There have been a good deal of posts, in the Tolkien fandom, about a fic site which has been bought by someone who has said, in the past, that he intends to become very rich by buying (I paraphrase because I am too lazy to go and check exact words...) 'run-down sites where the current owner has no idea how commercially valuable they may be.' And that he intends to 'take over fandom'.
As you can imagine a lot of people are very pissed off at someone intends to make money from their creative work, and worry that he will draw the wrath of the Tolkien Estate, which can be extremely wrathful, if it looks as if he is making any money at all out of Tolkien related stuff. (If you are interested
Esteliel has written a good account of the whole thing.)
I didn't post there, and hardly ever read there - the default is grey print on black, and even if you change to the alternative grey on cream it isn't an easy place to read.
So - why am I mentioning it at all?
Well - the person who had developed the site has said one reason she sold it was because she was paying a lot out of her own pocket because no matter how often she asked for donations almost no-one gave...
Do you read fanfic at any of the archive sites that has a 'donate' button? Have you ever donated? If not, why not?
Do you want to find your favourite archive disappearing, or being bought by someone who annoys so many of your favourite authors that they withdraw their stories? No? Then go and click on that 'Donate' button. And yes - I do - I reckon I get a lot of pleasure from my favourite sites and on the three of them that have a 'Donate' button I click it at least once a year.
It is not expensive - if every reader gave the cost of one paper-back book a year to their favourite sites there would be no question of any of them having problems keeping going. So -
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just_ann_now gave me a really good book (Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner) - the cover price is $6.99. I can donate that much money, or even just $5.00, and I can read guilt-free for a year.
Take a lesson from the
Lord of the Rings Fanfiction buy out and make sure your favourite archive in whatever fandom has the support it needs. And the second lesson - if you want me to read, don't use grey on black as your default...
And now for the semen... This is a short clip from an e-mail from my daughter, currently having a whale of a time in Buenos Aires having been stuck in London for two days by a Chilean volcano until British Airways got her onto an Iberia flight from Madrid -
There was no inflight entertainment on the Iberia flight and I've been on nicer areoplanes with flybe and easyjet! But it got me here and I can hardly complain when BA had put me up in the Hilton and the Marriott and paid for all my meals the last 2 days!
I got through a rather lax customs, full of signs warning against importing semen into the country(!), and to Katie's with no problems...I leave you to make of that what you will!!
confused
cynical
lonely
amused
busy