He knows when you're sleeping

But now at least you can see when he's coming to get you.

In Which Jayne Is Vindicated

So I am currently sitting in O'Hare airport because my flight is delayed because it's snowing because Chicago lives to thwart me. That has nothing to do with my feelings of vindication. Comics, for once, does.

So for those of you that aren't Darcy, you do not understand my deep seated love for dead gay Ted, the second Blue Beetle. For clarification: Ted is dead (although now I think he's a zombified Black Lantern? God, I cannot keep up with the crazy that is DC) and when he was amongst the living he was totally in love with Booster. Seriously, they were super gay together, hence dead gay Ted (or possibly undead gay Ted now).

Even DC agrees with me on that gay thing:

Sweet, sweet vindication. Also, Milagro is totally a slasher.

Now, I sort of want a comic where Booster and dead gay Ted get married and have lots of shenanigans.

Don't you judge me.

It's December. How did that happen?

No, seriously. I've been buried in work for the past month and I lift my head and it's two weeks to Christmas, I missed my friend's birthday, and Chicago is colder than Dante's Ninth Level of Hell. I am currently hunched over my space heater like Bob Crochet and his little piece of coal that Scrooge allows him per month. God, I wish I had some coal to burn.

While there are many things I should be posing about, like my new found obsession with Misha Collins (MIIIIISHA), I am brain dead from my critique and my crazy writing schedule to get my thesis jump started. Dear god, I have one semester of school left. Christ.

So, it's another bits and pieces post, I'm afraid.

Let's start with SCIENCE!

This site is pretty awesome. Slide the bar over for SCIENCE!

The World of Chemistry


If Chemistry class was really like this I would have a PhD by now.

Moving on from SCIENCE, this is beautiful, especially for all you Firefly fans out there. Would it be wrong to use my student loan money to buy it?

And since Chicago is approximately the temperature of the vacuum of space, make a snowflake.

As I mentioned above, it's two weeks to Christmas (everyone I know is getting super late presents), and as such we've all been inundated with Christmas songs for the past month and a half. Not to mention my classes are down in the Loop by Macy's. And their window displays and constant music. And the parents with small children that stop in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk to stare while I'm late for class and homicidally low on coffee, omg I will brick all of you in the face!

Ahem. My point being is that if you're like me the next time you hear "I'm Dreaming of White Christmas" you may very well snap and murder everyone in the face. That is why I have developed a UnChristmas playlist, to fulfill all your misanthropic needs!

Another Christmas Song--Stephen Colbert

And this is what Christmas songs are all about: the royalties. Oh, Stephen Colbert, you warm the cockles of my cynical, caustic heart. (Sorry, guys, have no download for this one)

Make it a part of your Holiday canon/Make it the heart of my retirement plannin'

Podsafe Christmas Songs--Jonathan Coulton

If you don't know who Jonathan Coulton is you then you cannot call yourself a geek. Do yourself a favor and go visit his site and download Skullcrusher Mountain right now. Go on, I'll wait. You back? Okay.

This is a take off the Alvin and the Chipmunks song, only a thousand times better and less migraine inducing.

Don't think us rude/We don't want to get sued/By the thugs from the RIAA

You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch

You all know this one; I have nothing to add here.

Santa's Gonna Kick Your Ass--Arrogant Worms

In the words of Jayne (the one from Firefly) this is hi-larious!

Santa's coming and he's gonna kick your ass/Because you've always been a rotten little brat

Chiron Beta Prime--Jonathon Coulton

Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime/Where we're working in a mine/For our robot overlords

Have Yourself a Bitter Little Christmas--David Ford
A song about breaking up with your girlfriend on Christmas.

The kids are making snowmen out of mud/It makes me think about us

Father Christmas--The Kinks

It's The Kinks. They are awesome

Father Christmas, give us some money/Don't mess around with those silly toys/ We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over



So what are your UnChristmas songs? Share in the comments.


ETA:

The Muppets are never not awesome.

And now I'm off to disappear into work for another week. I hope you all survive this holiday season, one way or another...

We still think we're hilarious

So y'all know I read awful things, right? And that I willingly seek them out? Instead of doing the eight-nine things that need to be written this week, I found a little gem out there on the Internet. And by "gem," I do mean, "literary horror," although it is still more readable then Twilight: Off Rack Johnny Depp in Body Glitter.



And, of course, I had to share a particular passage with my Hetero Lifemate. You, dear readers, get to see the result (her comments in italics, mine in bold).



The passage (and I swear to god this is a real thing): "'Thank you,' I mouthed. I didn't know why I was thanking him. Maybe it was for killing the hobo. Maybe it was for making me feel the most alive I've ever felt in my life. Maybe it was because he made me feel important. Needed. Wanted. Desired."



HOBOCIDE



I, too, have always found the murder of a hobo to be romantic. I love how in the middle of all this sappy crap there's the casual mention of murder.



Yeah, do they mention why a hobo had to be murdered? Besides to arouse them apparently...



From what I gathered, the hobo was threatening him, so his werewolf boyfriend killed the hobo, I guess.



You KNOW. Not to sound like some HIPPY or anything but...I'm pretty sure that one look at his werewolf from would be all that was necessary to drive the hobo off.



I'm more worried that the poor idiot thinks that having his bf murder anyone that looks at him funny is proof of a healthy relationship.



While killing him [the hobo] is a permanent solution, and I'm sure some would say he provided a good service to society and all, I suppose when you're a werewolf you just kill and it's no big deal to you ever.



Lucky for him he's got an amoral sociopath for a boyfriend who finds murder to be an acceptable token of affection as a box of gas station chocolates.



Oooooh chocolates how delightful!



Hobo murder flavored chocolates!



That's an acquired taste, I think. It's got a musky aftertaste.



Musky, whiskey aftertaste.



With a hint of BO. Well, ok, more than a hint. More like a back handed pimp slap to the face.



With the subtle tang of syphilis.



And possibly lice. They're his friends! He has a name for every single one of them!



The lice will avenge him!



YEAH. WATCH OUT WEREWOLF. You goin' to be usin' that hind leg of yours a whole messa times. Hey, maybe it's not that he killed a hobo, but rather he's just gained a boyfriend AND a pet dog!



And in just a short amount of time we've improved this story and made it about a thousand times more plausible. And, no, before you ask, I have no idea what the actual plot was about beyond hobo killing and gay werewolves, but that should tell all you ever needed to know about it.

Jayne gets her snarky disapproval on about something on the Internet

So. Cracked.com. I have such a love/hate with this site. They are snarky and fairly hilarious, and yet, let's be honest here, they are a bunch of frat boys. Yes, they have articles, like this one, that manage to grapple with social/political issues and still manage to be funny. But for everyone of those there are about thirty gay panic/homophobic jokes (because everyone knows that the gays want nothing more than some frat boy ass) and about elevenity million pictures of boobs. The entire editorial board is all male, which is, sadly enough, not abnormal at all, and, I am not trying to be a smart ass here, I honestly can't remember if I've ever read an article on the site written by a woman. There has to be one, right?

Look, I get it. Even though Cracked covers a huge array of topics, from Presidents to deadly insects and everything in between, it assumes that a majority of its readers are heterosexual men, who really fucking love boobs. Because boobs are awesome.

So, fine, okay, I accept there's going to be some casual sexism and homophobia going on, I got that, but this? That is just fucking lazy.

But it's funny, guys, because women fucking love shoes! And men don't! Seriously, we have statistics to prove it! Man, those crazy women and their shoes! So fucking wacky!

There's nothing new or groundbreaking or particularly funny about this. It's just another well worn stereotype being trotted out, complete with some objectification, because the author couldn't think of anything new and creative to write about. This is the equivalent of me getting on here and complaining about how men leave up the toilet seat and can't cook.

But, of course, it really is the comments that pull it altogether, like this gem: "If these articles that make fun of stereotypes make you mad, then just don't read them!!!!"

First of all, I am revoking this commenter's exclamation point privilege. You use one exclamation point and no more, you illiterate jackass.

Second of all, relying on stereotypes is not only lazy humor, but it also helps propagate racism and sexism; by ignoring these articles or remaining silent and not criticizing them is just another way to continue to promote a culture of prejudice and discrimination. Not to mention that it lets people think that lazy writing like this is acceptable.

I'm a Wer-Fangirl, the sound you hear is me squeeing at the Moon!

Hello and Happy Halloween from all of us here at The Geekiest Girls You Know!

As a "grown-up" with no children or younger siblings to make use of as a "candy beard", I often find myself standing in the aisles around this time of year, staring at the heaps and heaps of purple, orange and black packaging that traditionally encases a delicious sugary death warrant for my teeth and waistline.

The struggle to give in to my inner six year-old is often a futile one...six year olds are mean...but this year I was a good "grown-up" and only had a couple of Reese's cups out of the ridiculous sixteen pound bag of treats that I bought to keep the little ankle-biting terrorists at bay. I AM SO GLAD I DID because Space Buddah decided to reward me....WITH THIS:

I like it too!
I wish they sold that man in Fun-Size...
~Darcy

Its mortal enemy...THE VATICAN

The Dan Brown Plot Generator

An ancient labyrinth beneath the streets of Chicago.
A ruthless cult determined to protect it.
A race to uncover the Daughters of the American Revolution's darkest secret

The Last Rune

When world-famous Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to the Sears Tower to analyze a mysterious ancient script--drawn on a calling card next to the mangled body of the head docent--he discovers evidence of the unthinkable: the resurgence of the ancient cult of the Destifori, the secret branch of the Daughters of the American Revolution that has surfaced from the shadows to carry out is legendary vendetta against it's mortal enemy, the Vatican.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed when a messenger from the Destifori appears at Lake Michigan to deliver a deadly ultimatum: Deposits $1 billion in the Daughters of the American Revolution's off-shore bank accounts or the exclusive clothier of the Swiss Guards will be bankrupted. Racing against the clock, Langdon joins forces with the ambidextrous and charming daughter of the murdered docent in a desperate bid to crack the code that will reveal the cult's secret plan.

Embarking on a frantic hunt, Langon and his companion will follow a 800-year-old trail through Chicago's most exalted monuments and venerable buildings, pursued by a hypoglycemic assassin the cult has sent to thwart them. What they discover threatens to expose a conspiracy that goes all the way back to Susan B. Anthony and the very founding of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

I am so going to write this for my Detective Fiction class. Seriously.

I am both excited and apphrensive about this

So Routledge is starting an academic journal about graphic novels and comics. My inner lit nerd is torn between squeeing for this (and wistfully considering submitting a paper for it) and lapsing into a "hmm" state of mind.

Let's start with the squeeing, shall we? While I have spent a lot of time here making fun of comics--mainly in the guise of Alan Your Tears Are Like Wine To Me Moore and Aquaman I Live in a Cardboard Box Under the Sea)--I have championed graphic novels as literature in their own right. The most obvious examples of this would be Watchmen and basically anything Alan Moore has written and Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

As for the more monthly titles, while it would be hard to argue that some of them (coughTarotcough) construe literature, they are undeniably markers of popular culture, and you can certainly track social/political trends through them. Hell, just look at the evolution of Lois Lane's character, paying particular attention to her 1950s incarnation compared to her contemporary characterization.

The description of the journal as "covering all aspects of the graphic novel, comic strip and comic book, with the emphasis on comics in their cultural, institutional and creative contexts" makes me cautiously optimistic. Since comics have become so twined with American popular culture to the point where even non-comic readers recognize the shorthand used to portray certain personality types, like "man of steel, Wonder Woman" and so on, it's very important to examine comics in an academical and cultural context.

It has only been relatively recently that comics have been viewed in an academic light, since comics have historically been marked as "for children" and by "children" I mean boys. It has only been in the past twenty or so years that papers and books have been published (off the top of my head I think of Wonder Women: Feminisms and Superheroes by Lillian Robinson--if you are at interested in Wonder Woman and female superheroes you need to read this book like yesterday-- and Comic Book Nation by Bradford Wright). There has been studies on horror comics and the war comics of the 40s, but overall comics books have been dismissed as cheap genre escapism for boys (girls, as both Didio and Quesada are quick to assure you, don't read comics).

The journal also wants to include articles about comic book fandom and international comics. I'm happy that they are trying for a wider scope than just the US and maybe Britain. I, for one, would love to see if there's a comic book fandom/culture in, say, Iraq or South America or anywhere that's not predominately white and English speaking.

I really would like to read a journal that explores gender, race, sexual orientation, just among a few topics, in comics. I would love to read about Russian comic book fans, or writers and artists in Mexico creating their own superheroes, and god knows I would kill for a study of Internet based fandom and how much it's dominated by heterosexual Caucasian male fans, and the ramifications of that and the backlashes of criticisms posed by women and fans of color.

So there's the squee, and now we get to my "hmm" part of my reaction.

I'm going to be honest and say this part of my reaction is a bit harder to pin down, and some of you will probably disagree with my reasons, which in that case you need to debate me in the comments, because like I've said many, many times before I love a good argument.

First of all, I'm not entirely certain how successful this journal will be. I know that I'll be buying it, but others? Especially since a majority of average comic books fans aren't exactly inclined to do in depth analysis beyond debating who would win in a fight, Superman or Batman? This journal may very well put out one issue and then fold completely.

Second of all, I'm afraid that this journal, like in most areas of academia, the field will be dominated by, again, heterosexual white males, and that would probably, but not definitely, limit the topics explored (like gender and race and even sexual orientation).

Thirdly, how exactly to you tackle some of the monthly titles? It's one thing to write about Sandman or Watchmen, but what the hell do you do with, for example, Tarot (as godawful as it is) or Spiderman or Batman and his eight spin-off titles or the eight bajillion continuities in DC and Marvel? I'm not saying that no one could analyze this, but how do you handle that in a way that non-comic reading people will understand?

Fourthly, the fanboys. Oh god, the fanboys. Can you just imagine all the wank that will come out of this? Granted, most of them will probably never read the journal, but that's unlikely to stop them probably from complaining about how unfair everyone is to them and their comics and how, seriously, it's just not women objectified and there's, like, non-white heroes, dude.

Lastly, I'm afraid that in the end this will be less a serious studying of comics as culturally and literately important and more regulating comics to the ghettoized genre, which is still viewed as being for children and therefore has no literary or cultural value.

That all said, I am cautiously optimistic for this journal and will definitely be picking up the first volume. I am, first and foremost, a geek at heart.

Well, we think we're hilarious

So how many of you out there have thought to yourself, "You know, self, I wonder what the geek girls do when they're not here making fun of Alan Moore or spending money they don't have on Star Wars Force trainers?"

Well, wonder no more, my friends! While I cannot speak for my lovely co-mods, I can assure you that my day is spent consuming roughly my body weight in sweet life sustaining coffee, resisting the urge to kill undergrads, and exchanging awesomely geeky texts with my hetero lifemate.

To further strip away the aura of mystery, I'll even let you in on one such exchange (hetero lifemate texts in bold, mine in italics):

Batman: the Bold and the Brave. Attempting to make Aquaman useful since the 2st Century.

There is nothing I do not love about you or this.

His [Aquaman's] beard speaks volumes: he hasn't had a job in months and he's living out of a whiskey bottle.

Instead of tossing him some change, Batman was all, "Fine. You can help me save the world. Just don't do that talking to your fish friends thing. It's weird and makes everyone uncomfortable."

In case you're wondering, yes, this exchange is representative of our normal, daily conversation. Also, yes, we clearly are awesome.

The internet tries to scare the crap out of you

Halloween is coming up in a week and a half (holy crap, it's almost November! I just paid rent, I swear!), so I'm going to take this opportunity to post some links, because if I have to be scared, so do you.

The SCP Foundation Can be rather hit or miss, but I spend a lot of time here procrastinating (mainly when I have grading to do--nothing is as scary as undergrad papers). It's rather creepy, but it can be rather nifty, too, especially if you know your urban legends and fairy tales and can identify what the things are before they tell you. My favorites are the ones dealing with artifacts, because those are the ones that are really freaking creepy.

Creepypasta Very hit or miss. It's little bite-sized pieces of terror, and when it hits, oh god, it hits.

Candle Cove Related to Creepypasta, but something completely on its own. Also, creepy, because puppets, like clowns, are inherently fucking terrifying. Something a girl in one of my classes disagreed with, and was talking about how she makes puppets and paints them and I just sat there shuddering, because PUPPETS. Ech!
ETA: Oh god, someone made a video of it.

Ichor Falls Origin of Candle Cove (gah puppets!). Haven't really looked at it, but supposed to have creepy things there.

Bad, Scary Place Not so much creepy as it is just bizarre. Sort of feels like you're stuck in an acid trip for hours. Be prepared to get lost by clicking on things.

SFPA Halloween Reading Horror Poetry! Awesome!

Pesudopod and Wormwood Audio horror stories! Hello nightmares!

Sf_drama's latest OTT on creepy shit. I found a bunch of links through this. Well worth it to read through the comments and pick up on things that creep people out, like mirrors at night. My favorite comment is "Wyoming. No one has ever convinced me it isn't really a government conspiracy." I can believe that.

Pesdu-Realism

Ted's Caving Page This is definitely not real--was taken from a short story--but it still manages to be claustrophobic and creepy. Vaguely reminiscent of Lovecraft.
ETA: Original short story here

Indian Lake Project I am reading my way through that now. Definitely has that creepy "government conspiracy cover up" feel to it. Plus, there's something about old photographs that freak me out.

The Dionea House A story told through e-mail and chat logs. Have not started to read this, but heard it's really creepy. After you finish with that, go here (oh god, that "found you" makes me want to hide under the bed) and here and here and here

Vids

The girl or the weapon A Firefly, River-centric vid. First of all, Firefly is awesome, as is River. Second, fantastically made vid that is, like I keep saying in this post, creepy.

Also, scary clowns:


While this video is amazing, I have to go with OMG SCARY BLANK CLOWN MASK IS GOING TO EAT YOUR FACE. There is nothing not terrifying about clowns. Even worse, I watched this late last night before going to bed. I live in an old building, with creaking floors and whatnot. That meant every time the person who lives above me moves around and makes the floor creak in tortured ways, I was convinced the clown was coming to eat my face.

Since this post has a surplus of things designed to scare the crap out of you, wanna buy a ghost?




In conclusion, sweet, sweet dreams, everyone.

My new theory is I just hate myself

I was going to use this time to post a review of Terry Pratchett's The Nation, or talk about the animated adaption of Weird Sisters, or possibly get back to making fun of comics, but all that takes energy that I frankly do not have, what with grading some undergrad papers (I am going to staple Strunker and White to their foreheads I swear to god). Instead I am taking the time to do something like a public service announcement, which is not a selfless act in that I'm hoping that it will in the future help keep my eyes from bleeding.

So you all know that I read some truly horrifically bad books, right? Look, we've all picked up a book that was less than stellar quality and end up reading the entire thing out of morbid fascination, or in my case I read it for something to feel snarkily superior to. But, and this is a big but, I sometimes find myself actively seeking out horrible things to read of my own free will. There are days when I could either read a extremely tight paced story with beautiful language and fantastic dialogue and wonderful, insightful characterization or I could read something retarded about angel babies being hatched from eggs, and I am all over the egg hatched angels (I truly wish I was making the angel thing up, but I'm not. Don't ask. Seriously, don't.)

It's like being given a choice between the finest of Swiss chocolates made by a chocolatier that has spent his entire life working and training and preparing to make this one perfect batch of chocolates, one taste of which would make you weep in joy and gratitude that something like this could exist in the word, and a Twinkie and you choose the Twinkie. Worse still, this is not an either/an choice: you can have both the Twinkie and the transcendent chocolate, and yet you reply that, no, thanks, it looks good but the Twinkie filled you up and you feel no need to eat the chocolates.

That might have gotten away from me for a bit, but the point I was trying to make (before I made myself crave truffles) is that I have read some really awful things in my life and I feel it is my duty to offer advice to those young writers out there. And when I offer this advice you better take it because otherwise I may be forced to kill you. Just so you know.

1. For god's sake, keep your tenses consistent.

Seriously, if I have to read one more goddamn piece of fiction where the writer cannot keep the tenses straight for more than two sentence then I'm going to harness Alan Moore levels of bitter and blow something up.

Look, young and impressionable writers, most fiction is written in the past tense (commonly seen in words ending in -ed for those who are unsure), but you can also employ present if the fancy takes you, but don't switch between them. If you're having trouble keeping tenses straight find someone to look over your work and point out where you mix them up or I will find out where you sleep and come for you. Trust me when I say you do not want that.

2. There are point of views other than first

Try investing in some third omniscient or third limited. Please, I am begging you. If I have to read one more story with a whiny, self-indulgent narrator I'm going to snap and voluntarily search out plots involving magical angel babies being hatched from eggs. OH WAIT THAT'S ALREADY HAPPENED SEE WHAT YOU'VE DRIVEN ME TO.

In all seriousness, though, I understand that most new writers employ first because it seems the safer choice, but be aware of what you're trying to achieve in your narrative and what pov might suit it better, which leads me to:

3. Stick with one pov

This is mainly for those working in third person limited. I think there is some confusion between the difference between third person omniscient and third person limited. In third omniscient, the narrator knows everything that's going on, all the characters' thoughts, motivation, actions, ect. In third limited, the narrative is filtered through one specific character, meaning the reader has access to his/her motivation and thoughts, but not to other characters'.

A mistake a lot of young writers making, including me when I was but a wee lass, is that mid-scene you'll switch from third limited focused on character A to third limited focused on character B. Do not do that. It's true that some authors employ that switch, but they are considerably better at their craft than you. Many young writers make the switch clumsy and that throws the reader out of the narrative. If you're not sure if you switched povs then once again get a reader for your work for the love of Space Buddha.

4. It's okay to use the word "said"

It is. You can trust your Aunty Jayne on this. Yes, yes, I know what you've learned in school, that you don't want overuse the word and that you should employ synonyms. But here's the thing in fiction: said is one of those words that become invisible to the reader. They'll just gloss over it. What they won't gloss over is exclaims, demands, argues, and whatever else your thesauruses vomits up. Just stick with said.

5. The use of epithets

I can write an entire goddamn book on this, but in short, if the characters have names, which I'm assuming they do, use their goddamn names. If the reader knows them as John then there is no reason why you refer to him as "the blond" or "the surfer" or "the baker" or what-the-fuck-ever in the narrative when he has a fucking name.

Don't worry about being repetitive. Like the word said, character names become invisible pretty quickly and the reader won't suddenly stop and go, "You know what? I wish the writer would stop calling John by his name. I am so sick of reading it."

There are exceptions to this, like if you introduce character X and character A doesn't know his name and refers to him as "blond boy" or "thug one" or whatever. But as soon as the character has a name use it.

Sometimes in the text, it is okay to refer to a character by, for example, their profession. That will signify them pulling rank on another character or thatthey know what the hell they're doing. But only do that once or twice, not every other sentence. In short, USE THEIR GODDAMN NAME OR I WILL COME FOR YOU.

6. It's "come," not "cum."

Cum is not a word and you are not twelve. Grow up.

7. Cocks should never be weeping.

And no, I am not talking about the bird. Look, I am not about to step in and tell you if you should or should not use a sex scene in your story. What I am saying is that you damn well need to be aware of your language and description in sex scenes or you're going to end up with something that's not erotic but a giant messy ball of hilarious mess.

If you want your sex scene to be awkward then by all means make your narrative and descriptions as awkward as possible to get that across. But if you want your scene to be sexy and erotic then "his weeping cock" is not going to achieve that.

Yes, yes, I am aware that the phrase is referring to the pre-come and all that, but it just makes me think the penis is sad, and no penis should be sad when it's about to be laid. Also, you use "weeping cock" and I will make fun of you forever. Even more than the person with the magically hatching angel babies.

6. Be really aware of your descriptions

This is related to the above, in that you don't want your reader to suddenly start laughing during a dramatic scene because you whipped out a weeping cock.

For example, I was perfectly invested in one story until I came upon "his rock hard abs." Instead of responding with, "My, he is most definitely a ripped and sexy individual," I IMed my Hetero Lifemate this: "ROCK HARD ABS, HL. HE WAS HEWN FROM ROCK."

That led to this exchange:

HL: They made him from the finest granite.
Jayne: He has to be careful if he lays out on the sun, otherwise lizards come to soak up the heat from his granite abs.
HL: He is like geiko-nip.
Jayne: Though he does have to watch out for erosion, because god knows that in twenty, thirty years, his abs aren't going to be rock hard so much as mudslide.

So unless that's what you're aiming for, get someone to read your work over and point out anything that is ridiculous.

7. Learn what the word "literally" actually means.

You know what, let me help you with that. Literally is defined as: "adv. in the literal or strict sense; word for word; actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy; in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually."

That means when you say something literally happens it actually happened just like you said. This is not a hard concept, people.

Let's look at some ways to use the word in the most inaccurate way possible:

"His eyes literally burned with an emotion."

Unless he is Superman or Cyclops then his eyes were not actually burning with an emotion. If his eyes were smoldering from an emotion (although god only knows which one it is, since the author doesn't specify. Possibly he is bored) then this story would have been far more exciting then it was.

"They literally devoured each other's mouths."

If that was what was actually happening then this is not a sexy kiss scene but cannibalism and drastically different then what the writer was going for. However, if the writer wanted to properly use literally here then just make the two characters zombies and you're good to go.

An example of the proper use of literally: "People who misuse the word 'literal' make me literally want to concuss them with a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary."




I am fully aware that this list will not cure me of my self-loathing quest to consume my body weight in the literary equivalent of Twinkies, but hopefully some of you young writers out there will take this advice and save me the effort of finding you and beating you to death with the OED. Because I will do it. As soon as I finish reading about the baby angel breaking forth from its shell. Aw, it's so fluffy like a little chick!

Share us with others! Hooray sharing!

Wonder Whoa-man!

Thank the Almighty and benevolent Space Buddah I finally (through entirely legal means, I swear!) mustered up the cash to buy the Wonder Woman movie on DVD. (Two -disc Special Edition! Yay!)

I've already expressed my mild rage that it's taken this long for Wondy to get her own feature so I won't reiterate it here. I was really excited to see this movie but now I'm not all together sure it was worth the wait. Don't get me wrong! I really liked this movie, but I'm hoping this is just the feelers being put out for interest in bringing her to a wider audience, be that through either the TV or motion picture medium. This was an entertaining movie but it could have been so much better. I think we can go a lot further with her story without perverting her image, making it a magical-girl anime knock off or turning her into the host of Princess Diana's Pandering

Comedy Hour for Basement Dwelling Mouth-Breathers.

This movie was produced for the expanding direct-to-DVD DC Animated movie line by the Bruce Timm production family over at Warner Bros. Everything that man's name is on says quality, so I was so excited to see his Wondy designs. The movie was written by GAIL SIMONE who's very name makes me flail with joy. She writes things that are awesome; Jayne and I argue weekly over who of us wants to bear her children more...despite the obvious hinderances.

Those, besides obvious members of the voice acting cast, are the only names attached to this project that I care about.

This review is in the play-by-play style and very spoilery. If you care, DO NOT read this post.

I'm not really here

If anyone asks, I am totally revising this draft and doing reading for class. Totally.

But if I was here, I would mention that this is relevant to your interests--well, I'm assuming it is, and since you are reading a blog written by geeky girls then I'm probably right.

I went and saw the original broadcast and, seriously, it was entirely awesome. I was buzzed and the theater was packed with MST3K fans and Jonathon Coulton is there being awesome, as is his wont, and, come on, it's them making fun of Ed Wood. What's not to love? Absolutely nothing unless you are dead inside or Alan Moore (these two states are actually synonymous).

Also, you end up getting a lot of free goodie downloads, including a song about plans 1-8, which if you mosey along over here you can download it. Because I love you guys.

If it's playing in your area you need to go, or Alan Moore will come for you.

(Disclaimer: Alan Moore is going to come for you anyway, so you might as well make sure it's for something you deserve.)

Why I should never be left alone with the internets

So at this point in our blogging relationship, I hope most of you realize that not only am I a hateful, bitter person, but that in most cases my brain actively frightens me, which leads to some very interesting results. And by that I mean I can draw some crazy conclusions from even the most innocuous of statements (see everything I have ever written about Alan Moore). I like to believe this is what makes me a good writer, but deep down I know it just means I am insane.

This also means much like the Japanese pop singer Gackt, I should never be let out in public without a handler (if interested, I will perhaps one day explain the reasoning behind this sentence). For example, let us explore what I loosely call my "thought processes."

My hetero lifemate, bless her little enabling heart, sent me a couple of links to a picture of a moth which led to me wishing that Alan Moore had his own television show. If you cannot see how those two things can possibly be connected then congratulations: you are not insane!

Alas, I have long ago lost any shred of good sense I ever had and thus my brain leaped and bounded and cartwheeled in the batshit crazy territory with abandon.

Let us try to follow the overgrown corkscrewed paths of my thought processes, shall we?

It started with this. This is a normal moth:

This is a hell beast that just rubs its legs together and whispers Latin in your ear at night:

This was my initial response: OH SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS GET SOME HOLY WATER AND KILL IT.

Eventually, after I could look at the screen without flinching and searching for a flamethrower, I told my hetero lifemate thus: "Oh god, I bet it's one of the elder gods. Actually, like those moths in the Lord of the Ring movies, I bet Alan Moore doesn't use the mail and instead employs this to deliver his messages. His beard whispers instructions to it in dead languages that have not existed for thousands of years..."

My enabling hetero lifemate's response: YES!

And this is the point where it didn't so much as spiral down into craziness as it leaped off with a faulty jet pack to plummet down the cliffs of insanity ala Wile E. Coyote style.

I have named the moth Yad-Thaddag, because if that hell-moth isn't an elder god I don't know what is (my hetero lifemate maintains that it is really Beezlebub. That is also highly likely, oh god, look at it, I need to hide under my blankie now.)

This is what I told my hetero lifemate:

Oh god, can you imagine poor Neil Gaiman's wife coming downstairs in the morning and seeing that waiting on the counter for her? Poor woman would try to beat it to death with a chair. Nothing short of divine intervention can kill this thing.

Neil Gaiman: Oh, hey, honey, Alan Moore wants to know if we can come to dinner. Honey? Why do you have that axe?

It did not stop there. There is more:

Alan Moore: Neil, why did Yad-Thaddag return with its wing bent?

Neil Gaiman: Um, yeah, sorry about that, Alan. But my daughter was trying to stab it with a carving knife.

Alan Moore: I was just wishing her a happy birthday.

Neil Gaiman: Alan, it...it came at her at head height.

My hetero lifemate responded with "Hee! Oh, Alan, this is why you have like two friends and they are AFRAID to unfriend you!"

If you doubt that this would actually exist, here's a picture of Alan Moore being inherently creepy for no other than reason than he can.

Is it wrong for me to now wish that Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore had their own show? And by that I mean the persona of Alan Moore that exists inside my own head. I'm sure in real life Neil Gaiman would be charming and say delightful things and then Alan Moore would silently stare through the television screen and into your soul for thirty seconds until Neil Gaiman came back to talk you back down.

No, I want this show where Alan Moore is being bitter and crazy and Neil Gaiman is just being dragged into these adventures against his will and every episode ends with Alan Moore staring into your soul through the television screen while Neil Gaiman makes you a cup of tea to help stave off your nightmares. Because I would watch that show. I would watch the hell out of it.

In a related note: I am now taking applications for anyone interested in becoming my handler. All the job entails is slapping my hand and saying in a loud, authoritative voice, "No, Jayne! Normal people don't think about Alan Moore and Gackt this much!" when I look thoughtful and start to giggle to myself. Then you just have to keep me away from all computers until I calm down and am capable of having a rational conversation again (note: this could take hours. Applicants must be patient).

In conclusion, I just want to say DON'T YOU JUDGE ME.

Share us with others! Hooray sharing!

I Think I'm Just a Little Gay for Felicia Day

Squee!
~Darcy

Share us with others! Hooray sharing!

Oh for god's sake, are you kidding me?

I am not, in fact, dead, despite my homicidal oven's best efforts. I won't go into details, but there was gas and a small ball of flame that blew open the oven door, blew out my pilot light, and tried to singe the skin off my finger. Also, I suspect my oven is conspiring with other elements in my apartment because not five minutes after the tiny fireball the blinds fell off my window for no other reason than to add insult to injury. I expect any day now for my fan to turn on me.



Murderous household appliances aside, I decided it was good a time as any to share some of my bitterness, because why be spiteful if you can't spread it around? (Note: this explains Alan Moore's existence.)



In a fit of boredom as I waited to counter the oven's latest attempt on my life, I was surfing the internet when, lo, I came upon this gem of complete and utter bullshit craziness. Go read it. No, seriously. I'll wait.



Back already? In case you're wondering, yes, Harry Potter just got turned into a religion. Everyone together now: what the fucking fuck?



All right, tiny little warning before I get into this. I'm actually going to discuss the Harry Potter series, something I've had really no inclination to do before because the series is finally concluded, it's been two years since the last book was released, and, to be honest, I care little for the series itself. Yes, that means I am going to be very critical (read: bitter) about the books and Rowling, so if you hold a deep love for the series you might want to go read Darcy's quite lovely review of the movie. You could also stick around and argue with me in the comments and that would be equally as awesome, because I love a good argument (I fully expect Darcy to take me up on this).



That out of the way, let's move on. I don't know whether to sit these people down and take away all pointy objects or perhaps buy them puppies and kittens and hope the cute little animals distract them from interacting with the world, because damn, people, damn.



Look, I'm not about to dispute that Harry Potter is a huge cultural phenomenon--at least it's less inexplicable then, say, Twilight--but it's not the pinnacle of children's literature, or any literature at all, actually. It started as a few series of books about a boy going to a magical school and having magical adventures and then spiraled out into Rowling's message bout Love and Death and other nonsense.



I am all for books that get kids excited to read, but people have been writing fantasy series with deep layers far longer and better than Rowling. Just off the top of my head you have Pullman's His Dark Materials and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series (which a tragically few people know about and I have now made it my mission to introduce as many people to it as humanly possible). I didn't cite Narnia here because everyone knows Narnia, and, to be honest, the last book in the series is problematic if you're anything but a white, hardcore Christian.



I will admit that I quite enjoyed the first three Potter books, especially Prisoner of Azkaban, which took risks for a children's book. Goblet of Fire and onwards was just an increasing mess, not helped by Rowling's undeniable success and the fact her editors apparently just gave up. For example, is there anyone out there that thought it was vital to the plot of The Deathly Hallows for Harry and co. to sit around under a magical tent in some field for what felt like 900 endless pages? Anyone?



Not to mention that Rowling's writing itself started to decline, which became evident in the last book where the pacing was shot to hell, and we had gems like this: "The suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a presence." I'm sorry, but on what planet is that considered good writing?



A lot of people cite the sheer amount of pages of Harry Potter as a mark of the scope of the work. I won't deny that Rowling did put a lot of effort into making the series rather epic, and she did, arguable, succeed in that sense. However, the sheer amount of words you write doesn't making anything epic or deep.



For example, take Cooper's The Dark is Rising. It's only five books to Harry Potter's seven, and only a fraction as long. In fact, the third and fourth books, The Green Witch and The Grey King respectively, don't even break two hundred pages. And this is absolutely not at all a weakness. I'll be the first to admit that Cooper's writing is dense enough that so much can be packed into one page that I often find myself reading it to get everything. This is a strength, because Cooper does not waste one word. The same cannot be said about Rowling and the magical tent of pace killing boredom.



In fact, Cooper is such a master of making use of her space that one of the most important characters in the entire series only appears in the last two books, but by the end I knew him better than Harry, who I had spent seven books with, and Dumbledore of the interminable exposition back story dump of oh my god Rowling seriously.



And, for the record, killing off characters does not make one edgy or dark, especially when the characters you kill off only include secondary characters and an owl. It says nothing about Death other than that Rowling thought she was being dark and edgy. You killed an owl, Rowling. Shut up.



As seen in the article about Rowling's website, Rowling has an interesting relationship with her readers and with fandom. I'm not even going to get into Harry Potter fandom because it's a giant, frightening beast, but will discuss the way that Rowling and fandom intersect.



In this day and age with the internet making things so easy, fandom is an entirely different creatures than pre-iternet days where you had to go hunt down convention and 'zines to get your fanfic fix. Now you do a simple google search and viola! You can find porn for any pairing your twisted little heart desires.



Most authors and creators take a rather ambivalent stance to fandom and transformative works (i.e. fanfiction, fanart, and fanvids) and pretty much stay away from it. Some, like Robin Hobb, see fanfic as encroaching on their ownership of the work and destroying her carefully constructed novels (I do not agree with this, because people are going to take away different things from your work and you cannot control that or how they expound on those interpretations). Others, like Terry Pratchett, accept it but make no move to actively seek out transformative works based on their creations.



Rowling...is an interesting case. Harry Potter fandom is so prevelant that even if you are not actively seeking things out, you're going to pick up some idea of it via osmosis if nothing else. In Harry Potter fandom it's pretty apparent that one of the major pairings is Sirius/Remus. It may have no canon basis, but a lot of fandom extrapolates what they want from cannon and then runs with it.



I've mentioned up there in an aside about personal interpretation and how an author cannot control it. An author can, of course, guide it by suggesting and outright stating things in the text, but at the end of the day it is the reader who takes what they want from the work. Now I'm not about to suggest all interpretations have equal validity, because anyone who has ever sat through a freshmen lit course knows what nonsense that is. What I am suggesting is that two people can read the same text and take different things away from it depending on their point of view, and that is what makes books and the act of reading rather amazing.



Rowling appears to disagree and seems intent on doing the interpretation for the reader. Look, as a writing student I can sympathize that it's frustrating if your audience doesn't take away what you want, but that suggests the fault lays with you the writer and not the audience. Rowling seems to be of the mindset it's the audience's fault and will do everything she can to rectify it.



Take the Remus/Sirius fandom created relationship that I mentioned paragraphs ago (I did have a point in that). In whatever book, six or seven maybe, Harry goes into Sirius' old room and sees that he had up multiple posters of half-naked woman. This is pretty much Rowling telling those who create work advocating that Remus and Sirius were going at it like bunnies to fuck off because Sirius is completely and utterly straight, damnit! That's a real mature response to your audience, Rowling.



To make matters worse, in her latest book Beedle the Bard after every story there are Dumbledore's notes, which is literally Rowling telling you how to interpret her work. In doing so Rowling is actively taking away the reader's own interpretation, leaving nothing for them to interact with. That does not make reading fun. It makes it boring and dull and insulting. Well done, Rowling.



Out of this cultural phenomena, you get The Harry Potter Alliance. I won't deny that the Alliance has done some wonderful things, donating books to schools in Rwanda, but the fact that they decided to make their moral compass a character from a mediocre children's book series is worrying and infuriating.



Look, there is a long history of books raising social activism, which is amazing and awe inspiring. But, I have to tell you, Harry Potter isn't exactly on the same level as Uncle Tom's Cabin or The Jungle. Harry Potter is only a few steps up from Twilight: How to Get Yourself into an Abusive Relationship.



Slack is using Dumbledore as an indicator of right and wrong, the same man who sent a seventeen year old boy off to willingly die. And, yes, I know, Harry had to die because he had a piece of Voldemort's soul in him and so on, that does not take into the account Dumbledore spent much of the series being some God-like figure who wouldn't get off his ass to perhaps find a way to keep a young boy alive. Awesome.



And then there's this paragraph in particular:



"Slack relates all sorts of social issues back to themes in the Harry Potter books. Using the opinions of Harry's mentor Albus Dumbledore as a moral compass, Slack suggests Potter fans should fight prison torture because Dumbledore was against Dementors, and that they should support fair trade because Dumbledore agreed on giving rights to house elves."



I don't know whether to frame this paragraph or go on a week long bender. Again, books promoting social activism is a good thing, but Jesus Christ, taking something as complex as free trade and relating it to Rowling's rather patronizing and condescending attitude to house elves and social classes is fucking ridiculous.



And, of course, Rowling has her own say in this: "What did my books preach against throughout? Bigotry, violence, struggles for power, no matter what. All of these things are happening in Darfur. So they couldn't have chosen a better cause."



Oh my god, shut up, you stupid, arrogant, smug little woman!



It is evident that Rowling was trying to make big statements about Tolerance and Love and Death in her books but if you look below the shiny surface she pretty much failed.



Yes, Rowling, you preached tolerance in that you literally turned Death Eaters into Nazis. That's as deep and profound as saying, "You know what? Hitler was a crazy, horrible human being and genocide is bad."



And you definitely fought bigotry by making your protagonists any ethnicity beside Caucasian and any class other that, say, middle. Oh wait, you completely didn't. In fact, your text is pretty much a construct of bigotry.



Let's take the issue of race first, shall we? Harry is white from a (albeit abusive) middle class family. Hermoine? Well, she's female, but still white from middle class family. Ron: white, but from lower middle class. That's not really ground breaking. In fact, everyone in your books are pretty much white, aren't they? Accept for Dean, who is black, and Cho Chang, who is Asian. In the movies I think those twins in Gryffindor whose names I never bothered to learn because you never bothered to give them personalities are British Indian, but I'm not sure if that was ever stated in the books.



So your hero is a white, middle class kid who literally gets turned into a Christ figure. Way not to subvert anything but to completely uphold the idea that only heroes get to be white. God forbid Harry was Indian or Asian or anything that wasn't white, because he was the hero, damnit, and how would kids identify with him if he wasn't white as the driven snow?



And, yes, Rowling, you claim to be a feminist, but of your prominent female characters, mainly Hermoine and Ginny, both end up married to their childhood sweethearts. Hermoine is smart and way more capable than either Harry or Ron, but she's a girl and therefore couldn't be the hero either. Women are there to be the love interest or to help the hero, not to save the day themselves.



Moving onto a wider view point, the entire text is almost in support of bigotry and stratification. The wizarding world is presented as being better than anything else ever. Rowling pretty much outright said this in an interview, and while this is her creation and she can think whatever the hell she wants, I, for one, will take e-mail over mail delivered by owl any day.



Now the books, with one or two small deviations, are from Harry's point of view, and this idealization of the wizarding world makes sense. Harry came from a horrible family that abused him for years--anything would seem better after that.



The problem comes when Rowling widened the scope of the books. If this series were truly about tolerance and preaching against bigotry then it should become clear that the muggles and the giants and werewolves and all the rest were just as important and just as valid as the wizards. Sure, Rowling paid lip service to trying to bring together giants and werewolves to fight against Voldemort and his Nazis, but in the end were they important?



No. The day was saved by the white middle class Jesus, thus proving the wizarding world is still the best ever, no question, everyone else can just suck it and accept their status as second class citizens.



Except for house elves, because if we pretend you're people you'll get back in the kitchen faster.



Oh, by the way, that brings me to the houses of Hogwarts. Rowling made it damn clear that Gryffindor is the best and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw are not even close seconds and anyone sorted in Slytherin is pure evil because ambition is the devil.



That's a really interesting theme there, because, let's face it, Harry Potter is the more passive character to ever passive in the history of passivity. He is the Boy Who Lived. All his heroics boil down to his ability to not die. If this were another writer I would suspect Rowling was subverting what it is to be hero, but since this is Rowling, I'm left suspecting that for her ambition is, by her definition, evil.



Take Philosopher's Stone for example. Harry gets the stone because he have absolutely no ambition or motivation to ever use it. Dumbledore said that if did have any sort of inclination to, you know, actually do anything the stone would be denied him. That's pretty much Harry's constant theme: he does these things because Dumbledore tells him to, not because he has any personal will or ambition of his own.



(Aside, Daniel Hemmens at FerretBrain.com has written a lot of really interesting articles about Harry Potter the themes in the book here. Be warned that he is way more harsh and critical than me, so you might want to proceed with caution.)



But I digress. Let's tackle the idea of tolerance, shall we? Harry Potter does preach tolerance, if by "tolerance" you mean that Voldemort is, in the words of Eddie Izzard, "a genocidal fuckhead." I think most people reading the books agree that wiping out and subjugating entire races is bad. Those that disagree are probably not reading Harry Potter and and are unlikely to have their minds changed by children's books.



You know what would have been a lot more striking about this book in regard to tolerance, Rowling? If everyone wasn't white and straight. Oh wait, Dumbledore was supposed to be gay, wasn't he? Even though you couldn't be bothered to state that in the actual text, because why would gay and lesbian kids out there need someone they could identify with?



Also, Rowling stated that Dumbledore fell in love with a man once when he was eighteen. We never know if it was requited, just that he became asexual afterwards. Um, Rowling? Yeah, that's not a basis of homosexuality. Asexuality is part of the human sexuality spectrum, but to be homosexual Dumbledore has to be sexually attracted to other men and have sex with them. What you've done is made an old man who wears robes (read: dresses) into a homosexual because any man that isn't married and dresses weird is apparently gay. Well done.



In fact, you know what would have been really interesting? If at the end of your book where everyone is happily paired off with their 2.5 children and the house and the fence and the dog if you had a happily in love gay or lesbian couple in there as well. You don't have to make a big deal about it. Actually, it would work a whole lot better if you presented it as being completely and utterly normal. Hell, you could make them childhood sweethearts to stick with the theme of you finding your true love at eleven. That would have said more about Love and Tolerance than your 9,000 pages about how Nazis are bad.



In short, I find the Harry Potter Alliance ridiculous not because of the work they do but that the fact they advocate these books as the be all and end all of moral guidance (for fuck's sake, Slack says it's "Talmudic." Fuck you, Slack.)



They ask What Would Dumbledore Do?



Based on my reading of the text, I would say he would find an eleven-year-old boy, who after years of physical and psychological abuse and neglect, would latch onto the first kind word from a father figure, and spend the next seven years shaping him into an unthinking sacrifical lamb he would send to the slaughter to end a war he can't be bothered to get up his ass for more than two seconds to do anything about. That's what Dumbledore would do.

I Blame the Lemon Drops! A Harry & THBP Review

I know, I've been away, forgive me. My struggle to maintain a nerdy lifestyle in a bad economy means that work takes up a lot of my free time lately. But, I haven't forgotten you, reader!

I, Darcy, state here and now that there will most definitely be huge spoilers about the new Harry Potter movie, as well as the associated book series. If you are one of those people (read: weirdos) who are only watching the movies or "plan on reading the books later", and have somehow, miraculously, avoided spoilers for this long; DO NOT read this review or you shall have at last met your Waterloo.

I must admit I will be really, really sad when the last of these movies are out and the franchise is over. Few things excite me as much as new Harry Potter-related things anymore. (I'm bitter and old.) Also, I really liked this movie. Keep that at the back of your mind as I spiral downward into nerd-rage.

Three major things that bugged me right away, first viewing.

#1 Snape:
Well, OK, to clarify, Harry and Snape's big "confrontation" after Snape kills Dumbledore. Firstly, the filmmakers chose to skip the semi big battle between the Order of the Phoenix/Dumbledore's Army and the invading Death Eaters that comes before this. If I take into account the fact that the filmmakers didn't want this movie and the last one to have similar endings, I am ok with this, (now, after a few weeks away from it to regain rationality.) I don't really think that a lopsided battle between a bunch of adults and a handful of very magically talented, luck enhanced children is exactly the same as an all out brawl between ALL of the good guys and ALL of the bad guys. In fact I think the only similarity between them is the setting of Hogwarts. I'd like to think that my fellow movie-goers aren't that stupid but, alas, I know this hope is a false one. I missed the scene mostly because I really like seeing magic fights. The one in Order of the Pheonix was pretty cool. Also, I was looking forward to how they would portray the Felix Felicis working in a battle setting. I think it would have greatly improved a movie that was lacking in action where the other movies were not. Poo.

Harry chases Snape and the other Deatheaters as they flee from Hogwarts, and he's yelling and having all of his noobness pinged back into his face by Bellatrix and Snape. Fine, but, as Harry uses Snape's Sectum Sempra against him and Snape blocks and counters it, I was all ramped up for Snape to freak...and he just...didn't. It was so disappointing, so lackluster it caused a flare up of misplaced rage. I should be angry at Snape, even if I've read all of the books and have Snape's true motivation floating around in the back of my mind. I should be right there with Harry, full of helpless rage and hatred for this man who's, as far as you know, just murdered (one of) your surrogate fathers right in front of you. This man who's treated you like little more than refuse since you were eleven for no reason that you can understand. Daniel Radcliff does this very well, he has noticeably improved in every subsequent movie since Sorcerer's Stone. My problem with this scene was mostly, and it burns to say this, Alan Rickman.

Ok, so a lot of people I know have yet to read the books. That's fine. They don't know what they're missing but whatever. Because of this, when I'm discussing the movies with them I have this tendency to say the phrase "Well, in the book..." and tack on a long rant about characters and plot and lit-nerd jargon which basically can make me look and sound like a dweeby fangirl but I don't care.

SO.

In the book the confrontation between Harry and Snape is so frustrating and intense! Just as Harry is hurling all of his pain and rage and fear at Snape, so should Snape be showing every single ounce of hatred he has for this kid. Pretty much none of that came through in the movie and it bummed me right the hell out. Rickman's hateful sneer is cool as ever,(and the littlest bit sexy) he does that very, very well. I just don't think that that was the time or the place for Snape to keep his cool.

#2 Hagrid
Or really, the lack thereof. Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid, as well as Dame Maggie Smith's Minerva McGonagall, Luna Lovegood and Remis Lupin are all standards of perfect casting that I will hold high forever. (Especially Luna, it's almost eerie how perfectly she fits the character that I imagined in my head as I read, down to the sound of her voice!)

Hagrid is one of the best characters in the series. He's literally a giant walking contradiction. He's huge and looks like a frightful beardy wild-man only not in the nightmarish Alan Moore kinda way. Your first sane impression of him should leave you needing to change out your underpants. He hangs around with some of the most vicious and horrible creatures in fantastic history and loves them the same as if they were cuddly little puppy-kitten hybrids made of happiness, bubbles and the laughter of children. He cries like a two ton baby at the drop of a hat! Now, admittedly the movie version of Hagrid isn't quite as blubbery as his literary counterpart but there is still absolutely no excuse for Hagrid standing with the rest of the school over the corpse of Dumbledore, most beloved of wizards, as if he were made of stone. If I hadn't been too occupied with blubbering like a two ton baby myself I would have been chucking my big-gulp at the screen.

#3 The title of the movie
So, maybe your looking at that thinking, "Huh!?"but look at it this way. Why should they call the movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince if they're just gonna ignore almost the entirety of the subplot that centers around the Half-Blood freaking Prince? Harry finds the potions book and gets some minor harassment about it, but mostly it's Hermione nagging about cheating and being sorta concerned that Harry is maybe learning spells he shouldn't be. The thought that Harry is taking advice from an eerily intelligent book of shifty origins and that this kinda sorta happened before never seems to cross anyone's minds in the film. Then we almost forget about the book except that Harry is carrying it around everywhere and allegedly sleeping with it. It doesn't come up again until Harry uses Sectum Sempra against Draco Malfoy and they hold an intervention to get Harry to get rid of the book for good. He does so...is that it? Do we care who the Half-Blood Prince is? Apparently not 'cause it's isn't brought up again until Snape admits to being the Half Blood Prince himself. If I hadn't read the book I can imagine my reaction to that revelation would have been a resounding, "uhm...so?" Did the filmmakers forget that not everyone has read the books in depth, multiple times before seeing the movies? They didn't even bother to explain what that meant! Grr! Shoulda called it Harry Potter and the Death of Dumbledore 'cause that's clearly the only part of the story they cared about telling.

Despite the stuff that was glaringly wrong with this movie, there was so very much more that was done really well. In fact, aside from the fact that I spent the last twenty minutes of the movie sobbing into my popcorn even though I promised myself I wouldn't do that, I left that theater feeling like I'd just seen one of the best Harry Potter movies to date. Maybe not the best translation of the books, but the movie itself was damn good. It was funny and dark. I loved that they gave Ginny Weasly a personality. I can understand some fans, (mostly American) who complain that the Ginny and Harry thing kinda came out of no where. I personally hold with the idea that because the books are from Harry's perspective, it makes sense that Ginny would be a sort of background character until she comes into her own as a woman and becomes something more that Ron's kid sister to him. They literally go through war together before he really sees her. Plus Harry totally strikes me as the kind of guy who would fall for his best friend's sister. He associates her with the Burrow, the only place outside of Hogwarts he could really call home. The only other place, at least until the seventh book, he could feel safe. They also are the only two people in the world that know what it's like to be possessed by Voldemort, which I'm sure makes for lovely bonding moments.

I loved the funny moments, especially the performance of Jessie Cave as the delightfully terrifying Lavender Brown and Harry when he's high on luck. There were very scary moments, I jumped about five feet into the air when that Infiri's hand grabbed Harry out of the lake, (even though I KNEW that was gonna happen!) The scenes with young Voldemort are equally terrifying. In my opinion he is more terrifying as a sociopathic child than as a murderous, psychotic adult. The action, (what there was of it,) was superb, especially the Quidditch match, which showed for the first time that Quidditch is a sport. The series continues to be a showcase for the best of British actors and actresses, this time Jim Broadbent proving a point that nobody doubted; that he is an amazing actor. Lastly the special effects were amazing, namely the destruction of the Millenium Bridge and the memories within the Pensieve.

I'm excited for the next two films. I'm very happy that they are breaking the last book into two movies. It shows that maybe they'll try to be more faithful with more time to spread the story out. I don't know where they'll split them, though I have my theories. (At some point before or after the Trio gets captured and taken to the Malfoy's, that seems to be a popular one, though.)

The first half of the first part will have to be dedicated to filling in the plot chunks missing in the films that are integral to a lot of the end of the story. (i.e. Kreacher, his relationship with Harry after Sirius's death, Dobby, the Horcruxes and Dumbledore's wand.)

Like I said, I'll be sad when it's all over. The remaining slivers of my soul that the loan companies and my job don't own have been consumed by this emo little kid with a lightning bolt scar and the world that J.K. Rowling created for him since I was in high school. Now I'll re-read the series at least once every year and let that little part of me believe in magic, (or jealously covet, depending on my mood) at least for a little while.

~Darcy

In case you somehow missed it

This is pretty much made of win:



It's described as "an example of transformative storytelling serving as a pro-feminist visual critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior...[and] some of the more sexist gender roles and patriarchal Hollywood themes embedded in the Twilight Saga."

First of all, I jut want to say word to all of that. Second of all, I feel there's a lot to be said here for how Bella/Edward is presented and how that compares to Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Spike. If we're taking a feminist route, there's also a lot to be said about Whedon and feminism, some of which I rambled on about specifically in regards to Dollhouse.

But, honestly, I just want to send this to Stephanie Meyer and possibly tattoo on her forehead "Girls don't find stalking romantic," which, seriously, Stephanie Meyer, what the fuck? Also, I've spent most of the day trying to revise a story that is driving me crazy and Eddie Izzard ("blaspheme, blasphe-you, blasphe-everybody-in-the-room") is currently on my television so I'm a bit useless for anything that requires me to think and use polysyllabic arguments. (Fun fact: that phrase just used up the last of my functioning brain cells!)

ETA: This is the artist of the mashup talking about the experience of the video and the idea behind it. It's fascinating and intelligent and well worth reading.
So just watch this video because it is awesome and join me in missing Buffy.

After approximately 815 years Off World FINALLY ends (part 4)

Welcome back to Jayne Has Lost All Hope For Everything Good And Wonderful Has Been Sucked From Her World. This is the honest to god actual final installment of my review of Off World--also, I'm embassed that this literary abomination is the first post for July, but at least my quota of bitter for the month will mostly be used up. It’s been awhile, but this emotion I’m experiencing…I’m pretty sure it’s “joy.” In celebration I might actually drink something that doesn’t have an alcohol content.

When we last left our heroes…I’m going to be honest here: I’ve been drinking pretty steadily before I began this part so I have no idea what happened in the last chapters, but based on prior experience I’m going to say nothing. I assume there might have been some dead Inuit, some reavers, and gay porn.

Let’s do a shot for brain cell killing luck and get this over with.

Chapter Sixteen
In which this chapter never ends, Caleb takes a page from my book and gets drunk, there’s more porn, and our heroes break up for the nine hundredth time.

We are twenty-eight pages from the end, my friends. Twenty-eight long, painful pages.

The chapter opens with Caleb drinking martinis and getting shit faced. I am alarmed to discover we have something in common. Anyway, the bartender is flirting with Caleb. I have no idea why because--like I’ve said many, many times before--he is whiny and unlikeable and a goddamn lightweight. He’s had, like, two martinis and is about to vomit on himself. Pfft, amateur.

D’abu shows up because Caleb needs a babysitter because he is a delicate wilting flower. That needs to die in a fire. So D’abu asks what Caleb is doing getting drunk and Caleb says he needs to stay out of Sarhaan’s way because of telling him about eugenics and Sarhaan is totally in love with Alex and oh my god I am so goddamn tired of ODFH’s stupid, whiny, selfish wallowing. I will take more Durty Nelly sex shows over another page of Caleb’s goddamn self-pity. Christ. Bring me my curly straw and my absinthe.

D’abu has to go and reassure Caleb that Sarhaan isn’t mad at Caleb and he needs to let people know where he is because he is a puppy, a delicate flower, and a Southern Belle all rolled into one highly repellent human being. How the hell hasn’t Caleb died yet? No, seriously, if he’s that goddamn fragile he should be a dead a thousand times over.

Caleb still wants to be Sarhaan’s man-wife and Vaughan pulls this out, “If it wasn’t for the need to go back and make things right for the sake of Daphne’s memory, Cal didn’t think he’d mind staying,” to prove that Caleb has noble intentions and is not, in fact, a horrible person. No one is fooled, especially not my BFF absinthe.

Before I continue, I must say that this chapter does clear up something for me. “As his gaze idly swept the room, Cal intercepted an appraising look from a miner sitting alone near the back. The man had all the earmarks typical of the independent miners that frequented Dorados: drab utilitarian clothing, spiky, punked-out hair, and enough weapons to kit out a small army.”

Apparently in this future of asteroids and Not At All Like Companions RaTS, punks grow up to be independent (what?) miners, and that explains why Da’ve Zenshuia, the drummer for my punk band Besieged Nipples, is always showing up to gigs covered in asteroid dust and smelling like cheap perfume preferred by space RaTS. I had been wondering about that.

D’abu said that as soon as repairs are finished they will be leaving the station because docking and parts are expensive and now since they defected from the army for reasons that don’t exist outside of Vaughan’s head (or possibly they don’t exist in her head either) they need some kind of work to earn credits. Watch me continue to not care.

Anyway, D’abu calls Caleb “kid,” and Caleb proves he’s an adult by throwing a temper tantrum about how he is not a child but a man, damnit! My hands twitch with the uncontrollable urge to strangle him. Also, he whines about Daphne some more and D’abu shuts him up by saying Sarhaan is ODFH’s boyfriend.

Caleb is shocked into silence. D’abu is totally my new friend and I offer to share my precious booze with him.

The blessed silence doesn’t last long because Caleb has an inner monologue about how he has never had a boyfriend before because being gay is illegal and dangerous in the Republic and Caleb is a freak who would be put to death if anyone found out. Vaughan goes into this for the sixty-seventh time because she apparently thinks her readers have the memory span of a goldfish. I wish that were true because I could then forget everything about this book.

Vaughan then pulls out this gem: “Daph told him that love was love and the only sin was not being true to yourself.” You know what? If she really went around saying shit like that than I’m glad Daphne the Fag Hag is dead.

Anyway, Caleb is acting all incredulous that Sarhaan is his bf and D’abu says, “Aw, you’re not going to go all modest and femme-y on me, are you?” I choose to believe D’abu is totally mocking Caleb and I upgrade D’abu’s status to my BFF and get him his own curly straw for his booze.

D’abu drags Caleb back to the ship, and I hope D’abu is secretly scheming to lose the whiny bitch somewhere on the asteroid to fall prey to Da’ve and his asteroid buddies.

We then switch povs to Sarhaan. Copious amounts of alcohol and abrupt pov switches are not a good combination because I feel motion sick and it is impossible to vomit on fictional characters. Damnit.

Sarhaan is freaking out because Caleb has been out of his sight for more than ten seconds and this obviously means ODFH is probably dead in some asteroid space ditch somewhere. Oh, if only.

D’abu and Caleb get back and of course Caleb is ridiculously sick from all the vodka and a ride on “rotation-aided gravity system” and threw up on my BFF’s shoes. Come on, BFF, you totally need to help me airlock him. You know you wanna.

D’abu calms Sarhaan down, who is freaking out about the fact Caleb is sick from overindulging and not being able to hold his liquor because Caleb is a retarded, inbred puppy. Also, apparently D’abu had to save Caleb from all the sexual predators who were slobbering over him because, if you haven’t noticed, he is just that irresistible in addition to being a fucking super special computer hacking sailor scout. I shotgun half a bottle of Jack.

Anyway, Sarhaan carries Caleb back to their room after he passes out or something. If my caring could be represented in mathematical terms it would be in the negative imaginary numbers.

Once Caleb wakes up, Sarhaan feels all guilty that ODFH is all upset about how he dared to not pay attention to ODFH because he was in shock from the eugenics reveal. I am running out of ways to say that I hate them, but I really fucking hate them.

And there’s more sex and Sarhaan thinks Caleb is an “angel” and I feel a part of me die on the inside. Since this is approximately the ninety-third sex scene in this book, I’m going to leave them to it and go grab a drink with my BFF D’abu and scheme about how we can totally leave both Caleb and Sarhaan behind on the space station to hopefully catch a deadly space STD.

Unfortunately I come back too early and had to overhear some absolutely sparkling dialogue. “Oh, do it. Do it. Suck it. Oh, yeah.” Please kill me.

In the afterglow we switch back to Caleb’s pov. Oh, this is going to be a treat. Caleb comes to the sudden realization that Sarhaan and the others will not be returning to Earth. This is somehow a surprise. I think Caleb may be legally retarded because not only did they commit a crime and steal the goddamn ship, killing several people in the process, but they are blamed for the murders. What possible madness would make them return, you stupid, horrible man?

Also, this chapter is like elevenity hundred pages long.

Sarhaan says there’s no upside for going back to Earth and the pesky homosexual hating Republic, and Caleb whines about how being suspected murderers should bother them, and I would like to point out that as soldiers killing people is not anything new to them—remember the fucking Inuit…oh wait, “tragically haunted” Sarhaan doesn’t because it’s no longer important to the goddamn porn—not to mention the people they murdered to get the ship, so I would like to advise Caleb to SHUT THE HELL UP.

Sarhaan, although his intelligence is in question for hooking up with Caleb, proves he’s not entirely hopeless by pointing out that they “didn’t just find the Vigilant sitting outside a liquor store with the keys in the ignition and the engine running. We eliminated multiple targets to get to it and get away. I know the people in charge and they won’t be in a hurry to forgive that.”

He then loses any points he just gained by rationalizing “eliminating the multiple targets” by saying those men would kill him, so once a-fucking-gain nothing is ever his fault. You all know that I hate him at this point, but still, I really do.

This back and forth goes on for way too long and finally Caleb accepts Sarhaan is not going to do what ODFH wants and that they’ll use Dorados, the space asteroid station of space whores, as their home base. Caleb thinks this is because Sarhaan is in love with Alex. At this point you guys know the drill, so insert your own phrase using the words “hate, fire, selfish, awful, horrible, die” here.

Okay, pencils down, class. Submit your answers in the comments below.

Sarhaan goes on to say the crew need to find jobs, maybe by ferrying passengers or making delivery runs. Yes, Vaughan just turned them into the crew of Firefly, only about a thousand times dumber and a million times less charming and likeable. Also, Vaughan, I invite you to bite me.

Sarhaan then gets up and gets dressed and says if Sarhaan won’t return to Earth for the sole purpose of Caleb’s vengeance for his dead friend he can’t be bothered to care about, Caleb is going to leave. He explains that “she was my friend, and I’m the one with the obsession over doing something about it. I’ll figure something out.”

Bullshit, you goddamn liar! If by “obsessed” you mean you think of her when you are having your eight hundred and forty-seventh pity party and then immediately forget about her the moment Sarhaan so much as looks at you then yes, you are “obsessed” to do something. So far in the entire book Caleb has yet to demonstrate once he’s capable of thinking outside of his own selfish desires, but now he’s being all noble and self-sacrificing to avenge the memory of his dead fag hag? Bull-fucking-shit.

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick.

Anyway, Caleb says he appreciates everything Sarhaan has done for him—which, I guess, is the orgasms since Sarhaan has failed in everything else, like keeping Caleb safe from torture even though they are on a ship full of super awesome genetically engineered soldiers. I am once again amazed they defeated the Inuit, who could have won by using simple tricks from old Loony Tunes cartoons.

Sarhaan half-assedly argues with him—hell, if I were Sarhaan I’d be physically shoving Caleb out the door—but Caleb says he has to go and kisses Sarhaan goodbye and leaves. This would be touching if they weren’t stupid, awful people. Also, I would like to note that not even Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson break up this many times in their brain killing romcoms. Screw you and your check list, Vaughan.

After about eight years this chapter finally ends.

Text message of the chapter: I am alarmed to notice that I have begun crooning “I hate you” at the screen as if the characters can actually hear me.

DUN DUN DUN ending: “Ducking out from under Sarhaan’s grasp, Caleb made for the door and didn’t let himself look back.”

Chapter Seventeen
In which the end of the book appears to be no closer, Caleb is practically idolized by the goddamn soldiers and their goddamn failgenes, Durty Nelly’s and Bartok surface like vomit soaked shoes after a night of serious drinking, Caleb has l337 skills, and Vaughan is dead to me

This chapter is a giant ball of mess, specifically in regards to the pacing. I’ve complained before about how absolutely nothing happens in this book and it can only be considered fast paced if we use a geological time scale, but this chapter has just the opposite problem as Vaughan tries to shove in too much in too few pages without taking the time or effort to make “climatic” moments, well, climatic. What comes across is the sense that the author can see the end and is rushing madly towards it like Wil E. Coyote falling towards the canyon floor.

Now, as the reader, I can sympathize because this book is truly awful and I will do anything to finish it, but as an author that is lazy and poor writing from a purely technical angle, which is not including how that screws up the emotional impact of your work. Seriously, Vaughan, invest in a good editor to help you sort these messes out.

We open with Sarhaan having called the entire crew to determine if they should go be “white hats” on Earth to keep Caleb on their crew. My neighbors may think that I am either a) dying or b) committing murder because I just let out a scream of rage here. It was either that or throw my computer out the window and since I need it for actual schoolwork I choose to sound like a crazy person. That’s not too far off because this book is doing its damnedest to drive me around the bend.

Primeau, Vilnus, and Sutton are mentioned because they were new to the unit before the never explained mutiny, so they’re unknowns about how they will vote. Of course they are, Vaughan, because you’ve never bothered to mention them before or let them talk.

Naslund asks the really reasonable question about why they would trash the business deal Kai Xuwicha put together to get them money and go back to play heroes on Earth when they barely escaped the first time. Word, Naslund. You can come out drinking with me and D’abu later.

Sarhaan answers and I take a moment to refute all his points:

“Because we need to if we want to keep Caleb Adams as part of our crew.” Why the fucking fuck would you want to do that? No, seriously, why? He’s a useless, ineffective, horrible person.

“He’s good and he’s got critical skills that we could use.” No, he doesn’t. He does have vague super hacking skills that I’m sure someone else who isn’t whiny, selfish, or useless also has and won’t subject me to 153 pages of self-pity.

“Unfortunately for us, taking care of Thurmond is unfinished business for him, and he’s not going to sign on until he’s done that.” Whatever, Sarhaan. Just blow him and Caleb’s selfishness will resurface and he’ll do anything you want.

Hey, remember Bartok, the dude who tortured Caleb for no reason other than Vaughan needed a two-dimensional villain? Yeah, neither does Vaughan, since she let that character drop off the radar seventy pages ago. He’s back and is, as his wont, being an asshole: “Since when did tight blond ass become a critical skill? To any of us, that is?”

Asshole or not he has a damn good point. You’re only doing this, Sarhaan, so you can keep fucking Caleb, only god knows why you want to. See the aforementioned list of why you shouldn’t.

Sarhaan defends his man-wife by citing his l337 sk1llz. What-the-fuck-ever. In what I’m sure Vaughan means to come across as him being an complete and utter asshole and bad guy, Bartok retorts with “I’m sure your little friend looks positively fetching down on all fours with your dick up his ass. But are you seriously asking me to risk my life for that?” but I have to point out that’s a really reasonable response to this entire inane idea. And, also, completely and utterly correct.

But since Sarhaan is never wrong ever and everything he does is pure and good, Bartok is of course in the wrong and Sarhaan chokes him a bit before Kai Xuwicha pulls him off. This would be a lore more interesting if Bartok were given characterization and motivation instead of woodenly being a complete dick and if we were shown any history between the two. But since he doesn’t and we haven’t I continue to not give a good goddamn.

Bartok says that Sarhaan isn’t his CO—which is correct—and he can’t tell Bartok what to do. Also correct. For a bastard torturer I’m supposed to hate, I can’t fault anything he says in this scene. Well done, Vaughan. Bartok votes no and stomps out like a teenager. Despite everything, he was the most compelling character in this scene and I wish he would come back.

But, of course, “Dave’s outburst seemed to have a unifying effect on the rest of the crew.” I really, really hate this book.

Vilnius is given one line about why go back to Earth where they’ll be locked up or worse, and Sarhaan says he, Kai Xuwicha, and D’abu have some ideas about how they can bring down Thurmond from a safe distance from Earth. Of course we won’t get any space battles or actual conflict. That would be interesting and this book’s sole purpose is to have fuck all happen. Where’s my tequila?

We then skip forward to a new scene. Sarhaan and D’abu stand outside Durty Nelly’s, where the “trail of Caleb’s identi-chip” led them. The identi-chip we’ve never heard of before now that you can use to track someone. You would think the Republic would use that to find them all, but apparently not. I am not drunk enough for this.

Also, if Caleb is at Durty Nelly’s does that mean…Goddamnit, Vaughan, what did I say? I’m giving you one chance not to go where I think you’re going with this. Just one. You better surprise me.

Sarhaan is trying not to think the same thing as me because that would be trite and cliché and really god awful writing, but inside he hears Joe Southern saying that it’s too late to check some unnamed person (if you can’t guess who it is then I’m afraid I’ll be forced to kill you) into the show, but he can go talk with the other performers and get measured for costumes and check in with the facilities manager. It is, of course, Caleb ODFH, who signed a contract to work at Nelly’s, the home of live gay sex shows for lonely, sexually frustrated punk miners of the future.

Excuse me a moment while I go scream into a pillow. Various profanities will be used, as well as questioning the relative talent of Ms. Vaughan, so I suggest you listen to some soothing music while I lose my mind.

Okay, I’m back and relatively calm. I am now stepping into the dubious area to make some claims about Vaughan that I cannot in the least support, but bear with me. Based on this, I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that Vaughan got her start in fandom writing fanfiction.

Now, before any of you out there jump down my throat, I want to say it is not fandom that I find objectionable, because I think fandom, in general, is quite a wonderful thing that brings people together and a lot of really creative, amazing works come out of it.

However, like any subculture, fandom has its own tropes that have no place outside of it. For example, sex clubs. In fandom there is the cliché of characters working at a sex club or sold as sex slaves or having to go undercover in any combination of sex, club, slave etc. Now within fandom this is recognized as being a rather ridiculous premise, but this same premise is accepted because it is amateur work (in this case meaning unpublished and not reflecting on the skill and merit of said work) that is made by a fan for other fans with both parties acknowledging it’s just a bit of fun and nothing more.

But, and this is a big but, outside of fandom you have to damn well recognize the ridiculousness of such premises and decide how and if you want to approach it, because you no longer have the safety net of a subculture accepting these tropes as mere plot devices and not expecting anything more.

In Off World, which already is ailing from poor plot, poor pacing, poor characterization, and an abundance of porn, adding this ludicrous subplot of the sex club adds absolutely nothing to the book and, in fact, pushes it right over the edge. If this were supposed to be a satire on space operas in general I could accept this premise, but it’s not—or if it is it’s so poorly written I can’t tell, and that is really damning.

My point, then, is that Vaughan needs an editor so badly that I cannot even construct a humorous simile about how desperately she needs to find one. Also, Vaughan, I would like to remind you of my previous installment where I said if you pulled this bullshit you were dead to me.

Well, you are now dead to me. I hope you’re happy.

Back to the actual book, Caleb turns the corner to see Sarhaan and D’abu, who tell them they talked to the crew and decided to cater to ODFH’s whims and will go to Earth to avenge Daphne the cardboard cutout dead fag hag no one cares about not even Caleb if Caleb is still interested. He is.

Sotheran jumps in and says that Caleb signed a contract and can go as soon as he’s fulfilled the terms of it. Seems reasonable to me. Sarhaan, of course, gets all pissed off and pulls his weapon and threatens Sotheran with it before absconding with Caleb. I can’t emphasize my hate enough at this point.

We then cut to Caleb’s pov, which is not at all confusing or poorly executed, as he and Sarhaan run off. Caleb offhandedly thinks that he just ran out on a legal contract and how that will cause trouble, but is more concerned with the fact that he can’t keep up with Sarhaan and D’abu—also, the contract will never be mentioned again because why follow up on that when we can just shove in one more sex scene? Jesus.

Wait, that’s it with the sex club? Seriously? Are you fucking me, person who is dead to me and from now on will be known as Zombie Vaughan? Let me get this straight, you go out of your way to set up this inane subplot where Caleb is forced to go to Nelly’s for a job and money, but you don’t follow through on it at all?

I stand by my previous statement that the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous, but this is just hands down bad writing. I’m sorry, Zombie Vaughan, but did you have anyone look at this? Because they should have straight up told you that this is not how plot works.

If you go out of your way to set up a situation, you cannot resolve it within two pages with absolutely no consequences. You can’t. Not only is it poor and lazy writing that only serves to insult your readers, but it also implies that you do not care enough about your craft (and it damn well is a craft) to spend time on the technical aspects of creating a story.

If you have Caleb sign a contract than he needs to at least perform in one show and realize he made a terrible mistake or he actually likes it, I don’t really care, but you have to deal with the subplot you went to great trouble to introduce.

What you have done is a giant cop-out and is so incredibly lazy that even me, who makes decisions motivated by her cripplingly laziness, is offended by it. And this is why you are a zombie and dead to me.

The thing is, I wish I could say this is actually the worse part of the chapter, but it’s really not. It’s like Zombie Vaughan is going out of her way to offend me as a writer (my hetero lifemate contributed this: “She’s not a writer, though. She’s just typing words that form sentences.” Word).

As they’re running from Nelly’s, Caleb falls behind Sarhaan and D’abu and they don’t notice. There are not enough profanities to get across how much this does not make sense. After going through all the trouble to get Caleb back, are you seriously telling me, Zombie Vaughan, that Sarhaan, who freaks out if ODFH is out of sight for more than five seconds, wouldn’t notice that Caleb is no longer beside him? This is awful, bad, stupid writing.

This is all contrived for Bartok, out of nowhere, to snatch Caleb to threaten him. I have run out of ways to describe the awful writing and how much this book offends me.

Bartok is going to bring Caleb…somewhere for reasons that are never made clear. Bartok says “Okay, sweetcheeks, this is it. Say bye-bye, baby,” which is enough to unlock all those horrible memories of the torture.

Don’t expect this to actually affect Caleb in any way because it will never be mentioned again, because, like I said before, Zombie Vaughan doesn’t understand the fundamental elements of plot and characterization.

Also, the motivation for Bartok being a horrible person is that he wanted to be the leader of the unit and the ship and that he deserved it more than Sarhaan. Way not to put effort into this, Zombie Vaughan.

With the memories of the torture back, Caleb apparently remembers he actually has super powers and kicks Bartok’s ass. No, seriously. Caleb, who weighs ninety pounds soaking wet and has spent the entire book getting the vapors is suddenly strong enough to put down a genetically engineered super soldier before the super solider can react or fight back. I hate you, Zombie Vaughan.

So Sarhaan and D’abu appear after finally noticing that Caleb was missing, and I like to think it took them so long because D’abu was using the time to convince Sarhaan to leave the little bastard behind. Maybe next time he’ll listen, BFF. Here, I got you your own handle of drug store vodka.

Caleb says he told them he could take care of himself despite pages and pages of evidence to the contrary, and brushes past them. I’m sure this was supposed to a sort of “hell yeah” moment for Caleb but it just makes me angry.

To be fair, this part did make me examine some of my beliefs, but probably not in the way Vaughan intended. I’m left wondering if I would find this inexplicable ass-kicking more plausible if Caleb was female.

The “plot line” of Caleb being torture is very similar to that usual standard of female characters being assaulted, either physically or sexually. In the assault the women’s power is taken away and later by confronting their assaulters and kicking ass they take that power back.

Now, I think the torture with Caleb and the way he suddenly shows some spine and lays Bartok out is supposed to operate in the same way of him taking back the power Bartok stole from him. However, instead of me going along with this and recognizing it as Caleb taking control of his life again, I’m just really angry.

Is it because he’s a man instead of a woman or is it because since Caleb doesn’t remember the torture and wasn’t even the least bit affected by it that this whole mess is just lazy writing and a copout? I suspect it’s the latter, but it still made me think. Take from that what you will, Zombie Vaughan.

After what feels like forty-six years this chapter finally ends, leaving me drunk and homicidal.

Text message of the chapter: Ten pages left. My prediction: they overthrow the Republic in one and spend the last nine fucking.

DUN DUN DUN ending: “Cal didn’t wait for an answer. Just shoved past them and began putting one foot doggedly in front of the other, one after another, as he headed slowly up the street.”

Chapter Eighteen
In which there is more sex and despite the fact this is supposed to be the climax nothing at all happens and I want to die

That’s right, folks, we are ten pages away from the end. Ten pages from sweet, sweet freedom.
Let’s get this over with. Also, my prediction was off; they fuck first and then spend two pages overthrowing the Republic in the most boring way possible.

The chapter starts with Caleb being high on some kind of painkillers because he was hurt by Bartok or something, I don’t know. All I know is that I wish he would OD.

We then switch to the next scene where Caleb is back to his whiny self and I wonder if there’s a way I can write myself into this book so I can brick him. He whines at Sarhaan and I take time out of my busy schedule to respond to his various statements.

“I want to fuck.” Oh god, I can’t overemphasize how much I do not, in fact, care. “Please, can we go back to the room and fuck?” God no. Also, stop talking. “I’d even settle for a quickie.” Please stop sharing or I will choke you. “I’m going crazy here.” You’re going crazy? I’ve had to listen to you whine and wallow for 153 pages. I am this close to defenestrating myself to escape you and your boring, selfish, horrible, lily white problems.

Unfortunately, Sarhaan doesn’t follow my lead and we’re treated to more porn and I am so bored. My god, Zombie Vaughan has actually managed to make porn boring.

Also, I have to listen to Sarhaan and Caleb confess their undying love for each other and you know what? I’m pleased for them. They belong together if only because they are both unlikeable, horrible people that no one deserves to be subjected to.

As if to respond to my horrible people comment, Caleb asks about Alex. Not because he actually cares about the poor traumatized man but to make sure Sarhaan isn’t in love with him. You are a horrible person, Caleb, and the fact that you’ve found happiness offends me.

Sarhaan responds with this: “I’ll always care what happens to Alex, and Kai and I are doing what we can to help him.” So that means you’re going to get him out of Nelly’s, right? Because as a rape victim, working at a sex club is the absolute worse place he could be. Hey, he might have a contract, but since you broke ODFH out of his it would be easy enough to get Alex’s out of his, right?

Right?

Wrong! Nope, our brave heroes leave poor traumatized Alex to work at a sex club while they run around the galaxy having a lot of sex and not doing anything else. They are so likeable.

Anyway, Caleb basically browbeats Sarhaan into saying he loves them, and I hope their honeymoon takes place in a fiery pit. They then have sex, and I am so bored by the porn at this point that I take a brief nap, where a dream about watching apples brown manages to be more interesting.

I wake up in time to them being disgusting in the aftermath and cooing “I love you” and I gag as the chapter ends without wrapping up the plot, such as it is, in the slightest. Awesome.

DUN DUN DUN ending: “I think we need to talk about this potentially kinky fetish of yours, though. Exactly how far does it go?” I thank all known deities that we never have to see this fetish.

Epilogue
In which Zombie Vaughan apparently remembers there was more to this book than just the porn and scrambles to wrap up the plot, there is some almost porn, and I break down and weep at the ending

We’re informed that it’s “two weeks” later. I’m assuming we skipped ahead because nothing important happened during those two weeks. Of course, that means we should have skipped the entire book because nothing happens ever. Christ on a crutch.

So remember how Thurmond framed our failgene soldiers with the reaver murders and the soldiers were going to take their revenge? Yeah, that just involves Caleb hitting some buttons and broadcasting the video of Thurmond illegally fucking some young boy. That’s it.

Hey, Zombie Vaughan, it seems you mixed up “anti-climatic” and “climatic.” For the ending you usually want to go with “climatic.” Just keep that in mind for next time.

Anyway, this apparently makes everyone happy, although how them releasing a sex tape will clear the soldiers of murder or reveal the whole reaver prostitute thing, I have no idea. All I know is that there are two pages left and I feel something suspiciously like joy.

We then cut to Caleb and Sarhaan in their room, where Sarhaan spanks Caleb for being naughty and I advise Zombie Vaughan to please keep her ID out of the book, thanks. Apparently our two unlikeable heroes are in love and happy and I wish them nothing but ill will. For the first and only time in the entire book we fade away before the graphic sex starts.

And then I see this—“End”—and such a sensation of peace and joy sweeps over me that I weep from happiness into my open bottle of wine. Against all odds, I made it to the end without dying from alcohol poisoning. This calls for some tiny fists of triumph. \o/


So there you have it, folks, Off World. I have read this book twice now, once before starting this recap and then again as I went through it chapter by chapter, and I still have no idea what the hell the plot was or what was happening. Everyone should submit your guesses in the comments and we’ll see if any of us get close.

Oh, also, apparently there’s a sequel to this called Off World 2: Sanctuary. Thankfully it doesn’t star Sarhaan and Caleb, but D’abu and Alex. It looks like D’abu stayed behind on Dorados to mind the crew’s new cargo business. Well, that’s what Vaughan thinks. Over a couple of shooters, D’abu told me that it was really just an excuse to get away from Sarhaan and Caleb, and who can blame him? Hell, if I were in his place I would have murdered them about eighty different times at this point.

Anyway, D’abu is trying to look out for Alex, because god knows Sarhaan can’t be arsed to do it, what with him being so loyal and generous and kind as he totally doesn’t care what happens to Alex. So it looks like this book will focus on D’abu and Alex falling in love, and god knows it’s not possible for them to be any more whiny and unlikeable than Sarhaan and Caleb, so I wish those two crazy kids well.

This is also no way that I’m reading Sanctuary, not even if you paid me. Okay, that’s a lie. I’m a starving student—I would totally read that and recap it if someone paid me because I need money and I am not proud.

Kat Zeng, anthology contributor (I have no idea what contribution she made or to what) writes that Sanctuary “improves upon its predecessor with a tight, fast-paced plot, rich character development and of course, many steamy sex scenes.” Well, everything she listed was what was missing from this first book and it certainly would be impossible for this one to be any worse than Off World.

If, for some reason, I stumble across a copy of Sanctuary I’ll probably read it and recap it here, but I have too much self-respect to give Zombie Vaughan my money to read more of her gay porn.

In talking with my hetero lifemate, I’ve determined that the experience of reading Off World was like the five stages of grief:

Denial: The book can’t really be this bad. It must get better. I'll just keep reading.
Anger: Goddamnit, Vaughan, what the hell are you doing? THIS IS NOT HOW NARRATIVE WORKS.
Bargaining: If I agree to finish reading this, will you stop hurting me?
Depression: -hopeless, inconsolable sobbing-
Acceptance: My god, this book is really, really bad. I must mock it on the internet!

So thank you all for humoring me while I work through my grief over this book. I hope you got some kind of enjoyment out of reading this. After this, I think I'll go back to dealing with the crazy bitterness that is Alan Moore. Not even him and his terrifying beard can hurt me as much as Zombie Vaughan.