Dreams and Swords

[Luna]: Oh lame. Solus Prime was the first of the Thirteen [First-Forged Transformers] to die?
[Jess]: ...
[Jess]: *opens mouth.*
[Jess]: *closes mouth.*
[Jess]: *silently fumes.*
[Tai]: Well, of course. Girl.
[Luna]: And of course the girl represents the aspect of creation.
[Jess]: One female. One female in the whole group of them. And she is the first to get killed?
[Liona]: And by 'die' you mean 'murdered by a jealous The Fallen'. :|
[Jess]: Hello, refrigerator!
[Luna]: Yes.
[Tai]: Of course.

I participate in fic-exchanges a fair amount. I like writing for other people, and I live in hope of getting something awesome back. (The score so far would insult people who read this journal, but I have gotten awesome things back. I have also gotten meh or shitty things back. You win some, you lose some.)

You know what inspires the most fear in me when an exchange-mod sends me the details on who I'm writing for? "I don't care what you write with these two as long as it's believable and IC! :D"

Inevitably, they're lying. They may not realize they're lying, but they do care what they receive. They would not, for instance, want a fic of Jet and Zuko avoiding the fuck out of each other so as to avoid dealing with their issues when they're an avid Jetko shipper.

Making your writer research you in order to figure out what the fuck you actually mean by "I don't care what you write for me" is a shitty thing to do. Don't do it. Give details. Talk about the sorts of dynamics you like with the characters, any random story ideas you've always wanted to see done that would fit the exchange's format, what you don't like to see done with the characters.

Give some DETAILS.

(No, seriously, I rant about this almost every year.)

This has been brewing for a couple of years now. Strap in for a ride, I'm about to (calmly and politely) lose my shit all over fandom.

Have you guys ever seen the Katara is a cunt comic Booter Freak did when Season Three of Avatar aired? (Spoilers for middle of season three, but they're a) a turn of events I expected since episode three of season one, and b) don't matter if you never plan to watch Avatar.)

( It's funny because that's the way fandom behaves )

So. Apparently today is the second-to-last day of TyZula Week. Which I discovered because Foxysquid did some art for it and mentioned why she was doing it.

PEOPLE. IS IT THAT HARD TO WRITE A POST ON AVATAR_FANS WHEN YOUR SHIP EVENT STARTS? IS IT?!

Given that it took the original G1 cartoon Decepticons nine million years to push the Autobots off their homeworld (not wipe them out, I note, just get them off Cybertron), then the original G1 cartoon Transformers kind of SUCK at waging interplanetary war.

Just sayin'.

*stabs someone on FFRants*

You know, I've got few problems with writing Optimus Prime slash with any of the canon characters. I'm a slash fan, I like that sort of thing. (Though, it being Oppy, it has to be well-written for me to do more than glance. Optimus ain't one of the guys that I'll read badfic for.)

When you insert your original female character in to shag Optimus Prime, I grit my teeth and roll my eyes. It's not my cup of tea, you know? He's already got a canon girlfriend, thank you.

But what really makes me irritated? When you not only have your OFC shagging Optimus, you bash Elita One. And express the opinion, on other people's fanworks, that it would be better without Elita? Makes me want to smack you with a clue-by-four.

I suspect I'll be writing Elita One/Optimus Prime tonight after I finish my homework. I'm spiteful like that.

So, DAZ 3D sells products for 3D artists, primarily those that use Poser (or their freeware renderer, Daz|Studio), but they're also picking up a fair amount of interesting other programs. That's not important to this rant.

One of the Poser figures they used to sell was called She-Freak. It was a decent, muscular woman figure that could also use the morphs of their flagship figure, Victoria 3. She-Freak had a few problems - Daz bought her outright from her creator and did some stuff that accidentally mucked up her finger joints and shoulder joints. The creator made the finger fixes freely available, though DAZ did not update the figure to include the fixes.

Still, She-Freak did not have a lot of add-on clothing, including clothing. This made a rather unpopular figure, which led to merchants not wasting time on making clothes for her, since not enough people owned her to make it worthwhile. Nasty feedback cycle, right?

Just last week, DAZ released a morph set they called She-Freak2. This morph set is for Victoria 3 and gives her two new morphs, plus one morph that mostly mimics the body-shape of the old She-Freak. (In fact, the only difference really is that She-Freak2 doesn't have her hands and feet scaled the way the original She-Freak did. A bit of manual adjustment can fix that, though.)

Now, with a morph that mimics the old She-Freak available for V3, there's a couple of utility programs you can use to refit V3 clothes to She-Freak. That's good, right?

On the other hand, DAZ has taken down the original She-Freak so people can no longer buy her.

And the forums have exploded with wank. Damn it, people, if you liked her so much, why did none of you support her with making products she could use? And something besides the stereotypical fantasy swordswoman products, please. I'd like some contemporary clothing, and especially a pair of cargo pants.

It does not help the wank that the original creator of She-Freak is making a fuss about how he will never support this product and is now deciding that he will start making She-Freak products and will make sure they're broken in a special way so you can't use them on She-Freak 2. And many people are rallying around him and making a fuss about She-Freak being taken down - damn it, you people, she was broken and unsupported. Yes, DAZ has to take a share of the blame for that, but so does Dodger.

And it's just so infuriating to see all this fuss being kicked up now. If you people cared so much about this, why didn't you do anything with her ever?

*sighs*

but it doesn't illegitimate him as a movie critic

ILLEGITIMATE IS NOT A VERB!!!

That is all.

So, CRB posts a thread to Gabbery. In the course of the first two paragraphs, he explains what it's all about.

"It has come to my attention that many people in GAFF and in other places are afraid of Fandom_Wank."

"So I'm now going to prove they can't do fuck-all unless you actually pay attention to them and they're just a GAFF-style House of Snark to amuse instead of some great enemy to fear."

However, the Dalek picture in that post seemed to distract people from what his actual point was. So much so, in fact, that F_W, when they discovered this thread, are wondering why the hell he made this thread.

IT'S IN THE FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS OF THE FIRST DAMN POST! READ, YOU SMEGGING BASTARDS! READ!

...

Yeah, I've been homicidally angry lately. I don't get it either.

Because it's my journal and I can whine if I want to.

Warning: I am bleeding copiously from my crotch. This is affecting my judgement in regards as to whether or not anything is a personal attack. It is also making me extremely angry. Deal with it.

So, I play the Constructicons on tfblogs. Because I'm a crazy little bitch who likes trying to write six different people who share the same user account. My characterization probably sucks, too, but what the hell.

Anyways, the Constructicons. Who are kind of bored without Megatron around to tell them to build silly weapons. So, they've been building people, repairing people, repairing the ship, and otherwise keeping themselves occupied. Once they even got to go off and attack the Ark.

All fine and dandy, right?

What I'd like to know is why in the Nine Hells of Baatezu, most of the Decepticons want to avoid Hook when they need repairs?! I'm not playing him as a sadist, though I'd be more than happy to if that's what they want! I've been playing him as aiding and abetting Scrapper and being the straight man in some of the gags with the Constructis... So why avoid him? I can get avoiding Scrapper, but Hook? Especially when you're broken six ways from Sunday because you decided to tangle with a whole bunch of Autobots after escaping from Ratchet?!

So, yeah, not getting that. At all.

Note: This next little bit is from an IC point-of-view.

And then there's the new Decepticon medic showing up. Okay, fine, he's for whatever plot Shockwave is working on. And apparently Shockwave, ICly, doesn't feel he can trust the Constructicons. (Hint: Don't give a massively skilled architect plans for how to build something cinchy. Just tell him what you want it to do and let him design the thing his own damn self.)

But, wow, is the shit ever going to hit the fan when Hook runs into this guy. 'Cause, hey, getting replaced as the major Decepticon repair specialist on Earth? Not going to thrill him. Was Shockwave thinking at all when he let Klank just announce himself to God and everybody?

Hands up, everyone who wants the Constructicons turning passive-aggressive against the rest of the 'cons, while they otherwise work on making their unhappiness known to the world at large?

The mess that's going to result from this might be enough for me to bring Megatron back from the back of beyond. Because it looks like it'll be a while before he can run into Jinx, and I can royally mess with him for fun and whackiness.

I would like to disclaim that as the player, I rather like Klank. However, Hook doesn't. Scrapper is not going to. Mixmaster is not going to. Long Haul is not going to. Bonecrusher is not going to. Scavenger is going to be pressured into not liking him.

Megatron, Reflector, and Oikodomopolis don't really care right now. And I need to decide if I'm going to do anything with Blitzwing or just toss him at the mods and say, "Catch."