well behaved women

Meme! Sort of? I made it up, does it count? Sum up your main original character in a single sentence. Straight-forward or whimsical as you please.


Helena, who likes to hunt bunnies in the dark of the night.

Courtney, who is adapting to getting blood all over her favorite shoes.

Alice, who really wants less mayhem in her tea.

Suzannah, who favours Hell for the company.

August, who finds it best to always be someone else.

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Kink Bingo's December challenge: ohhh, it is so good to me. Yuletide fandoms up for grabs!

...although, as I look through them, they are slightly less delicious than last round. Last round I was looking through the leftover prompts and I kept going 'ooh, I haven't thought of that one in ages but I sure could write it!' Still, plenty of yum.

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Ask Amy tells rape victims they did it to themselves. Any words I would have for this are obscene and full of hate, and I'm trying to cut down on that.

Mike Briggs eloquently debunks the popular arguments supporting piracy one by one.

an NYT article on female desire.

Patrick Stewart on domestic violence. Beautiful.

fiction_theory's lovely post about and containing links concerning the relationships between agents and new writers. Specifically it contains a link to this remark by an agent:

I rejected a manuscript that I had been seriously considering last week because upon a cursory online search, I found a LiveJournal post by the author badmouthing me and several of my colleagues for what she thought were excessive response times. Well, that blog post cost her representation from at least one agent. (OH, and it was a LOCKED LiveJournal post. You do know that Google Reader doesn't respect locked posts, right? Well, you do now.)

I feel like 'mind your damn manners jesus christ' should be sort of an acknowledged constant--ever heard of common courtesy, people? Especially in this type of scenario when you are asking a stranger to take a leap of faith. But entitlement, I have noted, is heavy in many young in America.

Also LOCKED POSTS ARE UNPROTECTED AAAAAAAH **terrified**

ETA: Falconesse with the math behind Harlequin’s vanity press: how many books you’d have to sell to break even, hidden costs, and the like. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to self-publish, vanity publish, or get published.

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Net Speed: 78 WPM
(words/minute)
Accuracy: 90%
Gross Speed: 86 WPM
(words/minute)

**sadface**

ETA: No wait!

Net Speed: 92 WPM
(words/minute)
Accuracy: 97%
Gross Speed: 94 WPM
(words/minute)

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Oh! Oh! Also I would like this share this. It's something of an examination of fanfiction and original fiction, and the differences between, and I like it. It starts out by a (relatively non-spoilery) excerpt of a review of Cassandra Clare, the famous plagiarizer's, 'original' work, and expands.

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There was some meme going around a while back about iron clad literary/romantical kinks, and I was thinking about it, and this is the one I came up with and having been musing about a bit for a while now.

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Excerpt of vampire fiction written to amuse myself that is, in its entirety, mostly porn (but this bit's harmless):

“Was that a joke?” The vampire prince said, his voice cool.

They were clustered on a balcony, stained-glass doors separating them from the main party, the sky above dark and smooth and studded with flickering stars. His skin was alabaster pale and smooth, and his hair was soft and dark and curled over his brow. His eyes were large and a clear light brown that looked coppery under the right light; his mouth sensual, his cheekbones sculpted, a line between dark, winged brows.

“A joke?” She said dubiously.

“If so,” he said, “it wasn’t very amusing.”

“What would I be joking about?” She asked, debating briefly whether sarcasm actually counted as humour.

Marcus Andreas Argent, vampire prince, heir to the entire bloodthirsty clan that ruled half the continent, most coldly beautiful young man she had ever encountered, said proudly, “I’m going to grow up and be a dentist.” And Lyla knew right then on the spot that she was madly in love.

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I really want to write a True Blood story that takes a step back from the fact that the creators really are in love with all the reprehensible male characters and Sookie only remains prominent because of what scant scraps of quality the Charlaine Harris books are still sneaking in. Sookie was the heroine--and she was an awesome one. Now every victory she has involves one or more of her hideously behaved suitors.

So I want to write a story where she's off on her own, rescuing herself, as book!Sookie was allowed and so prone to doing. Not through stupid plot point powers or vampire strength, but by the qualities that she got by on so well in the books: pragmatism. Cleverness. Ability to think on her feet. Just plain toughness, when it came down to it.

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I've decided I shall never post again while I am deprived of sleep, as sleep deprivation automatically makes me sulky and ornery as hell, prone to bitching about the universe in general and broadly indulging in morbid self-pity. Not as fun as it sounds!

Being that it is midnight and I am somehow feeling wide awake for once--and also had sugar and hamburgers and open faced basil-tomato-mozzarella sandwiches earlier at the block party--I've decided that if I've survived the kick Murphy's Law gave me last night, I can survive anything.

Also! I watched True Blood episode eight and decided; okay, Jason, you're almost a salvageable human being, I am totally ready for Sookie to dump Bill's ass, I want to punch whoever came up with the newest twist in Jessica's storyline, and Godric and Eric continue to be pretty damn interesting. This is a show best watched with a skip button or fast forward option, so I may miss the sex and just catch Sookie being such an adorably tough little cookie. She can't slug it out, but by god she's not laying down and taking it!

Besides random incredibly stupid moments the writers throw in, once I shove away how very much she is not Book!Sookie--who I was incredibly fond of in the first books and remain foolishly attached to--I'm quite fond of Anna Paquin's Sookie. And that makes everything go down a bit easier.

And okay, I don't actually like Sarah Newlin after watching the episode, but watching Jason get shot in the crotch was incredibly satisfying after all the shenanigans his crotch (and the writers) forced us to go through last season.

I'm trying to focus on just enjoying my writing again, and I got another kink_bingo card to work on.

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The Girl who Wore Blue Eyes

Once there was a girl.

She was a small girl, and a tidy one, and she kept her shoes shined and her skirts ironed and her little bag full of glass jars. She had shining dark hair and small neat hands, and she did not smile often. She was a very grave little girl, and she thought highly of her dignity.

And she collected eyes.

She collected them as other girls collected flowers and purses and kisses, all in her little glass jars, one by the other. No one was sure how, as she did not pluck them from skulls and steal them from beasts, but no one could deny that they stared curiously from the little jars, taking in the world with a gravity that sometimes seemed ill fitting to a small and bright faced girl, but sat very well on this dignified medley of gazes.

She collected round protruding frog eyes, and goat's eyes with their blocky pupils, and a serpent's dark veiled stare. She collected those of fish, never-flinching, and carefully misted them with water each morning. She found the many faceted glance of flies, and stored away the inquisitive gaze of a vulture. She was positively fond of them, and very devoted to her task.

This was, of course, because she had none at all of her own.

OMG she is so pretty.

Alice Greczyn, playing Helena Maddox in the theater of my head. I've been struggling to buckle down to my of_ficathon request, which boils down to 'no slash, werewolf involved love triangle.' I wrote the first part a while ago, and then left it to gather dust, but the realization that I have to finish it up before I let myself work on the 'stuffed animals vs vampire' story has put the spurs to me.

ETA: I've got a title! artillie: Bite at the Moon

First draft presents this: werewolf girl with robin for pet, who lives sometimes at her wolf Uncle's home and sometimes with a pair of human parents. She's decided that she needs to attend high school, laboring under the mistaken assumption that high school is a worthy learning environment and also that her Uncle will hesitate to bend laws for her comfort. No, she's going to go down there, absorb useful book smarts, and most of all not eat anyone.

She's grown out of chewing on anything that looks interesting. Mostly.

( snippet from chapter one... )

The vampire crouched on the edge of the railing, gaunt gray face sharply delineated by shadow, the expression in those glassy black eyes lapsing from that eerie focus to uneasiness. "You are not afraid of me?"

"No," Isabella said, biting off her thread and tying it into a messy knot. "Does that hurt your feelings? I am very sorry." He stared at her. She tried again. "I'm sure if I couldn't kill you I would be very very afraid." The stuffed rabbit gave her a deeply reproachful stare for her substandard sewing skills and lack of manners; she kissed it on the nose. "Would you like a grilled cheese sandwich?"

This series would be all about...the adventures of an actually creepy, back-to-origins vampire and a girl who can bring these stuffed animals to life to DO HER BIDDING and she is named Isabella because Bella is actually a really pretty name--I like it alot--and I want to reclaim it from the land of FAIL. And she carries this, like, ridiculous stuffed unicorn with shiny stuffed wings, all white and fluffy and fake looking, and when she brings it to life it GROWS and gets RED EYES and FANGS and likes to TRAMPLE VAMPIRES. And the vampire is so confused by how cheerfully SCARY this human girl is that he, like, starts following her everywhere.

And this is my version of the vampire romance.

(Yay!)

Mary Sue is not always about how she has radiant purple hair, a perfect seven octave singing voice, and can slice Superman with her katana. It's about what she does to the story. There's a fine line between a well developed character and Mary Sue, and it's certainly not defined by her appearance, justification (or lack thereof) for her abilities, or how fantastically improbable her backstory is. It's about how the character is defined exclusively by external traits and her actions to the point of shallowness, and about how all other characters are defined by their attitude to her (or him, as examples will show, this trope applies to both sexes). It's about how, in Fan Fiction, she completely overtakes the canon characters in importance. It's about how people act wildly out of character around her and elevate her to a status well above what she should realistically be able to obtain. In original fiction it's a character who can get away with almost anything, about whom no one can shut up, or a character who is flawed, sure... but seems to live in a topsy-turvy world where flaws function like virtues and are fetishized accordingly. Above all, it is about wish-fulfillment, and wish-fulfillment comes in many forms. There's nothing wrong with a little or even a lot, but when the wish-fulfillment a character embodies starts to warp the narrative and characterization around it, then you may be looking at a Mary Sue, even if she's in disguise.

Thank you!

My attendance to TVTropes is relatively sketchy; I've never had it swallow hours of my time like people say is normal, but I wander in now and then. My problem is that a lot of the entries are hideously biased. The most notable one I found devoted several paragraphs to how Orihime was a Mary Sue because a) she got kidnapped and b) she was getting more screentime that arc than Rukia. That was their argument. Couched in rather malicious terms. I mean, really.

But I get fun stuff out of it sometimes.

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Hey there!

( in other news, I got my of_ficathon assignment today.... )

I....I really want to involve this woman in a story.

She'd be the immortal incarnation of a city, dirty and industrial and queerly refined, that swims with pale light when the sun slips down over the horizon; a city of quiet elegance and weary humour. A neutral city, the air often cool. Both shameless and distant.

This is a rant. And this rant has been coming for a long, long time, but I'll try to keep it rational and concise.

It goes like this: fantasy authors, please stop trying to blame bad behavior on the behalf of shapeshifters on their 'animal instincts'.

There is no logical basis for this. Most animals (specifically wolves, lions, bears, etc.) that we're talking about here are clearly capable of making rational, logical choices and decisions. They live in dangerous, unpredictable environments and survive on their own strength and intelligence entirely. Frankly, a good deal of the animals I've met are more intelligent than some humans I've met.

Furthermore, a she-wolf or lioness is just as dangerous and capable as her male counterpart. She is not naturally inferior, or naturally subservient. A pack is led by an alpha pair, not 'the alpha male and his girlfriend', fuck you Laurell K. Hamilton. They choose their own mates, and are sometimes pretty damn picky about it. What you are trying to pass off as animal instinct is actually blatant, nauseating misogyny in a sickening package of 'he's sexy and supposedly can't help himself: this makes it okay!' Do not dare attempt to feed me that.

Furthermore, animals have interacted with humans, in a human environment, and gotten along just fine. Wolves who are familiar with researchers; Christian the lion, etc. In an unfamiliar environment, they often react warily/violently/defensively. The only reasons humans don't do this is because we are complacent and deeply domesticated. If we spent our lives as exposed to danger as wild animals do, we probably would too. We do in some circumstances.

You are insulting animals, you are insulting them viciously and grievously. It's like some disgusting reflection of the Hollywood werewolf, which actually owes nothing to the animal itself and is instead a compilation of our feverish and superstitious fears of the dark/what's under the bed or in the closet/the unknown.

This is why I will never forgive Patricia Briggs and, frankly, find myself disgusted by her werewolf series. This is why, despite the fact that I love werewolves far more than vampires, Alice Borchardt is the only werewolf author I can stand.

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Keepin' my hand in.

Timestamp meme:
(from tesla321)
I understand that one offers to revisit posted fic and do 100 words on what's happening now, either before or after the fic.

Title: little heart
Day/Theme: 4. you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed
Series: Original
Rating: PG13
Summary: And she said to him, "I am not yours," and he said to her, "I am only what you make of me."

and in bitter night she dreamt of him...

Number of entries that use the tag 'fic'--and I just went back and applied it to all my fic entries--is 208. Wowie kazowie. It might be bigger on Livejournal, but I'll have to review those later, if I do at all.

Went back through my 'Dark Angel' tags with a vengeance, seeking to prune out OOCness and shoddy writing. (mostly on Lj)

Yes, that means nearly everything had to go.

Dark Angel fandom was the first one I entered, and I entered it partway before I even watched the show through a bizarre contortion of events. This means it influenced me. It didn't manage to make me dislike Max, though it tried, but it did manage to skew my perception of Alec somehow. Now that I've grown beyond it--thank god--I can recognize the huge, gaping, ghastly flaws OMG THEY WERE AWFUL. Alec had little to no resemblance to the actual character, the writing was trite and silly, etc.

I left Faith Through Midnight up just for nostalgia, but I cringe every time I glance at it. I may have to pull it off FF.net.

Okay! Premise for an online original 'novel', which I phrase loosely.

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