Morbid Romantic

bringing you quality randomness since 1981

Alfee and I woke up today and went to Busch Gardens this morning to get our Fun Passes before the 31st (since that’s the last day that they will be sold). Virginia residents can pay for the price of one ticket (around $54) and get free admission for the entire Spring and Summer season. I can’t wait to ride Griffon. Alfee doesn’t ride roller coasters, so I am going to be all alone when I go on them. I also REALLY want to ride Curse of DarKastle because I haven’t been to Busch Gardens since that ride opened up in 2005 despite living only half an hour drive from the place.

Friday, though, we’re going to take my mother to the Newport News Greek Festival after Alfee gets a hair cut. My mom has never been before, I like to look around the shop stands, and Alfee just wants to eat.

Man, I’m hungry now.

I came home with a list of things to do today but I ended up doing nothing. I got caught up reading about Livejournal’s Strikethrough(gate) 2007. Apparently, some group of self-appointed anti-pedophilia people with a website called Warriors for Innocence has taken it upon themselves to ‘alert’ Livejournal to the presence of such things as incest, pedophilia, rape, and bestiality within the community. Nevermind that people have been genuinely reporting the real deal for years and been ignored. While WfI claims to have only targeted groups with a real life interest in those areas, fandom journals and communities have found themselves targeted. It seems that Livejournal just went through people who had linked interests in certain things like the ones above and purged their journals.

So, what is art and what is just straight porn? I think most writers who delve into the world of adult writing are familiar with the Miller criteria that states obscenity is defined by the following:
(i) whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards” would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
(ii) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and
(iii) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973).

To make the fandom writing pornographic would mean that it doesn’t meet the Miller standards. If the work doesn’t meet one of the standards, it isn’t ‘offensive’. There have been arguments raging for ages about what is art and what is porn and where the line is drawn. Writing, fanfiction, etc, is art and it’s literature. It has artistic or literary value unless it’s just straight hardcore porn without any plot…

Someone correct me if I’m wrong. My Poli Sci class on the Constitution/Laws was so long ago that I have forgotten enough to make me ashamed of myself.

Back to the point, though…

Which does call into question the genre of PWP within the fanfiction community. I have to admit that I have read some things around the net such as stories posted at adultfanfiction.net that do seem to be posted for the sheer purpose of gratifying desire solely using things like incest, rape, or shota. It’s not a plot device, it IS the plot. It’s the focus, the center.

In many cases, things such as incest, rape, and shota are plot devices. They’re not often something that heroes and good guys partake in, but are rather issues perpetuated by villains. They’re stories of strength. And yes, they are also used as plot devices for eroticism.

But, a few things should be made clear about many of the people who read and write these things.

1.) They are NOT predators who will molest children or rape innocent people.
2.) They are NOT throwing out warning signs.
3.) Many of them are children, young girls and boys who both write and read.
4.) Many of them are adults who may or may not have children themselves. And, as adults, they have no desire to harm children or other people. They realize that the issues that they address in stories are plot devices and plot devices only.

The following is just a small list off of the top of my head of published, respected authors who have committed the same ‘crimes’ as the authors who are being deleted:
- Stephen King- IT (For underage sex scenes)
- Anne Rice- The Vampire Armand/Blood and Gold (Relationship between man/boy)
- Thomas Man- Death in Venice (Attracted by man to boy)
- Anthony Burgess- A Clockwork Orange (Man sleeps with two girls)
(more here)

Should people glamorize harming children? No. Never. And people who do hurt children should be locked away for the rest of their lives. I have no sympathy for molesters or rapers. I am also very happy that communities such as Disgusting Lust and Child Love are gone. Those communities were genuine child love groups.

However, I doubt many of the writers of the works above wrote their stories for the purpose of glamorizing child molestation. The case is the same for many of the targeted communities and individuals. These people are no more a child molester than Stephen King is for having all the boys in the sewers have sex with Beverly. Or Anne Rice is for creating the relationship between Marius and the much, much younger Armand.

The list of deleted sites is growing and growing.

And people are freaking out.

I’ve been seeing this icon pop up all over the place now:

And this:

*Also, read the page for an example of how livejournal has acted with hypocrisy on this whole issue* Also, note that Livejournal has purged their database of sites that they deem negative to the image they want to project, yet they have kept the journal of a man who raped a four month old.

Now, it’s escalated to far more than just a fandom vs. Big Brother debate. Now, people are demanding answers that they are not getting from livejournal/sixapart. Livejournal appears to be blissfully unaware of it all though we all know that they’re not. People are also laughing as they scream and cry over the fact that Livejournal allowed itself to be convinced into mass deletions by a person who is clearly anti-immigration, is a self-proclaimed Redneck, is Conservative, and is also anti-Europe.

Macros abound. New communities are birthed. And Birthed. More icons are made. Anime fans raise their brows. Fandom Lawyers even weight in.

I think that Livejournal DOES have a right to decide what content it will and will not host… no matter how inconsistently they apply their rules. Or how haphazardly. Paying customers should be reimbursed for time not used. There should be an announcement of their TOS change. If people want to host their fiction, they should do it themselves to assure that no one can just decide to up and delete it. Like I said, LJ has a right to delete and purge. Out of respect, LJ does need to give their own side of things.

Ah well.

I took advantage of Livejournal and Moo cards offer for ten free cards.


Livejournal also just sent me a $1 gift certificate…

What the fuck am I supposed to do with a dollar?

Useless.

PS.

Dear God,
     I am sorry for laughing at the pictures of Pedobear.

PPS

PPSS
Best Moment: Elsockpuppeto’s Saga- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 (Annoying in that amusing way)
Lamest Moment: Hoist the Colors - Pirates of the Caribbean (Fangirls are always the last to know that they’re lame… annoying in that ‘Please Shut the Fuck Up’ way…)

PPPSS
GOOD: Cat macros, 300 macros/jokes
BAD: PotC macros and jokes

Popularity: 3% [?]

After working out, taking a break before cleaning both of the bathrooms, I took the Enneagram Test.

My Results:

Type Four: The Individualist
Romantic, Individualist, Artist

Driven by a desire to understand themselves and find a place in the world they often fear that they have no identity or personal significance.

Fours embrace individualism and are often profoundly creative and intuitive. However, they have a habit of withdrawing to internalize, searching desperately inside themselves for something they never find and creating a spiral of depression.

The corresponding ‘deadly sin’ of Fours is Envy and their ‘holy idea’ or essence is Holy Origin. Under stress Fours express qualities of Twos and when relaxed qualities of Ones.

Four with a Five Wing: The Bohemian

Healthy-
Healthy 4w5’s brings profound creativity and insights of the intrapsychic sort. Their emotions are more under-the-surface than 4w3’s, and more private modes of communication (such as writing) are preferred. They have intellectual as well as emotional insights and can often synthesize experiences into something intensely personal yet timeless.

Average-
Average 4w5’s are devoted to cultivation of a personal worldview, often by philosophical or artistic means. They are more likely than the 4w3’s to be reclusive and out-of-touch with the greater social world, and to compensate they adopt unconventional/eccentric ways of life. They can be purposefully obscure and enigmatic in their expressions, then have an elitist and contemptuous view of those who failed to understand them. They tend to withdraw for prolonged periods under stress which can leave them further isolated. As a result, they are prone to hallucinatory states and total alienation.

Unhealthy-
Unhealthy 4w5’s inhabit a terrifying fantasy-world of their own creation. Their emotional torments are turned inward, causing severe depression and self-destructive thoughts. While average 4w5’s can romanticize death, unhealthy 4w5’s plunge into it.

For a quick test, go here.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I am dying so hard right now.

Barry Gibb?!

Sometimes when I look at Alfred I think to myself, “Hey… you know who he looks like? An old white guy with a pipe in his mouth.”

Popularity: 5% [?]

I’m still in the process of unpacking, cleaning, putting away, and throwing away. I do it in spaced out lumps so it’s not constant work. Really, I spend most of my time playing Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past for Gameboy Advance on my Nintendo DS Lite.

Today, I was going through some boxes and separating what I want from what I don’t want, throwing away what I don’t want right then and there. One of the first things that I threw away was a Christmas ornament with a missing top. Right after it, a glass bottle that once held Starbucks Vanilla Frappuccino. When I threw the heavy glass bottle in, I didn’t know that it had further cracked the glass ornament. A few minutes later, I threw away a piece of red tissue paper that had been holding a gift. Then, I threw away an old tarnished cross necklace pendant.

Minutes later, feeling guilty because I threw away a cross, I reached into the trash to fish it out.

Not a good decision.

I feel something prick me, but it wasn’t too painful. More like a scrape. I take my hand out to look even though it doesn’t feel bad.

It was.

POURING blood.

Right against and below my right thumb knuckle was a cut so deep that it was almost to the bone. Meat hanging out.

Divine punishment?

No. A sign.

Even God was telling me to stay away.

Popularity: 3% [?]

After more than a year of holding onto these pictures, I’ve finally begun to build and add to my cemetery gallery. I just wanted to make a gallery of cemetery images from around the world. They’re all user submitted (I know, I need to pull some of mine from the digital camera), but they range from London to Paris to the Netherlands and more. There are some really pretty images there.

Cemetery Gates

Now! Back to customizing this blog. Plugins are addicting.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I got my grades for this semester in:

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Three hours.

Fifteen complete handwritten pages. Two ODU issued Bluebooks. Black pen with no cap borrowed from someone four days ago.

The elections of 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972, their significance, their issues, and their influence on history. The history, development, and successes of the woman’s movement. Phillip Caputo’s A Rumor of War vs. the reality of the Vietnam War.

And I couldn’t remember Muskie’s goddamn first name. Go figure.

Popularity: 3% [?]