Dude I'm just going to come out and say it, Glee is pretty much the worst TV show I've ever seen in my life.

Not even because it's offensive. And no, it's not "satire." If it was satire, it would actually be funny. But completely putting aside the fact that it's offensive, it's just this incredibly stupid show cobbled together from about eight different genres and not in a good way.

They try to have the characters say things that are shocking so it can be like Arrested Development, but the only character who's actually good enough to be on Arrested Development is Sue. It's hard to watch the other characters with the right frame of mind because about a minute after they say something over-the-top offensive, they become really goopy and inspirational to a vomit-worthy degree. Before you give me an example of a show where the characters say amusingly offensive things, but can also be genuinely likable in other scenes, I'm not saying it can't be done, it's just not being done here.

The cognitive dissonance of everyone pretending that Lea Michele is a better singer than Amber Riley is breaking my brain. And so is the cognitive dissonance of the show trying to have "diversity" and then showing complete disrespect and laziness when dealing with the POC and PWD characters. Seriously dude this isn't about me being offended, it's just annoying! I think if you asked Ryan Murphy what he was trying to say about people with Down Syndrome, for example, a huge torrent of unintelligible words would come out of his mouth, like: "jdrhtev .... duteoppdtt ... dsjfheierurufc!"

Actually, you know what, I just realized the show Glee is trying to be--Freaks and Geeks, right? Aspects of it are really dark, satirical, and/or ridiculous, but it's also sweet and sincere in the big picture. The problem is that Judd Apatow obviously put in actual effort when he was writing the show. Glee has good parts but I just get the impression the people writing it really don't care, and have a hard time paying attention to most of the characters or plotlines.

I find it horrifying that anyone loves this show. Seriously. Can someone explain it to me?

if you are writing a card to someone who is Jewish and you are Christian, can you say "Happy Hannukah" or do you just sound like a jerk who's pretending to be Jewish? I think happy holidays sounds boring.

satan_the_42nd asked for disco zombies, or zombies who are highly atypical. The resultant story (also longer than it was supposed to be) decided to contain Issues instead of mindless hilarity. Ah well. Maybe Day 3?

Warnings: zombies, “Thriller,” and the eternal X-Men 2 question ("Can't you just...not be a mutant zombie?").

( Rick--or Rictus Rigere, his stage name--slid on the pristine white 1970s suit jacket and straightened the lapels before sitting down in the makeup chair. )

• 16:51 I am going to be late. The reason? My zombies are a persecuted minority and refuse to stand for it. *sigh* #
• 20:12 I can't do math with an audience. Also, ouch. #
• 21:31 "It's like some evil eBay." ~Caboose, Red vs. Blue: Recreation #

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This first ficlet is for alice_montrose's request of an assassin and his handler. There was, later in our comment thread, something I took to be a challenge. And so this fic is "Christmassy"...in its own way.


Warnings: implied violence, Improper Use of Severed Body Parts, bodily fluids of the Unsexy And Certainly Not-Appropriate-For-Dinner-Conversation Kind, and talk of Treason Most Foul. In sum, This Is Not Work Safe. (Also, it's rather longer than it was supposed to be. >_>)

( Whisper arrived at the torture chamber to find his charge already there. )

• 14:36 Win a Macbook Pro from @DealsPlus. Details here: bit.ly/7kMWCB #
• 14:37 @eastfarthing That's wonderful! *snuggles all around* I look forward to more good news. ^_^ #

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January
so I didn't want to post this until my half was definitely serviceable, but Ami and I (with my dad's help) bought our website the other day and have been working on it since then.

February
Clayton gave me Out of the Silent Planet for Christmas and I accidentally skipped church because I was reading it. IRONY!

March
Ami: i mean i'd do an internship
but i want money
and unemployment is so high that i think they might give the job i want to someone who needs to work in order to live
but i mean i need money too

April
1. The Mountain Goats SCORE.

May
stuff is crazy, plus my tailbone really hurts.

June
I got my JOB REJECTION LETTER. It was really nice though.

July
my lit requirements at Oberlin are already overstuffed, plus I think you're only supposed to take classes in one concentration at Edinburgh, where I'm about to study abroad.

August
I love Craiglist personals so much. is that embarrassing? (it's necessary that you go read this whole post, it's pretty wonderful: http://aslanscountry.livejournal.com/328868.html)

September
I just accidentally cut my bangs more than I meant to (mostly because I didn't have my regular scissors and had to use kitchen scissors and kept screwing up).

October
I just wondered--are there any girls in the "I Am Autism" video? Because I only remember one, and that seems weird. It's supposed to be like 10-25%, right?

November
plans for tomorrow: get up at 7 and basically watch tv and noodle around of course, but finish sources for paper, print out at the library and be at the divinity school by 10 to return books to the library.

December
Every time I get into a car I think of all the pieces being made in different cities, and then put on boats and shipped across the ocean to another place where they’re tied together and then shipped to another place, and then more shit’s put on it, and then more shit, and then it’s shipped somewhere else, and then it’s just like, “Wow,” and then 12 years later it’s thrown in a dump, and you’re like, “Really? Or I could just walk a little bit?”

Reading this was making me depressed because all my thoughts were stupid but then I got to VINCENT KARTHEISER! Yay! He makes everything better.

If I seem like a bitch to anyone today, it's because I stayed up until 2:30 finishing one of my papers. And then I couldn't fall asleep until 5:15 but had to wake up at 9 to get my Secret Santa present in my housemate's mailbox and to get to class on time. You'd think going home early because the instructor never showed up would be a plus -- and it was temporarily. And then I rubbed the back of my right ankle raw because my sock slipped into the toe of my boot, which I had to wear because it's that lovely time of year when it snows but Smith's sidewalks end up covered in a good half-inch that turns into little bunny hills due to people walking on it constantly.

Considering skipping my afternoon class on the account of whining that I'd have to walk uphill on bunny-snow-hills with an ankle that's freshly raw (also, because I'm falling asleep). I'll have to do it about three hours from now when I go to the CDO, but I'm sure it'd heal a little bit before I make that trek. And I guess I'll have to get the other two gifts for the Secret Santa from the CC bookstore because I really don't think I'd like to walk downtown at this point.

In any case, as I was walking to Chapin (before my sock slipped into the toe of my boot) for lunch, I couldn't help but look down because it's rather necessary for me to maintain my balance. I couldn't help but notice strange marks in the snow, so I just have one question:

Who wears high heels when there's snow on the ground? Really, guys.

Incidentally, I never thanked you guys for the advice about AEM on FFNet. I'll be deleting the old one and starting a new version once I can find the time to send out notices to the people who put it on their favorites/alerts/C2s that it's been moved.

• 17:29 This guy makes dragon backpacks for grown-ups: bobbasset.com/?p=244 #
• 17:30 This guy's dragon backpacks are for grown-ups (now with corrected link): tinyurl.com/ylorwpw #

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I have decided to take a page from alice_montrose's book-of-awesome and ask you all for Original* Ficlet Prompts. ^_^

I say ficlet because while what I write for your prompt may be less than 100 words or significantly more, it will still be short.

I'll take the first 20 requests, and do my best to post one ficlet a day for the rest of December.

So...prompt me?

1. theillusionist: a story about a naga or a tiger. with some love. or both. closing the distance on a map! a long (or short) journey.
2. alice_montrose: something about an assassin and his handler (or whatever you may call it). Double entendres about guns/knives welcome, but not required. :) Done!
3. iriththedreamer: a vampire(or vampires), an elf(or elves), samurai, and music. Feel free to just pick two of the four if that is too much weirdness.
4. eastfarthing: something about a superhero. A superhero who's dying due to their superpower.
5. rosalyn_angel: something supernatural with two girls and no sex. No werewolves or vampires—more the psychic vain of superpowers.
6. that_damn_imp: Elise's grandfather tries to follow her down/into the “rabbit hole” rave club and gets stuck somehow/somewhere.
7. liebesleid: a story involving a mundane yet awkward moment at the traffic stoplight.
8. animangel: A story about being (literally) kidnapped by plot bunnies.
9. grimm_psyke: something with detectives? Or cops?
10. satan_the_42nd: disco-zombies! (really, just anything with highly-atypical zombies, but that was the first thing that popped into my head) Done!
11. nosferatu_blue: A twin that has lost their twin brother/sister somehow (death, kidnapped, just gone, emotionally distant). Do they fight to get them back? How?
12. skylark97: two guys adopt a kid? ^_^;; Bonus points for mixing genres? :D
13. sushigrade: Five words: A Very Kamen Rider Christmas.
14. landline000: the side effect of a popular diet pill is static electricity.
15. shadowgoddess42: scarlet, thunder, fingers, old memories, silk
16. soraciel: A woman living as a man in a steampunk world falls in love.
17. sharkiej: an unexpected re-incarnation (i.e. man as animal, woman as a fan blade ><) that ends tragically.
18. jameson9101322: Once upon a time there was a circus, and there were two clowns, who each joined the circus to get their dream jobs. Each became clowns to get into the circus. They both want to be the ringmaster. One day the tightrope walker falls on the real ringmaster and kills him instantly. So now they have to fight for the job. Okay, there you go.
19. parseltongue: a story involving hide-and-seek in a library/bookstore and a grammar nerd.
20.

NB: Prompts will likely not be written in order, but they will be written.

ETA: Don't worry about "giving back" to me in the form or holiday cards/fics/whatever. Or, if you're still worried, consider this instead: I am worried I will not actually receive 20 requests, and that if I don't, I will be a failure at people-wanting-me-to-write-fic. You don't want that, do you? ^_~


*Clarification: Since the fics I'll be writing will be "original" (ie. entirely my own, without use of real people or others' characters/worlds), please be careful in prompts not to ask me to write about real people or characters from fandoms, no matter how well-known or obscure, as I'd only reference them at best before moving on with the story.

• 17:07 I am a compulsive shopper of books and film. I need to not be a compulsive shopper at all. #
• 17:15 RT @TheShorty: a 218 naughty present giveaway, worth in total almost $25,0000. bit.ly/7hagFs #FetLife #

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• 13:14 Have had sleep study done. Also, have felt strange kinship with Christmas tree lights. #

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Today and last night I read my first Sherlock Holmes stories. They are fun. I'm glad I'm finally getting onto that boat, since there is little excuse to like books as much as I do and not have even glanced at the ticket prices.

Last night I underwent a sleep study. It was interesting, mostly because I was hooked up to a slew of wires and then expected to sleep, but also because I slept without dreaming, which never ever happens to me. I woke up a few times, and I think once I even called out...altogether odd, though not a bad or unpleasant thing.

Also, the kids are awesome.

I saw them before I went to the sleep study, since the house is five minutes from the hospital it was done at.

Before that I hung out with R&Co and her dad and step-mom. The entire group is awesome. We went ice skating in Historic St. Charles and saw a lot versions of Santa from the world over walking around the town. The night before, I ate sushi (well, tamago/egg sushi) with that group, and had a wonderful time besides.

In conclusion: This weekend was good, eventful, and I am so screwed for school.

The End.

Anima Ex Machina [Revision Project]: Three
"If you come across Pandora's Box, don't open it."
BBS Version | SPPf Version

Like I said on SPPf, the second scene doesn't entirely sit well with me. I feel like I tried to cram in a lot of information in a tiny space, and anyway, it was sort of rushed because I was working on a self-imposed deadline.

However, explanation behind Team Rocket's motives = yay? ACTUALLY DOING IT IN A CHAPTER AND NOT AUTHOR'S NOTES THIS TIME AROUND = double yay? Throwing in a cleverly disguised Firefly reference = ...yay?

In any case, Bill will update that journal he keeps forgetting about (which, actually, is incredibly and hilariously IC of him if you stop to think about it for a moment) sometime before he turns *wishy-washy sound* years old at the end of the month, and I will eventually update my site to have the revised chapters thus far and to boot off Midsummer Knights (which, to remind you folks at home, is probably getting turned into original fic but is definitely discontinued as a Pokémon fic).

In the meantime, question for all of you on FFNet who have fics you have actually revised. Let's say you've completely rewritten your story in a way that the beginning of it actually has more chapters than the original. (So I guess this means only Dragonfree can answer this one, but whatever.) Do you:

A. Delete the old version and post a new version?
B. Upload the new chapters and insert them in the appropriate places so that the fic is in order?
C. Blow off the "don't post fics with the same title" rule by cleverly naming the new version something completely different?

I ask because that's the problem I'm wondering about right now. I want to show off the revised chapters on FFNet because I have readers for AEM, but I'm not sure the best way to go about doing this without turning said readers off, making a huge mess of the entire thing, running into trouble with the site's staff, or getting reviewers who go, "OMG THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE" after reading both the revised chapters and the old ones. Or, in short, I don't know the best way to go about doing this. Advice?

On a lighter note, Scarlet, on writing Joshua of The World Ends With You:

Scarlet says:
...Granted, it's difficult to get Joshua OOC
All you have to do is think of the biggest possible prick you can
And then write him.

It's funny because it's true.