Amazon.com is stripping the sales ranks from gay and lesbian books. That means, essentially, that gay and lesbian literature will not show up on Amazon searches or their bestseller lists. I am sort of incoherent with anger at this, so I'll let other people do my talking for me.

Such as copperbadge! He talks well. He also has several links to things you can do, such as sending Amazon a letter through the support page (which I have done), signing the petition, or participating in Smart Bitches Trashy Books' Googlebomb.

Amazon Rank

Mark Probst, an affected author, talks about things here.

And Dear Author sounds off here.

You know it's a big story when Sf_drama gets hold of it.

Meta_writer has an alert here and a list of affected books.

And a Real Newspaper weighs in, very articulately.

With Amazon's fail in mind, I think today's daily poet should be Sappho. Don't you?

( A fragment of Sappho )

Soooo a while ago I wrote a Vorkosiverse fanfic entitled A Brother Is Born For Adversity. It's not great, not bad either, but not great. I had fun writing it, people seemed to have fun reading it, everything is good, and it faded off the radar, so I assumed that was that.

Apparently not.

Turns out someone translated it into Russian.

Yeah, I don't know.

In slightly less boggly news, Snark and Explosives was a runnerup for best Classic Who crossover in the Children of Time awards. So yay!

Dear BSG Fans:

So! You want to write a fic, specifically an Adama/Roslin fic. That's laudable. I want to write fic for this particular pairing too. And you decide hey! They're in love. Of course they are! I thoroughly agree with you. And you happen to subscribe to the true love = babies school. Well, uh, okay, whatever floats your boat. And you decide that since our shared pairing is in true love, they must have babies.

Hold it right there, Sparky.

Laura Roslin is in her fifties. We've never actually been given her age, but since Mary McAwesome is a hair shy of fifty-seven, I think we can assume that Roslin's around the same age. So, call it fifty-six, fifty-seven, which means that she has almost certainly gone through menopause. You know what menopause means? It means a woman runs out of eggs, stops menstruating, can no longer concieve a child; essentially, if she hasn't already gotten pregnant, she's out of luck. Also, depending on when you set it, there may be the small matter of her having breast cancer.

We're not even going to discuss Bill Adama's massive issues with kids.

This doesn't mean that you can't write babyfic! On the contrary. I have read and even very much enjoyed Adama/Roslin babyfic (okay, one, "If Not, Winter," and that was because Roslin was as shocked as anybody else that she got pregnant, and ended up going "whatever, I'm just going to blame Baltar" which made me giggle). Just... please realize that Roslin is past menopause, and therefore, you're going to need a hell of an explanation for how* she came to get pregnant. And I'd prefer it if it wasn't all smiles and kittens afterwards, partly because Adama and Roslin are not smiles-and-kittens people, partly because I'd really like some "wtf" at the entire situation, and partly because this is BSG, people, wtf show were you watching.

Basically, think before you write.

Much love,
me

*In a broader sense. I think we all know the specifics. Wiseass.

Medium: Roleplaying
Fandom: real-life
Subject: The Gamemaster
Title: When You're Evil
Notes: A soundtrack for everyone's favorite killer GM. Zartram the Merciless will now accept your homage.

( Everything's behind the cut as usual. )

Dear self:

Why yes, people are being wrong on the internet! Chill. Do not start wank over poor phrasing.

That said...


Dear Fandom:

I CALL SHENANIGANS.

Love, me.

PS: Thanks for giving me an excuse to use this icon, though!

You. Specific you.

BAD AUTHOR. NO COOKIE. Character A and Character B are canonically married with two kids, and have been married for thirty years. Do not tell me that Character A never loved Character B just so you can have your shiny sparkly Sue hook up with her. FAIL.

Also, clearly you have never read the series, because the author makes a big honkin' deal about Character A and Character B being in love. It's important to the series; a lot of things happen because of it and at least three of the books have main conflicts sparked by or stemming from that fact. You ignoring it? EPIC FAIL.

GTFO of my fandom.

ETA: ...whoa. That was the fastest "whine flounce delete" I've ever seen.

Take a look at this cover. That is A Civil Campaign, one of the more recent books in the Miles Vorkosigan saga. Looks like an okay cover, doesn't it? Kind of cheesy, but hey.

Now realize that the couple in the center is meant to be Miles and Ekatarin. Now remember that Miles Vorkosigan is four foot nine. Now remember that Miles should therefore be on an eye level with Ekatarin's breasts and thus looking at them far more obviously. As if that's possible.

Also remember that neither Ekatarin nor Cordelia is blonde, but that's neither here nor there (black-haired and redhead, respectively, in case you're curious. Even more egregious because "roan-red hair" is one of Cordelia's stock descriptions).

From a list of frequently banned books and the reasons they've been banned:
"Lewis, C.S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. - Anti-Christian, promotes witchcraft."

LOL WHUT. Somebody didn't read the book...

Also, all the banned-book lists are doing is making me really want to read them. I mean, when you've got crap like Twelfth Night and Where The Wild Things Are, for fuck's sake, I want to read the rest of the books and find out just why exactly people object.

Holy whore house? And here I thought Dan Brown had the weirdest take on Mary Magdalene.

Anyone brave enough to download the prologue and give it a read? For science, my friends, for science!

Dear author of the book I'm reading:

Stop implying that John Adams did not love his wife. Fifty-nine years of love letters say you fail. Kthxbai.

Seriously, how is this hard? John and Abigail Adams are one of the great American love stories, to hear everyone but you tell it. Yes, they fought, yes, they disagreed on shit, but you know what? So does every single loving couple ever. People argue. It happens. It doesn't mean they loved each other any less.

Oh, and "remember the ladies" and his dismissal of it that you're going on about? Please note that if you actually read the letter in question and don't just take the quotes out of context, it becomes obvious that they were teasing each other. Abigail certainly meant "remember the ladies," no lie, but his response? Was a joke. Remember that you yourself said she was his greatest political advisor and the one he depended on the most. Clearly one should not take that response all that seriously.

Jeebus, woman. Get your stories straight.

Annoyed,
A John Adams Fangirl

(PS: Jefferson can suck it.)

Wow, fashion website, recommending strapless dresses for busty gals isn't going to make people laugh at you at all. Admit it, dudes, you just want to see some boobage.

LOOK WHAT PRIS MADE ME! *dance* It's an icon off one of my fics, so's you know. The fic is called Practicality, it's a drabble, whatever, IT'S AN ICON OMG OMG OMG LOOK. *flail*

This is a rant. You've been warned.

So recently I've been seeing increasing amounts of "why the hell don't people review my stuff" on F!S, among my circle of friends, on fanficrants, etc. People seem to be getting fewer reviews and they seem to be pissed. This is natural, and it's been said, so I'm going to concentrate on something that hasn't as far as I know been addressed.
Gift fics.
Would it fucking kill you to tell me you read what I wrote specifically for you?
I mean, seriously. I write giftfics all the time, and most of the time people are good about at least telling me that they enjoyed it, or were happy that I wrote it, or enjoyed that one joke about the roosters, the potatoes, the Fifth Doctor and Harry Dresden. I love this kind of feedback, but I can do without it. All I really want is an acknowledgment that you read it.
Yes, this is becoming a minor problem. Some of the giftfics I wrote recently? I got all sorts of feedback from my friends, and even from my beta, who really doesn't have to review these things since she sees them first. But the people I wrote them for? Nothing. Zip. Nada. It makes me feel really inclined to not write giftfics again, I tell you.
Are they trying to tell me the fics suck? That they don't like them? That's okay. At least let me know that you read the damned thing. It's like sending a package to someone and never hearing back if they recieved it.
I know I'm late with these fics. But I don't have to do them, that's the kicker. I write these things for you because I like you. Don't reject them like this. It makes me feel like you don't like me, and I really, really hate feeling like that.
Jesus. Common courtesy.

LOLWHUT.
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=38&view=full
I am so glad I bailed from LJ when I did.