Rodo's Journal

☞ 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.

☞ First of all: Happy birthday lian!

☞ I finally finished watching the first season of Legend of the Seeker. I only watched it because some people insisted it was awesome and ... it was not. It is standard fantasy. It has more Luke I Am Your Father moments than I care about. Which is strange, because I love the trope and some others that were used and not one of the managed to really pull me in. It tries to be serious and it just doesn't work, and it isn't cracky enough to match Xena. About the only thing halfway attractive about the series is the main character who spends lots of time without a shirt.

☞ I wrote a little over a page yesterday. It's crappy, has nothing to do with my ongoing projects and is very much unlike anything I normally write, but it's something. Now all it needs is a plot.

☞ I'm still feeling down, especially because I haven't been able to sleep much thanks to the weather. Hot and so humid walking feels more like swimming is not fun.

☞ Still didn't watch the last episode of Torchwood. At the moment, I really don't want to, to be honest.

Today I proved that it is a good idea to offer books as free downloads yet again. Last year, I read the free version of Neverwhere and ended up buying the TV series. And today I finished reading His Majesty's Dragon (downloaded here) and ordered the remaining books of the series as soon as I had finished.

I suppose skuf is very happy now. I think she posted the link two times already and tried to share her addiction.

The current debate about warnings really disturbs me. I haven't experienced sexual abuse and/or rape. And I have a problem with triggering content. No idea why, but certain topics can cause panic attacks and nervous breakdowns. It's been that way since I was six. I had my first nervous breakdown then, after watching a documentary on how the world is going to end when the sun will expand in five billion years. To this day, I have problems with this topic (and please don't ask about it in the comments either, trying to explain will mean I have to think about it in too much detail, which is not good), and with certain other aspects of astrophysics. I don't expect a warning for that, but that's a very specific trigger.

( Cut for length and TMI )

I would like to avoid these topics, and so do other people, for various reasons, not all of them triggers, but still valid. I know it's hard for people who don't feel like their life is a Spießrutenlauf to understand this, but we are doing everything we can to protect ourselves, and we're not infallible. We need help for this. So please, warn for the most common subjects, and if you don't, state that visibly (not everyone looks into a profile before reading a story).

In fact, if something is warned for, I might even read it if I feel well enough, because that way, I can ready myself for the subject. Which helps more than you can imagine.

☞ Since I finished the first of my long reading projects last month (an abridged version of The Canterbury Tales), I started reading the Bible again. Just, you know, because it's part of our culture and all. I stopped somewhere in the Second Book of Moses (Exodus) the last time, because it's very, very boring. And I refuse to skip books. Anyway, I started with the ten commandments again, and read a few pages. I learned quite a few things: 1) If you beat up your slave and he doesn't die immediately but a few days afterwards, you won't be punished. 2) There are only three things listed under "offenses punishable by death" in my version (being a witch, having sex with animals and sacrificing to other gods). There are a lot of crimes you can be executed for, though. 3) God is weirdly specific when it comes to interior design. In fact, he goes on about it for several pages.

☞ ontd_startrek seems like a funny comm, but I really shouldn't follow any links there. My computer has less problems with InDesign, even though I don't have the RAM, the processor and the space on my hard drive that it requires. *sigh*

☞ Does anyone other than me watch Kings? I like the series, despite the fact that certain parts of it are rather problematic.

It's been a while since I posted the last time. Huh, I really hadn't noticed. Anywhere, here's a round-up of sorts:

☞ I have new invite codes to hand out. If you want one or know somebody who does, you can tell me.

☞ It's all frogspace's fault, I forgot all about it, but she reminded me again, and so I watched a show called Lasko - Die Faust Gottes, in which RTL proves yet again that there's a certain brand of crazy and cracky that can only be found on German television. It's a show about a monk (Lasko) from an order called Pugnus Dei (The Fist of God) who fights evil. It's like a Shaolin B-movie, only with Catholic monks instead of Buddhist monks. (It works as well as you'd expect.) He mostly fights a group called Ares, which is an evil Catholic group that seeks world domination and makes money by selling weapons to African dictators (to emphasize how EVIL they are). Of course there's a woman as well, a police inspector who hunts the weapons' salesman, and Lasko saves her when her plane was abducted. It's pure canon crack, if you ask me.

☞ On rape and men is a very interesting post by cereta (which is why most of you will have read it already). Well, to be exact, the comments are very interesting.

☞ Seems like it's time for the LJ Advisory Board elections. I couldn't care less.

☞ Can anyone rec good fanmixes?

☞ Why can't my headaches stop for more than a day? *sigh* I hate the weather.

☞ I never thought a fanperson could annoy me as much as this one. Seriously, she insists she finished university (and therefore knows much more than the rest of us idiots), but I'm wondering how she managed. University requires you to articulate coherent thoughts. She can't even ask the question she wants to ask.

☞ My muse is deader than a doornail. I really need a new one. I wish I could write and I really need to write, but I just can't.

☞ I started re-reading Good Omens for books. The next time I read it I will mark all my favourite quotes. And when I have money I will buy a hard cover copy as well.

☞ Sent the letter with my vote for the elections yesterday and hope I sent it in time. Voting by mail is always such a hassle. But I do it anyway because being able to vote is a great thing that many people just don't appreciate enough.

☞ I need something to do.

Yesterday, someone posted a rant on fanficrants. The ranter's point was that a) the fandom doesn't need fanzines anymore and that b) the prices on them are very unreasonable, especially considering that you can post/read fanfic online for free. This post is the tl;dr version of my not very organized thoughts on the post and the discussion:

I am rather new school when it comes to fandom, but that doesn't mean I don't understand the appeal of zines (even though I don't own a single one). In fact, I wish I had the money to buy them, because zines have some advantages. Fanfic on the internet disappears very fast, compared to non-net standards. Give it five years and many URLs will be invalid, the authors decided the fics were crap, or the fandom suffered from a wave of cease and desist letters. When you buy a zine, you get to choose how long you want to keep it, not the person hosting and/or publishing the stuff.

( Cut for length )

• Today is my mother's birthday and she's visiting me at the moment, which is the reason why I've been a bit absent lately. Well, that and the fact that I had a breakdown on Monday thanks to PMS and waiting almost an hour and a half at the doctor's only to be told to come again next week. Oh hell, no!
• My muse is dead. I prodded it and tried to resuscitate, but nothing helped. No new fic or other creative effort from me for a few months at least, it seems. Probably longer.
• I just can't get rid of the two invite codes.
• Watched Slumdog Millionaire yesterday and liked it. It reminded me more of City of God than a Bollywood film. I want the soundtrack.
• Does anyone know why the LibraryThing widget won't work in my profile?
• Were there any good fics written for the H/D Worldcup this year? I have one in my recs, but I gave up on the others after a while.

Today, I got two new invite codes to give away, and I would love to do so, just ... I want to give them to people who really want to use their DW account, and that's a bit of a problem. There are a lot of people on dw_codesharing who ask for a code, and the last time I had codes to give away, I gave four to people already on my flist on IJ or who I met somewhere else and two to people from dw_codesharing. I really regret giving the codes to the two people from that community, because they didn't use their accounts at all so far. I don't really care what people use the accounts for, as long as they use them somehow.

So, any ideas what I can do with the two new invites?

And before I forget it again: german_fandoms_fic is a community for fanfiction in German or fanfic for German canons no matter the language. I thought a few people on my flist might be interested.

The Rules:

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List (and upload) 5 songs that begin with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

lenija assigned me the letter A. I'll try for a bit of variation, but I have to warn you: I have a very ... unimaginative taste in music and not a lot on my computer. So this is basically every decent song starting with an A that I have. I also had a lot of problems trying to safe them in .mp3 format.

( Songs behind the cut: )

I really hope this is working. I'm not generally that dumb when it comes to computers, promise.