed lack of character-bashing? COOOL! Come on down!"

All genres and pairings and even stories that totally lack pairings are welcome. (Imagine that! An archive site that actually has a separate category for gen! YAYE!)

Actually, in looking at the numbers, I'm chargrined that there aren't more people uploading stories to the archive.

Yes, I am guilty of this. To rectify it, I've started uploading my shorter stories there (for now) and I'm in the middle of fixing the formatting mess that is Whisper. I'll be working to get more of my stuff over there in the next few months.

In truth, the new version of eFiction is actually a lot easier to use than the older version, so uploading stories through the interface is nowhere near the pain it used to be. And now that there are mods in charge *cracks knuckles* the issue of hackers breaking into the site and uploading malevolent software should be a thing of the past.

So, for all the peopple who've written Xander out there or have a few Xander stories they want to throw on an archive site for easy searching, don't forget to keep I Need a Parrot on your list.

If you just want to keep up with the latest stories to be posted to the site (the traffic is not terrifically heavy...at this rate it's maybe a couple of stories a day), you can sign up for the site's syndicated feed here on LJ at

ineedaparrot.

ETA: Note that the

ineedaparrot syndicated feed picks up new stories that have been uploaded to the I Need a Parrot story archive and provides a link to those stories.

It does not capture anything that's been posted to the LJ community

i_need_a_parrot, which is also a Xander-centric fanfiction group, but is strictly an LJ thing.

The two are related in that they're both owned by

mara_sho, and they're both focused on Xander as a character. However, they both serve very different functions. What appears on one is not going to appear on the other.

I hope that makes things more clear.

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**huggles you**

Have I mentioned just how much I love you? Have I?

I spent a few hours playing with the new interface from eFiction and I was suprised how much easier it was to use than the old one.

If you want, I can throw this over to the

whendonverse_nb to remind people the site is up. I just found out about the syndicated feed when I was over there noodling around last night. I'm very excited about the syndicated feed, as you can see. :-)

The code's been cleaned up a lot as well so that from a set-up point of view it's a doddle to load and run from behind the scenes. (Plus, there's a beta version of 3.0 on the go right now which looks even better - once it comes out of beta testing I'll be upgrading INAP).

And I keep forgetting about the noticeboard!

I can throw it over there. As it turns out, there's a few people who didn't know about the syndicated feed, there's some confusion on how it's different from the LJ newsgroup (I edited the post to explain), and one person didn't even know the site was back.

Maybe we could do an all-out reminder push on several BtVS communities? Some of them will take "ads" provided they are on-topic. And the syndicated feed could be your "news hook" for reposting information about the site and the LJ group.

Ummmm, just ignore me. I had on a PR person's hat there for a second. I don't know where that came from.

Here's a link to the announcement and the reminder that I Need a Parrot is up and running: http://community.livejournal.com/whedonverse_nb/45379.html

If you like it, I can throw it up on a few more groups over the next day or so.

Congratulations for being chosen as a mod, I didn't know "I Need a Parrot" had an LJ.. *goes to sign*

It has both an lj community at

i_need_a_parrot and the Website itself has a syndicated feed for updates at

ineedaparrot. They're related in that they're both owned by

mara_sho, but they're separate in that one's strictly LJ and the other is strictly the Website. One appears on one is not going to appear on the other.

Why have it so that what appears on one does not on the other? My understanding of INAP is that it is (amongst other things) an archive: don't you therefore want everything appearing in it? Things that get posted to the LJ version are going to be far harder to find than on INAP due to the lack of good search facilities on LJ.

The LJ community was actually set up as an interim for when the site was down, now it's acting as a companion to the site rather than a seperate archive.

Does that make sense?

I understood why it was set up and it was a really great idea. *However*, as I said, the problem with LJ is that unless the person running the site is very careful with tags and memories it becomes quite difficult to find anything. Certainly, even with tags, there's no way to do complex searches like there is on INAP. Hence my saying that although I think continuing the LJ site is a good idea, I think it would be an even better idea to ensure that everything posted to the LJ site gets duped on the INAP site.
I can see how there are also arguements against it though so I'm certainly happy to see it go either way. Mainly I'm just overjoyed to see INAP up and running again.

*Quakes in Fear*

You know, they do say that power goes to one's head...

Be afraid, be very afraid.

*takes out the ban hammer*

Be nice to me. *cackles*

I may require bribes. Some really good Belgium chocolate might be the order of the day.

I'd love to put some stuff up there, but alas, I am a computer idiot and am clueless on how to do so. I shall attempt to find someone less clueless to show me the way. :)

In the meantime, I'm glad the archive is back!

I found an easy-ish way to do it (it involves copying-and-pasting the raw code from LJ posts in a Word doc...without saving it...and doing some search-and-replace functions...saving as text...and then cutting-and-pasting into the box...it literally takes 10 minutes per story and that includes filling out all the site information).

I'm running a test to see if there's a simpler way tonight. Should be interesting. :-)

Yay! Good for you. I'll try to get my butt in gear and put some stories up there. :-)

I'm open to bribery to make the path smoother. :-)

Seriously though, my first spin in the mod chair will be Oct. 29 through Nov. 4. Othercat is the week before. Mara right now is the one with the mod hat, so I totally don't see a problem no matter when you start.

And, like I said, the interface is hella easy right now. If the new version is as easy as Mara is telling me, that would be an awesome thing.

I was not aware of the LJ feed... that should come in handy.

::makes note to remember to add stories to INAP::

sometimes I think I'm just talking to myself...

*g*

*is ashamed*

I have no idea how I missed that. None. I was very excited about the syndicated feed when I saw it on the site.

It's okay, I won't take it personally...

*grin*

It is a very cool feature and it would be fantastic if more people signed up for it. :)

See, this makes very clear something I have suspected for a long time.

I am, on occasion, very stupid. =D

Hee!

*pets you*

::is degraded by petting, unless it's of the 'heavy' variety::

::did not just say that. Honestly::

::did not just say that. Honestly::

Oh I think you'll find you did...

:p

No no. I think you'll find, upon further reflection, that it was, in fact, a figment of your own over active imagination.

::emphatic nod::

Uh huh, keep telling yourself that and you might end up believing it.

Might? I will! I'm the king of self delusion.

Monkey Pants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ROFLMAO

Man, that's just genius.

This is awesome news. AWESOME. I have my Xander-centric fic there, but I'm adding the feed to keep up. Parrot is my fave Xander area, so I'm mucho excited about this.

I'm also thinking about making a vid (Buffyverse) set to a Dolly Parton song. I would tell no one this but you. I might show no one this but you. I haven't decided the song yet (okay, I was totally thinking about "Sneaking Around" from the Whorehouse soundtrack for Xander/Cordy, but that was a moment's delusion. Although I'm dying to make Burt Reynolds come out of Xander's mouth.) Help me, Liz. I've entered a area of fannish Dadaism of which I didn't even think I was capable.

Ooooooo...vidding.

And c'mon...Dolly Parton and Xander? With his "music of pain" fetish? I can so very totally see Xander with some old-skool Parton in his collection — at least before it wound up at the bottom of the crater.

And "Sneaking Around" can not only go for Xander/Cordy, but also Xander/Willow. Seriously. You've got a little gold mine here because you have TWO big ships to use.

Dada? Oh hell no. Genuis I tells ya. Totally and absolutely genuis.

I'm not at all an enabler, right? :-)

Xander/Willow!! How could I have forgotten? Pez! Hmm...I'm so on the path. You might as well have handed me the crack pipe. :)

*evil overlord laugh* Welcome to the cabal! *wants an INAP Admin Cabal icon*

Imagine the wank we could cause if we were in a slightly more wanky fandom!

Or if we were in this fandom at the height of its wanky hey-day.

As it is, it's looking like Whedonesque is teetering dangerously on the verge of wanky-ness of the Buffy S8 comics (there's some kicking and tempertantrums over lack of Spike — never mind that Spike has his own series with another comic company) and now about the myseterious "former Buffy cast member who was in the opening credits" getting a full-time role on ER (note to Whedonesque...JM is way too old to play the part described...no really).

Really, between you and me, I bet we could bring back the wank!

Ahhh, wanky days are here again!

Abraham Benrubi and Seth Green have worked together on several occasions, so that's my bet.

It's a good thing for the folk at Whedonesque that their posting policies are so strict or whatever, else I would have been banned for life a long time ago for yelling at the Spike fen that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not Latin for It's Really All About Spike. Not to mention the time they tried to organize a movement to proselytize to all fans of the Buffyverse that we were required to support a Spike movie if we wanted to see more of the characters, whether we liked Spike or not. (I think their pulled-from-their-ass guestimate as to how many fans didn't absolutely adore Spike was 15 percent, a number low enough to be easily dismissed as statistically insignificant or something.)

I find Whedonesque at times informative, entertaining (but not in a way they'd like), and scarily educational in the ways of the cult of personality.

Congratulations . Looks with fear/awe at the INAP triumverate. Looks worried at all the evil laugher and beseeches you to be kind to us mere mortals:-).

Looking forward to seeing more of your work up at INAP.

I will be very happy when you upload your stories. It was a bitch, copy-pasting the whole of Living History when I printed it for reading at the hospital, so yay! and omg, I just remembered I never actually got your permission for printing it. I asked, in fact, I think I sent you an email, but never got an answer. Sorry, I am very very sorry if that's a big no-no in your book.

I really wanna get around to post some of my stories in INAP but I never seem to have the time!

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insert evil laugh here Three Queens insert evil laugh here

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Put it up on Wedonverse_NB

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I really really hope you read this!