Tracy couldn't log on, but she also thinks it's fine. She had a good question. Will our reviews also be saved to the archive or will they be lost?

A mock election and even the kids voted Trump? That must've been hard to deal with but I'm glad you have friends you can get away from it all with.

I think it's a good idea

I think it’s a great idea.

I have been approached by the OTW (Opendoors - Organization for Transformative Works) https://opendoors.transformativeworks.org/en/  about preserving the Absolute Chaos Archive. I'm thinking this would be a really good idea because once again my server is at the End of Support and needs to be upgraded to yet another new version. I have never been able to fix the archive since the last upgrade, and it's only gotten further out of support with no likely update of the EFiction software.

How do you all feel about such a move? I would keep this archive (and this message board) alive as long as possible (this board MUCH easier as the software can be updated...) BUT knowing that the efiction archive is unlikely to ever be "working" again for updating, etc, and could possibly become lost to the ether with another server upgrade (or two) that it'd be great to have as much of it backed up elsewhere as possible.

I'm not sure how many of you all are still around, but if you are here and see this, please let me know your feelings on the subject. I think that when they start importing the site to their project that they reach out to any authors in the archive to offer them the opportunity to opt out or to make anonymous any works, but honestly I'm not sure how exactly that works or what happens with the authors with outdated email addresses in the archive, and/or who are no longer part of fandom or don't respond. 

I'd hate to see all these stories disappear, but can make no guarantees that I'll be able to preserve them (except via a database that would be saved in my back-up drives, but that wouldn't really make them available to others...).

Let me know if you have good reasons not to move forward with letting OTW (they work hand-in-hand with AO3) help preserve these stories. Or if you have any other thoughts about the preservation project.

You're right, this week has been rough! And he isn't in office yet. I honestly don't know how I'm going to do it this time around. The last time was hard but at least we had control of one of the branches of government so there was at least some push back. Now, there's nothing anyone can do to keep him in check. I have been doing a pretty great job at not watching the news. What we ended up doing in the mornings now is watching the previous night's Stephen Colbert show. For my own sanity I've snoozed anyone I saw celebrating his win, which surprisingly wasn't all that many people. I've also just been trying to do things that make me happy.

I've been really ramping up on reading. Ironically, I was reading a book called "This Book Won't Burn." About a Muslin, Indian high school senior that moves from Chicago to a suburb far away. I could have very well been very close to where you are. I'm not sure if the town was made up or exists. I think it was called Baybridge. Anyway, she quickly finds out that it's total MAGA country and the school board bans any books at the schools that they find the least bit suggestive. Without even reading them of course. Mostly by BIPOC authors. She decides to do something about it so she takes the banned book list and picks one of the books and goes across the street to the park during her lunchbreaks. Seniors and juniors get to leave. She starts reading the book out loud and every day more and more kids come and listen until they have a full-on huge group of kids. It quickly becomes a students Versus the school board situation. It was inspirational to read.

My writing has been going well too. That hasn't slowed down. I'm also working on an Op-ed. I doubt I'll do anything with it, but it's helping me cope and when it comes to my feelings, I am a much better writer than speaker.

I truly do believe something nefarious was behind these results. He was talking about having the votes long before the election and I just flat out refuse to believe that a race that was supposedly tied went so far right. I need to feel that way because the alternative is living in a country that runs on hate first and foremost.

Blech! I have started wrapping Christmas presents already. LOL I mean who the hell cares, right?

I'm glad you're writing is going well. It is a good escape! And that you have likeminded people you can vent to. That's really important. Today someone left me a random kudo on A Million Little Things.

This has been such a long, hard week.  I don't even have the words to express how disappointed I am in the results of this election and in my country.  The fact that over half of the people who voted apparently care more about the price of gas and groceries than the rights of women and marginalized groups is disheartening and disgusting.  The fact that Donald Trump is a convicted felon who already tried to stage a coup once and wants to be a dictator - and that none of that was a dealbreaker for the people who voted for him anyway - is downright disturbing.  While I don't want the next four years to be worse than 2016-2020, I can't wait for these ignorant morons to discover that their savior did nothing but lie about all the things he said he was going to do to fix the economy and make their lives better.

We thankfully did not talk much about it at school.  My class held a mock election on Monday, which Trump won, and I did not even bring up the results of the actual election on Wednesday.  It was hard enough to stay neutral in the weeks leading up to the election and even harder to put on a happy face for my students the rest of the week.  Work was a good distraction though.  Thankfully, I have a few like-minded friends there that I could vent freely with away from students, and I got together with a couple of them to decompress and eat and drink our sorrows after school yesterday.  I have been avoiding most news and real TV since Tuesday night, too.  I also used to listen to the news while getting ready for work in the morning, but the last few days, I've listened to ER reruns on the Pop channel instead.  I've never seen Bluey, but it sounds like a better option than reality right now.

That is truly awful about that woman who killed herself and her kids.  What a horrible, selfish thing to do.  I'm sorry it happened and sorry your sister had to deal with the aftermath of it.  I wouldn't feel like handing out candy or dealing with people at all after that either.

Now I'm just trying to distract myself by disconnecting from the world and escaping into my story.  That's the one thing that has been going well this week.  I hope you've been able to distract yourself with writing and books, too!

Can't say I've ever watched Bluey lol, but whatever takes your mind off real life.

I haven't watched any real TV since election night. I have refused. Just seeing anything about him right now makes me physically sick. I have automatically snoozed everyone who was celebrating him winning on FB and none of the people I follow on Twitter was happy about him winning. I can deal with the bitching, not the celebrating. I have had to change my entire morning routine because I would watch the local news from 6:30 to 7 and then at 7 the Today Show but I just can't do it. I literally had Bluey on for about 30 minutes this morning. Those dogs are weirdos. Not as bad as the Charmin bears but I did find myself googling whether Bluey was a boy or a girl because I thought it was a boy and its sister was a girl, and they kept taking baths together which I found oddly disturbing at 6:30 in the morning. LOL

It's all over the news here about Trump, the whole of morning TV has been dedicated to it yesterday and today (I watch Good Morning Britain while getting ready for work and had to switch off).  It must be awful to see it all over your social media as well as TV