State of the Board - 15 August 2010

[Phoenix]

What a summer we’re having! Moonlight’s showing on broadcast TV again. Alex is returning to our TVs in Hawaii Five-0 next month. Jason’s been busy filming Searching for Sonny, and is about to become a daddy. David’s show, Stargate: Universe, is about to start its second season. Sophia’s on Spooks. Jordan’s got a couple of movies out. Brian has a new movie and a second season of Men Of A Certain Age. It’s a great time to be a Moonlight fan, isn’t it?!

All this Moonlighty goodness has us really inspired, and we want to share some of the things we’re excited about with you, our beloved members.

What’s Going On Around Here?

Moonlight Fun & Games:
Our old favorite, Can You Spot the Scene?, is still going strong, and you might remember that the Reverse Scavenger Hunt is STILL unsolved! Recently we've added a few new games: Who Said It?, Episode Titles, and the Moonlight List Game. In honor of Moonlight’s return to broadcast TV, we’ve introduced the Scavenger Hunt and Moonlight Bingo. We’d also like to invite members who haven't done so to take the Moonlight Six Word Challenge, or participate in Six Degrees of Moonlight. All these games are available in the Moonlight Fun & Games section.

Episode Discussions:
In addition to GuardianAngel’s wonderful episode discussions with screencaps, we’ve also started new discussion threads dedicated to the return of Moonlight to broadcast television. Stop by and offer a comment.

Moonlight Music:
The wonderful music that was played on our little show is so inspiring—we’ve all fallen in love with it. Stop by and check out JerseyGirl's wonderful guide to The Episode Music of Moonlight (which will be updated with new information over the next few weeks), and the other cool stuff in that section. And just for fun, tell us about your favorite Moonlight-inspired music.

Moonlight Ambiance:
Furnishings, fashions, Ferrari, Fortress of Style… check out the things that made Moonlight so stylish and beautiful.

The Library:
We pride ourselves on the amount and quality of our Moonlight fanfiction. According to our own francis, the Library now contains 1200 stories! We invite you to peruse the collection, and read something (or someone) new.

Check out the amazing Moonlight-inspired magazines that Tam has been creating in the Periodicals Section. Or Original Fiction. Or Poetry.

Not sure where to start? Try the Recommendations Thread or the Moonlight Fan Fiction Update Announcements.

Looking for a fic? Can't quite remember the name or the author? Try the Fic Finder.

Want to know what other avid readers have enjoyed? Check out the Coffee House. And be sure to check out the Coffee House Featured Fics list, where you will find links to all of the stories discussed in the Coffee House.

The Workshop:
Interested in the craft of writing? Check out the Workshop. That’s where you’ll find discussion threads for everything related to the writing process… and where you can find our literary Champagne Challenges.

The Studio:
Moonlight fans are amazingly artistic, and this is the place to see beautiful banners, videos, and other Moonlight-related art projects. Do you have an artistic bent? Why not try participating in one of our graphic Champagne Challenges and see what you can come up with? Or do you just enjoy the talents of others? Here’s the place to peruse.

Appreciation Threads:
Do you love one or more characters? Check out the Character sections in 100% Moonlight. We’ve got Appreciation threads for every main character, and the lesser-known ones as well.

Are you a shipper? You can celebrate everything: Mick-Beth, Mick-Coraline, Mick-Josef, Josef-Beth… the possibilities are endless. Check out the pretty pictures and post a thought or two about your favorite characters or relationships.

Moonlight in Translation:
More comfortable in another language? Check out the Moonlightforum auf Deutsch and Moonlight En Espanol forums. And if you’re interested in getting a forum started in a new language, please contact any of the Admin/Mod staff.

Media Links:
This fledgling forum could really use your help. We’d love to pull together links to news articles magazines, appearances, and other media events for each of our Moonlight stars. Feel like giving us a hand? Or do you just want to see if you can find that cool article you read a few months ago? Check it out.

Our Beloved Moonlight Cast, Writers & Crew:
Fond of a Moonlight cast member, writer, or crewmember, and interested in seeing what he or she is doing now? Check out the Appreciation threads for the people who made Moonlight what it was.

Off the Moonlight Path:
Want to tell a story about your pet goat? Discuss that new book you’ve been reading? Talk about a TV show? This is the forum for you. Say Happy Birthday (or Canada Day, or Memorial Day), talk about Real Life in General, or go totally random at Chez Fleur and Grace!

What’s New?

We’re excited to announce some new and upcoming projects!

Coming soon: Board upgrade!
We’re working hard to prepare for a major board software upgrade, which should make everything run better and allow us to do some of things on our wish list. We’ll keep you posted, but it will most likely happen in the next month.

Moonlight Q&A:
Got a question about something you saw on the show, or need info to make your fanfic more accurate? Bet someone here knows the answer, or knows someone who does. Ask it here!

Moonlight Lexicon:
What’s a “ship”? Why do people keep talking about the FoS? If you’re new to the fandom, you might wonder at some of the terms we Moonlight fans toss around. Check out the Lexicon for some nifty definitions. And if you have a question about a term you don't see defined, or if you think of new terms you'd like us to add, please feel free to post in the thread!

Expanded Snarkage:
You may ask what’s so new about snark. We’ve been snarking Moonlight since the very beginning. But now we’re opening up a whole new world of snark, entitled The Snark Hits the Fan, dedicated to other projects done by our Moonlight family. Any film or show that features a Moonlight star is snarkable… but please remember, NO real-person snark is allowed. (Actors in costume and in character are OK, though.) This is the place to snark Searching for Sonny, Hawaii Five-0, Stargate: Universe, Spooks, Man-Thing, and all the other projects our Moonlight actors have done. And, of course, Snark Happens is still the place to go for Moonlight snark. On your mark, get set, SNARK!

New Champagne Challenge Index:
We've just created a comprehensive guide to all of our literary Champagne Challenges, with links to the opening post of each one.

New Hawaii Five-0 forum:
In honor of what promises to be a huge hit, we’ve created a new subforum where our members can discuss all things Hawaii Five-0. It will have a general discussion thread, and separate threads for discussing each episode as it airs.

Member Pictures:
We’ve got threads dedicated to pets and TV shows, but none dedicated to you, our dear members! Feel like posting a picture of yourself? Well, now you can.

New Challenges!
Member Challenge: Introduce a friend or family member to Moonlight, or better yet, invite them to join MLA, and then tell us about the experience!

Coming Soon: Graphics challenges. Stay tuned for a couple of cool challenges for illustrating Moonlight fiction!

Coming Soon: Snark Challenge. Stay tuned for news on an exciting new challenge, for Moonlight and non-Moonlight snark!

Coming Soon: Episode Transcripts. We're busy creating accurate and easy-to-read transcripts of all 16 episodes, and will post them as soon as possible.

Our Wish List

Here are some things we’re thinking about, and hoping to add in the near future.

Screencap Gallery: We’ve all had that sense of doom and gloom when Moonlight Love went down. And have you ever wished they’d caught the frame just before or just after the one they got? We’re putting together one-second-interval screencaps, and hope to get them uploaded to a gallery here at MLA within the next couple of months.

Music Player: Once we’ve done the upgrade, we’ll look into installing a music player so we can share some of our favorite Moonlight songs.

Custom Moonlight skins: Wouldn’t you love little fleurs de lis for buttons? Or maybe moons? We’ll look into the possibility of getting one or more custom skins for MLA.

Moonlight Quote of the Day: Just a little bit of fun, we’re looking into ways that we can display a random Moonlight quote every day.

Got any other fabulous ideas? We’d love to hear them. The Moonlight will always shine here at moonlightaholics.com, and we want to make sure this board remains a happy, thriving place where we can all bask in the glow of our beautiful little show.

Your admin and mod team-- Phoenix, allegrita, librarian_7, Lilly, PNWgal, and redwinter101

[francis]

Wow, you've been busy!!! I love to be reminded of threads I haven't visited in a while, and am looking forward to all the new stuff. This is the greatest board ever!

[Phoenix]

Awww, thank you, francis.

*whispers*

The mods deserve all the credit...

[AussieJo]

a VERY comprehensive dossier!
Well done to our wonderful movers and shakers!
And a big thank you........

[Luxe de Luxe]

Phee, what an absolutely brilliant post. thankyou so much for making this available (I immediately accessed one of the games!) and thanks to all our hardworking mods for keeping things so interesting around here.


ETA: Love the fact that we're going to have the screencaps here. When they come, can we start a caption game so that those of us who have failed to succeed in establishing detente with our computers can be involved in snark?

[SharonC]

WOW this is awesome news, this place is going to be bouncing. Good luck to those screencapping, I know the fun and hardwork involved in that. Thankfully ari and I discovered some shortcuts and it made it much easier after 1 and 2

[wpgrace]

Wow.

But then we have always known that you all rock.

[darkstarrising]

Wow, indeed!!

You've already created a wonderful place to come and discuss, enjoy, write and read about all things Moonlight, yet like a fine wine, this just keeps getting better and gives us more to savor

Thank you all so much!!

[HotMicks]

Just when I thought I couldn't love you all any more than I already do...

First, the new snark forum and now this! (one for each mod)

A couple of things...

1) I'm not sure if it's Lucky's librarian skillz or if there's another super organizer among you (if so, please come to my house 'cause I could use your help!), but this is really the BEST ORGANIZED board. There is so much here and yet it's all easy to find and you do a good job of streamlining threads when they become duplicative (? ). And I like that you're going to keep the H50 subforum simple... I told Red recently that I actually like having one thread to keep up on all the latest, rather than having to hunt through several threads to find the "new" stuff, but it makes sense to have the separate episode discussions. So thank you for your fab organizing talents, and I look forward to the release of Searching for Sonny so we can discuss that to death too!

2) ALL THE NEW THINGS! Wow, you spoil us! Your brain cells must have been working overtime. I shall tell my doctor to send to you a thank you since I will no longer be dreading that massive heart attack I was going to have when I lost access to the ML Love screencaps. And yes, Phee, there have been many times when I wanted the frame after or before, but I don't know how to screencap, so I look forward to the thorough job MLA is sure to do on this "project." Plus the new threads for Q&A, Champagne Challenges and lexicon are great... can't wait to check them out. And the music player would be way cool. You gals have been busy!

3) ALL THE "OLD" THINGS! As you said, Phee, you've given us plenty of goodies to "bask in the glow of our beautiful little show." The only other thing I would call attention to, especially for newcomers to ML, is Cinemama's excellent archetypes posts, which can be found here: viewforum.php?f=515. I still think of them when Mick and Beth and Josef and Coraline are being so... Mick and Beth and Josef and Coraline.

4) These helpful posts you do periodically to call our attention to the good stuff that is here. For example, when Lilly started the media links section, I went (I'm already brain damaged, so it's okay, Lilly) "What a good idea. Why has no one thought of this already?" It is the first place I went yesterday to find the Feed interviews, and Lilly, I'll send you those links to add 'cause they're not there (I know, hard to believe).

5) You are well on your way to creating the most comprehensive ML site around. When our first home (for many of us) flamed out, that was the first thing I thought of... all that LOST MATERIAL! I could still kick myself for only saving a few of the snark pages to my hard drive. I wish I had that whole snark thread back. Then I hurried up and saved Cinemama's archetypes (found 'em on a Google-stored page), and then she came here and re-posted (thank Bob!). That whole (bad) experience made me appreciate even more Phee's determination to provide a permanent home for our ML universe (thanks, Phee! ).

6) As much as I love ML and our actors and our characters and all of it, there are days I come here and don't post anything at all that's related to ML. That's because I have grown to care about the "real life" people here... the community you've built... as much as the show. Smart, witty, good hearted, wonderfully interesting and always civil and respectful of differing opinions, I don't know how you do it, but you have attracted a lovely mix of folks who I really enjoy getting to know more and more each day. We all lead such different lives and it is fascinating to me to hear about what you're all up to (and thanks to Chez Fleur and Grace for our wonderfully random thread... you never know what you're going to find there, so it's like a surprise wrapped up for us each morning!).

So a big, fat group hug for our mods, you really are too good to us!

[Lilly]

Thanks, everyone! It's really tempting to tell you all that while we were in LA it was just work, work, work....

But, the truth is it was the whole time.

We have been been busy since we got back, though. I hope everyone will check out the new threads, re-visit the old favorites and let us know if you have any ideas for further enhancements.

[francis]

Lilly, there's nothing wrong with getting inspiration by having fun and vacation, then sitting down with new energy to do hard work.
This is my last day before school starts again, so I hope the "sitting down with new energy to do hard work" part will work.

[GuardianAngel]

Great post, Phee. A reminder of why I love it so much here and why I'll be sticking around for a long time to come.

I thank you and the Mod Squad for working so hard to keep this place fun and fresh.

[librarian_7]

Thanks...I'd love to take credit for the organization, but usually the others have come up with fab ideas while I'm still wiping the sleep out of my bleary eyes.

But I will say that getting the six of us together in L.A.--a monumental undertaking in and of itself--was inspiring. Some of the new projects had been kicking around for some time, and now we really just decided to get on the stick and get things done!

Lucky

[HotMicks]

Well, then we shall have to start a kitty to get you all together more often! (no, I will NOT be accepting donations for said get-togethers with or without cigars... another plus about this board that I forgot to mention - no shady characters, at least outside of our TV screens ).

And are you sure you didn't mean "broomstick" (not that you're witches or anything ) 'cause it's like magic... there's goodies, goodies, goodies everywhere!

[allegrita]

Thanks, everyone, for the wonderful sentiments, and the good ideas. A lot of this has been simmering on the back of the stove, so to speak, for months, but our get-together really did inspire us. I love the different energies and interests of my fellow mods and Phoenix, and I think this place wouldn't be the eclectic and interesting place it is without this mix of personalities. And, of course, you are the most important resource of all. We're lucky to have such fabulous members.

We've had a lot of fun thinking about the sorts of things we'd like to bring to MLA... and it's been great to rediscover the wonderful resources we already had here, as we were putting together this announcement! Isn't it a good thing to re-examine your life and your home from time to time?