Rodney McKay/Elizabeth Weir Discussion/Ship/Appreciation

[CKO]

over all a very good eppy

[Purpleyin]

Hi all

The latest and lengthy update from last several days worth of stuff.

Hosting:

Alli has a number of cheap hosting solutions and also a slightly more expensive but more reliable one - http://www.powweb.com/
Their hosting is $8 (£5) a month and allows mysql/php and others nice things including 2 sub domains.
So maybe we could have www.mcweir.com with entrance page (a great suggestion from someone over at weirmckayship so that it's clear we have two sites!) with nice buttons to enter either site and then have http://central.mcweir.com for general site and http://archive.mcweir.com for fic site - if we can get those.

Entrance page designs/grpahics now needed too. We need to think up images for the site buttons. Maybe have the buttons 300 wide by 200 tall? Set centred but by side with slight gap?

Other than that we need to decide on names for the actual sites. I still like McWeirCentral for the general site and Drs Weir & McKay Fanfiction

Archive for fic site. Any thoughts on those or other ideas?

Banners:

One thing I'm curious about is how long do the banners take to load for dialup users? I figured they might take a while because most are 100kb but wanted to know. It's probably gonig to be possible to compress them a little further without any noticeable reduction of quality I hope, but want to know if it's necessary first.

We haven't decided on the fonts yet and they need to be uniform really to keep site consistancy, so anyone maknig banners please bear it in mind caption you put on now might need to be redone!
For anyone who might be using GIMP - if you save in the .xcf format it saves any layers separately for easier editing later - of course you need to save a jpeg version too but just thought it ws a useful tip.

Plus Kip and Vana have been maknig banners across at weirmckayship - links to them might be in the next update, for now though they are in their respective folders at the yahoogroup.

Captions:

Remember that captions can be send as you think of them and nothing is too silly, too sombre, too snarky - anything goes.
I'm the only one who's reading them and names will not be put on the poll entries - the only way people will know is if you tell them or if yours is the winning one. So get them captions coming in!

To clarify

Main site: Original colors (yellow) and stained glass Atlantean design, uncaptioned banners featuring both Rodney and Elizabeth - not using eFiction system anymore but admin accepting submissions via email and uploading them.

Fic Archive: 3 skins. One for them each and also a default skin.
Rodney's skin would be blue (deep or light, not sure yet, and trying to incorporate green to see if that looks good) and have captioned and uncaptioned pics featuring him alone or with other team members. Elizabeth's skin would be red and have captioned and uncaptioned pics featuring her alone or with other team members. The background and menu colors would be blue/green or red depending on the skin, perhaps the actual background pattern would also be different.
We were having a general Atlantis skin too that it defaults to and non-members would see - only members could change to the other skins by logging in.

To me it just makes more sense. Since I imagine people will spend more time on fic site reading and hence looking at it. It's also aloteasier to change the skins using eFiction and the banners being tied to skins makes skin specific banners possible too (not that it was impossible on genearl non-efiction site but certainly very difficult).

Mockups:

Peanut has been doing some great work on mockups for fic site (haven't got any links to show you yet though). We'd come across problems on using the pretty window panes but there may be a way to and other than that we probably need to go for simplicity on design - so it's straightforward and uncluttered as possible and also quick to load and easy to code.

Patti modified one of those so it was aligned better but something still wasn't quite there, so work continues. Mainly we aren't sure about exact colours or graphics.

Background doesn't have to be graphic but then I've also pointed out possibility that body text area and background colours could be samebut that we could have background graphic that is at top and fades into the background - as we may already be using on the general site.
Let me know what you all think of that idea.

I was thinking if we had a small graphic that could be repeatable or one that sat next to the banner on left hand side and the design ended off as can be seen on the window in a cap somehwere from The Eye when they are being led down the stairs (sort of tapering into a point - art nouveau style) - then if it was designed to sit next to banner but lead into the simpler coloured line dowards that's easy to repeat til end of page. Hard to explain but I'll see if Patti can help me with this idea once she's back from her vacation, though I've made a mockup for it. I was trying to get across the idea of a simple skin design using the panes but not repeating, so I went and made a very very rough mockup in MSpaint. It 800pixels wide but nothing else is to size, so very very rough.

The design is meant to be centred and the only other thing in the mockup actually done carefully was my offsetting of the band of colour under the menu. I copy/pasted a portion of the other and flipped image and it's in line with edge so it's symmetrically placed.

Please ignore the font (that was just the one it was last set to and does not relfect what we'd be using for the archive) and the odd spray painted bit on top left is meant to indicate where the window pane with tapering graphic would go. I haven't included any colours filled in for background, text are or the menu.



Just wanted to give rough idea of the concept I had in my mind. And wouldn't mind is someone could make a better mockup with some actual graphics - I just don't have time to do that.

The example is done red as I was thinking Elizabeth's skin should be (earthy too?), but what are people's thoughts on Rodney's and the main default Atlantean one.
I'd say Rodneys should be more technological somehow and blue oceany, with main one general Atlantis/Ancients kind of colours/themes.
What does that sound like to everyone?

We don't have to use window panes for those other two skins but it would be good to use some graphic there tapering into a band of colour. Maybe Rodney's skin could use a modified dark blue pane but the Atlantean main skin could use something different? So that the McKay and Weir skins have most resemblence...

Category Pictures:

It's been asked if we will be using pics for the categories.I'd say yes if we can - pics or grpahics. They might be able to be skin specific, I'm pretty sure they can be but not able to test system out yet so...
Good example of this (and of an efiction archive too) would be http://jonasfic.com/


On Moderation:

I think it could work well that we validate new memebers for a while (first few stories) and then change them to unmoderated after that. This is so the authors should have as much control over archive posting as possible but within reason. Admins can remove inappropriate stories after they have been posted but out workload would be alot if we checked every single bit of a story posted so we will be relying on the users to point out abuse too.


Categories and Genres:

There was concern over categories/genre and not caring about length of sotry - prefering another categorisation.
As I said bfore if we used genres with the eFiction 'categories' then you could only submit to one of them. However maybe clever scritping could do the search for genres and no one would ever know that.
We couldn't list all but maybe we could put across the lengths such as drabble and novella to genres and have categories (and subcategories) as so, based more on something that's easier to cateogirse but also shouldn'tinterfere with other genre choices. As you can see it's based more or less around the shippines and then 'other' categories.

general
-friendship
-UST/pre-relationship
shipfics
-unrequited
-relationship
-multiship
-adult
challenges/roundrobins (might need to be under same system, not sure yet)
crossovers
-SG1
-other
poetry
songfics

What do people think of that way of organsing it - with the genres list now as so.

-character study
-Tags/missing Scenes
-horror/suspense
-parody
-mystery
-au
-future (suggested recently - should it be in here?)
-action/adventure
-pwp
-drama
-humour
-angst
-hurt/comfort
-drabble
-novella

How's that? Genre list now shorter and Categories are alot better I hope.

Think this all on the update for now; let me know what you all think.

~
Hans

[emily_reich]

wow, you have definately been working your tail off on this!! cheers to you (and anyone else you're working with!) great job!! can't wait til it's finished!!

[CKO]

lookin good so far cant wait to see the finished site

[Sela]

I just finished re-watching LFP and I saw something I hadn't seen before.

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When Weir asked Mckay about sending a letter home he said he didn't have anyone special, but when she said she did, the flash of dissapointment on his face was surprising to me! I must have missed it all of this time....it was rather sweet and touching to see his reaction. I mean, he goes on about how he loves blonds and raves about Carter - how does he get from blond Carter to dark haired Weir?

[Purpleyin]

I just finished re-watching LFP and I saw something I hadn't seen before.

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When Weir asked Mckay about sending a letter home he said he didn't have anyone special, but when she said she did, the flash of dissapointment on his face was surprising to me! I must have missed it all of this time....it was rather sweet and touching to see his reaction. I mean, he goes on about how he loves blonds and raves about Carter - how does he get from blond Carter to dark haired Weir?

Ah but he makes a point of blondes being his thing - that doesn't make it universally true. I figure he admires and is attracted to Sam but knows she's out of reach and that's what makes it safe for him, no risk since he knows she'll just quip back at him; and it's something he can boast about and fool himself into believing because that way its easier than being close to any one who might possibly be attainable because that would mean he'd get hurt most likely.

Besides that Weir was blonde once and they are in another galaxy at least...

[Sela]

You're right - in the 'alternate reality' (read: original appearance) Weir was a blond! LOL. I had forgotten.

[emily_reich]

lol! yeah, hadn't even thought of that mckay'll discover that weir REALLY just dyes her hair and it'll be true love

ok, yeah, the moment when she says she has someone to send letters to i'd noticed for sure, but i kinda forgot about.... yeah... he really goes "oh" from it... i think that in itself may be why he decided to record something (as fluffy and random as most of what he said was)... he DID say it was therapeautic (sp?)...

[Purpleyin]

lol! yeah, hadn't even thought of that mckay'll discover that weir REALLY just dyes her hair and it'll be true love

Plot bunny! Plot Bunny - please someone write this....!!!

[Sela]

Actually I think that Rodney can use the fact that he falls for someone who isn't a blond as a sign of his inner growth.

[Purpleyin]

Actually I think that Rodney can use the fact that he falls for someone who isn't a blond as a sign of his inner growth.

Oh sure, it's certainly a nice thing to note how he's changed by, but I still wouldn't mind reading the product of the above plot bunny.

But you could just imagine the startled realise of 'But I can't be in love with Elizabeth - she's not blonde!" and then him realising he thought love and not simply 'attracted to'...

[emily_reich]

LOL... yay!! i made a plot bunny!

but Sela, you are CERTAINLY right... or maybe it just goes to show that his love of blondes is just a front afterall... i think he did like carter, but not as a blonde, and he eventually just overall liked her for more than physical reasons and i think he might have made a point over and over about BLONDES not only as a throw-back to an old joke but also (we can hope, right ) as a way of showing he actually thinks (or is trying to convince himself he DOESN'T THINK) exactly the opposite

[Purpleyin]

About the website:

someone mentioned if we have future genre shouldn't we also have past genre, like backstory...what does everyone think of that idea?
Should either of them be in there?
Should we put tragedy/extreme angst back in there too now the list is shorter?

And on McWeir note - ooh, not too long until The Gift - An ep I think is quite shippy in the bits they are together for. Then the makeup department conspiracy will be obvious too I'm sure. I'm thinking of maknig a banner or a vid to show it all - tongue in cheek of course..
And mcweir victim banners too!

[emily_reich]

maybe just a "not current time" kind of catagory that could include past and future fics

and i like the tragedy!!! personally that's one catagory that i would love to read no matter what, so i say it should get its own section

lol... i think i've heard this before, but can't recall: makeup department conspiracy??

[Purpleyin]

maybe just a "not current time" kind of catagory that could include past and future fics

and i like the tragedy!!! personally that's one catagory that i would love to read no matter what, so i say it should get its own section

lol... i think i've heard this before, but can't recall: makeup department conspiracy??

Hmm, well we need a better name than that though, must be one.
And tragedy is one of my favourites - it had been backpedalled to extreme angst warning since list was long but maybe now it can get put back in there.

Well the makeup department conspircy goes along with the photography/cinematography and costuming department ones. Look out for what I might mean when you see The Gift...