![](\"https:\/\/l-stat.livejournal.net\/img\/userinfo_v8.png?v=17080&v=915\")
<\/a>sorchar<\/b><\/a><\/span> account was hacked and is now suspended due to said hackery. (Fucking assholes.)Words of warning from this:
1. Do not click tinyurl links in posts where people say they're changing their journals to something else. (Don't believe it, either.)
2. If you have ever had a Hotmail account associated with your LJ, that seems to be the primary risk factor.
3. Don't trust the Cloud. Back yo shit up!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:169453","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/169453.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=169453"}}],"title":"Most likely my last post here","published":"2007-08-11T06:54:04Z","updated":"2007-08-11T06:54:04Z","content":"I'm now over at InsaneJournal<\/a>. My plan is to post there, and only<\/i> there. No xposting.
I will be maintaining this LJ for the sole purpose of following friends and communities that are remaining on LJ. So you'll see me commenting from time to time, but no posting. If you don't have an IJ, are unable to RSS feed me, or otherwise don't feel that keeping up with me will be easy because of this change, please comment. This plan of mine is a work in progress, and I aspire to be able to keep track of all my pals, make sure all my pals can keep track of me, and get off the godawful LJ drama llama all at once.
If you are moving off of LJ to a place that is not InsaneJournal, please comment.<\/b> I do not plan on losing track of any of my peeps, and if that means making an RSS feed for your GJ or some other solution, I will do it.
If you have an IJ and I haven't friended you yet, never fear. It'll take me a few days to search y'all out over there.
If you have an IJ but it won't have all your content on it<\/b>, would you take a moment and comment to let me know the details? My current plan is to friend IJs and defriend the duplicate journals on LJ. If I'll miss something in your case by doing that, let me know so I don't do it!
For the record, I am moving the majority of my social networking off of LJ partly because of the cumulative stupidity of their \"secret TOS\" rulings, appalling customer service, and apparent lack of a PR person or lawyer on retainer. The tipping point for me was when it was strongly suggested by a member of LJ staff that the two artists who were suspended for drawings had been reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is where the FBI refers child pornography complaints. Since it was clear, even by LJ staff's own eventual admission, that the drawings in question were not of minors, if LJ did report these artists, they filed a false complaint of the most damaging and life-destroying kind. That is unforgivable, and I am unwilling to stick around on a site that is so cavalier with such behavior."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:169175","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/169175.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=169175"}}],"title":"Decision forthcoming","published":"2007-08-10T23:21:00Z","updated":"2007-08-10T23:21:00Z","content":"I will soon join the ranks of those posting to explain where they're going during the LJ exodus and what my plans are to keep from losing track of any of my pals. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, if you're looking to step off the LJ drama llama for a while, do bring your fictional boys, girls, and in betweens to Dr. Alan's virtual psychologist's office<\/a> (see how to play here<\/a>)."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:168770","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/168770.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=168770"}}],"title":"Politics, artistic expression, etc.","published":"2007-08-10T05:54:32Z","updated":"2007-08-10T05:54:32Z","content":"Not too happy with LJ these days. Update forthcoming on how I will be handling this. I've been exceedingly patient and understanding with them, but they're turning my stomach now.
In other news -- or perhaps it isn't all that \"other\"; I'm sure the content I'm about to link to violates some unpublished subsection of LJ's alternate but wholly binding secret TOS: The following has blown my mind. It is not for the squeamish or easily offended. Y'all know me. I don't get disturbed easy, and this is a definite disturber.
\"For some the earthly orgasm of virtual whores. For others the eternal orgasm of 70 heavenly virgins. What if it all came down to flesh?\"<\/i>
Strikeback Films<\/a> presents \"Flesh,\" a 10-minute CG film comprised, in large part, of naked women superimposed upon New York buildings, including the World Trade Center towers. 9\/11 is re-enacted, and far worse, in an intensely surreal style. It is a visual punch to the gut, and an incredibly brave artistic\/political statement in these climes."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:168665","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/168665.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=168665"}}],"title":"dragonkal @ 2007-08-09T08:16:00","published":"2007-08-09T15:17:20Z","updated":"2007-08-09T15:17:20Z","content":"Happy belated birthday,
<\/a>telesilla<\/b><\/a><\/span>!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:168280","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/168280.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=168280"}}],"title":"GIP!","published":"2007-08-09T00:38:17Z","updated":"2007-08-09T00:38:17Z","content":"roffles! From <\/a>sorchar<\/b><\/a><\/span>. <3333"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:168065","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/168065.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=168065"}}],"title":"Questions.","published":"2007-08-07T20:15:16Z","updated":"2007-08-07T20:15:16Z","content":"What's your favorite RSS reader?Of equal import: can one create an RSS reader of any given blog on any given platform?
Of more nominal value: I've made myself steer clear of LJ for the last couple of days and found my mental health improved drastically. Ironically, while I'm not of a mind to leave LJ because of LJ's problems, I'm curtailing my usage dramatically because the whole furor surrounding<\/i> LJ's problems is so draining. (There also seems to be a corollary at work -- i.e. the more uproar there is in one corner of LJ, the more uproar there is in seemingly unrelated areas of LJ. Drama llamas breed like bunnies? I don't know.)
My current hope is to use an RSS reader to keep track of my core folks as they splinter off into various subfactions of social networking platforms. Then I'll carry on posting here on LJ, and only on LJ, in order to make it easier for others to read me.
If RSS really is flexible enough to do this, then all of you who are moving can just RSS my blog so you don't have to deal with LJ if you don't want to. And people like me who cannot manage another fragmentation won't have to deal with five logins if we<\/i> don't want to.
Sound fair?
Great. Now: Is it doable?"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:167782","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/167782.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=167782"}}],"title":"Surprise, surprise: LJ's not the only one","published":"2007-08-05T04:58:06Z","updated":"2007-08-05T05:11:05Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"censorship"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"soapbox"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"strikethrough 2007"}}],"content":"This just in: LJ's not the only social network dealing with the sponsor\/content issue.
Firms withdraw ads from Facebook because some of their ads show up on the British National Party page.<\/a>
Note how this example is political, not sexual. These kinds of things are about controversy<\/i>. Not squelching sexual content."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:167437","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/167437.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=167437"}}],"title":"I have HAD IT.","published":"2007-08-03T23:22:13Z","updated":"2007-08-03T23:22:13Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"censorship"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"soapbox"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"strikethrough 2007"}}],"content":"
I've done my logical post. Now comes the rant.
People.
LJ's suspension of accounts that they have decided violate their TOS is not the fucking Holocaust<\/a>. (That offends me so much I can't even tell you.) It is not genocide of fen. It isn't even surprising<\/i>. The only thing that's surprised me in all of this is that it's taken LJ this long to take action on things that are against their TOS.
Of course<\/i> their TOS is murky when it comes to copyright infringement and obscenity. Show me a TOS that isn't.
Of course<\/i> they're going after images more than they're going after text. This is the national trend and has been for quite some time now. Go to your local megamart and see this in action: can you find books depicting explicit sex and violent acts? Yes. Can you find NC-17 rated movies? No. This is not a new phenomenon.
Of course<\/i> they're going to go after Harry Potter. If there's a fandom where it's more confusing to tell whether the characters involved are of age or not, I haven't heard about it.
LJ has every right to decide what they allow and do not allow. LJ has every right to make these decisions subjectively. They're a private company. That's what private companies do.
LJ is not<\/i> some special case because they'd prefer not to see chan or drawings of Harry Potter getting sucked off on their servers. Having published gay porn professionally for years, I can assure you that if you write a story about two guys fucking without using a condom, it's going to be a hard sell. If you write a story about two guys fucking and one of them is 17, good luck. This is not oppression. This is not censorship. This is private publications making a call about the risks they are or are not willing to take. Same with LJ.
Lest anyone think I'm somehow outside the fray here, I was kicked off a mailing list several years ago for writing what the mod decided was underage porn. The character appeared in a single episode of a television series, and I thought he looked 18. The mod disagreed. When I explained that it was not my intention to portray the character as underage, she quoted specific lines of my story that she felt made it obvious he was underage. (The only one I remember at this point was that I'd said he had \"hairless thighs.\") The mod's decision was not to be reversed, and I felt nauseous for days at the thought that I'd been pegged as some kind of child pornographer. It was fucking awful. And you know what? The mod still had the right to do it. It was her list.
Show me a US-based social network with a TOS that says \"Sure, you can post your chan and pictures of characters generally regarded as below the age of majority here!\" and I'll eat my hat.
Until then, I find this whole debacle becoming more and more hysteria-driven and less and less fact-based. Fanfic has always been on dubious legal\/ethical ground. So has chan. I'm astonished LJ hasn't come under fire for hosting it until now, really. And unlike the majority of people in this argument, I don't expect them to decide to stick up for the fans and thereby hemorrhage sponsors.
Actually, if they did that, they'd look a lot like JF, wouldn't they? All for the fen but with a struggling business model. The people who are anti-LJ in this fight don't seem happy with JF, either. Sorry. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either you have a grassroots social network where fans can do whatever they want that will always struggle due to lack of corporate sponsorship dollars, or you have a large and stable social network funded by corporate dollars that has to restrict some content in order to get the money to run well.
Neither way is evil. Nor is either way a goddamn holocaust. Cripes.
*steps off soapbox*"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:167394","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/167394.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=167394"}}],"title":"He lives!","published":"2007-08-03T20:53:48Z","updated":"2007-08-03T20:53:48Z","content":"Anybody here remember Dr. Alan from the Establishment?
You know, he's still in my head after all this time. So much so that when I went back to look at his JF account, I still remembered his password.
So I decided to resurrect him. And he will now take questions from any<\/i> fictitious character. Dr. Alan: He's not just for the Establishment anymore!
Have a peek at his re-entry post<\/a> and the updated userinfo<\/a>, which has some info on how to play.
As a quick primer for those unfamiliar, Dr. Alan is an OMC mental health therapist I originally created in the Establishment RPG. At first, he was supposed to be a one-off to give my Bale a little help, but he quickly took off with a life of his own, and eventually wound up with his own journal, where he answered letters Dear Abby-style for kinksters and pontificate on mental health matters. This is the journal I've resurrected, with some additional features, and his advice is now available to any fictitious people with something on their minds. Come play!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:167074","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/167074.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=167074"}}],"title":"Two sides of family","published":"2007-08-03T16:49:59Z","updated":"2007-08-03T16:49:59Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"writing:history"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"family"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"personal"}}],"content":"Well, I think I'm about done.
My dad called me a month and a half ago to say that the tags on the car he's loaned me would be arriving in the mail anytime, and when they got to him, he'd send them. (I still have the car he loaned me because he's promised to have a friend of his look at my car, which is dead, and that was about 5 months ago.)
A couple of weeks ago, I e-mailed Dad and his wife a link to my newest article. It's about professional chefs and food philosophy, so I figured it was worth reaching out to him again. I mean, it's not porn and it's not something that will make him say \"I read the comments, and those guys aren't even on the same planet as me\" again, right?
No response, although my brother reported that Dad's gone back to saying to my brother, \"How's your sister doing? I haven't heard from her in so long,\" as if phone connections only go one way.
Well, July -- the month the car's tags expire -- came and went. I finally e-mailed him yesterday to ask about the status, and pointed out that I'll be taking a trip soon and figure I'll be more likely to get pulled over on open freeway if we don't get this sorted out.
He e-mailed back that he'd put the tags in the mail that day, and then wrote a long explanation of everything he's doing for the next month. No comment on the article. No \"you said you're going on a trip -- what are you up to?\" Not even a \"so, how are you?\"
Then, that afternoon, he called me. He didn't have my address.
My address<\/i>. I've lived here for four months now and he's sent me at least 4 things in the mail. This is a guy who keeps a small notebook in his breast pocket at all times and calls it his \"brains.\" In it, he keeps all his important phone numbers and etc. Apparently I don't rate.
It just really made me frustrated to see what we've come to. He really, seriously doesn't care in any meaningful way. If I need something, and it's dire, I know I can count on him. But in terms of just general support? It's not there. It's so<\/i> not there.
~ ~ ~
Yesterday, as I was pouring all this out to
<\/a>padawanhilary<\/b><\/a><\/span>, the conversation wound up turning to my great-grandfather, who stayed at home, wrote dime westerns, and raised the kids while my great-grandmother worked at an army depot. This was in the 1940s in a serious cowboy town in Oregon, folks -- not exactly the kind of arrangement smiled upon back then! He lost the tips of the fingers of one hand in an accident midway through his career, and had silver prosthetic tips made so that he could continue to type.It's amazingly comforting to think that I am genetically linked to an author of that kind of perseverance, who didn't mind giving a big fuck-you to the status quo and the family members who assuredly treated him with far worse than the indifference I get from my dad.
Somewhere, we have a huge bound resource of all of my great-granddad's stories. It's probably in Dad's storage unit somewhere. My dad or my great-aunt has his typewriter -- neither are sure which of them has it, they're such pack rats -- but they both know that if they run across it I would like to house it in a place of honor. (I've also mentioned that I'd love those silver fingertips, if they're even around anymore -- it's not morbid to me, it's a physical symbol of determination.)
My great-granddad's name was Mark Lish. Here's a partial list of his stories.<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:166885","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/166885.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=166885"}}],"title":"Curious choices","published":"2007-08-01T01:25:22Z","updated":"2007-08-01T01:25:22Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"writing:process"}},"content":"I'm reading a proof of a story of mine. And it's a damn good thing that I am. I've been pushing this back and back and back on the calendar, having somehow missed that it says right in the e-mail this is due TOMORROW. So good job I wound up having time to do it tonight.
But this is what made me want to post: I've just changed something in the description of a kiss. Instead of \"tasting the spice of the noodles,\" my protagonist is now \"tasting ginger.\" And this isn't an aesthetic thing at all. It's a change necessitated by the fact that this story is in a universe I'm writing a novel about, and I've discovered some things about their cuisine since this story was accepted.
Lately I've been pondering how incredibly strange it is to be a writer. To make people up and get so damn excited<\/i> about getting to know them. To fear that years down the line nitpickers would have a field day if I left that word \"spice\" in there, and that it would be the first question at every con I spoke at until the end of time unless it's changed to \"ginger.\"
Yup. It suits me."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:166465","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/166465.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=166465"}}],"title":"Quote of the day","published":"2007-07-31T22:16:09Z","updated":"2007-07-31T22:16:09Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"chuck palahniuk"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"quote"}}],"content":"\"It was different but what the hell, I'm not in this to be bored.\" --Chuck Palahniuk"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:166199","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/166199.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=166199"}}],"title":"Placeholder","published":"2007-07-31T06:55:11Z","updated":"2007-07-31T06:55:11Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"writing:process"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"writing:pictures"}}],"content":"Holy crap, I totally forgot about that idea I had A VERY LONG TIME AGO about posting a weekly photo as a writing prompt for folks. Watch this space -- I've recovered enough brainspace to think about this again, which means it's only a matter of time before I've recovered enough to actually start doing it."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:165893","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/165893.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=165893"}}],"title":"bleh.","published":"2007-07-30T20:02:04Z","updated":"2007-07-30T20:02:04Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"personal"}},"content":"If you have extra good vibes hanging around, would you send them my way?
Nothing in particular, just suffering a low time due to dealing with various stressors, insomnia, schedule and work changes, post-deadline drop, etc. And realizing there's a lot of good vibes out there that I never ask for when I could really use them.
Thanks in advance."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:165635","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/165635.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=165635"}}],"title":"FINISHED IT","published":"2007-07-30T05:36:10Z","updated":"2007-07-30T07:04:22Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"writing:process"}},"content":"Am exhausted. Realized I forgot to eat dinner. But I FINISHED IT. I wrote 2700 words of it today. I'm pretty sure that's the most I've ever written in one day.
POOPED, I tell you.
<\/a>sorchar<\/b><\/a><\/span>'s having a look tonight, I'm sleeping on it, and then hopefully I'll have time in the morning to gussy it up and send it off.I AM NEVER PROCRASTINATING TO THIS EXTENT EVER EVER AGAIN
ETA:<\/b> Decided to go on and edit and send tonight. It's all over. I've done it. Aside from my minor weekly slap-stuff-together deadline, I've got TWO WHOLE WEEKS before a significant deadline again, and even that is a piece of cake compared to this.
What the hell am I going to do with myself? I've been so buried under so many deadlines for so many days now that not having one looming is a little scary."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:165609","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/165609.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=165609"}}],"title":"YES!","published":"2007-07-29T23:46:46Z","updated":"2007-07-29T23:46:46Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"writing:process"}},"content":"I am on the LAST SCENE before the epilogue.
I need a \"yay\" icon. Maybe I'll do that tonight, since I'll actually have FREE TIME."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:165301","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/165301.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=165301"}}],"title":"Oh, thank you, muses.","published":"2007-07-29T17:46:17Z","updated":"2007-07-29T17:46:17Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"writing:process"}},"content":"So I got about a thousand words done yesterday on the new-POV story. I went to bed pretty reluctantly, but I knew I'd do better with the writing once I'd had some sleep. And once I could slurp coffee while drafting. I did a dangerous thing, though: I left the story at a section break. That's always chancy.
This morning I settled down at the computer and opened up the doc. Okay, Chef, I said. You probably have insomnia in this next section. Are you staring up at strange features on your ceiling, or flipping through TV channels, or what?
I am thinking about Tim, Chef said. And out came this gorgeous, compact little nut of backstory -- crucial events wrapped in a tone of nostalgia and regret, Chef's words flying as fast as my fingertips could hit the keys. I can't tell you how relieved I felt. I'd bridged that crucial gap from writing about Chef to Chef talking to me, and that makes it all so much easier.
I banged out a thousand words in about 45 minutes -- not a record, but faster than my standard, and damn<\/i> faster than I've been in the past year or so of undisciplined farting around in the wake of the total disruption of my writing schedule.
This story is due tomorrow, and I'm going to make it now, I can tell. The draft will be done today, which leaves me a night to sleep on it followed by editing tomorrow before I ship it off.
And it's actually good<\/i>. I really can't overstate how glad I am that I figured out the wrong person was telling this story, and that Chef has seen fit to grace me with his voice just a day after I started trying to find it.
Do I sound totally nuts? Sometimes I wonder how this sounds to people whose heads aren't continually overrun by fictitious people clamoring for attention. If I do sound completely off my rocker, let me assure you that I wouldn't have it any other way."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:165010","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/165010.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=165010"}}],"title":"This is what passes for good when you're a writer.","published":"2007-07-28T20:41:11Z","updated":"2007-07-28T20:41:11Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"writing:process"}},"content":"(*points at icon* That's Baz Luhrmann banging his head against the chart of Moulin Rouge<\/i> plotlines. I uploaded it especially for this post.)
So, I walked today. Like, a LOT.
<\/a>sorchar<\/b><\/a><\/span> joined me for what's becoming my habitual 5K bridge loop walk, and then I walked another mile or so home from a street fair. Walking is good for me; it wakes me up, makes my body happy, and generally helps me write better.Halfway home, for example, it hit me like a ton of bricks: No wonder this story I'm frantically trying to work up by a Monday deadline isn't working -- it's from the wrong POV!
Catching this mistake is good news. Catching it when I have around 48 hours to write the entire damn thing, not so much.
Ah well. In between the 5K walk and the revelation, there was habanero nut crunch ice cream. Ooh la la.
And now, I'm gonna write my ass off."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:164715","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/164715.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=164715"}}],"title":"Yay Friday!!!!","published":"2007-07-28T00:38:19Z","updated":"2007-07-28T00:38:19Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"ah life"}},"content":"I have beer.
I have chocolate to dip into peanut butter.
I have s'mores ingredients.
I'm just a few minutes away from piping-hot homemade bread slathered with butter.
I have a story I desperately need to finish.
You know, it's not a bad Friday night."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:164531","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/164531.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=164531"}}],"title":"This whole journal thing.","published":"2007-07-27T06:44:14Z","updated":"2007-07-27T06:44:14Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"censorship"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fandom"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"soapbox"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"strikethrough 2007"}}],"content":"I've avoided this topic because I know I'm in the minority in my opinion, but that's never been a good reason to stay silent, has it?
I simply don't see 6A\/LJ as the bad guy of \"Strikethrough 2007\" and its accompanying fallout. Did they behave perfectly? Well, no. But I don't know any company that would, given the pressures they were put under. I don't see them as being in bed with some minority faction; I see them struggling to make sure they remain solvent in a sue-happy society with very very indistinct laws about free speech when it comes to all things sexual.
Since it's my opinion that outside pressure is the cause of recent events, I don't think moving to other journaling systems is the solution. All the interest in InsaneJournal caused me to go have a look at their TOC<\/a>. Well, they don't allow anything \"vulgar\" or \"obscene\" and tell you not to \"impersonate any person or entity\" (ought to make RP interesting) or \"promote or provide instructional information about illegal activities.\" In other words, their TOC is pretty standard, with the usual vague spots.
So my theory is that it will go pretty much like this: if mass exodus from LJ occurs to another platform such as IJ, ultimately the public profile of controversial journals will increase there and become subject to conservative criticism. Assuming the platform wants to cover its ass (perfectly reasonable), it will then attempt some sort of ill-defined \"crackdown\" in hopes of making the critics happy without completely alienating those who are controversial in their journals. (What else would you have them do? Ignore the possibility of getting their asses sued, or sharply curtailing any journaling activity that is remotely objectionable?) And people will abandon ship and move on to whatever new platform has come up that hasn't yet realized this is inevitable, and the whole cycle starts over again.
This is just my take based on what I've seen thus far. Future events may well prove me wrong, but this is where I stand right now, and it's pretty much where I've stood since this started.
You can't expect a journaling platform to be perfect in its policies about controversial material when it exists within a society filled with confusion, double standards, and litigious conundrums on the topic."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:164015","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/164015.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=164015"}}],"title":"Review of tonight's author reading at Powell's","published":"2007-07-25T04:57:35Z","updated":"2007-07-25T04:57:35Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"richard k morgan"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"readings:powell's"}}],"content":"Richard K. Morgan has perfect nipples."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:163831","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/163831.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=163831"}}],"title":"Harry Potter (no spoilers)","published":"2007-07-22T04:30:35Z","updated":"2007-07-22T04:30:35Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"fandom"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"harry potter"}}],"content":"I just want to give virtual hugs to all my HP-lovin' pals. I'm not in HP fandom, yet I've found myself reading every post about the final book -- partly because I know it means so much, and partly because fandom is fandom, whether I'm intimately familiar with the details or not. I've been all caught up in when the UPS truck's gonna get there and whether people can make it to the last page before they fall asleep -- I might not know exactly what's at stake in HP7, but I sure know what that<\/i> kind of stuff is all about.
I should clarify that it's not that I dislike HP. It's just that when I found out about it, I was right in the middle of two enormous fandom events (Matrix and LotR), and when I watched the first HP movie I realized I could easily add another. Well. It would have been easy mentally. It would not have been so easy in terms of my time and money, and so I backed off HP. And I really quite like Daniel Radcliffe. I remember seeing an interview with him early on, and having the sense that he was so together<\/i> as a child star that I suspected he'd weather the dangerous waters of public coming-of-age all right. So far, that seems to be correct, thank goodness.
So anyway, thanks for letting me vicariously enjoy this spike in the fandom Force for a while. I realized recently that it probably looks as if I've exited all of fandom, and really, I haven't. I'm still amassing giant folders of .jpgs of hot dudes du jour and writing fanfic every day. It's just that right now I'm mostly writing some pretty obscure pairings (no, seriously, very very obscure<\/i>), some of which I don't feel comfortable letting out in public."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:dragonkal:163508","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/163508.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/dragonkal.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=163508"}}],"title":"oil and lube (not the fun kinds)","published":"2007-07-21T07:08:25Z","updated":"2007-07-21T07:08:25Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"ohnoez practical shit"}},"content":"Hey
<\/a>dine<\/b><\/a>