online communities

Here are a number of links to sites related to fan fiction, blog-based role-playing games and crafting communities:

Orkut - Orkut is a social networking system which has space for people to create communities (ie. bboards that individuals can join). The range varies from Moleskine notebooks to the Pittsburgh Steelers to knitting, Neil Gaiman, fan fiction, etc. Communities can also be linked to related communities (knitting to crocheting for example).

Craftster - Craftster is a space specifically for people who are into crafts. The bulletin boards are separated by topic area and within topics, so for example there is a section for knitting that is broken into space to discuss completed projects vs. future ones. The site is mostly used as a gallery of projects, to post instructions for other ones and to post and answer questions.

These sites contain varying types of introductions to knitting and crocheting. Some use pictures, others animation or video:

Stitch Guide
Knit Tech
crochet.about.com
How to Crochet

The following sites are dedicated to many different types of fanfic, roleplaying games and combinations of the two:

Fanfiction.net - This site is one of the major respositories of fanfic online. These are generally stories written and posted by individuals relating to some book, movie or tv show. Other users can post feedback. Some of the feedback is simply whether the story is good or bad, but others leave actual critiques. Author responses to criticism vary, of course :)

Hogwarts letters - This fanfic is in the form of a letter game. It shows letters that are sent between characters during the Harry Potter books and explores some of the characters' lives and relationships outside of the book. These letters are canon.

LOTR rewritten - These fanfics are examples of how LOTR would be if written by other famous writers.

HP & LOTR Mary Sues - This site collects terrible HP and LOTR fanfics that are found online.

Ads for celebrity RPGs - Celebrity RPGs are very popular with a lot of preteens and teens. This site both advertises games and serves as a place where players can advertise their
characters for other games. In a celebrity RPG, players take the characters of pop stars, movie stars and other media personalities. They create an environment where all of these people, from Britney and Justin to Nicole Kidman and Lenny Kravitz hang out. Sometimes the settings are specific, like teen stars all in school or college together.

HP RPG for grown-ups - Fanfic and RPGs are not just for kids. This site is entirely for grown-ups, although the contents are much less "grown-up" than many of the teen games.

His Dark Materials game - His Dark Materials is a trilogy by Phillip Pullman. This game is based on his books.

Wheel of Time RPG - The Wheel of Time is a neverending series of high fantasy by Robert Jordan.

Abhorsen RPG - The Abhorsen is a YA trilogy by Garth Nix.

Buffy RPG - These are some "classic" blog-based RPGs based on the Buffyverse.
Buffy RPG
Buffy RPG

Opportunity Rover / Spirit Rover - Not all blog-based roleplaying are multi-player games based on media publications. These blogs are from the point of view of the Mars rovers.

Note on abbreviations/terminology:

RPG = role-playing game
HP = Harry Potter
LOTR = Lord of the Rings

canon = These fanfics aim to be true to the original story's universe. Straight characters don't suddenly come out. Evil characters don't gain sympathetic qualities.

Mary Sue = (n.): 1. A variety of story, first identified in the fan fiction community, but quickly recognized as occurring elsewhere, in which normal story values are grossly subordinated to inadequately transformed personal wish-fulfillment fantasies, often involving heroic or romantic interactions with the cast of characters of some popular entertainment. 2. A distinctive type of character appearing in these stories who represents an idealized version of the author. 3. A cluster of tendencies and characteristics commonly found in Mary Sue-type stories. 4. A body of literary theory, originally generated by the fanfic community, which has since spread to other fields (f.i., professional SF publishing) because it’s so darn useful. The act of committing Mary Sue-ism is sometimes referred to as "self-insertion." (from Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blog)