melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)
melannen ([personal profile] melannen) wrote2005-04-12 12:46 pm

Utterly without redeeming social importance

Since when are they *slicing* the dining hall bagels? Nooo! Now they'll get stale! I used to be able to carry one around in my pocket for *weeks*, and as long as I didn't break the crust it was still good as ever, but now they're *pre-slicing* them! Alas. Also for some reason I am sore all over today and can barely walk. A smart person might consider recent lifestyle changes and adjust accordingly, but that did not stop me from swinging in my hammock again until my fingers froze off. Alas. And apparently I should vote Lib Dem in the upcoming election, which actually surpised me a bit, 'cause frankly *current* policy in Britian is often already a bit too leftish for me to be comfortable with. (You're seriously considering abolishing university tuition fees? Seriously?)

And I unwisely feel the need to comment on the Skyehawke thing, but rather than ranting about it, I will point you to words of wisdom from one of my childhood heroes: Unfortunately the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it owing to the nature of the laws as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on but we know what's really involved: dirty books are *fun*. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the Constitution unfortunately.

But, seriously-- imagine-- forty years ago, we were fighting to make Lady Chatterly's Lover legal, and now we're whining about our God-given right to read and publish unabashed smut about the sodomitic rape of underaged, copywritten children's book characters? We are very lucky, guys, and the Skyehawke admins are bending over backwards to try to make everybody happy: I wouldn't blame them if the next time an archive has these problems, they just ban it all indiscrimately to cut the whining, the way ffn did.

Okay, I would have been slightly happier if they'd declared they were starting an oversight board to handle *all* content-related complaints, rather than singling out chan, but it was tough enough to assemble a proper Tollan Triad to handle chan; it would probably be impossible to find one that was balanced enough to fairly handle *any* sort of complaints about content. And I'm still happy with Skyehawke and glad to be an author there, and I'm going to go put up my latest Stargate fics there as soon as this posts, even though I usd it mostly for my multifandomy stuff, and it seems like nothing but Harry Potter gets any attention to speak of there. Because it's the best automatic multifandom archive out there, and I like the way it's run, and I'm glad I got passive-aggressive enough last year to get someone to offer me an invite (number 177! w00t! If it was a proper pyramid scheme I'd be rich!) But, y'know what? I *hadn't* archived my chan there, because I was uncomfortable with their apparent lack of *any* policy about controversial content, but I'm actually considering moving it there now.

Mmm. This is making me crave Atlantis fic that consists entirely of John and Rodney and Elizabeth snarking by way of Tom Lehrer lyrics. (And it would totally be in-character, that's one of the many things that's so *awesome* about that fandom, 'cause Elizabeth was a peace activist and John was a math geek and Rodney is, well, Rodney, and they all have *that* sense of humor.) "And just when, in my *copius* free time, to you expect me to pull off *this* miracle?" Rodney asked tetchily. "Aww, come on," John answered with that annoying smirk, "Don't you find it-- broad-en-ing?" "Oh, laugh it up, Junior Birdman." "Rodney! You were a Boy Scout?" "Gentlemen," Elizabeth said, narrowing her eyes, "If this is too difficult for you I could always just send the Marines--"

And [livejournal.com profile] dreamsquirrel brought over his new Lone Gunman DVDs last night. And I have decided that Byers' father was working for the Stargate project (along with Scully's Uncle George, of course), and that the gov't faked their deaths in xf season 8 so that they could go work at Area 51 with Fletcher and McKay. Also Frohike is hot, and his kung fu is *brilliant*. (Dude! Frohike/McKay OTP yay! q-:)
ext_1512: (archie writes)

[identity profile] stellar-dust.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 11:12 am (UTC)(link)
1. Your icon? Yum. Where's it from? Comic!William ... um, slurp.

2. What is this "chan"?

3. You can Aaron watched LGM before I even *bought* them? This is, quite simply, wrong. Must run to amazon!

4. Tell me stuff about fic archives like Skyhawke. I was on MakeBelieve for awhile but it was too slashy for my stuff and I didn't really like the interface, and I'm leery of ff.n, but in general would you recommend to someone (ie, me) that they join a place like that, even if they already have a spiffy website and fic strewn around the net at various fandom-specific archives?
ext_193: (affairs)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 11:25 am (UTC)(link)
1.) The artwork Peter David posted on his blog (http://peterdavid.malibulist.com/archives/002756.html#more) for the graphic novel he wrote (yay!)

2.) Fanfic with underage sex in it. (This can range from Harry and Hermione having sex in the summer after fifth year to really hardcore pedophilia stuff like what the kerfuffle is about.)

3.) We only watched the first two eps! Not as wrong. But, yes. I thought you'd ordered them already! Frohike looks good in a yukata. Bambi should buy him one.

4.) You can't join Skyehawke, you have to be invited by a current member who thinks you're worthy. q: (I can do that ... the offer's now open to the whole flist, actually.) It's intended to be sort of ffn except with rational leadership, smaller membership, and low-key quality control. It takes everything, although something like 75% of the stuff is HP slash, and there's not a lot of feedback given even for that, but it makes a good place where you can put *everything* you've written, for archiving purposes. The interface is pretty typical, I think it's just basically efiction. *shrug*. I like it.

ext_1512: (x-comic)

[identity profile] stellar-dust.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 07:07 pm (UTC)(link)
1. Ah! Sweet! Yay! Now I want to get my hands on that ...

2. So I sort of figured. Etymology? Let me guess, it's from anime's habit of calling everyone "...-chan."

3. I ordered them this afternoon. ;D

4. But if I already have a good place to put everything I've written, for archiving purposes (http://katycat.net/xfiles/fanfic/) (though granted, it's XF-centric, but if and when I do other fandoms I would/will expand to accomodate that), would there be any reason to join? If you wanted to convince me to join, what would you say? (Not that I *want* to be convinced. I'm just curious. d-: And this question pertains to any similar archive, not just sh.)
ext_1512: (csm - prufrock  //  frey_at_last)

[identity profile] stellar-dust.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 07:09 pm (UTC)(link)
that link was supposed to go here (http://katycat.net/xfiles/fanfic.html)
ext_193: (Default)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 07:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Um. Well, I can give you *my* reasons for liking it: a) I suck at keeping my own fandom site up-to-date (not that I'm much better with Skyehawke, but I'm *slightly* better); b) it has review boards and hit counters and a rating system, etc, for ease of feedback whoring; c) I like having it all hosted somewhere externally, in case my site should go ker-flooey, or I should drop out of fandom, the links wouldn't rot as fast; and if the *archive* goes ker-flooey, I can blame somebody else; d) archiving a fic at an external site just feels more like "publishing" it than putting it on my own webspace-- it feels more finished, and I feel more legit about linking people there.

There's also a slightly greater chance that people will stumble across your stuff, although admittedly on Skyehawke for non-hp stuff it doesn't happen too much, it still happens more than on my own site.

[identity profile] zodiaccat.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 03:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow... I got UK Independence Party by an overwhelming margin. (30 points, with the next one (Lib Dem) being -2.)
ext_193: (affairs)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 07:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm. All of mine were actually clustered within 10 points of zero. I'd never even heard of UK Independenc Party until this election cycle, though...

This icon is so deleted; I've never found a good use for it. (It's just so cute.)

[identity profile] zodiaccat.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Judging from the description of the party, I think I see what happened. There were a couple questions where I didn't quite know what they meant (I don't exactly follow British politics), and so put in "Neutral." Apparently, having an infirm stance on several issues is a characteristic of the UKIP. [Oddly enough, I put a disagree (although not a strong disagree) on eliminating tuition, which the UKIP supports.]

[identity profile] maboo.livejournal.com 2005-04-12 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
My GOD, I have to say this - your icon is GORGEOUS. *drools*. NOW that is the kind of man I'd do anything for.....!! (And yes, I HAVE seen the explanation and the links. Just had to say "DROOL!")

Mom

(Anonymous) 2005-04-13 06:52 pm (UTC)(link)
You need to call me because you got a notice for jury duty today, and it starts in the middle of finals! I tried to call a few minutes ago, but no answer. Love you! Mom
ext_1512: (vab)

[identity profile] stellar-dust.livejournal.com 2005-04-15 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey, didn't you say something sometime about knowing someone who wants to know stuff about space studies? Did you ever give them my email or what?
ext_193: (Default)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 04:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, nope, she hasn't gotten back to me since I asked.
ext_1512: (let us go - prufrock  //  frey_at_last)

[identity profile] stellar-dust.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 07:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Mk. Well, fell free to pass it on. Also, you should go answer the recent survey in [livejournal.com profile] xf_journals, so she gets at least one person who only reads. (;
ext_193: (Default)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 08:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I already did. By e-mail. q:
ext_1512: (no!)

[identity profile] stellar-dust.livejournal.com 2005-04-19 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Aww, but I wanted to read your answers! d-: oh well. Yay anyway.
ext_193: (affairs)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-20 05:01 am (UTC)(link)
They're *classifed*. Eyes-only. Sometimes the truth can best be served by keeping it hidden. And all that sort of thing. q:

[identity profile] senji.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 04:26 pm (UTC)(link)
aloha. Stupid question time, about [livejournal.com profile] mctabby's sorting-cat challenge: "[livejournal.com profile] senji will write Mrs. Norris is in heat. Hogwarts is in trouble. (bonus for some variation of the q-tip treatment.) for [livejournal.com profile] melannen" -- what is "the q-tip treatment" ?:)

And in actual relation to your post; have you tried the test at http://www.politicalsurvey2005.com/ (which measures you against other real-life people, so is hopefully less biassed)?
ext_193: (Default)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
This is a good description of the q-tip treatment (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=737861), and some other methods. Um, sorry about that. :)

And no, I haven't (I'm not actually British, so I haven't much clue about the issues anyway.)
ext_193: (Default)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 04:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, and I think q-tips are called 'cotton buds' in British English. Although wizards would probably use something else anyway.

[identity profile] taramasu.livejournal.com 2005-04-17 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
I go to UMD too and have similar interests to you, so I'm adding you if you don't mind. :)

*Tara*
ext_193: (default)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2005-04-17 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)
No problem! Friended you back.