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psa
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Dec. 2nd, 2006 @ 01:23 pm
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Originally published at Mirror. You can comment here or there. For anyone in Nashville, if you saw any news, we’re fine. Not even singed.
For everyone else: there was a fire at our condo complex Friday morning. It started in the utility closet outside attached to our apartment. WE ARE FINE. Everyone else in the building is also fine and safe and unhurt. WE ARE FINE. We’re exhausted, wound up, and stink of smoke, but we’re fine. We even rescued Phoebe-cat.
Yes, a lot of our stuff is lost. No, we don’t know how much yet. Yes, help will be good but right now we have no idea what we need. The Red Cross has given us a debit card to start with. We have some money to help as well.
Right now, good wishes. Prayers. Your love. I love you all. Because I knew you were there and loved me, I was able to do what I needed to do. I love you all.
I’ll post again when I have something more to tell. Sorry if you already saw this yesterday on lj. |
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random
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Nov. 30th, 2006 @ 08:23 am
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This is my 'I'm ignoring you!' face. |
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critical reading and how not to judge a book
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Nov. 6th, 2006 @ 10:08 am
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I'm reading over the 120+ comments over at NM's about the advance chapters she got of CC's book (which I've seen the cover of and it's not that bad looking) ... and I'm kind of bemused. My first thought was "well of course you think it sucks, you hate her!" So I clicked onward, and what I'm seeing is actually kind of terrifying.
I mean, yeah, okay, some of the things they're hitting (this is without me having read any of it, just looking at these comments) some of those things are pretty amateurish. Which for a first pro-published, own-universe book, really isn't that bad. Basically the gripes seem to boil down to "I don't like her style it sux" generally referring to the descriptives (and I can't touch on that since I like descriptives myself quite a lot), or "zomg she's ripping off various popular television shows" which, you know, after the plagiarism debacle of course people are going to be looking for, and seeing, that sort of thing.
There's also the thing which a lot of writers will tell you, which is that ambient books/tv/music, like onions, will spread into your work -- so if you happen to love a certain show, and watch it a lot, its mood, theme, and style is undoubtedly going to be reflected in whatever you do. Something it seems like the fan-reader community either doesn't get or ignores is that, while there may be more than 3 stories to tell, as a general rule certain tropes get repeated a lot because they are /easy/. Because they are socially common. No, being raped doesn't automatically make you a victim person, but general society thinks so, and thus that as a trope shows up a lot in young writing.
It takes a lot of writing, a lot of work, and a lot of time to develop adult, informed, and unique writing. CC's what, young 20s? Yeah. And this is her first work. It's not likely to take off, but then again it's probably not the most awful thing ever written in the history of ever. Most YA books are pretty cliched, pretty inaccurate, and generally dumbed down.
The only thing I've seen in those comments so far which /I/ consider a valid criticism, and not born out of the air of dislike for CC that's around here, is someone's comment that it read like it should have been a tv show. Which if you're one of those writers who tends to see scenes play out in their head, that's both a valid style and a valid criticism. I don't know what CC's ratio of tv-to-books is as far as daily intake goes, but I'm betting that part of that style is directly derived from her watching a lot of tv. That goes back to that whole onion thing.
I probably won't buy the book. I might check it out at the library when it comes out, just to see, the same way I did Eragon, which I think suffers a lot of the same problems.
But at least I don't hate CC, and might therefore be able to be a little objective. |
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ramblings and philosophy
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Oct. 10th, 2006 @ 01:13 pm
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Originally published at Mirror. You can comment here or there. veteran rewards I will get - 3 costume tokens, trenchcoat, midriff shirt/kilt, 4 sprint animations, 1of2 new powers, 1 respec, greek letter icons I’ve had a weird kind of perspective inversion over the last couple days. Since the 2nd, really — since this. I read the whole thing as it came out, hovered over the […] ( Go to the entry » )
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Sep. 19th, 2006 @ 09:49 am
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Me: Hold up. How does "not naming names cause my point isn't to get person X Y Z in trouble" stack with "Self-modding actually facilitated that ... each person realized that *if* they saw something not on, it was up to them to speak up ... we now have an active mod culture ... they need to move away from the authoritarian noises they make and encourage member involvement"?
I feel like I've missed something here.
Her: Because we're haveing a meta issue right now.
Thanks for making me feel such a part of the community, like you wanted. Don't whine about the lack of self-modding and the changes in member involvement, and then slap down an involved member. Better yet, take your damn cabal and shove it up your ass along with your head.Current Mood: Bitch Slapped |
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By the way ... does anyone realise just how superbly useful lj's new tracking thing is for watching wank? Pin a wank-potential entry, a wanky thread, your own subthread ... I don't know what it does with deleted comments but talk about a way to keep an eye on things.
Now if I could only remember to pin it every time I make a comment.
Sep. 7th, 2006 @ 01:57 pm
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The best part of dragon*con -- being there when the fans told Alan Tudyk and Summer Glau that Serenity won the Hugo.
I've never seen anybody be so floored in public in my life.
Sep. 5th, 2006 @ 08:22 am
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asdkjsldjf ... wtf is wrong with fandom lately? Earth to Fandom, Major Tom is coming home! Jaysus. I could give a rat's ass (not yours, ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif) eljuno) about CC, BNFs, b_p, piratejenni (pyritejenni?) -- fuck it all. It was a little funny, and then a little surreal, and now I really just dislike darkrose and telesilla because they spoilt my fun -- and why does everyone have to be so meeeaaaan can't we all just get along?
This concludes your scheduled "omg lamers ruined bad_penny" post for the day.
Edit: ( Okay, I think I figured it out. )
Aug. 15th, 2006 @ 08:39 am
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| » the BNF dance, or, Plagiarism is a Crime |
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![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif) bad_penny is full of plagiarism accounts these days, isn't it? Plagiarism brings ALL the HP BNFs to the yard, it seems.
I'm suspicious now.
More correctly, I'm /annoyed/. Y'all, this is becoming a witch hunt. That's not okay. white_serpent has some great points -- there's obvious plagiarism going on there. But about a third of the quotes she's using to prove plagiarism ... aren't. I do not buy this comparison:
"You're in Gryffindor... you're idea of a cunning plan is 'everyone oon the count of three'"
~DS
"One two three? One two three isn't a plan, it's Sesame street."
~ Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
as an example of plagiarism. It ain't. Expression of vaguely similar ideas, using completely different language, is ... oddly enough, it seems to be writing! One might attribute the vague similarity of ideas to inspiration, or possibly having said episode on tv while writing said chapter.
That's not plagiarism. About every third reference, and two of the four of the quote comparisons used on the fanhistory wiki, are false accusations. I'm resorting to definitions here: "the copying of someone's ideas, text or other intellectual property and claiming it at one's own" (wiktionary). Intellectual property is trickier, but wiktionary says "any product of someone's intellect that has commercial value, especially copyrighted material, patents, trademarks etc".
Specifically debunking the above quotes as plagiarism, Sesame Street made be trademarked but it passes as an acceptable cultural reference, the idea of counting as a reference to Sesame Street is nowhere mentioned in the passage from the DT, and there is absolutely no similarity at all in the phrasing.
Look, I am by no means defending Cassie from the plagiarism charge -- even one instance is enough for trouble, and the long quote cited in Part III of white_serpent's write-up is clearly plagiarism. But I invite you, before you lynch me too, to take a much closer look at Part XII.
The claim of plagiarising from Tanith Lee in Chapter 14? Unlikely. There's not enough textual similarity -- and similarity of plot in that low level of detail is not plagiarism. It's still copyright infringement, but I doubt anyone who writes fanfiction can speak against that.
"As for the sword/dagger with the opal: the line about symbols was cited to Wolfe's novel, so I looked at the nearby lines in Draco Sinister and noticed the description of the dagger. I did a search through the book on Amazon for the word "opal." I found another beautiful weapon with an opal in its hilt. You may think it's not particularly similar, but, hey, interesting coincidence, isn't it?" This is complete and utter bollocks. A gemstone in a weapon is not a basis for assuming that Cassie swiped the idea from someone else.
The comparison of Chapter 14 with Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon, Chapter 9 is also bollocks -- look at what's bolded! If white_serpent bolded the parts that she considers plagiarism, I really wish she would learn what the word means.* What's bolded are usually single words or very short phrases. This cannot possibly be considered textual plagiarism (direct lifting of text), or plagiarism of ideas (the ideas expressed are far too common; this is meant to refer to detailed and specific ideas such as that of having to kill every shape a shapeshifter wears). It also cannot be intellectual property plagiarism, for the same reason.
I will restate: similar ideas, however suspicious they might be, are not plagiarism. That type of plagiarism is intended to refer to highly detailed and specific ideas -- this is not it. The farther I scroll down that page, the less actual plagiarism I see, and the more misplaced zeal there is. The majority of the quotes compared on that page could be cited by a simple statement of "Some ideas and scenes inspired by [book], [author]."
This is a witch hunt, y'all. It really is. For all that Cassie Claire did clearly lift whole paragraphs from a few books, her plagiarism is by no means the whole-sale ripoff of the entire sci-fi-fantasy canon that some people are making out. What she wrote is not good writing. It's not pastiche. It's not an homage. It's patchy, and irregular, and pieced together -- but it's mostly not plagiarism, either.
Mostly, it seems to be a rather bad attempt by a young writer to include as much popular fandom as possible in a fic based on an extremely popular fandom. She made the hugely stupid mistake of lifting a few scenes from a few published books, thereby plagiarising. This demand for absolute, MLA citation of every single little word she might possibly have gotten from an immersion in fandom is absurd. And the continuing search for other plagiarism in her works and in the works of her erstwhile supporters and friends is equally absurd.
Come to your senses, y'all. Really. The story is out there for people to judge now, so let it lie.
*Which inevitably leads me to think of the quote "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." which most geeks and many others know is from the Princess Bride. I suspect, however, in such instances, citation should be as the Tux Penguin -- it may remain uncited (considered common knowledge) until such time as someone asks.
Aug. 10th, 2006 @ 09:09 am
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I'll be at Hypericon today and this weekend. If you are within driving distance of the city, drop by the hotel and say hi, kay?
Jun. 23rd, 2006 @ 02:10 pm
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| » the real purpose of fandom_wank |
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Remember theferrett? This time he's provided us with a handy explanation of why we exist -- and how we're useful. Disguised as an article about writing, of course, but there's some applicable stuff.
link
May. 2nd, 2006 @ 11:28 am
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| » i_wank |
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Apropos of this wank, me wanking.
Apr. 28th, 2006 @ 01:26 pm
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| » not a fandom thing |
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This isn't a fandom entry -- but I'm writing it here because if I can't put my thoughts out into words for other people to see, I think I might implode. And she doesn't know this is here.
I haven't even really read the comments she left. I saw the first few lines, and some lines later down, and now I'm already so upset by the situation that I can't /let/ myself read them until I'm somewhere safe to be angry. I don't have a safe place to be angry anymore. I can't be angry about it at work, because I'm not supposed to be online at work like this. I can't be angry at home, because she might walk in, and I want to be prepared for the confrontation. I can't be angry at Michael's because he always gets so upset with me for being angry like this.
Where can I go? I guess I should print them out, and go off to a park or something away from everyone, with a notepad so I can think about my responses.
I did a stupid thing, though, since I didn't read them, but I was so angry --- she is so ... whatever the word should be ... they're anonymous comments in my livejournal on an entry that doesn't even pertain to her. Why can't she talk to me face-to-face about this? Anytime we see each other in person, it's always cutsey-sweet, nicey-nice, hello how are you, and nobody's issues get mentioned. I'm guilty too -- I could have had it out with her last night when she came home at 9:30, but I was a coward too.
Anyway, I was so angry, this morning, just over the anonymous thing -- I went over to her journal and told her she was being a coward for doing it that way, not being brave enough to talk to me face-to-face over whatever. So brilliant, to leave anonymous comments on an entry that had nothing to do with her. Admittedly, that's part of why I screen anonymous comments, and /that/'s definitely why I didn't reply to her comments -- I don't /want/ them unscreened, I don't want her minions descending on me. I know how society girls are.
I don't understand how she can claim that leaving anonymous comments in my livejournal is logical and not cowardly. If you're so bothered by drama and confrontation, move out. Something, other than this passive-aggressive crap. Other than this "I'm going to unsubtly nudge you to do things my way."
I know what she wants. She's got an oversensitive nose, and she tried to cover up any smells she doesn't like (like me, and Misha, and the cat) with smell absorbers and scented candles and scent-makers -- and she wants me to make the bad smells go away since she percieves them coming from me. But she can't be bothered to talk to me about it. She just buys the things and leaves them everywhere, even in my personal space.
Her door is locked if she's not there (and I can't think how she does it, since the lock was there before we moved in, and my door keys don't operate it) -- but I can't lock my door. That's partly because it doesn't have the same kind of lock, but also because if I shut my door, Phoebe can't get to her litterbox. But I can't put the litterbox anywhere else because she objected so very strongly to Phoebe's arrival in the first place ("I can't stand the smell of cats, don't let her touch my stuff"). So my personal space is open to her at any time, where she can do /anything/ to it, spray stuff around, leave smell-maskers around, whatever, and yet she doesn't trust me enough to leave her space open.
I'm so tired of coming home to find my things moved around, to find evidence that she's been in my space again.
It isn't even the fact that she seems to have no concept at all of courtesy for other people -- I can't think that she's had a roommate before. Coming in late from a job, or whatever, that's fine. But ... it's like this. She objects to my smells invading her nose/space; I object to her sounds invading my ears/space.
And about the smells, anyway -- first thing is that I have to think with all the various candles and incense and smell-maskers and smell-makers around, they must clash somehow. You can't put all that kind of shit around in a fairly small, warm space and not have the scents clash. So that's gotta be part of it. One bit I did glimpse was her going "you and your boyfriend need to wear deodorant (I do, thanks) and cologne (I what?) and shower more often" and I ... what the hell? What the hell, you know? I shower every day. Sometimes, if I feel grungy or it was a bad day, twice. I put on the deodorant I buy, and seriously, if you are /that/ sensitive to the natural scent (she claims BO) of someone who usually isn't even in the house when you're there, then you have a problem.
I can't think how, if she's so terribly sensitive to smells and messes, how in the world does she cope with the real world out there? How does she ever manage at her jobs, if she's even got any anymore, how does she cope in the real world with this need to control such a wide space?
I could play at this war of backstabbing. It would not be hard. I have hacker friends whom I could easily let into our network -- I just take my computer off it for a few hours, whatever. The tv, the dvd player, the ps2, the cable modem are all mine. I could take them all away. She talked so much about how she needed internet so she could look for jobs when we moved in -- I have a job. I don't /need/ the 'net at home. Yeah, it's nice, but I have a laptop, and if I feel that shut out of my own space, I'll move my computer over to Misha's. I could easily set it up to 'punish' her the way she keeps trying to do to me.
But I can't see the point. What's the point in making such a big deal, in setting us up to be enemies, in back-stabbing and society-girl games with someone I will never see again after 3 months? I've had bad roommates before -- I've shared /rooms/ with them. This is nothing. But I want her out of my space. I don't want to have to go to lengths to protect my stuff from someone who's demonstrated from the start that I couldn't trust her.
It's my own mistake, really. I saw the warning signs of society girl masquerading as geek, and I ignored them. I was in too much of a hurry to get my own space, to be close to Misha, and I just grabbed at the first thing that came along. I should have been more patient. I shouldn't've let my emotions drive me.
One thing that puzzles me is this: she's latched on to what Misha said, in channel, about "what can you expect from a model" as if I had said it, as if I condoned it. I didn't, and don't. That's his opinion, and I don't control his thoughts and opinions. I dressed him down for it, in fact, for making judgments like that. But all the same he's got the same right of free speech as anyone else and if he wants to attribute her behaviours to her being a model -- that's his fucking prerogative. Even in public.
Edit to add: (EVOL) I should take the BPAL imps I still have and dabble them everywhere. If she wants scents, you know. I've got scents. And those things are strong.
Mar. 8th, 2006 @ 09:12 am
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| » XD |
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http://portableapps.com
Carry your fandom stuff /everywhere/ with just a usb drive. I love it.
Mar. 3rd, 2006 @ 10:50 am
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