schmevil

So, I think that if I ever ship real people, it will be Joan Jett, Craig Ferguson, and Ewan MacGregor, and I will ship them with EVERYONE. I will ship them with trees, bees, planes, trains, automobiles and mobile phones. I will ship them with the ardvaarks, and I will ship them with the hyenas. I will ship them in the mornings, and late at night. I will ship them with ships. Oh, will I ship them.

Such is my glittery fangirl adoration for these people.



Disclaimer: I don't actually ship them with anyone.

The triumphant return of the venerable horror anthology is... not so triumphant. I picked up issue two on one of my grazing trips to the comic store. It's how I discovered Scalped and innumerable favourites, so the grazing method of comics buying is nothing to sneeze at. Anyway, I picked up Creepy, then I went home, drew a bath and settled in to read and relax.

Creepy is presided over by Uncle Creepy, who is basically the Cryptkeeper (please don't tell me I have to explain who he is). So that should give you an idea of the flavour of horror contained therein. It's pretty light-hearted, as horror goes, even with gross-out stories like a man-eating car. Light-hearted horror is great, in principle, but in Creepy it's just... not working as of yet. We're only on issue two, so it's possible that the editors and writers just haven't hit their stride yet. Horror comedy works best not when it relies on lololgross, but when it draws on a deep well of schadenfreude-motherfucker-oh-yes, or as a way to release some tension. Things are tense, our hero is in mortal danger, everything go sideways, the scene flips, and all of a sudden that nervous tension that's been gripping you tight is released in surprised laughter. It shouldn't be billboard-obvious silliness: "HEY GUIZE, I FED MY ARM TO THE CAR!" That way lies Rob Zombie's oeuvre. I mean, part of the problem here is a serious paucity of anything like depth in several of the stories - shit ain't scary or funny if I don't care about the characters, or about the gauntlet they're running.

The standout story of this issue is The Curse, (story by Dan Braun, art by Jason Shawn Alexander), mostly because of the art. The story itself is lackluster and at times obvious, but I'm really digging the stark, sketchy but stylized, black and white work by Alexander. It's kinetic and expressive, and admirably economical. The issue is rounded out by two morality tales, a simple gross out story, and a bizarre, Twilight Zone/Tales From the Crypt opener. Classic Creepy at its best was simultaneously scary, and gleefully silly. This relaunch has yet to be either. Still, venerable horror anthology - I have my hopes.

Three characters, people, animals, vegetables or minerals are given, and you must choose one to marry, one to f*ck and one to kill. No fence sitting. No halfsies. Ya gotta choose.

The cruelest MFK of them all! This week we have battling Craig Ferguson's. If you don't know why this is the cruelest MFK of them all, you're either a bad person (who should feel bad), or disturbingly ignorant of the brilliance that is Craig Ferguson. Craig is a stand up comedian, actor, writer and host of the Late Late Show. Despite being a married, recovering alcoholic in his late forties, he's totally my ideal man. Oh, and he's adorable on Twitter.

Some pertinent linkage: Serious Craig vs. lulzy Craig vs. Scottish MacScottentott Bromantic Craig



Vote.

The Sea Ice: -1.8 °C (28.8 °F)
Summary: O brave new world, that has such people in it.
Characters: Stephanie Rogers, original Avengers
Word Count: 2285

This is the first in a series of five short stories about Stephanie Rogers adjusting to the post-ice brave new world. This one is very much about her reaction to the original Avengers.


I've been saying that I needed to spend some time finishing stories, instead of starting new ones. It's what I've been spending most of my spare time on, and why I'm posting so much all of a sudden. I've got a couple of stories done (or almost done, if you discount the lack of a final scene) and in need of betaing. Anyone willing to do a read through of:

Steve, Tony, Happy Hogan. Post execute program, personal and philosphical drama. ~4500

Dean/Castiel. Post nonpocalypse, Castiel is leaving for a new mission. Dean isn't happy. Character death (probably, maybe) and heavy on the metaphysics. ~7000

Sam/Castiel. Post nonpocalypse. Snippets tracking the development of SASSY. ~4500

What I'm looking for is some help tying these bad boys off, a thumbs up/down, and some serious line edits. I'm noticing soooo many tics in my writing and I need someone to aggressively call me on that shit.

Embedding is disabled on this video, so head over to YouTube and watch it there. foxhack pointed it out to me and I am so damn glad that he did. It. Is. Stellar. It's slick, stylish, rich with references to films and other videos, and it's got Bruce Motherfucking Willis, being... Bruce Willis. I mean, come on. LOVE the editing on this one. <333


Also, I just made my brother sit through 30 minutes of Gaga videos. I'm an asshole and I'm loving every minute of it.

We all have preferences for how writers treat feedback and comments. Many of us also have hidden expectations. In lieu of writing about this side of things, I thought I'd do a poll, and throw it out to you guys.

Do you want a response? Do you expect one? Does it make a difference whether we're talking about fic, meta, lulz, or just general posts? What seems polite to you? What is the prevailing way that Things Are Done? ( Read more... )

I was going to put together another mini playlist, this one about joy. I actually have a giant-sized list of songs called JOY, but it's long since gone past playlist proportions. And as I was going through the songs, some of them my desert island favourites, some of them songs I play once a year or less, but still capable inspiring a burst of ridiculous, stupid happiness, I wondered about songs that you guys find joyous.

So pony up, kids. What songs are on your (real or just mental) playlist called JOY? What songs never fail to make you smile, or lift your spirits? Which ones make you want to do debilitatingly embarrassing things?

amberlynne's written a post about feedback that's being linked around. I disagreed.

Her central point is this: readers should comment and they should do so in a way that the writer will be comfortable with. She goes on to say that comments should focus on the story. They shouldn't, for example, be addressed to other readers unless a direct comment is also left. They shouldn't be off topic, and they should as much as possible, be in a form that the writer will appreciate. Save that concrit for when it's been explicitly made welcome.

I think there's a point at which the proliferation of rules for commenting, soft or hard, implicit or explicit, starts to discourage comments.

1. I'm just gonna lay it out, the more you tell me what form my comment should take, the less likely am I to comment at all. This is, I think, especially true of people new to fandom, who are already confused by new social rules. Fandom's rules for feedback (some honey with the vinegar, no concrit unless asked for, direct reviews > talking with other readers) are NOT intuitive. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all," tends to fall by the wayside sometime in middle school/junior high. High school art and writing classes encourage students to share honest feedback. Lit classes train students to believe that discussing a work with each other, and not with the writer, is of real value. The internet itself encourages many-to-many conversations, even when the creators are present and talking up a storm. We've been told for years that it's not all about the artist, and that it's really about the work. So take it as written that there will always be people who just don't get what you're talking about. Take it also as written that your going to get some backs up, when you tell people how they should be commenting. ( Read more... )

My email died for much of last week, then I had computer issues, life issues, and finally was just too busy to get anything done. That's been too common a state lately. As a result, I have lots of things to say, but no energy, or maybe willingness, to get them out.

In the meantime, let's listen to some Patti Smith.

Dancing Barefoot

This isn't my favourite Patti Smith song - Land, actually - but this is the one I've been listening to lately. What I like best about her stuff is how seamlessly she combines artistic fearlessness, and prettiness. I mean, her music should by all rights be off-putting (peppered with spoken verse, impressionistic layered lyrics, not so veiled references to bad things), but it's just not. It's charming and easy and enticing. Easily my favourite part of Dancing Barefoot is the last verse, spoken, not sung, and with such a killer delivery.

the plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
the mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
grave visitations
what is it that calls to us
why must we pray screaming
why must not death be redefined
we shut our eyes we stretch out our arms
and whirl on a pane of glass
an afixiation a fix on anything the line of life the limb of a tree
the hands of he and the promise that s/he is blessed among women.

LiveJournal has started snooping on outbound clicks, sliently redirecting outbound links through "outboundlink.net." This is enabled even for paid users, and the opt-out is so hidden/out of the way that what they're doing is simply unconscionable.

Here's an example link: http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algorithms-Source/dp/0471117099/
Javascript is used to make the url in the status bar appear normal when you hover over it, until you actually click on the link. To see that it is actually being redirected for tracking, right-click on the link and copy the url, then paste it into something like notepad.

Fortunately, there is a way to opt out:

1. Open the Admin Console at http://www.livejournal.com/admin/console/
2. Execute the following command: set opt_exclude_stats 1


I also recommend adding the following to your ad-blocker:

* outboundlink.net
* l-stat.livejournal.com/js/pagestats/dRev.js


Read more: caffeinepuppy's post. Also, vichan has started collecting links.