Fire in the Hole

Dear assholes who thought it was a good idea to set fire on S-Bahn cables,

Run very fast, very far away. Because if they find out that someone really did set fire to those cables, you will have not only the police but also practically all of Berlin on your heels, including me. Isn't it enough that the S-Bahn is still on emergency schedule and will very likely have massive problems next winter again (just like the last two winters...)? Obviously, not for you because you very obviously thought it was a good idea to set some cables on fire which resulted in the entire east half of Berlin being without S-Bahn coverage. You assholes.

I seriously don't get why people would do something like that. Last time it were some self-proclaimed extreme left activists and seriously? That was a bullshit idea. People depending on the S-Bahn are not evil capitalists who need to be punished, they are your average run of the mill employees who need to get to work in time or they will be fired. So if your idea was to punish the evil capitalists with setting cables on fire, you did not meet your objective, you idiots.

If someone really was stupid enough to intentionally put half of Berlin's S-Bahn out of service, do hope the police doesn't find out it was you. Or rather... hope the police finds you... before S-Bahn customers do. God, how stupid can some people be?

ETA: Obviously, it really was arson. You stupid, egoist, criminal assholes. I don't care if you think you want to send some left-wing political message because the only message you actually are sending is that you care nothing about people. Stupid, stupid, stupid idiot assholes. Go fuck yourself. And run very fast and very far away.

So Osama's dead.

First thing I though was: "So... what?"

Second thing was: "Are they stupid? It's like a fucking hydra's head. Cut off one of them, you get three new ones."

( Please tell me you didn't all lose your brains over the death of that old man. )

Yeah, yeah, I'm pissed off again. What's gotten her in a snitch now, you're thinking and well, I'm telling you: censorship. No really. I'm not exaggerating.

( Art. 5 Abs. 1 GG is what some people should really read again. And again. AND AGAIN. )

Because, see, I'm kind of tired of pussyfooting around in a certain part of German Stargate fandom. Yes, I think that "Oh, but it's just a hobby!" and "If i'd have to write realistically, I could only write about what I know and that would be boring." are stupid bullshit excuses for laziness and a lack of interest in the sujet you're writing... which is kinda weird because uh, isn't writing something you need to be passionate about, in every aspect of it (i.e. from your characters to the setting, the plot and the language)?

( Not for the faint of heart... and those who think they can only be my friend when I'm being all nice. )

A few days ago, someone (no, you won't get names because I protect my sources) pointed me to a story where I still don't quite know if it's absolutely hilarious or horrific. It's Stargate, and it probably contains the worst Stargate Sue (or maybe even Sues) I ever came across. Okay, usually, I steer clear off Sues in general (with a very special exception... the person in question knows who I mean ;)), so that's probably not saying much but seriously... Worst. Sue. Ever.

However, I felt quite content with simply reading it and oscillating (isn't that a great word?) between laughing my ass off and visibly flinching in horror. But then I came across a detail that played into one of my areas of expertise (well, hobby expertise) and that's everything that has to do with characters with a military background. I tried to tell the perpetrator suethor aspiring author that if she includes characters with a military background she should damn well do her research right but she kept telling me stuff that didn't have anything to do with my observations and dared to tell me I didn't pay attention to her excuses explanations. And yes, I couldn't help getting a little bit acerbic in my last reply (yes, a little... when I flame, it looks totally different, believe me).

Today... I got called on by a mod that "everyone could write as they please and GOD FORBID SOMEONE CRITICISES SOMEONE ELSE INSTEAD OF FALLING ALL OVER THEMSELVES WITH PRAISE (okay, not in that exact wording but you get my meaning, right?). People... what happened to growth as an author? What happened to accepting someone's exhaustive advice and maybe even asking for more information on a matter I obviously am not quite as firm in as I thought (or simply abandoning a part of my characters' background that doesn't interest me instead of stubbornly going on as if I knew everything about it when I clearly don't)? And what happened to first go through your Sue phase and then start publishing?

Anyway, with that in mind... let's see what I can think up to the next "30 Days of Writing" question.

The first three were:

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.
2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you’re writing about fictional places)?

And here we go with the new question:

4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!

( "A Mary Sue (sometimes just Sue), in fanfiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader." )

because then I'd seriously be thinking about a malpractice suit. Anyone remember I got a referral to a knee specialist from my usual surgeon? Well, today was the appointment and let's just say... that guy could tell me more about my knee after five minutes of prodding and twisting and five more minutes of looking at the MRI pictures (yes, a surgeon with a suitable computer program for looking at MRI pictures... OMG it really exists!) than all the other docs after months of treatment.

( So sick and tired... and did I mention I'm SICK AND TIRED? )

I know it's Wednesday today but what happened on Monday afternoon still has me all riled up.

( That knee business? Classic case of "Two step forward, one step backwards" *rolls eyes )

On the bright side, I finished the first birthday story for mackenziesmomma yesterday, and thank God she's an American so it still got to her on her birthday ;) I also finally finished my ten people, ten prompts meme story for ancient_leah as part of finally another Protect and Survive story which hopefully means I'm slowly getting back into the groove that Joe Mallozzi stole from me... well, that and that I might actually be able to write all the other stories I owe people from that meme as well ;)

And now I'll go and watch last week's Eureka ep (since the development of Zane/Jo still keeps me interested, even though they totally screwed up Jack/Tess (and yes, there will be fix it fic, I promise) and Fargo/Claudia squicks me out) and then last week's Leverage ep and that will hopefully cheer me up enough that I can then go on to writing job applications which means that I then can go on writing the next part of the apocafic 'verse (I called it Pandora's Box, BTW) without a guilty conscience. Mh, yeah, sounds like a plan.

For a while... I could really ignore you because I was happy in my cosy little niche of fandom because I knew SGA was over and Extinction was practically shelved anyway, so I knew you very probably wouldn't get a chance at fucking it up even more. Season Five was the worst season ever and I was actually happy that it was over because I thought it meant you'd keep away from it.

( Full of spoilers for SGU and lots of foul language... yes, that's directly related to each other. )

Dear anonymous comment poster for my recent request at sgagenrefinders, 

please delete your comment. Seriously, I mean it. If you hold some grudge against people who have (knowing fandom, probably rightfully) given you bad reviews for your own stories because your research sucked and/or you committed some big history/race/gender/lgbt fail, please don't take it out on my request and give me a guilty conscience. I have a pretty hard time trying to avoid clichés, tropes and generally fails as it is (for example, recently I realized I might have fridged Laura Cadman for my Defining Moments series... and even though I'm trying to tell myself that I didn't and that I wasn't just sacrificing her to make my poor Lorne feel bad and that I also let Lorne die to make Laura feel bad and that usually it's rather Lorne getting whumped than Laura in my stories I do wish for someone to look it over and say "It's okay, you did a great job with the stories, don't worry about it.") so I really don't need you to rub it in even further.

I consider it very rude of you to make yourself feel better on my expense because in my world, people who are ranting anonymously are usually trying to make themselves feel better and are far from wanting to be helpful. Go away with your bitterness and don't try to make me feel bad about my request because there's nothing to feel bad about.

Or does anyone on my flist actually think writing (and wanting to read) stories set in wars (historic, contemporary, future) is per se exploitive and specifically asking people not to rec McShep and preferably no other slash as well (apart from light femmeslash, that is) is per se homophobic? Help me out here, flist, I'm really starting get confused and insecure (which is all my responsibility, I know but... bear with me? Just this once?).

First, let me say something: I know I have slashers in my flist and before I get to the core of the issue here, I'd like to say that I respect you and your writing very much, mostly because you're awesome people and because you have a very deep and reflective stance towards writing slash and because, as far as I know, when you write boy slash you don't make the mistake of eliminating all and every female character from your stories (have I ever told you how much I love you for making Laura Cadman a very important person for your Lorne, bluflamingo or how much I love your writing because so many of your Newcomers are women, despite the series having heavy slashy under- and overtones, scherryzade? ;)). The following text is in no way meant to insult you or belittle your writing. Still... I had to write it.

Because, see, today I discovered a very long article (as in, a whole page) on slashers in the German major (left-leaning) newspaper Berliner Zeitung and because I was overjoyed to see that such an established and important newspaper took a look at fanfiction and even gave it a whole page, I started to read it... only to start frowning after about three phrases.

( Oh Berliner Zeitung, why did you DO that? )