Lets Talk About Fanfic

Because of scheduling choices not of my own I worked alone at Lids today. Basically someone that's not me made the schedule and decided it would be a good idea to have our part timer who was flying in TODAY from visiting his sick father, who has cancer by the way, to work 1-6 when his flight comes in at 10 am. Okay, he took the whole week off to see his dad but dude, his father is really sick and he was flying in the same day he was working. That's just stupid scheduling. If it was me the kid wouldn't have a shift until Tuesday unless he requested it be earlier. Anyway, the flight was delayed and I told him to not bother coming because 1) It's not worth all the stress of him rushing from the airport to work 2) The circumstances of his time off and his late return 3) It's Sunday and dead at the mall.

And it was super dead at the mall so him not coming in wasn't a big deal at all and honestly, I was fairly happy about it just because when I work entire shifts alone and I don't have busy work to do in my hat store I like to plot out and sometimes write portions of my fanfics. I know, I know, it's really bad of me to do that sort of thing, especially since I'm management but I don't do it a lot. Only once and awhile and only when I'm blocked or just being lazy about writing my story.

For some reason I get great plot ideas and I have easy word flow when I'm at work. Maybe it's the fact that I do this when there's absolutely nothing to do and it leaves my mind open to ideas. Who the hell knows, all I know is the mall was super dead today, I worked 10-6 pm and had only 22 transactions and made 780 dollars. Once again, I reiterate the super dead nature of today. Hee.

But it was good because I got twelve pages written for Part 26 of The Laws of Attraction which is my Danish (Dana/Alice) fanfic for The L Word. It's going to be my last chapter in that series and then I'll have the epilogue and I'll be done with it. I'm honestly quite happy about the series being over soon just because I'm getting fairly bored with it. I joked with Lucia and Sulky that Laws should be renamed Dana Loves Alice Lots and Lots because that's really the entire fucking plotline of the fanfic. I mean, I think it's one of my more well rounded stories but the driving plot is sort of insipid. Then again, it's fucking fanfic and it's fucking romance fanfic.

Not that I degrade my hobby but dude, lets be real. lol. I love writing fanfic though and I can't imagine not writing/reading it just because I've done it for so long. Someone asked me at Onna! after the fanfic panel when I was wandering around aimlessly the next day if I would ever consider writing gen fanfic aka fanfic that's not focused on romance and not focused on romance between women. I just stared at them all brain dead and said that I couldn't even comprehend writing gen fic so that gives them the answer right there. lol. But seriously, the idea of reading much less writing fanfic like that kills my brain. Though that's not really a hard feat to accomplish.

Thing is despite looking butch as hell and being somewhat intimidating in person, I've been told, I am such a fucking goddamn sad girl and I worship romance. That's all I have interest in reading and writing. I mean, with the manga I read like 95% of it is shoujo romance and most of that is heterosexual romance just because that's what is mostly readily available in USA translated. But I love my heterosexual manga romance books! lol. My favorite series ever is Peach Girl. It kicks so much ass and I recommend it to all that share my sad romantic appreciation.

So I got a lot of writing done today. I have seven pages written out in my word file on my Mac at home and now twelve on my legal writing pad. That's something I've done since the age of twenty or so. I noticed I can't really write effectively without an outline so I write one out given descriptions of the minor and major events in each scene to give me a direction for the story. Just so I know what I need to accomplish in each scene to make the story flow better. I learned this after fucking with It Starts With Faith where I totally petered off and lost interest because I didn't outline the story at all.

And by outline I mean that I didn't outline the entire story as a whole which is why it lost steam and wandered off into totally crappy storylines like Cordelia the vampire plot. Which is just painfully bad if you ask me and I want to poke myself in the side for that. Which is bad because I squeal and freak out when people poke me in the side. That's mostly because my Mom did that all the time to me when I was little. She'd be like, "You did this and this wrong!" Which was always followed by a severe poke in the side.

Thus I'm traumatized by side pokings and it's why I consider them a serious punishment.

That Cordelia vampire storyline did suck so much ass though. God, I groan at it. But I didn't plot out ISWF at all and that's why it ended up sucking. I think that's what happens with almost all of the series fanfic though. People plot out each chapter but not the fic as a whole and when you don't plot things out and have a purpose for why everything is happening and everyone is acting they way they do then things just get crappy and confusing and it ends up like real life which is boring and no one really wants to read about that. If they did they wouldn't be staring at my crappy fanfic, you know?

I love fanfic though. If I didn't I wouldn't still be writing it but there are so many things that bother me about the genre. I was going to do a top five but my brain is dying on this subject and I'll just write about the two that have consistently bothered me for years.

1. Feedback Ransom - This is when people basically insinuate that if you don't give them feedback they will stop writing. A lot of the time, disgustingly, this is more blatant where people actually will whine and moan and act as if someone is torturing them if they don't get feedback. They throw this huge drama queen crying fest over feedback and not getting any and end up getting tons of replies which are all fawning praise and no actual construction information as to the story or the writer's abilities.

2.Ungrateful Feedback - Really this is two things. The first links back to what I was just mentioning above where people ransom people into giving feedback so they'll keep writing the story. This is where someone does that then you give them feedback and they get upset because it's not empty praise for them and their story. Instead it's actual feedback that talks about what works and what doesn't and how to fix these things as the reader sees it. A lot of writers freak out and say that the person doesn't understand them or they actually even go so far as to accuse them of attacking them because it's criticism on the story and not compliments. The second is when people give a writer feedback such as this: "U rite gr8! post more!!" or they demand that you do something in the story such as have Helena be pushed off a cliff and a choir of angels to sing the many holy characteristics that make up Bette Porter. Then if you don't do the things they've ordered you to do they get more pissed off.

But enough about my sad hobby. Lets get to the real star of my dimwitted Livejournal entries, The Cute Michi Moment!

CUTE MICHI MOMENT #2: Girls steal clothing. Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, they steal clothing. Not from The Gap, although lots of girls do that, but from whoever they're dating. Sometimes they don't even wear the clothing they steal or don't even like the clothing but they feel compelled to steal it anyway. It's a cute thing girls do and it fascinates and endears them to me which is good because girls steal TONS of clothing from me. I'm one of the dyke anomalies, maybe because I'm fucking butch, who doesn't feel the cute compulsion to steal clothing. I'm just the victim of it.

I'm currently living with my ex-girlfriend Pip and her girlfriend Stacey in a nice house in The Loop which is the trendy gay area of St. Louis. Pip and I dated a few years ago when we were in college around the age of twenty or so. We were great bitchy friends before dating and great bitchy girlfriends while dating and returned to great bitchy friends after breaking up. Seriously, we're just mean to each other and we delight in it because we know it's harmless. Us insulting each other is like our way of saying, "I love you so much, man."

Enough about Pip though. She's not cute, she's a fucking bad tempered midget who is in love with plants over people enough she should be Poison Ivy (from Batman and not Drew Barrymore fabulous dyke leanings movie with Sara Gilbert) the lesbian version. But then again, Poison Ivy is the lesbian version thanks to her interaction with Harlequin. Err... but I'm off track. Pip doesn't matter, she's not cute and she's not my girlfriend anymore. Michi is. Hence me moving on.

Recently I found out one of my favorite jackets and jeans, which have been missing for six years and counting, are alive and well and in Pip's possession. I've finally reclaimed them thanks to our living status and I'm so pleased because I don't look good in a lot of clothing and if I must be somewhat bragging I think I look butch punker girl suave in my black corduroy mens jacket and worn black jeans. I get the clothes back and I'm super happy about this so I call Michi in my moment of utter ecstasy. Conversation goes as such...

ME: I finally got my clothes back! I had this great looking coat and jacket that went missing six years ago and I loved them because I looked sort of hot in them and I got so sad they were gone but I've reclaimed them from Pip's evil clutches!

MICHI: Why did Pip have them?

ME: She stole them when we were dating.

MICHI: ...

MICHI: Why would she do that? Did you make her angry.

ME: No. Girls just steal stuff. Pip stole tons of my clothes when were dating and I got them back when we broke up but I didn't get these clothes back because I had no idea she had them.

MICHI: But why did she have them?

ME: Because she stole them.

MICHI: ...

MICHI: (Painfully confused.) But why? They were yours.

And etc etc etc it goes on this way for minutes until I stopped trying to break her brain by explaining why girls steal clothing for no particular reason at all. Goddamn her cuteness. She could conquer the world using it if she so chose.

MP3: http://www.dreiser.net/mp3/boomboomboom.mp3

Boom Boom Boom by Paul Lekakis is my random mp3 because when I was thirteen years old I heard this song on the radio and thought it was the most scandalous sexual thing I had ever heard in my life and I loved it so fucking much for that fact. lol. It's lame because on listening to it now I don't find anything really titillating about this song anymore. I mean, it's a good song but It's nowhere close to being racy I think. Ah, the innocence of my youth before I turned into a sad person who rejoices in writing fairly graphic and at least bluntly portrayed strap on sex in fanfics.

CSI: Barnes & Noble - Bubblegum Scene Investigation

I worked at Barnes & Noble today where my manager, David, informed everyone very humorously and nicely that no one is to chew gum on the sales floor, whether we're opened or closed. He then said the reason of this is the fact that we're a brand new store but we currently have a huge wad of gum stuck in the carpet around the information center. He was really sweet and hilarious about it so no one felt bad.

I was feeling tired and I didn't want to go back to putting out books so I offered to get the gum out myself the best we can until David could buy Freon to freeze the gum off of the floor tomorrow. I spent about thirty minutes getting the gum out of the carpet with a box cutter and when David came up to see how I was doing he told me to somehow, like block off the area so no one would step in the gum and get what's left of it further imbedded into the carpet.

And thus I created my gum carpet CSI crime scene. I found a tiny box that our B&N discount cards came in and placed it on top of the area where the gum was after cutting out the top and bottom of the box so people could see what was left of the gum in the carpet. Then I put a little sign on it that read: "Chewing gum on the sales floor is a B&N crime so don't do it. This is the reason why." Then I had a little arrow pointing towards the criminal Bubblelicious stuck in our carpet. Ahh. I love doing weird things like that. It's really too much fun and it's part of why I adore retail.

Another random B&N story before I forget... we finally got our register areas set up in music/movies today and it's all pimped out and it looks like the fucking bridge in Star Trek. And we have this huge wall separating us from the rest of the store but there's this little black window thing in the register area where only associates can go and you can slide it up and down so the staff in music/movies can see directly onto the book sales floor but the great thing about this window is the fact that's actually hidden in the middle of a book section that customers can shop in. So all day we were messing with the window, pushing it up and freaking out the associates who were shelving the books in that section and didn't know that the window was there. At one point one of the associates knocked on our window, because our area is blocked off so only music/movies staff can go in there, and I pushed the window down and did the whole Wizard of Oz thing.

SALES ASSOCIATE: (Knocking on window.) We need to ask music a question!

ME: (Pushing window down then up abruptly.) There is no music here! No music here!

Ahhh. So much stupid fun I have at work.

But enough of that. You know what's coming. Yes, here is the thing that is greatest in the world when it comes to my livejournal postings, although she apparently doesn't thinks so, it's the...

CUTE MICHI MOMENT #3!

Hee. That was fun to write. Anyway, as those who read this crap know I'm posting again because my girlfriend asked me to. This is because I'm currently working four jobs and going to school fulltime which means she doesn't see me as much as she wants to. She asked me to post in my journal again because she wants to be able to read about my day when she can't see me and that she finds reading my postings online is a lot less "ree ree crazy" (her words) than staring at a picture of me and sighing longingly like she was a 16th century lesbian cliche. Again, her words. Although she did say that me writing online to her like I'm basically doing now is like a lame modern version of those flowery love letters people composed in Jane Austen novels and such. But my point is simply that she's the only reason I'm posting here because it was her request. Everyone else who reads this, I'm sorry, but you don't matter. I post for her. lol. You are nothing to me! rofl.

Now that I've had my obligatory asshole moment lets move onto the cute moment, shall we?

Today she called me in the middle of class after reading my entry last night and she informed me that I can't keep posting Cute Michi Moments because she can't read my livejournal if I'm talking about her in it. This might seem insane to some people but I totally thought something like this might happen. I mean, she can't call for takeout food because she can't talk to people she doesn't know on the phone.

If a telemarketer calls her she doesn't freeze up, she talks back but when it comes to her calling someone she doesn't know, like a random worker at Domino's to order a pizza, she freaks out to the point of hyperventilating. I've had moments with her where this has happened and I had to severely restrain myself from chasing her around with the cordless phone, waving it at her and yelling at her to order pizza. I bet you anything she'd flee in terror from me and the perspective phone call with a stranger.

I think the Cute Michi Moment is the best thing about this livejournal so I refuse to remove it. Plus everyone I know who reads this, which are few and far between, seem to love hearing about her insufferable level of cuteness. But since I only post for her and she's requesting I not write about her it would be nice if those of you who do enjoy her cute moments post a reply and tell her that. Haha... I'm doing feedback ransom now! lol. Not really because if you don't post a comment I'll keep writing her cute moments anyway but come on people! Just think about how she'll react to seeing not only ME but YOU writing about her in my livejournal comments section. Ahhh. I'm so evil to her but I love her so. She's too fucking cute not to love her.

MP3: http://s61.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=23Y3TB1U0M86O0VW8H4VZXRAOX

Boom! I Fucked Your Boyfriend by Salt-N-Pepa is my random mp3 because I just discovered it today and it's a remix of the song I linked yesterday, Boom Boom Boom by Paul Lekakis. It's just such a bitchy mean song and I love how blunt the lyrics are. "Oh yeah, silly bitch, I fucked your boyfriend. Boom! I fucked your boyfriend. Boom! I fucked your man. Boom! I fucked your boyfriend. He stuck it in."

And because of greatness that is Margaret Cho's stand up comedy I automatically find any form of the phrase, "Stick it in!" to be utterly hilarious.