There's a fanfic author I read who seems to be the fanfic equivalent of Steven Seagal. Same characters, same relationships, same situations. Only thing different is the setting. She recycles her original characters (not that they're that original). She puts in no descriptions. I was taught that a reader should be able to tell the characters apart without names -- they should be unique enough in dialogue or mannerisms or whatever that you can tell them apart without having to use their names. I was taught "show, don't tell". I was taught that the reader is not telepathic and you have to describe the sensory scene. You have to do this in as few words as possible, and so every word counts and has to pack as much info in as possible.

It's an irritation I sometimes get with fanfic. People are just good enough to get a following, but not what I would call good writers. Yes, it is frustrating. Yes, I want to be an editor and write them long diatribes on everything they are doing wrong and how to fix it.

This is not to say they're all like that. There are some fanfic writers I've read who are professional grade. But they are few and far between. Most are good, or have a good hook, or a tone or use of words I find very good. Some are clearly kids just starting out. More power to them. But this specific person has written close to a million words of fanfic. Why isn't she better than this?

I don't criticize directly because that's a disencouragement. She also has a notice on the homepage of her archive that she doesn't want any form of criticism, even constructive criticism. Her betas aren't calling her on these things, presumably because she writes great sex scenes. This is why I'm not a beta. On the few occassions I've betaed, I was quickly disinvited because I wasn't willing to let stuff like this slide. I betaed as an editor, and a lot of people can't take that or really just think "beta" means "person to kiss my ass and tell me how wonderful I am".

Bah.

Just because you do this "for fun" is no excuse to put out bad quality work.

I don't know why I haven't put this on here til now, but arbitration for my grievance cases with the Post Office is set for June 9th.

Also have signed up to take 2 Excel continuing ed classes at Gainesville State. One day classes covering basic and intermediate. I know how to use Windows apps, I just need the specifics for Excel. That at least will allow me to put Excel on my resume.

gOS working out well on the netbook. Will play Pandora, YouTube, etc. It's finally turned into a good little machine instead of a problem child.

Have been posting a fanfic I'm writing for WoW on Fanfiction.net and had 2 people favorite it so far. It's only been up about a week. So I'm kind of bemused by that. Wondering if history is going to repeat itself. Waiting to hear "Are you a professional writer?" on the reviews. This time, though, I don't think I'll get delusions of grandeur.

For your consideration ...

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I wish I could tell you that we went out with a bang and not a whimper, but that's not how it worked out. I wish I could tell you I saw the Senate vote on TV, but I didn't -- not as it happened, anyway. I knew it was going to happen that night, of course. It had been the only thing on the collective mind of my comm for the last week, and damned near the only thing for the last several months since it was first brought onto the floor of the House. We'd all known within hours when the bill was first drafted; the bots we'd left in LegiWiki IM'ed us and began saving off the draft even as it was being revised. It's a mad world out there. Four pages into the first draft of the bill I found out just what the word "mad" meant.

As it was, the only one of my home comm who actually saw the final vote was Archon -- known to his parents in St. Petersburg and the daylight world as Arkady Yelnikov. He was the only one home at the time, momentarily between jobs but kept busy minding the shop in the Bazaar and running a little gold-farming operation on the side to keep from falling behind on his bills.

"2074 PASSED SENATE, 89/10/1 ABSTAIN," came the IM, timestamped 8:21 under the screen name Archon. "SEN. ALBRUTH DELIVERING RESIGNATION LETTER UNDER GLARE OF CNN CAMERAS. BLOOD IN THE WATER, FRENZY IMMINENT. WATCH YOUR BACK ON WAY HOME."

That was Archon -- always thinking ahead.

No, I didn't see the signing on TV either. I heard it on the radio. Like any good Flaming Liberal, I heard it on NPR.

"I think you'd better leave," my supervisor said less than five minutes later.

I took out my earbuds, shoved my radio and iPod into my bag, and left without even logging out of my terminal. On the way out I ripped off my badge and door card and threw them in the door of the supervisor's office, not looking and not caring where they landed. I heard footsteps behind me, heard other small clatters as my friends saw what I'd done and did the same. As protests go it was pretty lame and childish, but we'd all just officially become criminals anyway so what did it matter? What could they do to us? We'd already been condemned to what amounted to a concentration camp.

I heard Twink's chains and bangles jingling beside me, knew she was right behind me, probably flipping the bird to the off-duty cop who served as the mandatory security guard for the installation, just as I shoved open the door to the parking lot. "Stay behind me and don't stop for anything," I muttered to her as I crossed the parking lot to my little Honda hatchback.

She may look like a purple-blue haired biker vampire fairy, but Twinklebell is no fool. She knows she's a target -- she'd been shot at only two nights before on her way home from work and more than once she'd found dead animals and death threats tied to her bike. I'd had the windshield busted out on my car and my tires slashed twice, with the blood of a dead chicken sprayed all over the car.

Arkady is the king of understatment.

"Oy-ya, sisters mine," Arkady's voice said in my ear as I shoved my phone in my ear, watching Twink doing the same before hauling on her helmet and firing up her bike. I turned the key in the ignition of the Honda and locked the doors as Arkady kept talking. "The comm is alive with the sound of outrage."

"Any word yet from Oberon?" I asked as I watched four more people come out of the building into the night. They weren't of my comm, but they were friends and long-time acquaintences and they were gay too. I knew I was lucky to have the comm. Blood turned on you. Comm didn't, because comm came together out of the things people got persecuted for.

"Good King Oberon has yet to make a statement to his adoring proletariat," Arkady joked, letting his accent come through.

"It's only been a few minutes," Twink said in the channel as we turned out onto the street. Glancing in my rearview mirror I saw her pale face in the faceplate of her helmet. "Where is he tonight? RL, I mean."

"In the crowd in front of the Senate Office Building," Arkady answered.

And that's why we loved him. Oberon, King of the Geek Fairies, didn't tell us to get in the trenches and fight for our rights. He hopped on a plane, went to Washington, marched into Senator Albruth's office in his leather trench coat with his laptop bag on one arm and his SO Psyron on the other, and volunteered his services as the 'Net's equivalent of a jack-of-all-trades. We aren't a large comm as comms go, only about a thousand members give or take. But our name says it all -- every one of us with our fingers in a panoply of technological pies from circuit-bending to netmedia to flashnet to design to admin to gold-farming. We're hacktivists and merry pranksters and artists. We live all over the world but call our virtual island nation Synthara home, which is where Arkady now awaited the arrival of our King for word of what we should do now.

That's because the other thing we all share in common as Geek Fairies has just been criminalized. Every one of us -- every last Geek Fairy who ever stepped a virtual foot on Synthara's shores -- are homosexual.

"Sisters mine," Arkady said again, "CNN just announced that the President has ordered the relocation. We have two weeks."

"Two weeks?!" Twink burst out over the channel. "It was supposed to be thirty days!"

"Twinkle my love," Arkady said softly, "Since when do promises get in the way of spite?"