she who is

psa

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 19:25:58 GMT

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.

random

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:23:29 GMT

This is my 'I'm ignoring you!' face.

critical reading and how not to judge a book

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 16:21:00 GMT

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.

ramblings and philosophy

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:14:17 GMT

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 2^nd, really — since this.

I read the whole thing as it came out, hovered over the […]

( Go to the entry » )

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:51:26 GMT

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.

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 18:59:36 GMT

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.

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:23:24 GMT

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.

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 13:44:44 GMT

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, 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. From where I sit (way over here far away from the banhammer), there's been a conflation between "I ban j00 because you disagree with me anywhere"+"I ban j00 because you did something I don't like anywhere" and "I ban j00 -- dammit. I can't phrase this right. I figure it works like this: pyratejenni does not control what people do with the info they get from bad_penny -- in this case, evidence of CC's plagiarism in fanfiction, and contacting CC's publisher with said info. However, she does control her community, and her reaction, and it looks like she's saying that if she sees, anywhere, someone from bad_penny stating that they used the info from bad_penny in a manner she considers trolling or unacceptable, she's going to preemptively ban them.

I can agree with that. It says in the userinfo "no trolling". D00ds, calling up CC's publisher to 'warn' them about her fanfiction plagiarism is TROLLING. Pls to be seeing ashenmote's entry #1 re: what trolling is.

Telesilla and Darkrose apparently basically told her "that's not okay and you're stupid for thinking it is". I'd've banned 'em too. There's arguing about rules, and then there's just being an arse for the sake of being an arse. It sure looks like to me that they were defending the right of people who happen to read b_p, or *_w, to take the info they get from those comms and go out and make hell in the lives of the people concerned in the report.

Um. No. That's so not what any *_wank comm is about. It's about (see icon) pointing and laughing. If CC's publishers happen to include someone who reads the comms, and therefore decides to do something official about it -- great. That's totally their prerogative. But people who read the comms, and therefore decide to call up the publishers, probably in an effort to ruin CC's burgeoning career, are just arseholes, and don't belong in a group of long-distance snarkers.

the BNF dance, or, Plagiarism is a Crime

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:45:27 GMT

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.

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:27:26 GMT

Kill it with fire.

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 19:10:23 GMT

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?

the real purpose of fandom_wank

Tue, 02 May 2006 16:30:02 GMT

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

i_wank

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:28:45 GMT

Apropos of this wank, me wanking.

not a fandom thing

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:37:33 GMT

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.

XD

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:51:50 GMT

http://portableapps.com

Carry your fandom stuff /everywhere/ with just a usb drive. I love it.

HP4

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 02:50:47 GMT

So I went to see the 11:59 showing of Goblet of Fire last night. Save me from the freakin' fangirls! God knows, I almost killed someone last night as it was. See, we got into the theatre no problem; I got our tickets from fandango (no IMAX for us). There was a line to get your ticket torn, no problem, and finding seats wasn't so bad with just two. But apparently the theatre we were in had some small projector / computer issues, because there was 3 minutes of "turn off your cell phone" and 3-4 minutes of black screen with audio. And I heard the girl next to me say something along the lines of "the people here aren't as much Harry Potter fans as they should be" meaning the techs ... and I just lost it. "Jesus fucking Christ," I say, looking over my shoulder at her, "what a stupid thing to say."

Naturally according to her I'm in the wrong for entering her private space -- never mind that the conversation was going on right fucking next to me.

And it was /still/ a stupid thing to say.

Anyway, about the movie. I didn't finish rereading the book before going to see it, so I'm sure there are deviations I missed. But I'm not horribly picky about that. Overall, it was a decent movie. I'm not clamouring to see it again like I was Serenity or Hitchhiker, though I'll probably buy it just to keep my collection going and I did like it.

I had a couple major objections, mostly to the first fifteen minutes of the movie -- I feel that if you never read the book, and only know the movies, you're going to be doing a lot of "wtf" in the first part of the movie, before the story really picks up. They unload a lot of action at you without any names or context, really, and basically compress a good 1/4 of the book into about 1/8 of the movie -- and the movie is obviously already pretty compressed from the book anyway. I think a lot of character development of any characters other than the Trio and some of the teachers was just chucked out the window, and there was a lot of heavy leaning on the shippy stuff.

I also think some of the characterisation was off. A lot of the characters were a lot more sympathetic or otherwise different from not only the books but the first three movies as well. I'm not really objecting to the sympathetic (Filch dancing with Mrs. Norris was wonderful and priceless and a scene to be cherished), but I do rather feel that Dumbledore is off by quite a lot.

And my #1 objection to this movie is this: the damn shippers have me seeing ship wars in every other scene! I couldn't properly appreciate parts of the movie because I was sitting there thinking what various ships were going to do with/about some of the scenes (like the scene where Hermione comes into the Champions tent and glomps the hell out of Harry).

I rather think I would like to see it again, though not soon and not paying so much and /not/ with fangirls omg fangirls. Tooooo many shippy moments.

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 21:17:13 GMT

I don't think I have /ever/ seen this much demented obsession -- no, I take that back. At the risk of being extremely wanky, watching falconsolo's reaction to angua9's essay on h/hr shipping is disturbingly like the religious arguments I remember having back in the day with the Christian fanatics. Are they going to bomb Rowling's house next, as a protest? It's like 9/11 in miniature in the HP online fandom.

And what I don't think these so called Harmonians get is that they are not, in fact, a particularly large subset of the fandom. Particularly loud, yes. Very. But there don't actually seem to be that /many/ of them; it's this fairly small, tightly-knit little group (small in a comparative sense, since the ron-hate and harmony-ship communities approximate several hundred people each). All of whom back each other up.

I know damn well I'm unwilling to listen to logic at times (I'm getting better). But I spent two posts getting into it with falconsolo before I realised he was out for converts and not for debate, and proselitysers [sp?] aren't listening to what the opponent says, except insofar as they can refute it. He pounded that "show don't tell" shit into the fucking ground, and still doesn't seem to realise how much of a balancing act writing is. I could sit here and refute specific points all day long, and it would be just like arguing with a bible-thumper.

I'm a writer, okay? Not a super-great one; I really think I need a lot more work. But what this guy does, writes, says ... it's like Mark all over again. He's obssessed with his ideas, his theories, and his narcissism, and he won't back down until someone grovels. He's not a writer; he wants the fame and fortune. He's not in it for the beauty of the words, the ability to paint with language, or any of the other reasons to write. (Okay, my own ego is showing there.)

I like to read, but this element is precisely why I was leery of the Harry Potter books from the very beginning -- too popular. Too mainstream. I'm not fond of being involved with such things simply because they do tend to generate this kind of obsessive pseudo-philosophical bullshit, and in the strangest places.

The love between two of the three protagonists in a children's fantasy series is going to save the world.

Right.

the Gay Agenda and the Religious Reich

Wed, 15 Jun 2005 03:34:34 GMT

Have you ever heard about how, when you discover a new thing, suddenly its everywhere? A word, an idea, an image, you see it once and actually notice it and then you notice it everywhere. There's a word for that, but it's more often called synchronicity -- and I'm having it.

Up until, I don't know, a week ago, I'd never even heard the phrase "Religious Reich" in my whole life. And I've been pagan for years. Now, in less than a week, I've found that not only has Issac Bonewits written an extensive and still reasonably accurate essay on it (back in 1996!), but evidence that trumps my scepticism is right in my own backyard.

You might or might not already know about this. I didn't know until Charis dropped it in my lap. You see, there's this brave, brave 16-year-old in Memphis (Bartlett, actually), who told his parents he was gay.

They promptly flipped.

They've sent him to a place called "Refuge," which from a quick perusal of the rules he managed to see, is anything but. What it really is, is a two-to-six week day camp run by bible-thumping fundamentalist Christians who seem to sincerely believe that even suicide is better than homosexuality.

“I would rather you commit suicide than have you leave Love In Action wanting to return to the gay lifestyle. In a physical death you could still have a spiritual resurrection; whereas, returning to homosexuality you are yielding yourself to a spiritual death from which there is no recovery.” –The Final Indoctrination from John Smid, Director, Love In Action (LIA), San Rafael’s “ex-gay” clan.

I can't be too sure how accurate that quote is, but it's everywhere. According to the several websites, this camp, and others like it, are rehabilitation places for people suffering from addictions -- something like a fundamentalist Christian Betty Ford place.

However, true child of the internet age, this teen not only managed to get his hands on the rules -- which he wasn't supposed to see -- but he posted them to his blog. A blog which, if you read back, reads just like any other teen blog. If he's lying to get attention (an issue which no one seems to have blogged about yet), he's doing a seamless job of it -- and the honest truth is that other sources about this place bear him out.

Including a totally unrelated website for a show performed by a survivor of that very program. Click the book link. It's enlightening.

According to both his blog and the program's website, he's been there since the 6th. That's a week ago. He managed to get to the internet twice before that, and the posts read about like you'd expect a 16-year-old hardened rebel to read -- he's going to try to tough it out, but he's not sanguine. Reading those rules, I'm not either.

A parent who treated their child like that in the course of daily life could be hauled up for abuse. Forget the Chrisitan angle. I would be just as upset if there were no religious affiliation at all. I would be just as upset if he was going in there for drug abuse, instead of to have the homosexuality bibled out of him.

Nobody deserves that kind of thing.

And it's easy to tell that the primary orientation of the program /is/ anti-homosexual. On the front page of their website, they label it an addiction. Their resources section is full of misleading and false information, mostly about homosexuality.

I don't know when MeFi got ahold of it, but it's been spreading like wildfire through the lower levels of the blogosphere ever since. The first six hits of a simple google search are bloggers spreading the word. A chronicle of ongoing picketting is on LJ.

"When they came for the communists, I was silent, because I was not a communist;
When they came for the socialists, I was silent, because I was not a socialist;
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not protest, because I was not a trade unionist;
When they came for the Jews, I did not protest, because I was not a Jew;
When they came for me, there was no one left to protest on my behalf."
– Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)

When they come for you, and for me, will there be anyone left? I can't talk to dad about this. I can't talk to my blood sister. It's not the night for Brandon to call. It's too late to call mom.

I didn't even believe, really, that places and people like this existed anywhere except in rebelstream scare tales.

There are people who willingly put their children -- the most precious thing any world, any time, any god has to offer -- into a place like this. They pay money to do this to their children.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
– T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

musings

Sat, 11 Jun 2005 00:02:15 GMT

I’m currently musing, since paycheque is coming soon, on BPAL. It’s the current obsession of the JF half of my f-lists, and I’m thinking I’d like to try it a lot (what the hell is an imp?) but have no idea where to start. So, recs from those of you into that fandom? There’s so much there to wade through. My favourite scents are vanilla, sunshine (shutupithasascent), most fruits, fresh-cut grass, and almond. Actually, as far as perfumes go, I haven’t found one I don’t like yet. If I get into this BPAL thing, I probably will, though.

/excerpt

Thu, 26 May 2005 02:30:04 GMT

Revenge of the Wanker

Now showing in a journalfen near you.

good times, goodbyes

Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:05:12 GMT

[crossposted from email]

I ... don't really know how to start this off. You might have noticed
I've been missing for the last two weeks, or not. The first week was
my vacation, which I forgot to say anything about. This week has been
a week of incredibly bad luck, coupled with a deepening surge of
depression.

What I'm really trying to say here is that though I love the Est, and
I've enjoyed my time here, I can't do it anymore. It's got nothing to
do with anyone here; it's strictly me. I /can't/ do this anymore. It
hurts too much. I get to the point of writing a serious scene, and I
freeze, and I can't go on doing that.

I thought the Est would be a good thing to help me cope. It's
nobody's fault but my own that I was wrong.

I'm okay with whatever might happen to either of my pups; whether
people just pretend they didn't happen, or someone else takes them on,
or whatever. I'll be happy to give the keys to the journals and AIM
names to someone else. If I can get myself together, and / or things
change, I might come back. I just can't say right now. But I can't
allow myself to go on being a burden to a game I can't write for.

So this is goodbye, for now. It's only goodbye to the game, though,
and I'm happy to have muns contact me at any time.

Thank you all for a lovely time here.

~Panya
former mun of Johnny Depp and Emma Watson

fic-in-progress

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 20:33:29 GMT

Fandom: Van Helsing
in progress
Pairing: Van Helsing / MS

(started on 2/24/2005)
(last modified 3/1/2005)
(3,201 words)

(Warning for unabashed sexuality and a high incidence of Mary Sue-ness. Not intended for serious consumption. Read at your own risk.)

Gabriel Van Helsing stared in shock.

The object of his attention stood five foot five in three inch heeled boots, solid black leather. Well worn. Well-kept, too. Dark burgundy velvet, the colour of drying blood, lapped long slim legs, vanishing at the knees behind a loose, heavy fall of brunette hair. Plum-red highlights gleamed in the lantern-light. Both hands were clasped together underneath the dark strands. Pale skin seemed to glow slightly against the belled, burgundy sleeves of the top, fabric caught at the elbows by an embroidered band. Another embroidered band bound the mid-chest. A deep, laced v exposed more palely golden skin to flickering light. An intricate filigree, heavy with garnets, hugged the column of the throat.

She stood gazing at the oriel window beside the outer entrance to his two-room cell, fading western rays of sunlight limning patches of colour onto a fine-boned profile through the stained glass. A stand lifting four lanterns lit the rest of the room from its vantage point in the near corner. Through a pointed arch, the edge of a tall, four-poster bed was visible, hung with dark curtains. Opposite the arch, Gabriel’s bare desk rose, massive cherrywood gleaming with the same plum-red highlights as the woman’s hair.

Gabriel himself was wearing his usual black: black leather trenchcoat concealing various and sundry weaponry; black turtleneck neatly folded over at the throat; black leather vest gleaming with silver chain; black pants carefully tucked into black leather boots. He’d left the gloves with Carl down in the underground laboratory. The black fedora hat shaded a stern, almost ascetic face framed in waving, shoulder-length brown hair.

Gabriel gingerly touched his fingers to his mouth, imagining he still felt a faint warmth. He opened his mouth, and she beat him to it.

In a low, pure voice, she said, “Do they teach you not to become entangled, Van Helsing?” Her accent (unplaceable, possibly Romanian) caressed his name. She turned her head, hair rustling against the velvet, and smiled at him. The expression went through him like a spear; the smile was Anna’s; she looked amazingly like Anna in that moment.

The moment passed, and he breathed in. “No,” he replied calmly. “Who are you, and how did you get in here?” Why did you do that? Here: what little private sanctuary he had in the Vatican, the only place he could call home. That: kiss him firmly on the mouth as soon as he walked in the door, then turn away.

“Anna sent me.” She turned back to the window, away from his expression of amazement. “She seems to think you need watching over.”

“That’s not what I asked.” He took a few steps — stalked, really — and grabbed her upper arm. She ignored the grip.

“My name is Chavali Valerious.” She laughed slightly, though she had not so much as glanced at him. “Did you /really/ think Anna was the last of the name? The last of her line, yes. But she and I are cousins from before the geas.”

Gabriel blinked, and let go. “That leaves one question.”

She shrugged, tipping her head back and to the side, catching his eyes. “You are my mentor. The Order wants you to train me.”

For the second time in as many minutes, he was stunned into speechlessness. He turned back to the door, unable to look Anna’s hazel-eyed cousin in the face, and grappled his composure back. Taking his hat off, he turned it over in his hands once before hanging it up. Then he glanced at Chavali.

“Anna is dead.”

One hand rested lightly on the windowsill, a large teardrop garnet flaming redly from a cradle of silver on the right forefinger. She looked distant. “I know.”

Red anger burst behind Gabriel’s eyeballs, too similar to the feeling of being the Wolfman. He put a choke chain on his temper and stalked back over to breathe in her face, “I killed her.”

“I know.”

Her very calmness enraged him in a way no monster had ever done. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that the anger came from the same place as his frustration with the machinations of the Cardinal, from the same place as his grief for Anna. Grief that had been stirred up from embers by the appearance of her cousin in his rooms. He slammed Chavali back against the wall.

Her head smacked backward with an audible clunk. Disgusted with himself, Gabriel let go.

Stiffly, Chavali said, “She gave me a charge, my cousin.” Their eyes were inches apart. “She came to me in a dream, your Anna, and charged me to heal you.” Slowly, she fitted one hand to his face. Her fingertips were cool, the way he remembered Anna’s always being. Cool and steady.

He tried to keep his tone that same cool and steady, and pulled away. “She isn’t my Anna.” Her tenses were catching. Anna was dead; he had lit the pyre himself, giving release to nine generations of Valerious.

Chavali’s hand lightly smacked his face. “She would have been. Do not deny it; you were two of a kind. She died to save you. Do not throw that away.” The hand — the one with the ring — slipped down his skin, igniting a line of what felt like fire, before falling gracefully to her side.

He tried flippancy. “Presumably you’re here to replace her?” He did not expect the cool, pleased little smile she now wore.

“If you like.”

“What if I don’t?” he countered, backing away a few paces.

“I am patient,” Chavali said, hands now cupping her elbows. “Anna is not.” Her mouth twitched, the smile softening. “Even now, she does not change. Her mulo walks my dreams. How resistant will you be when she walks yours?”

“You’re mad.”

She admitted, head tipped to one side, “Probably. Not so different from you, Gabriel Van Helsing.” Her voice caressed his name again.

Almost against his will, he whispered, “Say my name again.” The rational part of his mind knew the woman in the room with him wasn’t Anna Valerious, but if he closed his eyes and listened to her voice slide along the syllables of his name he could almost fool himself into thinking it was.

“Gabriel,” she murmured obediently. He could hear her move closer, one footstep, two. Warmth on his right side indicated her presence. “Gabriel,” she breathed, and he grabbed her wrist. Fingers slid down the side of his face, reigniting the track of fire, and his eyes flew open.

“Chavali,” he whispered, “What are you doing to me?”

“Nothing you didn’t need, Van Helsing.” Her hazel eyes were wide and dark and glittered with things he didn’t have a name for. One finger moved to touch his lips, and he moved his head away.

“Are you seducing me?” Almost subconsciously, he reached out to touch her with that extra sense, and came up empty. She was only human, no more, no less.

Only Anna had ever looked at him with that kind of emotion in her eyes. Suddenly he understood what the Frankenstein monster had tried to express about what Anna’s unfeigned gratitude had meant to it. Anna’s only failing as a monster hunter had been a tendency to be somewhat single-minded in pursuit of her goal, but once her compassion was engaged she saw clearly to a being’s soul.

Her cousin, it seemed, was even more compassionate.

Gabriel came back to reality to the feel of a velvet-clad body swaying against him. Gentleman’s instinct had him supporting her about the waist before a full thought could materialise. Their eyes locked for a long moment. He wondered how she had come to stumble, and glanced downward to see that she had risen to tiptoe — a risky proposition in those boots — and was now pinned there by his grip. He relaxed his hold with some haste.

Silence reigned for another taut moment. His heart seemed to be beating harder than usual. Softly, she said, “Anna wanted this. Best to give in, Van Helsing.”

Hesitantly, Gabriel bent over the slender figure clasped in his arm. He saw her translucent eyelids fall closed, and her delicate face seemed a flower offered up to him. He pressed his lips to hers, feeling her response.

Something in the back of his mind remarked smartly that lightning had not struck him down, and he was surprised to realise that nothing in him was against this. She wanted it; he could want it; there was no problem. The Cardinal owed him a day of recovery from the Dracula assignment anyway.

So he intensified the kiss, parting his lips and bringing both arms around her in a fierce grip. Strands of hair tangled on his knuckles. Slowly she inched her hands up his chest, slipping them under the shoulders of his trenchcoat.

He broke the kiss, breath rasping in his throat. Hectic colour stained Chavali’s face. She, too, was breathing quickly. Her mouth moved a few times, then she licked her lips and managed, “Don’t stop there.”

He slid one hand up her back, waves of silky hair still caught on his fingers, to cradle her head. Bending over her again, Gabriel whispered, “I don’t intend to.” He brushed his mouth over her cheekbone, following it to her ear and then down the jawline with just the barest trace of tongue, before sweeping back up to her mouth again.

Chavali pushed at his coat, but he was reluctant to let go even that long. A long-denied need had taken hold of him, a need to reaffirm life in the face of all the death he’d caused and faced; a need to know that someone in the world looked on him as something other than enemy or tool. So he refused to release her body, much less her mouth, even for long enough to remove his coat.

It only took a moment for her to sense his refusal, and then her arms went around his neck. The kiss turned from exploratory to passionate, lips and tongues tangling in the oldest dance known to man. She shifted her mouth away from his, and Gabriel suppressed a moan. She repeated the treatment he had given her, stopping short of his mouth and repeating on the other side. She paused to murmur in a laughing voice, “This would be easier if you were sitting down.”

“So it would,” he replied, reminded that she was nearly a foot shorter than he, even in heeled boots. Unlike Anna. ‘Stop that,’ he told the part of himself that insisted on making such comparisons.

Somewhere behind him was his desk, with a chair. He swept a leg behind him, hoping to find it with his foot. By a lucky chance, he managed it, and somehow sat down without mishap, drawing Chavali down with him. She perched gingerly on one knee, arms still wrapped around his neck. He attempted to free his hand from her hair, tangled around the fingers like a living thing, and frowned as the long strands seemed to stretch out forever.

Finally, by dint of much shaking on his part, and giggling on hers, he won free, and immediately began to trace the contours of her face with his fingertips. A long slow sigh escaped her, and she tipped her head back as his fingers found the angle of her jawbone. Accepting the invitation, he traced down her neck, brushing lightly over the filigree necklace to the hollow between her breasts.

Slowly she eased her hands from around his neck and he stopped, startled. Framing his face in her hands, she kissed him once, a swift butterfly kiss, then reached behind her neck to unclasp the necklace. He could see the pulsebeat in the hollow of her throat as she carelessly tumbled the jewellery onto his desk.

Chavali ran both hands into his hair, starting from his temples. He was surprised to notice how good it felt. Rising to her feet, she stood between his knees, looking down. Now it was she who was bending over him, and he felt her breath against his forehead.

“Ah, Gabriel, so intense.” She pushed at the shoulders of the heavy leather again, and this time he stood up and shrugged out of it. Looping the weight over one arm, he strode across the stone floor and hung it up, carefully, so as not to disturb any of the weaponry. Then he turned, slowly, on one heel; part of him was oddly trying to deny an event he knew was inevitable. Had been inevitable from the moment he stepped into the room. He mashed the denial down with the same ruthlessness he hunted with.

Gabriel held out a hand to Chavali. The hand shook slightly. Her eyes dropped to his hand, then lifted back to his face. She smiled a gentle smile, and crossed to take his hand. With his free hand, he smoothed a strand of hair out of her face. She leaned up at the same time as he leaned down, and they met halfway. He dropped his hand from her face to her waist to support her, not wanting a repeat of the earlier stumble.

A need for air forced them apart. Chavali gazed up at him from within a tangle of burgundy-brunette hair, smiling faintly. “Why do you hesitate, Van Helsing?”

Gabriel shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.” His gaze went inward briefly. She sank back to her feet, and her hands went to the clasps of his vest. Nimbly, never looking down, she opened the vest all the way down, running gentle fingers over the silver chain hung with religious symbols.

Gabriel felt he was caught in a waking dream. He was no virgin, and Church rules of abstinence did not apply to their agent — yet no sexual encounter had ever had this air of passionate stillness. He was almost afraid to move lest the spell should break. Even breathing seemed too much.

The vest swung open, and unthinking he shrugged out of it in swift, accustomed movements, which seemed hasty after the solemn slowness of the previous moments. Chavali’s hands went to his belt, and he stopped her with a quick shake of the head. ‘Not yet.’

His turn; he laid careful fingertips at her collarbone, tracing the sweep of it to her shoulder, before tugging loose the bow formed by her laces. Intently, he unthreaded each cross the ribbons formed, revealing the rounded pale curves of her breasts. She held motionless under his ministrations, eyes filled with trust, compassion, and no small amount of longing.

The velvet bodice gaped wide. Drawing a deep breath, he looked back at her face, managing a smile. Grasping her hands, he drew her through the arch to the bed. Gabriel perched on the edge, pulling her to stand before him, and put both hands on her shoulders. Impulsively, he swept his hands underneath the mass of her hair and lifted it up to rain down on her back. Delighted with the feel, he did it again several more times while she laughed in equal pleasure.

After a few moments, he tired of the game and returned to his original intention, sliding the shoulders of the bodice down first one arm, then the other. Fingers only slightly roughened by killing slipped easily over Chavali’s pale skin, untouched by sun or wind. He could feel the motion of her breathing, the pulse of her heartbeat, under his fingers as he curved them to fit the shape of her breast. She sucked in a deep, shaking breath, swaying forward.

“Gabriel. Gabriel!” She tipped her forehead against his, eyes closed.

Intent on the softness of her skin, he only half-heard her, both hands caressing. He felt another hitch in her breathing and smiled. “Yes, lady?”

She whispered into his mouth, “You are wearing too much,” before rendering any answer impossible, slipping her tongue between his lips. His hands were pinned between their bodies. The kiss lasted for several seconds, then her hands were at his belt again, unclasping the leather. Nimble, cool fingers untucked his shirt, pausing to impatiently brush long strands of hair out of the way.

Chavali slid her hands, palms flat to the skin, up his sides, taking the shirt as well. She tugged lightly as it caught under his arms, and he grinned mischeivously. She tugged again, insistent, and in a smooth motion he pulled her over on top of him, backwards onto the bed. They sprawled in a tangle of limbs, fabric, and hair.

Clutching for her wrists, Gabriel rolled them both over, lying half atop her slim figure. he grinned again at the look of pleased astonishment she wore, before pushing himself up to a kneeling position. Swiftly he stripped the shirt off over his head, letting it slide over the bed to the floor. His bootheels dug into his backside, and it belatedly occurred to him to remove them. He looked at Chavali. “Boots. Off.”

Ignoring the velvet tangled about her hips, she slipped her boots off, dropping them to join his on the stones. She brushed the waves of hair away from her face with both hands, emitting a slightly strangled shriek as he bore her back down onto the feather mattress. Boyishly pleased with the success of the maneouvre, Gabriel pinned one hand to the bed and went for her mouth again. She brushed the fingertips of her free hand up his back, drawing that line of fire again, and he arched into it.

When he had gotten his breath back, he said, raggedly, “Chavali, what /is/ that?” She drew the fingers around his side, and the sensation followed, ceasing only when skin left skin. She held her hand up between them and the garnet glittered in the candlelight. He released her other hand, and without a word she slid the ring off, displaying it to his gaze. He closed a fist around it.

Her eyes flashed challenge. “I’ll have that back later.”

“Indeed you will.” Gabriel gestured at the burgundy velvet bunched at her waist. “Off with that, too.”

“You’ll have to let me up … Gabriel.” The way she said his name, it was a particularly rich and potent sound, like audible chocolate.

“Very true.” He backed off, watching with aid gaze as she disentangled herself from the fabric, tossing her hair free.

fair warning, etc.

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 02:23:54 GMT

Y'all might have noticed something of a dark tone and several hints in Johnny's latest posts. Basically, (much as it pains me to admit it), the Hunter S. Thompson thing played right into my current main storyline for Johnny. Unless something really /really/ spectacular happens at the Oscars, Johnny's going to attempt suicide shortly afterward. He isn't going to succeed. I'll welcome volunteers to stop him, and / or beat the shit out of him afterward, but either way I have reasons for him to try and reasons for him to fail.
Directly related to this is the fact that immediately prior, Johnny is not going to show up to the first day of filming POTC2 (it's my understanding correct me if I'm wrong that Est-wise that's set for early March). So any pups involved with that /should/ notice something, though I sincerely doubt there will be many public entries by Johnny between now and then.
If this is a real problem for anybody munwise, please let me know, though I don't know how I could plausibly derail it now.

PSA

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 16:57:23 GMT

Well, hell. Sometimes being a nice person can be a real bitch.

I /was/ going to be able to come to the LA barchat tonight, which would have been good for the purposes of Johnny's storyline, but Corrine just called, and they need me to come in and close tonight. There's nobody else they can call, and it's a Friday, which means that 3 people closing won't be able to get out at a reasonable hour (despite the eerieness of how early we got out monday and wednesday). They need a fourth, and the other two who are scheduled are sick. (Damn Ami anyway, she's been sick for two fucking weeks! I've come to work sick for days on end -- though not contagious, hell.)

So no barchat for me, though I may wish to retcon some action there, not sure. Hopefully another week.

notes to self

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 07:07:22 GMT

Johnny vignettes:

meeting Vanessa
conception of Lilyrose
Vanessa's death
random Est D/s scene
nearing bottom (v. recent)

come up with listing of people Johnny has fucked over the last x years?
est-timeline