domicile of the man-eating cape

((ETA: added stuff about another plot arc that just came to mind.))

Now, before anyone gets the idea that certain authors are my darlings and are free from my bilious eye of scrutiny and death: they are not.

Because as much as I'm going to fangirl Kazuya Minekura's Saiyuki in this chunk, I'm also going to crit bits of it.

That said, if the idea of a little nobody dilettante like me criticizing a published author bothers you, don't read on.

Those of you who are interested, have an LJ cut! Big bad spoilers all the way to Reload 9 and beyond lurk here!

( dot dot dot! )

((ETA: Until i can find conclusive evidence that Thomas has shagged with another guy, I'm baleeting that reference. The analogy still stands, though, with regard to perception - Thomas is a pretty boy ergo mistaken for gay, and that's another can of worms.))

The short answer: 99% of the time, authors are doin it rong. (Mostly because they're approaching from a privileged position and cannot see that they're doin it rong - and 'privileged' does not mean 'bad person' kaythanksbai. Nor does it mean 'possessed of a life that is always easy'.)

Of course that's just an extension of Sturgeon's Law, but anyhow. Let me break it down -

( dot dot dot! )

Hey, random customer.

I heard you and my boss chatting upstairs (lol my office is in the basement) and you seemed to be getting along fine. You were both amiable and joking aorund and the store seemed to ave what you were looking for, or at least something close, and you were going to tell your significant other -

- And then my boss, in response to your question about where he is from (which was kind of an 'uh' way to phrase it), said he was born in Tehran and his family bugged out to Canada when the spit hit the fan.

And you clammed up and got all evasive and monosyllabic and then borderline-rude, and left.

Now, I didn't care for you very much because of the implications associated with asking a brown guy with an accent where he's from (um, CANADA, right now - for all you know he could be 2nd or 3rd gen. Canuck, genius), but after THAT bullshit?

I reeeeally don't like you.

Way to be, you fucking assclown. Boss did not TMI you or say anything beyond 'yeah, I'm from here, my family left when everything went down the hole'. He wasn't rude, he wasn't pushy, he didn't bring up a verboten topic like politics or religion or hemorrhoids. But you, in your infinite assclownery, apparently decided that since he's Iranian you can't talk to him anymore or buy stuff from him?

You stupid, stupid nutsack. I really hope you did NOT just leave because you found out the nice guy you were talking to is OH EM GEE FROM IRAN.

Really hoping it was something else so I stop having this urge to bean you with a Nerf bat,
-E.

P.S. Maybe you missed that thing where Iran explod on account of election fuckery? Not everyone likes Ahmadinejad. The guy's a figurehead anyhow. And you know, if you'd asked my boss instead of making stupid assumptions, you'd know exactly how UNflattering his opinion of the current crew is.

You assclown.

I do not respond personally to mail or IMs from people I do not know.

I think catchester may have fallen on her face a lot as a kid.

I just.

*facepalm.*

I don't even.

I mean.

Didn't joye get her ass whacked so hard she may still be orbiting Jupiter for that crap?

Also: wow, noob thingiee, you know fuck-naught about confidentiality laws.

Some days it's extremely apparent that I fail at neurotypicality. I don't think like 'regular' people; when I do, it's like speaking a second language. I don't parse things the same way, I don't express them the same way, and some days it's like there's always going to be this GULF between me and other people, because I do not think 'normally', and I never have.

I mean, my nonexistent social life throughout school up to post-secondary is screaming proof of that.

I'm learning to like my mind, weirdness and all, but some days it's just incredibly aggravating to know that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try - and I try hard, I REALLY DAMN TRY HARD - and no matter what measures I take, I am 'them' and not 'us'.

I don't express myself normally, I don't read normally, I don't correlate and absorb and store normally.

I am not built, mentally, in the normal mould.

I can deal with the worst of it. I'm not going to use ADD as an excuse to be incredibly stupid, immature and short-sighted. I'm going to a counselor and basically learning how to think, all over again. I have to learn all over again how to respond to some stimuli, how to deal with myself. I have to learn to be fair with myself, over all, and it's hard.

Especially on days when I'm so convinced I'm going to be 'them' for the rest of my life because I seriously don't speak the same mental dialect or even language as most of the world.

It probably sucks eight times harder for people with AS. I'm very poor at parsing tone from text - extremely crashingly gong-show poor - and I'm bad at parsing tone and intent from spoken words face to face sometimes. I loathe the phone because I'm certain I will say the wrong thing, and disgust people. I am a princess of foot-in-mouth - though that's better than the empress i used to be. My tact is still sometimes sparse.

I got as far as I did before the explosion because I'm stubborn. XD My breaking point was when I was 25. On one hand I'm proud but on the other JESUSING CHRISTING HELLISH BALLS.

I dunno. I don't like the gaps between me and 'everyone else'. There are things I will never be able to do, and I'm only now coming to terms with the fact that this is the case but it is okay for that to be the case. I've got a couple of disabilities. One learning, one physical. They don't define my life or who I am, but they shape my interactions with reality to a great extent. Until gene therapy gets real real good, this is how it is. I have to be more careful with me than most people have to be with them.

And I'm not that bad off comparatively.

Iiii don't know. VIEWING THE INTERIOR OF MY NAVEL! :D

Sometimes, it just whacks me in the head, though.

The sum total of a conversation I had on AIM last night -

Her: WELL I DON'T THINK IT'S RACIST
Me: That's nice, you're caucasian and so am I, we don't get to decide what's racist or not, you're being purposefully thick, knock it off.
Her: *I'm-a-victim flailing about how I called her racist*
Me: Yeah not so much. Further, *admittedly-needless sarcasm*
Her; *pissy snipey threatening*
Me: *yawn.* *blargh.* *attempt to clarify*
Her; *further explanation*
Me: Okay, that's cool there, but there's still issues.

And apparently I'm supposed to know psychically whether she is feeling ill.

She's the dingdong who came out of the blue flapping around about how she DOES NO THINK IT IS RACIST BAWWWW and she knows god DAMN well that (a) I don't agree with her on what constitutes racism (she labours under the misconception that it's all hatecrime, I think) and that I'm more radar-y about things (I'm not 'looking for it', and it doesn't matter how much you 'let it bother you', dammit), and (b) when she does this kind of thing, it cases problems.

Big ones.

We have done this dance before, ad last night I was clearly kind of b33r'd, so I don't know what the sam hell she's thinking.

I am literally yhe only person she has a spine arguing with. I honestly think she likes trying to argue with me. I wsh she'd get her vertebrae on elsewhere. I'm afraid that some day I'm seriously going to kick her ass, and she won't be able to take it. :/ Bt honest to GOD. She does things like this - she can't access the forum that an RP we're co-running is on and for MONTHS AND MONTHS does not tell me that she has Comcast and it fails at loading this, she canNOT confront poeple frankly about issues she has with their gaming, she feels sorry for herself half the time because she sees what she's doing but doesn't move to change her behaviours to solve an issue... and she thinks she wants to fight with me and that what - is it FUN to her or something!? It's like she wants me to eat her face.

When it comes to spine, and brains, I >>>>>>>>> her. I'm sorry, I sound like a dick, but it's true. She's smarter than me in some respects but when it comes to practical things, or dealing with matters outside her personal understanding -

(She pulled the 'well this one person of colour said they didn't have a problem' bollocks too. I asked her if she thought PoC were the Borg.)

She really doesn't GET things. She does not GET that white folks don't get to decide what's racist/problematic and what isn't. And she does not get that things can be done well in some respects, and fail in others.

I think most of her denial is a matter of fangiring Blizzard very hard and not wanting to have to feel guilty about playing their games on account of Issues.

I'm not here to dole out band-aids. And I don't know why I have to explain that jokes that work within her social circle might go over like a lead zeppelin outside of it, or that WHITE PEOPLE DO NOT GET TO DECIDE WHA IS FRIGGIN' RACIALLY FAIL because WE INVENTED THE RACIALLY FAILISH SHIT.

aaaaggrrggrhhghghhghghhh

...I don't know. I'm just exasperated that I got baited by this. I should have just gone 'yeah okay'. I don't know. I need to TRY to explain but when someone's actually being willingly thick - gah. GAH. Argh.

I dunno man. Progressives can still have e fail in many respects, and the answer isn't to go 'oh well it'll always be there' or 'oh what so we shouldn't ever write XYZ anymore'. The answer is to go 'well fuck, that was stupid of us to do, let's fix it.'

I don't know. I get that she's not in a great situation at home, blah, but why the HELL would you wanna fight with me? I'm kinda a jackass sometimes!

I dunno. I'm just - irritated. I'm annoyed that I got baited and I'm annoyed because I thought she had GROWN PAST THIS PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE SOPPY WHINEBALLING BULLCRAP THING OF DOOM.

Blah. Usually she is not bad, but she has a shit sense of how she comes across textually (I know damn well I can sound pretentious, and I try to alleviate that - ) and a shit sense of who is going to validate her or something.

I should have just linked her to the racefail link depot.

'TIs Ashenmot'es birthday!

Happy birthday to you~, and may the next year be full of kitty shenanigans, herons, and other such wonderful photo opportunities. ♥

why you do this?

And some mean little chunk of my mind is all like, "Ahh, I love the smell of internalized prejudice in the morning. it smells like Chee-tos funk."

I don't even know why you'd nghaaahh.

To keep this from tuning into THE WHINIEST JOURNAL EVOR, I am really damn enjoying playing CV!Dracula in the crackmobile RP of joyous doom. I mean REALLY. I haven't had this much fun since my principal game slowed wwwway the hell down (on account of someone being irresponsible as hell posting - and we can't really boot anyone becuse GAME IS SO TINY and everyone's plot-integral now) and I stopped having anyplace to be KH1!Ansem. (I'm Drac there too; he's a miniplot boss and OF COURSE the game has stalled like a stalling stallmonkey RRRRIGHT as we're about to destroy Shaft's face and then ascent to the keep...there's one guy who I don't even know how the ur-GM stood as long as she did, he's a decent enough PERSON but he's lacking common sense on a level that makes Leeroy Jenkins look like a deliberate and calm individual. it's really hard to work around someone who jumps in with both feet that hardcore, and at first he lacked the common sense to determine that 'freeform game = still abides by some RP rules' and powerplayed a LOT. He's improved, and learned, but it's still difficult for me to be sure he won't stry to do something potentially devastating or permanent to someone else's character, or have someone run into a cave full of wyverns yelling his head off - which would be IC for Zed, who is the only character he's consistently really good with. Decent guy, just kinda dumb ad, as a result, comes off extremely inconsiderate at times.

And sort of an airhead, which can be EXTREMELY entertaining - he's aware of his doofiness and is not en ego case at all - but I think he's hit a new record high. He has (I shit you not) forgotten where his characters are at the moment. He told me this, and I said, "Well, everyone running the castlecrashing miniplot is in the antechamber" - he says he forgets WHERE in the antechamber... It's not a very big room, dude, and the post history log is right THERE - I don't even know man. Maybe Zim took his brain? Maybe he's just nuts.

Ehn, I'll just tell him to put people wherever, it's kind of blindside-mayhemmy in there right now with Shafot hucking orbs around - oh god, there is no way to put that that isn't totally immature-snortcackle worthy - but seriously he's this little old priest of Drac, his name is Shaft, and he uses these green crystal ball things in battle. And he fails at dying. So the team has decided they're going to nail him with a cursed weapon (Fate/Stay Night Lancer's Gae Bolga and its causality-dicking effect) and then just WAIL on him until his regen ability burns out. he's not perma-dead, he seems to be prone o weaseling out of that, but he's going to retreat. oh yes he is.

If we ever GET there...

BUT I DIGRESS - I think I have a Thing about pansexual hedonistic scary noblemen. KH1!Ansem, Dracula, Walter Bernhard (whose name I have to consciously not drop a 't' onto the end of because I SWEAR HE IS SURNAMED AFTER SARAH BERNHARDT, it's the redheaded and extremely refined thing), Sydney Losstarot... Yeah. XD

Playing Dracula is fun. I kinda wanna see what happens if he and Kyl's Lestat get into a preening-nobility war...

*gratuitous icon*

1) Nailing Jell-O to a wall
2) Trying to explain privilege to BJR

I don't know why I'm trying, I just - don't. I think it's some lingering fear that someone will decide that ANYONE ANYWHERE EVER who admits to having some kind of mental 'er?' or learning disability is going to use it as a excuse to be a dickhead. And a hope that she'll someday Get it and thus not, you know, be forever known as the privileged dingbat target of all that is epic dogpile for eternity.

I WHINE A LOT IN THIS THING I AM REALLY SORRY uh. I'd start posting my dumbassed Castlevania fic here but I have no idea how it'd go over since it's mostly AU On Crack. But I don't woobify Dracula so I think I'm okay. XD

do want D:

I am such a nerd~

more!

(as the running 'dracula commentary' of my imagination fires up and he begins to mutter that silver bullets are for werewolves, and since he is hardly a werewolf, firing silver bullets at him will only annoy him and quite possibly inspire an equally-unsociable response blah blah etc. yay for my brain and its nonsense.)

From this post came THIS BABBLE! I broke the comment limit, so I post it here!

***

I think that the very defensive attitude of some ficcers comes out of an inability to divide 'this part of your work is problematic' from 'you as a person are problematic'. There's a pervasive ridiculous idea in 'Western' culture about an artist's work being a reflection of their soooouuullll, which parses into 'art = artist', which leads to people getting extremely stung by critique.

Yes, there are flaming dingbats on the internet. And they are not confined to one particular group. And any given group is composed of individuals; no two feminists are exactly alike, and so on. The problem here lies with societal tendencies to use one person from a minority/unprivileged group as the representative of everyone FROM that group. (This is why the 'some of my best friends are X!' or 'my girlfriend doesn't say X!' or 'I'm a woman and X!' Yes, and while that may be the case, one woman or one PoC or one LGBTTQI person is not ALL OF THEM. Where's no hive mind. We are not the Borg.)

A lot of the time, out of any given group of characters, you only have one or two women, one or two PoC, and they function as spokespeople for the entirety of the group they represent. (The only place I haven't seen this happen with much frequency is the Star Trek series.) White cisgender straight guy characters are considered the default or the norm, and so they don't have this responsibility attached to them.

Wow, that ran the queen mother of tangents! Back to the main point I was trying to make: we equate the artist or writer's work with the artist or writer themsleves to an extent, and so someone who has not yet realised or been taught that a criticism of their work is NOT an attack on themselves will seriously feel that they are being told they are horrib;e people because, like anyone who lives in a society rife with such junk, they internalised some stereotypes, or didn't really think about how something could be a problem, or something. Most of it is not intentional. This doesn't mean the writer should go on, tra-la-la, huddled behind the defensive blankie of not-thinking-about-it. It means that since they weren't thinking this time, they ought to consider it next time.

If someone screws up in a marvellous fashion, and is called on it, the person saying 'hey, that's not on' is usually (a) someone who's surprised that a writer they like and who's usually good about such things suddeny facewalling, and (b) someone who is not telling them that they suck and should catch fire. Yes, people will tell you that you suck and should catch fire. There are entitled fen out there. I had to kickban someone from my FL at one point because she was so rude and vocal and condescending about what I did and didn't write; she didn't have anythhing of value to offer critique-wise, and she really did think that I as a fanfic writer was obligated to alter my work to exactly suit her tastes. She demanded that I not write somethig, and threw a fit when I said, 'Uh, at the risk of sounding six, you're not the boss of me. If you don't want to read my fic about [character who she associated so so deeply with her omgbff that it pained her soul to see them written in a way she didn't think was right (which was incidentally OOC)], why are you clicking the cuts anyhow?' She had a giant temper tantrum, and I finally ended up slapping her ass and ejecting her when she got rude to my friends.

She then came back anon to whine more under the guise of a truce, and I told her to get a new hobby pls.

So yes. There ARE entitled fen out there. If that woman hadn't been massively entitled and had given me crit to work with (instead of verbatim informing me that 'well, concrit is telling you I don't like it!' ...well, yes, maybe if you told me what was problematic instead of regaling me with stories about how much kinky sex you and your boyfriend had last week and using 'vanilla' as an insult, dood) I wouldn't have plonked her. Fortunately, the betas I have now are awesome, and if they tell me 'this is getting into stock/cliche territory' or 'this sounds kind of not great in this sense' then I know they're telling me this with my best interests in mind. They're not telling me I suck, they're telling me I messed up something in a fic. Mistakes are fixable.

I'm lucky, and went to an art university where it was cluebatted to me repeatedly that 'you are what you are, you are not what you drew or what you do for a living.' Do writers' opinions colour their work? Yep. Do they make mistakes? YEP! Do mistakes mean you suck? Nope, and you can learn from 'em! And they don't mean your very soul is all that is fail. I think that there are a lot of writers and artists who need to remember this.

...Good gravy, I run on and on, don't I. I hope that I'm not talking out of my butt here; I've just noticed the I AM MY ART, SDJHGDKHJGDAJ attitude making a resurgence lately and it's a thing.

GODDAMMIT DC.

Goddammit in the nostril.

Twice.

With pointy bits on.

...I offer a cake that can be seen for MILES!

MIIIIIIILES, I tell you!

And a bonus flaming mutagen thingy.

For my Mir, who has probably in the hereafter gone up Muhammad's sleeve with Muezza.

At four-twenty-seven she called me to the door. She chose not to come in, but let me know she was there, and she was in Her Spot.

Goodnight.
We will meet anew Hereafter.

Until then, I will miss you every day. I am your person. This is your lap and your bed, in your house. I am yours, and I will take utmost care of me because I was so dear to you.

No cat can be your equal, for you were the most beautiful one in the world.

You did not ever allow me to mourn and be sorrowed alone. You saved me many times, and for that I love you, I love you so much more than I can ever give voice to.

Nine are your lives, and you spent them with us. We're blessed forever by that. My gratitude to you is vaster than the span of the universe. You're my Enkidu. I love you.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore paws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For Sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For Seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For Eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For Ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For Tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually -- Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is affraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Icneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

Excerpt from "Jubliate Agno," by Christopher Smart

Specifically, TypeMoon dudes -

Please don't motionblur the participants in a sex scene? I mean, I dig you guys for making sex look ENJOYABLE (participant making :3 face of bliss ninny = ecchan happy) and not getting into creepy noncon passed off as consensual, and being open and nonstupid about bisexual characters...but - the motion blur - it really makes it looks like the hero guy is vibrating.

Which is hilarious.

So uh yeah.

Hee hee hee the amazing vibrating Emiya. *snort*

-E

(I am such a nerd. I don't even play the games in question, I just gank CG packs because TypeMoon draws very hot men. i have a thing about Lancer. XD)

So the bookstore near my work is having an oh-em-gee ~*midnight launch party*~ for the last Twilight book.

I have this urge to wander into the midst if the teenyboppers, fart with vigor, and exit stage right, because I'm mature that way.

st00bie=st00pid n00bie dfgjhksdfjgjdfg *choke splutter agh*

Why do people make posts about how much they don't care about things...? it seems counter-intuitive.

That is all XD