amand_r: (west wing/mrs landingham)
amand_r ([personal profile] amand_r) wrote2009-12-02 09:02 am

'b' is for basil, assaulted by bears

So, yet another story finished. I keep this up, I'll be finished with all my obligations by…next Sunday. BRILLIANT! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?



1. OMG I FUCKING HATE ITUNES. I've never had issues with it, really. I don't mine how it categorizes music, because that's how I do it in my head. But I let apple install the latest version, and they put in all kinds of shit that I cannot get out of. Like Tunes DJ. No I don't use it, I DON'T EVEN WANT TO SEE IN ON MY SIDE COLUMN. BUT YOU CANNOT GET RID OF IT.

AND THE STORE. DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE STORE. ASIDE FROM THE FACT THAT THEY WANT TO CHARGE ME 1.29 FOR A SONG NOW, THE STORE DOESN'T EVEN FIT ON MY EFFING SCREEN. I HAVE TO SIDE SCROLL. I'M NEVER BUYING ANYTHING SONG-RELATED FROM APPLE EVER AGAIN. APPLE, YOUR LACK OF PRACTICAL AESTHEICS HAS PRETTY MUCH MADE ME A PIRATE.

Well that, and I can't even email you to tell you how much I hate it because you have no relevant email address available. And also you won't let me buy "You're the Best" from the Karate Kid soundtrack.

I know ways to fix it. I just wanted to bitch about HOW THEY GET YA.

2. In my renewed spirit of jackassery, I want to mention that I recently read an old post that contained an honest to god instructional manual on breathing AND walking properly re: how to post a fanfiction. I had originally linked to it, but then I thought I was being a meanie and took it out, but she linked to it today in a very condescending community post today, so it's fair game. Next this winsome individual is going to teach us how to cure cancer, walk and chew gum at the same time, and invent a round device that when attached to the bottoms of heavy objects, will roll so that we might transport things more easily.

I have been writing (fan fiction) for 7 years, these general rules have been passed down from writers who have been writing fan fiction since the 80's, back when you traded your fan fiction at cons, and on floppy disks!

You may all start laughing right now. Go ahead. Let it flow from you like mucus, or…I dunno, if you're Crue, projectile vomit. Or if you think both of those are gross, like that scene in Small Worlds with the rose petals. Yeah.

DISCLAIMER: Hate the sin not the sinner, people. I'm sure they were trying to help. I can't help it; I'm old.

I imagine that this fanfic writer from the eighties passed these down on a stone tablet. In fact, I just cast all of you in the Cecil B DeMille version of it in my head. You're all running about, having orgies and laying on a big gold calf in your clothing that is a reasonably accurate facsimile of the 80's, but your hair is from now (because that's how they did it back in the 60's you know, look at Julie Christie's bouffant in Dr Zhivago), and you're eating noms and…I dunno, not using disclaimers and and uh, being noob like, and the fanfic writer from the 80's comes down with the tablets---NO NO NO.

The OP comes down from the mountain, and sees us all being like, nooby, and she breaks the harddrive tablets and storms away.

Later we shall all be contrite and write disclaimers for our fics and they will grind the golden RPS calf into powder and put it in the water and make us drink it.

Don't ever say that my vast biblical knowledge is bad. DON'T YOU DARE. (In my head, I said that like Richard Gere in "Officer and a Gentlemen": I AIN'T GOT NO PLACE ELSE TO GO.)

3. Clearly the best comic book ever. From the comments: Very Important Messages About Racism are so much more awesome when they’re delivered in rhyme by a demon who is slapping a Nazi. That's so very very true. And also: Clearly what needs to happen is that they need to put out a set of big hard-bound comic collections called simply “FUCK YEAH! The World’s Most Awesome Comic Stories!” Yes. I would buy the whole set.

4. WHY ARE PEOPLE NOT READING THIS GWEN/IANTO? HOLY FUCKING CHRIST. ANON, EMAIL ME AT TOUCHWOODMOD AT GMAIL DOT COM AND TELL ME WHO YOU ARE. I HAVE BEEN PRACTICING MY INTERNET ORAL SKILLS.

ETA: OMG THIS WAS [livejournal.com profile] cruentum! I AM SO SORRY, XIAO DI DI! MY BRAIN IS GONE! HOW DID I MISS THIS? WTF IS WRONG WITH ME!?

5. All my life, I have made a practice of hating Oasis. It's because of Wonderwall. I hate Wonderwall with a burning that is like…when they set the policeman on fire in The Wicker Man. Do they burn a giant metal dude at Burning Man? If they did, that's what it would look like, my hate for Wonderwall. Like if Burning Man took place in Hell. And I was Satan. Anyway. That said, "Don't Look Back In Anger" is possibly my favorite song right now.

EVERYONE CAN LAUGH AT ME NOW. I HATE YOU NOEL GALLAGHER. I HATE YOU SO BAD. AFTER ALL, YOU'RE MY WONDER---MUTHERFUCKER.

6. Look, people, I know that you love John, and you want to thank him for being awesome, and so you give him gifts. From what I understand, lots of gifts, even when he asks you not to. I get it. It's like being part of the action, giving a gift. And I am sure that you are all nice people, and when he says, "please no, with the gifts" you think to yourself that you are the exception. But the fact of the matter is that EVERYONE thinks they are the exception, and then John gets flooded with gifts every time he mentions what his favorite loo roll is (I bet it's Scott brand). The end result, you cock knockers, is that I am DENIED THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT DISNEY CHARACTER JOHN WOULD LIKE TO DO THE VOICE FOR. THIS IS A TRAVESTY.

I have set up a poll for this moment.

[Poll #1493267]



I feel I have accomplished a lot today and I haven't even slept yet. Sleep gives you cancer, man, everybody knows that.

[identity profile] phaetonschariot.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
I have been writing (fan fiction) for 7 years, these general rules have been passed down from writers who have been writing fan fiction since the 80's, back when you traded your fan fiction at cons, and on floppy disks!

Dude when I joined fandom, totally trufax here, I was in a local group of fen and we traded HARD COPY. LIKE, ON PAPER. I also vidded back in the day with two VCRS and a tape deck.

CAN I HAVE THE SUPER SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE AWARD NOW? FLOPPY DISKS DON'T GET YOU THE AWARD LADY. SRY. IT'S MINE.

Also, glancing at that page, n00b can't have been passed down. Sorry. No one used that word back then. Ditto anything regarding LJ. We did not have these rules on Usenet. If you're going to get into "rules" that were "passed down" back in the old days of fic writing, you're going to be talking about things like a chapter is 32kb of text because that was what fit in a post. Or how things were formatted with linebreaks at 60 characters so you didn't get long-short-long-short lines.

[identity profile] amand-r.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I USED TO COWRITE MERCEDES LACKEY VALDEMAR FIC WITH PEOPLE BY TYPING IT AND MAILING IT BACK AND FORTH.

YOU ARE A VIDDING GENIUS. I never understood that. It was hard enough bootlegging highlander eps for people.

I first ran across n00b in about 1996. I think.

[identity profile] phaetonschariot.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
I joined fandom probably early to mid 1996. For reference, I was born in 1985. :P So, you know, I wasn't in the really early days, but I was on Usenet which was quite a traditional place and most of the local fen were in their late 30s to 40s. I was never in a "young" part of fandom.

It was really uncommon back then for people to even have two VCRs - and actually, my high school A/V dept had the same model we did at home.

[identity profile] amand-r.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)
NICE. I only ever heard "newbie" used to refer to new people, not necessarily young people.

[identity profile] phaetonschariot.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 10:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, it tends to be, though there's often considered to be an overlap because older people will adjust to the more "accepted" social mores faster. I had two older sisters who whipped me into line if I did anything stupid luckily so I never really got a bad reputation for being pre- or young-teen in such a structured part of fandom, and from memory I would have been by far the youngest for quite some time - I remember the first time I posted smut I got some people going "omg but you're a baby!" (Actually I'm not sure it was even very poorly written, it was just sort of stereotypical sex by numbers - blow job to orgasm, male-on-female oral to orgasm while the guy recovers, then PIV sex. Oh, young me.) It was a Star Trek group, and the local fen were mostly into Highlander, which are both really old fandoms, too.

[identity profile] amand-r.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)
YAY HIGHLANDER I LOVE YOU.

[identity profile] kel-reiley.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)
LOL oh the 2 vcr's - MEMORIES!

[identity profile] phaetonschariot.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I KNOW RIGHT. And you had to time everything just right and you used pause instead of stop because it gave you slightly finer control and oh, it was so old school.

[identity profile] kel-reiley.livejournal.com 2009-12-02 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
YES! and then if you broke your timecode youre all screwed!
oh, VHS! OMG BETAMAX!