Consonants and vowels all together, equally

A few things:

• If you think that my not making huge public statements about being deceived by a friend means that nothing I say online is valid, then you should defriend me.
  
• If you think that I made up getting mugged in order to get attention or get nicer things then you should defriend me.
  
• If you think I'm a plagiarist because I used clearly attributed movie quotes (that have since been removed) in some of my fanfic and that the only reason I don't appear in the list of Harry Potter plagiarists is because I'm not important enough to bother with, then you should defriend me.

ETA: If you think that being judgy about shit that went down years ago is sort of silly, because people are changing and learning and growing all the time, then by all means pull up a chair!

So due to recent wankiness there's this meme going around about who on your flist you've met, or how you know them, and who could vouch for you. Since in the past two years I've mostly friended people that I've met at some meet up or another, I have met a very high percentage of my flist, which is handy for denying sockpuppet claims. And there are a pile of people on this flist that are very close friends, that would have clarifying or verifying details, or what have you, and I think most of you know who they are.

Now, it would be nice to think that if something were really happening and I had some people to provide some information that this would be enough. But in my experience, if there's someone on LJ who is close enough to you to independently know facts about an incident, and who can provide things such as hospital information, etc, they're also perceived to be close enough to you to lie for you, fake documents, etc. Am I trusted by people who are also friends of my friends to tell the truth about them? Yes. Am I trusted by people who are not friends of my friends to tell the truth about them? Clearly not.

(This, by the way, is why if someone I know is in the middle of a wank, I go silent. 1-If I have a problem with my friend, I feel I owe it to our friendship to take it up with them privately. 2-If I don't, I have too much experience having my reasons for believing them dismissed because I'm "on their side" to think that making some public statement would help anything. 3-Making huge statements, in my experience, prolongs the wank and just brings me more attention, rather than calming things down, which is my own goal. So if you want to know what I think about some incident, you'll have to email me or find me in chat.)

We're in this strange space where the need for substantiation is higher than a lot of the ability to provide it. I can't verify for any of you that I'm in graduate school without giving you my name and my school, which I don't want to do. Someone on my flist goes to the same school, but why would you believe her? Wouldn't she lie for me, if we were all lying sorts?

For example, I was adopted, so even my birth certificate is a fake of sorts. I don't know anyone who was in the room when I was born. Do I know for sure that 23 August is my birthday? Only that I can't imagine that the hospital would lie. When I see folks implying that if you're not googleable you don't exist I start getting very, very nervous. I'm not googleable under my real name. And under that super duper thingum (the name of which escapes me) you can only find out my address. But you can't verify that I worked in the media industry, or what I'm doing now, or where I was born, or who my parents and siblings are, or any of that.

In the end, all we have are our own reasons to trust someone. The times that I have been burned online, I never could have covered myself; that person was lying to me as a friend. Try as you might, if you let people into your life, you will get hurt by them, and that happens on the street, too, not just online.

Remember when you were a kid and it would rain during Christmas or summer vacation and you'd get really bored and whine to your mother? And then she'd come up with a list of stuff to do, and you'd better do one of them or she'd get you doing chores?

Well, it seems to me that there are a big bunch of really bored people in fandom at the moment, and they just need some things to do! They pretty obviously lack imagination, so telling them to go be creative I don't think is really to the point. Here's some suggestions I came up with:

--Volunteer locally
--Rearrange your closet
--Get tax documents ready for the new year
--Clean out the bathroom
--See a movie
--Read a book
--Go for a drive
--Download some Black Lace novels
--Have some sex
--Get out the play-doh/fingerpaints
--Memorize the questions in your Trivial Pursuit deck so you can finally beat your damn brother
--Call your friend from high school that you haven't talked to in for ever
--Start writing thank you notes. You know what Aunt Miriam gave you, anyway.
--Origami
--Make some PoA icons
--Read old magazines, especially from the year you were born
--Do the laundry and surprise your mum
--Clean your harddrive and organize your iTunes
--Do that "stories I wrote this year" meme
--Do the yousendit meme
--Make up your own damn meme

Have anything to add to the list? Comment, and I'll put it in the entry!

Did you know that negative emotions are more intelligent and more fun than positive ones, particularly if you are so immature that you are unwilling to take responsibility for what you say? Only lame, stupid people actually like anything; smart cool people hate everything because they are so much smarter and cooler than everything around them.

Did you know that if you are seriously ill you shouldn't post about it too much on your LJ?

Did you know that if you really like something you shouldn't post about it too much on your LJ, even if you like it so much that you make your living selling it to other people?

Did you know that you shouldn't be too good at anything or it will piss people off?

Did you know that if you finally stand up for yourself and leave a destructive friendship that was taking advantage of you that you will be called names in public?

Did you know that if someone posts something that you don't like or that you just get tired of, the proper thing to do is not to defriend them so you don't have to read it (because that might affect your fandom standing, or keep you from being able to read their juicy, supr sekrit gossip posts which no one really makes anymore) but to anonymously spew out all of your frustration with them in the most hateful way possible?

Did you know that you can say anything you want about anyone and not have people get mad at you simply by saying how misanthropic you are? (See above; all the coolest most intelligent people in the world are misanthropes.)

Thank God for the internet, because if you behaved this way in real life stupid lame people would think you were mean and impolite and badly socialized and selfish when you're just speaking truth to power, man. Luckily, things like this keep nice people with good manners and the ability to make RL friends from invading our safe space.

Because as we all know, nice people are sort of stupid. And nice intelligent people are just showing off to be intimidating and we should hate them, too.

Wow, I'm so glad I learned that! Aren't you?

I can't even begin to convey how sad I am right now. Sad, and frustrated, and impotent, completely impotent.

It really hurts when a relationship that you put a lot of time and emotional energy into goes south in a fairly spectacular way. It hurts even more when other people say, "well, I told you so, because so-and-so is crazy." Especially when they are crazy, just not like that.

Granted, every friendship is a give and take. You do something for me, I do something for you. But sometimes a friendship slides off, slowly, into the constant cleaning up after someone who feels that because they "always" have the best intentions in mind, that nothing they ever do could ever really hurt anyone else.

Well.

Friendship is not about intentions. Friendship is about actions. If you value your friends, then you stop and think about how your actions will affect them. This is not the act of a cowed hanger-on, too afraid to speak of their "big cool friend" without their express permission. As Nancy said once, I am in no one's posse. No, this is the way that a kind, caring person behaves around their friends, particularly when the written word can be so easily misconstrued. We are all adults, or nearly so, and that means we must all take responsibility for our actions.

Nearly a year ago, I stayed up until all hours of the night managing a crisis. It was the first time that I had to say to a third party, "You have really hurt our mutual friend." Sadly, it would hardly be the last time. In fact, it became apparent that I was only around to listen to her do things that were unwise (do you think it's a coincidence that she chose that particular quote from Ali's fic for her email sig?) and then try to pick up the pieces afterward.

Crisis upon crisis came rolling my way, and I dug her out of the muck as best I could. I felt that while she was hasty and unthinking, she was not actually malicious. But at the same time, I spoke to her, trying to get her to understand how much she was hurting our friends, and leaving herself open to attack by her enemies. The more things she did, the more they seemed correct in their hatred of her.

But Machiavellian she ain't. She isn't actually crafty enough for that.

And then, finally, in her need to never take any responsibility for her actions, she decided that something that she had begun, but that I had been in the midst of, was actually my fault. And even though she knew that I was going through some personal hard times in late August, she sent me one of the most cruel emails it has ever been my displeasure to receive. I replied, I defriended her, and I have not spoken to her, or of her publicly, since that day.

After that she got herself into a great deal of trouble, one way and another, and the "usual suspects" were not there to smooth things over and make sure everything would be okay. As with me, she struck out with anger at other people who had been her friends, who were trying to be understanding, and they had no choice but to leave as well.

And now, she has done something that either is just plain malicious, in which case she is proving her usual detractors right at last, or shows beyond a doubt that she absolutely cannot learn from her own mistakes, or take other people's feelings into account before she does something. With this trait she proves that she is incapable of being a true friend to anyone, especially herself.

So, in case she ever reads this: Aja, until you are prepared to take responsiblity for your actions and to behave as an adult who thinks of the impact of her actions on those she cares about, I wish to have absolutely nothing to do with you.

You're on your own, kid.

Happy Birthday to eliasheldon and irinaauthor! I hope you both have great days!

I have made my last entry private because it was made in anger, during a day of great personal stress for me and for people that I care about, and it was therefore uncharitable. I would rather not have it living forever on your friends pages. I've not deleted it, to remind me not to act in such a manner in future. The one part of it that I would like to last is the sentiment that ari_o did an amazing, kick-ass job as Chief Auror at NImbus, complete with leather gauntlets on loan from the incomparable earthquake1906, which she of course wore very well.

Thanks to everyone who talked to me last night, but especially to my beloved C, who gave me some badly needed perspective. Interestingly, on the topic of birthdays, he revealed that his new songwriting partner has the same birthday I do.

Last night I dreamt that kitsune13 and I were "chaperones" for Dan Radcliffe et al. as we caroused around some beach towns for his birthday. We were driving them around in two open Jeeps, and I can't remember who all else was there except Alfred Enoch, which leads me to believe that Devon Murray was there but I was ignoring him. The odd thing was that one minute we were in SoCal, and the next we were in Maine. I have no idea what this means. But I slept until I woke up and I feel a bit more steady on my feet and that is always a good thing.

AND, aegeus made art for me because he rocks. You can see in his LJ or here. Thank you thank you thank you!

Anyway, I'm going to write today. People who want me should call me or text me because I will not be online.

Nimbus! Squee! I can't wait to meet everyone. This will be great! Comment if you're going so I can find you.

In preparation for such, I have finally overcome my shyness and gone on that Pumpkin Pie friending spree that I kept meaning to do but never did. I mean, I am writing them, so. Not that I don't love you slashers, becasue I'm one myself, of course. Just because I don't slash Harry . . .
I've also got a few S/D things in the hopper that I really need to finish up today. Really.

Okay, I know this is a little late but the end of the week was a bit of a blur. As I've been floating around looking at the general response to what went down Tuesday (and dude, that tired me OUT, man) the most interesting bit is the varied response to the original entry having been locked to six people.

--There's the "information wants to be free" camp, who say that you are an idiot if you ever post anything online that you don't want either your worst enemy, your mother, or the FBI to read. I wonder if any of these people write chanslash? Everyone has secrets, everyone has things they don't need everyone to know, and everyone deserves some respect on that.

--There's the "three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead" camp, with whom you can't even converse. Trusting no one is the same as trusting everyone. Take a really good look at Mulder's life before he met Scully. Do you want that life? Get a grip. The government is not monitoring your communication, and even if they are, they have so much backlogged information that they won't be able to read it until 2016 and by then your grand and secret theory about Dumbledore will be moot because JKR will have written the 7th book anyway. (We hope.)

Of course there is a reason my real name isn't on this journal, but I do hope that if I choose to talk about something behind a filter that it stays there. I'm not so much with the general attacks because I agree, it will get out. And I hope that nearly everything I say everywhere I would say to someone's face, because it isn't just filtered posts; I think we've all seen enough chat transcripts passed around like currency to know how secret THEY are. But when I lock a post (usually because it is personal and private, not because I don't want certain people to see it) I carefully select who can see it. And if you can, I mean you, not you and the 37 people you've given your LJ password to. You may trust them, but by doing that you are forcing me to trust them, and I don't even know who they are. It's a very bad practice and I am really quite put out by it.

Well, actually only the last two entries, which technically isn't clean up, but whatever.

THANKS to everyone who replied to that stupid whiny entry of mine the other day: misscora, heidi8, queerasjohn, fiatincantatum, lunasparrow, ladylisse, evil_erato, tobymalfoy, marysiak and decafchai. Mostly thanks for taking my wibble seriously and being so sweet when I was being so obnoxious and petty. I suppose now is the time to say, there is a lot of RL stuff that is occasionally throwing me off-kilter, though I'm trying to shield everyone from it as much as I can. But I will occasionally totally overreact to crap. Thanks for bearing with me.

As to the race thing: That horrid post has been locked, but you can go here to see not only what I had originally said and her reply, but also an amazing reply by decafchai about Fair Harvard and how it works. I'm so glad I went there, for so many reasons, mostly my fellow students, and so often when I meet more of them in the world I think, there IS a reason I went there, even if it didn't seem like I belonged at the time.

I wonder if one of the reasons that I love Seamus is that he's a half breed like I am?

In other news, I'm loving the new Madonna cd. As with most of her albums, I'm not so much about the first single, but the sound of the album is great, especially if you liked the more guitar-based songs on Music.

Next, spamming you with smut! Go me!

For those of you who didn't care to click through to the comments of my last entry, some solutions for current RS issues from the always-loffly tobymalfoy:
"We are aware of the problem that some have with the password system. We have so far been unable to find a reason for these problems. But everyone that has this problem can email the mod team and we will set them up with a working password.
"As for the linking problem... The reason for this is, that we wanted to make sure that everyone would see the age disclaimer page, before starting to read a fic on the site, while still making it possible to link to the stories. As a result, linking directly to the fic ( http://www.restrictedsection.org/load/story.shtml?/4/diwali.html ), will end up sending you back to the front page. Linking to the disclaimer page for the fic ( http://www.restrictedsection.org/disclaimer.shtml?/4/diwali.html ) will show you the disclaimer or, if you have seen it already within the last few days, forward you to the fic directly.
"While all links leading to fics on the site, be it from the search engine, the author listing or the Howlers list, do use the disclaimer links, I realize that it's not documented anywhere why. I will try to add this to the FAQ, and possibly add a note to the bottom of the stories."

and from kissaki:
"Also, if you wanted to link to your stories from LJ or wherever, then you should c/p the link that you receive when you are notified that the story has been uploaded. That is the correct link. Or you could copy the link that is on your Story by Author listing. That is also the link with the disclaimer."

And by the way, to do that you just left click on the link and select "copy this link to clipboard" or whatever the equiv is on a PC, and you're golden.


As for the other things going on, I think I'll say everything I have to say elsewhere, and not here. At this point, it just isn't for public consumption or debate. Hugs to ALL involved, especially John, Heidi, Plu and Aja. I really do think people have been well-intentioned through all of this. But we're in Hell just the same, aren't we?

1. For those of you that couldn't see the photo in my last entry here is the link: T00by god of modern rock.

2. If the fandom has decided that it has nothing better to do while it awaits book 5 than rip itself into shreds, I've decided I'm going to let it go. No more peacemaking from this corner. Do not come to me if you've decide to do something you know will get you into trouble but you're going to do it anyway. Do not come to me when you've already caused trouble and need someone to smooth it over. Do not come to me because someone that I know is making trouble for you and you want them to knock it off already. Trying to be the UN of this place has nearly given me an ulcer, and I have plenty of RL stress, thanks.

However, if you just want to wibble, and you're my pal, I'm still your girl. Thanks to Ali and Aja for listening to me wibble about all of this yesterday.

3. I'm really glad I came to that decision yesterday afternoon, because last night? Boy howdy. Because of my new attitude, I actually had some laughs in there someplace, mostly thanks to the usually-horrid fandom wankers. Which is all I'm going to say about that.

4. I can't wait until book 5 because SCUSA is so damn off-topic--I mean, it's ridiculous. Even canon ships are wandering OT. WTF?

And now, back to your regularly scheduled whatever.