Fuck you, Fiction Alley.

Fiction Alley compete against actual good causes for charity for 25,000 USD.

...

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! SERIOUSLY!? WHAT? DID YOUR MOTHER NOT HUG YOU ENOUGH OR SOMETHING? WHY? WHY WOULD YOU TAKE FOOD OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF STARVING KITTIES AND DOGGIES, OR EQUIPMENT AWAY FROM DEAF CHILDREN THAT WILL HELP THEM LEARN, OR PLAY EQUIPMENT FROM POOR CHILDREN? WHAT THE HELL?!

If I could remember my fucking login details, I would go over there *right now* and pull ALL OF MY FIC. Because you guys? YOU'RE ON MY SHIT-LIST.

SELFISH fucking BUTTHEADS.

ETA: Heidi tries to cover her arse:

http://www.journalfen.net/community/unfunnybusiness/289075.html?view=18799667#t18799667

And promptly throws Gwendolyn under the bus. Niiiiice!

Carrie and the Magnetism - The Real Story.

A lot of people ask me what my comics are about. I can sum them up all pretty well.

BirdMartiaN - Sci-Fi Parody of Superhero and Alien Lore.
The Muse - A woman is sent mad by seeing her own muse, is put on parole and babysat by Fae, then goes to challenge the Fae and recover her freedom.

But Carrie has always been hard to explain. It's been hard because, really, Carrie and the Magnetism isn't written for men in particular. So anything that I say about the surface story, seems pretty boring to the people I talk to (fashion, image, social struggles, inner power). I've been told, again and again, through either marketing, discussions or feedback, that this is a bad thing. I've found myself ashamed of a product that was heavily inspired by Jem, She-Ra, Xena, Buffy, Dark Angel, Wonder Woman, and strangely, The X-Men. Carrie and the Magnetism is the comic *I* want to write, that *I* want to read. It's pulpy, it's soapy, it's fun and it's tough. There's heart in this fucker, and I can't wait to show you that heart.

But I realised, reading one of my favourite blogs (Hoyden, actually) that the heart of Carrie and the Magnetism, the thing that the struggles of these two disparate groups of fashionable, tough women represent, is the two things that make things so tough for women today:

Real Honest-to-God Feminism, and the Feminism-Lite that women are "allowed" to adhere to in the current system.

There's a kind of girl-power, 'real women', 'dove soap', 'let's all use this shaver', 'oooh girls, let's have a shoe party' kind of feminism that the marketing companies and the television shows love to peddle. And they always, *always* use it in some kind of imagined "Battle of the Sexes". It's the sort of thing that keeps women in competition with each other. It's a sort of Faux-Feminism that means that nothing really changes, even though it has all the appearance of the paradigm having overturned the ways of the past.

It's not obvious, though. When reading Carrie, one might think it was about women superheroes and villains duking it out in funky outfits. But underneath, hopefully, it'll be more than that. I say hopefully cause, well, I don't know how good I am at this comic business just yet. :)

Sometimes, you have to shut up, no matter how much it hurts.

There was this post over at Shakesville today. A beautiful post by Deeky, but the text of the statue tore my heart open.

Someone at the blog said that they'd rather die than take part in a massacre. (I should point out that they then realised that they couldn't just say that, that it was complicated, but it got me thinking). That, combined with the text on the statue, made me fearful, not because I was worried about the German people, but because I was worried that even people that read the history might not understand that what happened can happen to ANYONE.

IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. YOU TOO, can be so full of fear, for your family, for your friends, for those that you love that you will step in line and do as you are told, just so you don't get into trouble. How many people in America are protesting for the immigrants from Mexico, or for the legal immigrants that are being carded just for moving throughout their own home country? How many Australians are protesting as people are kept in detention camps, when they came to us for help?

IT HAPPENS. Over and over again and you can't sit there and say you wouldn't let it happen WHEN YOU ARE LETTING THE SEEDS OCCUR RIGHT NOW. Because you can't afford the trip to wherever the terrible things are happening. Because you can't afford the legal fees if something goes wrong. Because, because, because!

This is what I wrote at the blog post, but I deleted it as I didn't want to derail the thread, which was about the Holocaust, not the Germans. But I'm posting it here because I want to express myself on this subject.

I'm trying to be as diplomatic about this as I possibly can, but as the grandaughter of two soldiers from either side of the fight in WWII, I have to say something. I'm hurting too much not to.

You say you would rather die than take part in a massacre. But I think it's really, *really* unfair to judge those that were in the situation at the time. Because:

Although many perpetrators claimed they had no choice, there is no record of anyone being punished for refusing to participate in the killings.

This is not true. Well, it may be technically true - there mightn't be records of killlings of dissenters. But why do you think people were afraid then? Because those that disagreed *disappeared*.

I've heard some terrifying stories from my father who was a child at that time in Germany. The fear, the palpable fear, was on *all sides*. Because of some power-hungry men who had cowed an entire nation. Just like what is happening in America.

Never say never again is important, but it's meaningless if you look at Germany as a country of cowards you can't understand. It WILL happen again if you see it like that.

They weren't cowards. They weren't evil. They were people with families who were *terrified*, people who didn't know what to do, because it had *never* happened before. LOTS of people died because they didn't want to be with the Nazis. My grandfather managed not to join the party, but he *had* to join the army. HE HAD NO CHOICE.

If he had have died, my Oma would have been left alone with two small children. They would have starved. He did not like what happened to the Jews, but if he put a toe out of line, he would have disappeared like the others.

Even if that didn't happen, the stories and the fear was there. The fear is enough. Fear can make humans do terrible things. And judging them is foolish, because you don't know what you'll do if you're scared like that. You just don't.

I never forget that my Opa, in a small way, facilitated one of the most horrific killings in human history. I can't forget it. There's a guilt and a grieving in my heart that will never, ever leave me.

But they weren't bad people. And there were some in that time with manpower and guns and the ability to ruin your life, all in an instant. I won't ever know what that felt like. I hope I never do. But I sure as hell won't judge the people that *were* under that bootheel.

That thought of, "I would never..." is a terrible, comforting lie. You don't know what you would do. I don't know either, but I'm aware of that because my family lived those times. It's something I won't ever forget.

Article Sporking: Truth About Beauty!

Welcome to a Feminist Sporking! Today we're sporking:

"The Truth About Beauty" by Amy Alkon, of Psychology Today.

Introduction to the Sporkers:

- Me. Napalm Nacey.
- Xena, Warrior Princess.
- Hermione Granger.

( Spork under cut... )