Rodo's Journal

☞ Signed up for Yuletide.. Am simultaneously freaking out and really happy. Hope everything turns out alright. I would have signed up to write for more fandoms, but most of my anime/manga stuff is still at my mum's, so I wouldn't be able to reread it.

☞ How the hell could I possibly miss the creators of Hot Fuzz reccing slash fanfic? No, really. Btw, the recced story is really good.

☞ My writing project is going so so. I've 13:01:15 hours left. I'm not in much of a writing mood at the moment. I'm not really in a mood for anything at all, including eating, gaming, reading, watching TV, sleeping, being awake, going shopping ... well, you get the picture. I hate this time of the month.

☞ There are a ton of promising fan projects springing up everywhere, or so it seems to me. I want to participate in so many of them, but I'm not sure how much I can juggle. At least the Christmas related writing projects are temporary. Oh, and lian is looking for people interested in a shiny new OTW committee (post includes the loveliest tacky .gifs I've seen in a while) and the OTW in general is looking for volunteers. We're always glad to see new people. Really. Even if you don't have any experience.

☞ Kind of related: If you're interested in learning Python, a programming language, you might take a look at intro_to_cs, where we'll try to teach it to ourselves with the help of MIT's OpenCourseWare project. We'll start on lecture 1 on Monday, and you can participate once or twice a week, and if November doesn't work for you, maybe you'd like to start next year?

So, my sleep rhythm is out of whack again. This means that I sleep more or less the whole day. I was particularly tired today, so I slept during the opening hours of every shop. No biggie, I thought, after all I still have enough food for the night, I can go in the morning.

No. I can't. Tomorrow is a holiday where I live (and hardly anywhere else), and all the shops are closed, except for the ones at the station. Which means I'll have to stay up for at least six hours longer and fight my way to the shops because everyone else who forgot to buy something will be there too. People always act as if it's the apocalypse on those days. Then I have to carry all the stuff home again. And it's not as if I can just wait a day, because shops are closed on Sundays too.

The German Ladenschlussgesetz is a pain. Happy Reformation Day to me.

ETA 09.10.31: Turns out every shop but the grocery shops is open there. *sigh* Lets hope the Döner shop is open most of the day tomorrow.

I've finally decided on what to do for November, since I won't be doing NaNoWriMo this year. Barring unforseen circumstances I'll work on something vaguely creative for about 30 minutes a day at minimum. This means fifteen hours total, and I'll use the countdown tool on my computer to time it.

So what do I mean by "work on something vaguely creative":

• writing stories - either first or second drafts
• editing stories - third and subsequent drafts
• drawing, painting, icons, manips, etc.
• editing vids
• translating something (if you want to throw something my way, lian, go for it, unless it's the dratted reply comment)
• write meta or other lengthy and thought-out DW entries
• write other non-fiction that requires editing
• recording audio-fic

And what don't I mean by that (despite it being vaguely creative):

• researching for stories, pictures etc.
• beta something
• figuring out how to operate a program in order to do something mentioned above
• plotting, outlining, etc.
• short and rather spur-of-the-moment entries
• comments to other people's entries (unless they're fic)

Hopefully, this means that I will actually work on some of the countless WIPs, maybe that ancient Merlin story, or the Dumbledore/Lockhart fic, or the last NaNo projects. Hopefully the Yuletide story as well. There has to be something that'll be finished by the end of the 15 hours, right? Or at least closer to finished?

I'm a real underachiever this year, but since WriSoMiFu seems to be LJ-only, I'll do this on my own. Any ideas what to call this project?

Okay, so I posted a story a few days ago that probably only a few of you noticed. I got reviews, and they're generally positive. The review that spawned this post was positive too, but since it was the first of its kind that I received, I felt the need to talk about it. See, the story was 1200 words long. And the reviewer critized the following:

1. You're only writing short stories to avoid criticism. Translation: You're afraid of playing with the grown-ups (but you don't have to be, I swear!)
2. Your short stories are so great, but they're just short stories. Translation: You're wasting your talent on X when you could do Y.
3. You'd get more reviews if you only just wrote longer stories, simply stretch the material. Translation: Why are you doing this? It's totally pointless because nobody appreciates you!

Okay, so my translations probably aren't that accurate, and I didn't exactly quote her review either. But it's what I got out of it, and it reminded me of something I've heard before: Why are you writing fanfic when you could write a real book? ( The answer, of course, is because I want to. )

Titel: Bettgeschichten
Fandom: Supernatural
Autor: rodo
Länge: 1221
Rating: PG
Genre: Ficlet, Gen
Charaktere: Sam & Dean Winchester
Warnungen/Labels: keine
Beta: anotherslashfan und sevilemar
Spoiler: allgemeine, aber nichts Spezifisches über die erste Folge hinaus
Disclaimer: Die Rechte liegen bei CW, Eric Kripke und ProSieben. Aber ich liebe die Jungs trotzdem.
A/N: Rating ausschließlich wegen Dean Winchesters Mundwerk. Abgesehen davon ist die Geschichte absolut harmlos. Inspiriert durch das Prompt „Sharing a bed“ vom 27.07.2009 auf dailyprompt (Ja, ich brauche für so etwas Monate).
Inhalt: Eine Geschichte über Sam, Dean und wie sie sich mal mehr und mal weniger freiwillig das Bett geteilt haben.


( Bettgeschichten )

Okay, heute habe ich nicht besonders viel zu tun und will mich ablenken. In der Folge bin ich über Spiegel Online auf einen Artikel über die Relevanzkriterien von Wikipedia gestoßen. Die des deutschen Wikipedia, wohlgemerkt, beim englischen scheint es noch lange nicht so schlimm zu sein. Immerhin gibt es da noch Stubs.

An dieser Stelle sollte ich vielleicht anmerken, dass ich die Relevanzkriterien toll finde. Studiere schließlich Journalistik, da ist das irgendwie normal. Mein Hauptargument gegen den ff.net-Bot vom Fanhistory-Wiki war das Relevanzkriterium. Ich liebe Relevanz - ohne Relevanz würde Wikipedia zu einem Monstrum und man könnte überhaupt nichts mehr finden.

Ich finde es allerdings nicht so toll, wenn viele Dinge, die ich für relevant halte, von Leuten, die null Ahnung vom Thema haben, für irrelevant erklärt werden. Lolcats sind irrelevant, egal ob das eine Menge Leute machen, und egal ob vielleicht schon eine Unmenge verwirrter Internetnutzer versucht haben, Informationen über das Phänomen zu finden. Das erste Mal, dass ich versucht habe, einen Wikipedia-Artikel zu erstellen, wollte ich mein Wissen über einen Manga teilen - irrelevant. Dabei hatte ich recherchiert, weil ich bei Wikipedia nach den Infos gesucht und sie nicht gefunden hatte. Mein letzter Versuch einer Bearbeitung war irgendwann diesen Sommer. Ich wollte dem Artikel Beta (Begriffsklärung) einen Verweis hinsichtlich der Bedeutung Beta-Leser hinzufügen, den das englische Wikipedia durchaus hat - irrelevant, auch wenn einige Fandom-Neulinge wahrscheinlich schon gesucht haben. Das einzige, was ich bisher trotz Motivation und Versuchen bearbeiten konnte, waren Tippfehler. Hier ein fehlendes Komma, da ein falscher Buchstabe.

Wie mir geht es offenbar auch einer Menge anderer Leute. Wie soll man denn mitarbeiten, wenn einem an jeder Ecke klar gemacht wird, dass man es lassen soll, weil man eh keine Ahnung hat (und diese auch nie bekommen kann)? Und lebt Wikipedia nicht gerade davon, dass es rein theoretisch jedem offensteht? Ist irgendwie so ähnlich, wie die Diskussion zu Frauen im Open-Source-Bereich, die es vor einer Weile gab, meint ihr nicht?

Okay, the obvious answer to this question would be: “Because not everybody in the world knows English and the AO3 is meant to be for everyone”, and that’s a good answer. It’s not the only answer, though. I know people who never learned English in school. I also know people who have difficulties learning languages and thus never really understood English. But generally speaking, I’m from a country where many, many people learned English in school (it’s compulsory for everyone in my state, for example), where many advertisements are in English, just like shop names, product names and many, many more. In theory, all these people should be able to navigate the archive.

( However, being surrounded by English all the time evidently doesn't mean people understand it. )

Okay, so I actually nominated a few fandoms for Yuletide this year and hope that I will be able to participate too. I would definitely love to, since I won't do NaNo this year and I would really like to have a fanfic as a present. And of course I'd like the challenge of writing something in English for someone else too. My nominations:

Four Brothers (movie)
Jim Butcher - The Dresden Files
Kings (tv)
Let Dai
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Velvet Goldmine

These are mostly fandoms I'd like to read and not necessarily fandoms I'd like to write. And it isn't even all of them, but I hope someone else will nominate the rest. I'm not very obscure either. *sigh*

☞ Dear writers of FlashForward, please don't ever use German again. It was grammatically correct and the actors were actual German speakers (or plain awesome) and all ... it just wasn't really German. It sounded more like English. Imagine Japanese -> English translation that's grammatically correct but still not English, I'm sure there are a few.

☞ A propos German: Nobel Prize in Literature! Whoo! I'm always in a party mood when an author who writes in German gets the prize, because our language needs all the PR it can get (yes, even Tokio Hotel). There really isn't as much of a market for German books, and compared to English, few books get translated. Seriously, every idiot who writes their book in English can get it translated (e.g. Cassandra Clare), but German -> English is much rarer, I think. I haven't read any of Müller's books, but I think they sound interesting. I guess the east/west conflict is not of much interest in the US, but for me, it really is.

☞ Also: Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm not sure how to feel about it. I kind of wanted Hu Jia to win.

ETA: Can someone explain to me why this post has a scrollbar?

Does it really make me mean and elitist that I think that Sturgeon's Law applies to fanfiction? Even my own? Because it's wrong and insults the average fanfic writer by calling them incompetent (which, btw, I didn't, I was talking about stories, but apparently story = author).

I really, really should stay away from the internet for a while, or at least certain parts of it. It's just making things worse for me at the moment. Because whatever I try, if I'm feeling even remotely positive about it someone else comes and tears it completely apart.

The only problem is: I don't have anything better to do at the moment.

*whiny post is whiny*

☞ Okay, so my computer crashed. I finally ruined the poor thing. Anyway, I had to buy a new one, and I still haven't managed to save my data and install all my programs. Hopefully soon. Also: Vista looks pretty, but is a bit difficult to handle.

☞ Supernatural keeps being awesome. ( Spoilers. )

☞ New and better computer means finally being able to play videogames I wanted to play for a long time. Which is what I've been doing, since my beta is still working on my stories and I don't feel like starting anything new while so much is unfinished. Anyway, I'm playing Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which will probably keep me busy for a while. If anyone has recs for games that don't require more than a 2,1 GHz processor, I'm all ears.

☞ The current season of Heroes is actually somewhat okay. ( Minor Spoilers. )

☞ Today is our national holiday. I just had Merkel's speech on (mute - because I can't keep my mind on whatever she's saying for more than half a sentence anyway), but I'm really, really unenthusiastic about it. Maybe it's the somber organ music my neighbour is playing. Maybe it's the election results. Four years of CDU/CSU and FDP in power is looking so great right now. *sigh* At least the people in my village voted for the left parties with an overwhelming majority (not really news, we are a leftist enclave). Shows that there are some sane people left, and maybe the results will mean that the Linke will finally be accepted as an existing political party. With possibly constructive ideas! Only took, what, twenty years?

So, my mum's visiting again at the moment. We went shopping and she bought me a lot of shiny new things, for example:

• A new coat. I really needed one. The old jacket is practically ancient. And the zipper didn't work properly anymore.
• New jeans that actually fit.
• A sweater. Now I own ... three that I can actually wear outside, the others are ugly.
• A lovely new shirt.
• My favourite biscuits. I would share, but I've never met anyone who's as fond of them as I am.

I also have a new haircut. It's short, and I like it. I really hated it when my hair was in the way all the time and wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. My hair is really stubborn (the hairdresser agreed, we were there over an hour), and no matter how lovely long hair might look with my hair colour in theory, it needs a crazy amount of work.

We also went to Burger King, because I insisted. I've been reading a lot of Supernatural fic, and Dean is very, very fond of fast food. So I got kind of hungry. I even dreamed about fast food.

Please do not link to this post in newsletters.

Warning: As per skuf’s wishes, it’s more informal and also more straightforward than my meta usually is. PS: I hope I managed to write about the topics you people were asking about.


( i “loser” canon characters who become fanon heroes (223 words) )


( ii sex-god!draco in fanfic (248 words) )


( iii fannish entitlement (252 words) )

☞ There are some things that you just don't expect on a Saturday morning. A pneumatic drill next to your flat at 8am is one of them. I'm currently waiting for the paracetamol to kick in.

☞ skuf is looking for participants for her Mini Meta Fest.

☞ logovo posted about what the term "aca-fan" might (not) mean.

☞ Supernatural owns my soul. I've spent the last days in a Supernatural-shaped bubble and I hope I can stay there for a bit longer. Reality is so extremely unfunny.

☞ A Supernatural fic rec: And I Wake Up Blind, Like My Dreams Were Too Bright by strangeandcharm. Vaguely Dean/Castiel, but mostly narrated from Jimmy's PoV as he tries to help Castiel, who lost his memory and is stuck in a mental hospital thinking he is human.

Wow, almost a month since the last post.

☞ The most annoying thing about discussing feminism: It's not the men. They are priviledged, and I know from personal experience how hard it is to constantly work against it. I expect them to try, but if they fail, at least I understand why. The most annoying thing are the women who buy into the lie of achieved equality and who think that everything is how it should be and that they are not underpriviledged in any way.

☞ The Stargate post, oh how I hate it. I've rewritten it yet again and I'm still not happy with it.

☞ I was never a fan of zombies, but Pride and Prejudice and Zombies changed that. I really liked the book.

☞ I hate the weather. It's almost September, and I'm sick of 25°C and higher. I can't work on anything that way, which is probably why I worked on the OTW translations in the morning. My brain feels like mush at any other time of the day.

☞ Tacos are evil. But at least I'm down to a more or less normal weight for me and unless I eat them every day, I probably won't gain any again.

☞ A Torchwood fic rec: The Theory of Two Centres by copperbadge. Summary: "Ianto Jones woke up in a bed that wasn't his, in a flat that wasn't his, wearing clothing that definitely wasn't his." This is the first sentence of the fic, and it actually summarizes the story rather well. Warnings/Labels: amnesia, violence.

☞ Please remind me to never try an old fandom ever again. I just finished the Hornblower TV series and was desperate for fic. Well, I looked and found a number of promising rec lists, an archive and a very long list of stories. The very long list of stories, unfortunately, contained no useful information beyond title and author. The archive had no fics that interested me, but at least it wasn't frozen in 2002 and about the rec lists ... at least half the links were dead. The others led to stories that I had no interest in. It's especially sad because the first link I clicked on seemed to be exactly the kind of story I was looking for. The author seems to have deleted all her fics, of course. I tried ff.net too, but the Sues put an end to that. *sigh* Never again.

☞ PS: Has anybody any idea how the ancient file size label translates to word count?

☞ Why the translation exchange post on ff.de is doomed to fail: People offer to translate from English to German and authors offer stories to be translated from German to English.

You know, I actually wanted to work on the Albus Dumbledore/Gilderoy Lockhart fic that is all It was dead inside's fault today. But then I got sidetracked by the latest plagiarism wank. Funnily enough, I was reminded of the problem a few days ago, so I wrote a meta post about plagiarism.

I'm not a lawyer or a law student (I only had that one course about copyright), and I probably did make mistakes. Please correct me if you find them or if you have something to add to the list.


( Plagiarism, What It Is And What It Isn’t, An Idiot's Guide )

☞ I really need a Peter Fox album. His music is great, why didn't I buy one years ago?

☞ I finally have a new muse! Or so it seems. I wrote a rough draft for a Supernatural ficlet based on the latest prompt at dailyprompt. It's neither long nor great, but it's a whole and not just a random scene. Maybe I could even post it, once I've revised it.

☞ A sentence that should be erased from every language ever: "It's just X" Seriously, I can't hear it anymore. Yes, Torchwood is just a TV show, Bayern München is just a football club. Your boyfriend is just a boyfriend, your job is just a job, this exam is just an exam. And that's just a spider! Gee, thanks, I totally didn't notice! In the grand scheme of things, every thing is "just" a thing. Telling somebody to care less because "it's just …" is totally ridiculous because when has that ever worked? Not to mention that nobody has the right to tell someone else what is worth caring about. And why would you want someone not to care anyway? The world doesn't become a better place for anyone if you approach it with "just"s all the time. Everything in my life is just "just" and I care anyway. Even about stupid fictional characters and the alphabetical order on my shelf.*


* This rant was brought to you by a person who is depressed and phobic (and thus hears this at least once a week). And no, it never helps even the tiniest bit.

( Here be Torchwood and Supernatural spoilers, enter at your own risk. Contains: my thoughts on character torture, RTD's writing ability and a TV Tropes link )

Lastly, a few (spoiler free) quotes on the matter that I liked:

"I MEAN, CONSTANTLY GETTING JERKED AROUND BY SOMEONE WHO ACTS LIKE THEY'RE JOSS WHEDON AND DOUGLAS ADAMS ROLLED INTO A CHUBBY LITTLE GAY BURRITO OF AWESOME BUT ACTUALLY MAKES ERIC KRIPKE LOOK LIKE A FUCKING SAVANT?" by seize ⁴

"Russel said it was his intention to give his fans a punch in the gut. Then he was surprised that many of his fans didn't like being punched in the gut? What did he expect?" by zyna_kat on fandom_wank ⁵

And now I'm hopefully off to clean my flat for tomorrow. Argh! I hate cleaning!

☞ I'm officially tired of kink meme fics. Am I the only one? Am I weird? I see everywhere at the moment, and I'm really longing for plotty fic with romance and non-explicit sex scenes. Or no sex scenes at all! I think I overdosed or something.

☞ I really hope ficathon_de will decide for DW. I decided not to post fic on LJ anymore (my stupid principles tend to be very persistent), so I wouldn't participate on LJ and I don't think using both would work.

☞ Rec: Captive Prince by freece. Summary: Damen is the true heir to the throne, but when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity and sent to serve the Prince of a rival nation as a pleasure slave. It doesn't sound like much, but I am very much in love with the story. So I rec in, even though it has been recced a lot already.