| writing and writers | defying description |
TheOneRing.net
Yeah, yeah, if you haven't heard of TORn by now you've likely been living under a rock, but there's a good reason it's such an ubiquitous site: it's a damn good one. Basically, if it's related to Lord of the Rings, you'll find it here, and probably well before any other site thinks to pick it up.Second Tour of Finland
Okay, this is just cool. Somebody took it upon themselves to make a "fansite" dedicated to Charlie Pace's band, DriveShaft, as if it were a living and breathing musical act. The whole page almost reads like an extended, atypically-crafted bit of fanfiction as it chronicles their concerts, interviews, photographs, and the continuing search for its missing bassist.FireflyFans.net
It all started here, and almost six years later, it's still going strong: news, fanworks, and several thriving message boards make this one of the major hotspots in the Firefly fandom.still-flying.net
The real standout with this website is its screencap collection, which covers all fourteen episodes of Firefly, plus TV ads, deleted scenes, and the Serenity trailers. The breadth of it is truly impressive. But there are also the old standards of quotes, links, and brief character bios -- as well as some not-so-standard things as well. (Firefly Hangman, anyone?)Whedonesque
The latest news in all things Joss, this blog covers Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and other projects by the cast/crew of those three shows. It's a handy way to keep an eye on the latest happenings in the Whedonverse.FireflyWiki
Even though it was only around for a few months, the Firefly 'verse was shaping up to be a pretty complex place before Fox pulled the plug. Here, it's all laid out in a handy-dandy encyclopedia format a la Wikipedia: planets, ships, slang, monetary system, plus the more typical character bios and episode summaries. I can't count the number of times this site's saved my ass while writing fanfic.HeroesWiki
Along the same lines, here's a wiki that covers the equally complex Heroesverse, including news updates, interviews, and the storylines and characters only seen in its online ARG. It's also not without a sense of humor; check out the entry on Fan Theories About Waffles, for instance.The 10th Wonder Podcast
Looking for your weekly Heroes fix? (...er, besides the one you get from the show itself, that is.) Look no further. News, recaps, spoilers, and more, these guys always stay on top of the game and always turn out a quality podcast week after week.SpoilerFix
You know you shouldn't, but sometimes, you just have to cave and read up on what's going to happen on your favorite shows. This regularly covers ten to fifteen big shows and a variety of smaller ones, mining the web for the latest and spoiler news and information. As always, though, read at your own risk.
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Firefly's Glow
Firefly fic! Get your Firefly fic here! Up since the show's original airing, it plays host to a wide variety of fanfiction, ranging from gen to slash, G to NC-17, canonical pairings to...not so much. Well worth a look.A Teaspoon and an Open Mind
I'm one of those New Who fans who've just hopped on board with the most recent series, which is partly why this website fascinates me so much: it gives me a look at fanfic dating all the way back to the First Doctor. (Of course, the Ninth and Tenth Doctors still get the highest representation, but still!) They say they accept Doctor Who fic of all kinds, and they mean it; you'd be hard-pressed to not find something you like.Ladybee's Fiction
Uniformly brilliant Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic. Honestly, I can't say much more than that, except that Ladybee writes one of the best Jack Sparrows I've had the pleasure of reading.A Short Cut To Mushrooms
The home of Baylor's Lord of the Rings fanfiction. I'm a gen girl at heart (not to mention madly in love with the hobbits), so I have no shame in saying that her stories make me go "eeeee!" like the big squealy fangirl that I am.The Sandman Shooting Script
There's been a notorious number of scripts drafted for a movie based on Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels. The only reason this one in particular is linked is because it's the only one I know of that ended up online. I'm...I think the best way to describe it would be "interesting" -- because it certainly is, make no mistake, if only because it's a look at one possible way it could have gone before the whole project was called off.BookSlut
Mmmm...books. *Homer Simpson-esque drooling* Intelligent, well written interviews and reviews abound, but the part I adore is the blog that documents all the fun bibliophile happenings of the world.Slashdot
A hub for the latest news in all things nerdly. It tends to deal more with the IT side of the spectrum, but it's always proved itself to be interesting.Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog
For the English nerd in all of us, this is exactly what you think it is: a modern blog written in the style of Chaucer, Old English and all. Best way to find out about current events ever.Television Without Pity
Sometimes, half the fun of watching TV is getting to snark about it afterwards. The recaps here -- which span dozens upon dozens of shows past and present -- can be kind of uneven at times, but most of them are pretty uniformly hilarious as they poke fun at the shows we love (and occasionally just love to hate).
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CTRL+ALT+DEL
The most extensive gaming I've done is a brief fling with Nintendo, but I still love CAD. It's just off-kilter enough to be consistently funny, and the art's quite a bit better than a lot of other webcomics I've seen.Nice Hair
One flat. Five guys with weird hair that bear a striking resemblance to Neil Gaiman, Tim Burton, Danny Elfman, Robert Smith, and Andrew Eldritch. Two German superheroes. And, oh, yeah, one gay pirate living under a bed. Wacky Hijinks(tm) ensue!Tales From Band Camp
I'm an ex-band geek and damn proud of it. For everyone who's ever spent an afternoon (okay, more like a month's worth of afternoons) slogging across a football field in the pouring rain while trying to stay in formation, or opened up a symphonic band folder to find out you'll be playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" again this year, this webcomic's for you.XKCD
The author describes this as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language," and that sums it up rather well. If you are now or have ever been a total nerd, chances are the in-jokes will have you giggling like a loon; even if you're not, the strips can be oddly, beautifully touching sometimes.
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[ ODDLY ADDICTING TIMEKILLERS ]
Milliways Bar
Oh, lord. There is a very, very good reason why this site's nickname is "The Crackbar." The basic premise? Pick a fictional character -- any character, so long as they have some established background in a book, TV, movie, comic, or even song -- and turn them loose at the Bar at the End of the Universe to interact with other characters from every time, place, and fandom imaginable. With over 1600 characters running around there at last count, from canons as popular as Harry Potter to as obscure as Jonathan Coulton's collected discography, there's never a dull moment.Dragon Court
Go a-questing! Collect treasure! Slay...tiny rodents. Er. Well, don't worry; you'll work your way up to the dragon eventually.Fishy
You're a fish. You eat other fish. You get bigger and eat even bigger fish. Simple, yeah, but there's a reason it's filed under "oddly addicting." (Plus, it has one of most fantastic "YOU WIN" screens in the history of Flash games.)Orisinal
I love this website. It's a collection of some fifty-odd games -- mostly puzzles -- that are simple in premise and a lot trickier in execution. I can waste hours here if given half a chance; my personal favorite is "The Amazing Dare Dozen."AddictingGames.com
With a name like that, do I even need to explain why this is here? If I can waste hours at Orisinal, then I can waste days at this site. Check out Candy Bubbles and Untangle for starters, and be prepared to surrender a good chunk of your free time.fl0w
You're a single-celled organism. You eat other single-celled organisms, evolve, and work your way up to bigger prey. Simple? Yep. Strangely engrossing? Oh, hell yes.Hollywood Stock Exchange
Buy, sell, and trade fake 'stock' in upcoming movies and famous actors. Yes, that's right: now you, too, can drop lines like, "Yeah, so I bought a thousand shares of Viggo Mortensen yesterday" into casual conversation!
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Ain't It Cool News
The entertainment industry's a scary place, but AICN's got a way of worming itself in there. Reviews, insider information, early stills taken by sneaky spy cameras...if it's a production targeted toward the geek subset, odds are that any info about it will pop up here first.Internet Book List
You know the Internet Movie Database, right? IBL is the same thing, only for books. Yum. Why didn't anybody think of this sooner?Oi! Yanks! No!
For some reason or other, I find myself traipsing through British fandoms pretty often...but, since I live on the other side of the Atlantic, I don't have the best frame of reference for UK slang and customs. Enter this website and my salvation. Written by Brits for Americans, it does a great job of laying down the Britpicking law -- it even includes special sections on Scottish and Irish culture.Firefly Chinese
Okay, technically, this should probably go in the "Fannish Pursuits" section, as it's geared toward those in the Firefly fandom...but, hey, you never know when you're going to need to know how to swear in Mandarin Chinese. Contains traditional phrases, general curse words, and some...slightly stranger off-color phrases, laid out by episode in both pinyin and traditional characters.Snacksby
As someone who's just starting to emerge, blinking, into a life after my college meal plan, the idea of cooking for myself terrifies me. (Especially when I don't have much in the way of cooking skills, but that's another thing entirely.) Snacksby makes it so much easier: all you have to do is enter a list of the food you've got on hand, and it'll spit out a handful of recipes for you to try. I think I'm in love.
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The First Line
It's a simple and popular concept: toss out an opening line to a group of writers and have them run with it. The only difference is that here, it's given to the entire Internet, and the best stories of the lot are published in a quarterly magazine.Unlined
Unlined is an online lit mag that focuses on my favorite genre of all: unconventional fantasy. Great prompts, great writing, and engrossing artwork abound here; it is well worth a look (and, of course, a submission if you're able).NaNoWriMo
Check your sanity at the door: this is the website for the fabled National Novel Writing Month, a thirty-day, 50,000-word crash course in writing your very own novella. By emphasizing quantity over quality, even for just one month, it does wonders for unlocking creativity and just letting everything go. I'm a two-time participant and winner, and, despite the times when I would just rest my forehead on the keyboard and moan for a few hours (usually when I was around day ten and only had four thousand words to my name), I've never regretted doing it.Neil Gaiman
It's...well, come on, it's Neil Gaiman. *grin* Official website of the man who wrote Sandman, Neverwhere, American Gods, and one half of Good Omens. The highlight is his personal blog, which he's been faithfully updating since 2001 and is by turns insightful, informative, and marked with a great dry humor.PocketMod
I have a nearly pathological fear of writing in notebooks that cost more than a dollar, and PocketMod became a lifesaver in that regard. It's a simple template that lets you print out miniature organizers, notebooks, calendars, and even Sudoku puzzles, then assemble them into an eight-page booklet with a few quick cuts and folds. Best of all? It's free. Check it out.
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Wizard People, Dear Reader
Once upon a time, a guy named Brad Neely decided to record an alternate soundtrack to the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. A, uh, rather twisted version. A version that includes lines like, "I am a beautiful animal! I am a destroyer of worlds! I AM HARRY FUCKING POTTER!!" Download it, fire up your DVD player, and prepare to be amazed.Dark Tower: The Really Abridged Version
Well, this is one way to get through 4,000 pages worth of Stephen King, that's for sure. I don't know whether to giggle hysterically or just go *facepalm* at these animations. Most of the time, I end up doing both.Beatallica
Metallica meets the Beatles. No, really.
......No, really.
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