As the Facebook Turns

Intrigued to find one Stefan Salvatore on my daughters’ Facebook friends list (yes, I stalk my daughter to make sure she’s talking to people I know about)  I clicked on his picture. This solved the mystery; he is apparently married to my daughters’ school friend. So that’s all right then, so long as he isn’t a stranger. And he has a brother, which is reassuring, particularly as the brother is a billionaire who apparently studied at Harvard. Ah, Facebook, where would we be without you?

Since my coffee was by now cold, I typed the name Stefan Salvatore into Google, which led me to IMDB, which  in turn revealed that the two brothers in question are characters in a TV series, called The Vampire Diaries. What with the title being a bit of a spoiler and all, I read the provided storyline, and fell over dead.

“Carlisle Cullen and his coven Two vampire brothers, eternal adolescents, have been leading 'normal' lives, hiding their bloodthirsty condition, for centuries, moving on to Forks before their non-aging is noticed. They are back in the Virginia town where they became vampires, as high school students. Edward Angel Stefan is noble, denying himself blood to avoid killing, and tries to control his evil brother Spike Jasper Damon. Edward Angel Stefan falls in love with schoolgirl Buffy Bella Elena, whose best friend Willow is a witch, like her grandma.”

I swear,  my ribs are aching. The possibilities are just endless. The Corner Lurking Loss Support Society! The Spell and Study Glee Club!

I had to do it. I had to go and read the episode guide, and it improved the already-surreal quality of my life tremendously.

“We meet the orphans, Sookie and Jason Elena and Jeremy Gilbert who are living with their grandmother aunt Jenna in Mystic Falls, Virginia. Elena is adjusting to her new life by taking lessons from Buffy making entries in her journal in the local cemetery and hanging out with her friends Bonnie and Caroline. Jason Jeremy, on the other hand, enjoys dealing drugs, getting high and chasing after anything in a skirt Vicki Donovan who is more into Jeremy's friend Tyler.”

Bless them, there’s a Tyler. Please tell me he has a crushable van?

“The episode ends with Bill Angel Stefan going over to Sookie’s Buffy’s Elena's house and getting invited in!”

Edward could FIX this for you, guys. You could totally bypass the inviting stuff! Edward, remember the oil for the window!

I started to read Episode 2 and I gave up because my mascara is now all over my desk and I don’t think I can stand very much more. I leave you with this :

“We are then brought to see Edward and Bella Stefan and Elena writing about liking each other in Twilight and Midnight Sun their diaries and being busted in English History class for staring at each other.”

I have found a new cure for depression.

Musings on fanfic

This came to mind because Daughter had another Sleepless Episode last night, and since Dad had told her in disgruntled fashion that she was getting too old to come up and sleep with us because it meant he didn't get a good nights' rest; she came up and stood by the door and sobbed instead, refusing flat out to come in and lie down; I ended up going back downstairs with her . She comes by her stubbornness honestly, I will say. At these times she really just needs talking down on any of a variety of subjects; and last night (via a complicated route) I explained that social icons don't mean the same thing to everyone. I told her of a talented writer I knew who had written a novel and was asking as many people at work as possible to read it, and many did. Darth Vader features significantly in this novel; I mean that literally. Every time he shows up for a heart-to-heart, you know the character is having a Significant Moment. Also possibly risking his friends and family staging an intervention. Anyway, the point is, my team leader at the time achieved the near-impossible feat of silencing me totally by asking me, rather irritably, who Darth Vader was.
Yes. I worked for the only man in the Western World who had not see any of the Star Wars movies.
I was still getting over the gobsmackitiness of that moment in hindsight when Daughter asked seriously, "Why do people use other peoples' characters?"
I told her that I think they sometimes do it to allow themselves to focus less on character development and more on story. I mean, when Dracula shows up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we all know what it means. There's no point in elegant and detailed word pictures of how he got to be what he is, or any need to invest him with some redeeming qualities because let's face it, you don't build a snowman for cuddling purposes. Once he's in the story, he's the emblem of ultimate evil and strength, potentially the final nemesis of the Slaying One, and we can all concentrate on how many shades of agony Angel can faceflash per scene, how many foot-changes Zander can fit in his mouth and whether Willow is finally going to prove that it is in fact possible to die of empathy. All the budget can go into the action scenes., and there's even going to be time for a few Flashbacks Of Rich Costumery.
An extreme example of this is The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  The characters are so well embedded in the collective social psyche there's no need to spend time in backstories explaining how they got to be as extraordinary as they are; you just know that Quartermain will be resourceful most extraordinaire; Captain Nemo will overcome plot-holes with flair and technology and Mina Harker will go batshit in the literal sense and rematerialise fanged up and feisty. It all aids in the willing suspension of belief and allows the film the luxury of covering a lot of action.
So perhaps, in a sense, using other people's characters in this way is just a way of using symbols and icons, and I do not mean that in a Hollywood sense.
Writers - and filmmakers - don't just use other peoples' characters though - they use stories. Many of Shakespeares' stories reappear as something 'rich and strange' - and he was not always the first one to write those stories. Some fairy stories have many retellings and reinterpretations - some lighthearted, some less so.
Russian literature and early African literature have in common that they employ leitmotifs - symbols that mean something to their hearers and provide shortcuts. In any African story, if the protagonist is fighting his way back to see his family and lightning splits the sky while he's on his journey, you can bet he's in for at least one funeral.
I think it's the way of all literature to evolve to the use of leitmotifs, and the age and sophistication of those leitmotifs reflects the age and sophistication of the civilisation behind it; if the novel was the bark of the tree, the leitmotifs would be the rings you could count cutting through it.
So, literature evolves, that's not really headline news. And the process seems organic and harmless.
Then there's fanfic.
You can't stop it; and the Internet has fuelled its growth along mutant lines. You can't stop it because you can't police it - for one thing it would be physically impossible and for another fanfic sites - with originators of any sense - carry disclaimers everywhere; on the site, on every page and in most cases at the top of each story. Authors can't trademark characters - and, in any case, which character do you trademark, J.K Rowling Snape , or Alan Snape Rickman? I can guarantee you that if you so desired you could sit down and scribble the story of Helen Potter, girl magician, who spends seven years of her life fleeing from supernatural creatures, and until you actually tried to flog that manuscript to some agent (who presumably lives in a hole under a rock in Kazakhstan, or else you've found my old team leader)  nobody could get you for a thing; but after that you'd be hunting lawyers faster than you can pronounce plagiarism.
Authors are divided on the subject of fanfic, and I think the dividing line is this one, what harm can it do?
Can it do harm at all?
I would guess that 90% of the time that answer is no. It may even keep a few TwiMoms behind their computers instead of stalking Robert Pattinson, and that's a good thing; the boy looks haunted enough already.
Here's my take though. As with everything else, it's OK when the fanficcers have their feet firmly on the ground, and no trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality. And remembering that standard disclaimer regarding fanfics : "These characters belong to The Real Author and We Are Only Borrowing Them" .
I've been trying to find an interview I read years ago, with a well-known author, who I think MIGHT have been Diana Gabaldon. But I could be wrong; and if I am I apologise. She said she had two problems with fanfic/fan letters containing fanfic (ie suggestions - because, people, if you're writing to an author and telling them what you think their characters should do, then its fanfic)
-What if she read something that contained a plot twist/direction she had already written but not published? Aside from the legal worries - and despite the fact that she would likely win it is not fun to spend years of your life tied up in legal proceedings I KNOW THIS WELL! - it would be difficult to go on writing with the mental changes someone else had suddenly thrown at you. Kind of like choosing the style of your wedding dress and telling you to go ahead and pick any colour you wanted.
-What if she read something that contained a plot twist/direction she wanted to write - but now really didn't want to any more BECAUSE of the fanfic?
To me both of the above cases showcase the whose-character-is-it-anyway? danger of fanfic; and apply to the minority.
My only remaining argument is that I proofread - a lot - and have proofread some fanfic; and there are talented authors out there who need to take the last step - letting go of other peoples' characters and creating their own. Whether that's a danger or a regret, I can't tell.
Anyway, the good thing is that by this time, Daughter was snoring.

It's Not My Problem

So, here it is, Jan 1st 2011. Today I have spoken to four people; my husband, leaving for golf, my son, leaving for Warhammer. My daughter, not leaving for anywhere. And Chris.
Three years ago, I sold Chris my beloved retro Suzuki 250. I bought it from Holeshot Suzuki on the North Shore, and I used it for the work commute after Paul was made redundant; it saved us huge amounts in petrol (it cost a whopping $6 to fill it in those days and it needed filling once a week).
After a bad fall at Viponds Road (I was in the left lane, a van in the right lane decided he needed to go left, it had been raining off and on and the road surface was slippery) I lost my confidence (I used to ride a 500 but that was back when I was 22 and immortal and now I have children) so Volty got sold.
I had it serviced first and WOF'd (that's MOT'd for you in the UK and serviced-by-legal-requirement everywhere else in the world) by Holeshot.
A year later, after Chris had been riding it to work and back at Helensville military base, he took it for a WOF somewhere that wasn't Holeshot. It failed.It has a right American headlight; which as you can imagine in a country that nominally drives on the left is all wrong. I'm only thankful that the times of day it was being driven meant that Chris was never in danger.
What stopped me in my tracks was this : I thought a WOF was a WOF, no matter where you went in New Zealand. This revealed that there are lax standards in some places, which only get picked up when you go to other places. This fact was highlighted when Chris went back to Holeshot Suzuki, who claimed that the VIN number on the motorbike wasn't on their database.
The famous refrain, yet again. It's Not My Problem.
Chris, thankfully, does not give up easy.
He contacted Suzuki New Zealand, who looked up the VIN number (I know from my time working for Nissan UK that VIN numbers ARE unique) and confirmed that it was imported by Holeshot Suzuki and was therefore their responsibility.
Holeshot have since replaced the headlight at their own cost. I do not have feedback from Chris about how happy they were to do this.
It seems a lot of American-built bikes of the same type were imported at this time.
How many other bike-owners out there are at risk, because it is Not My Problem?

Scary picture

Okay, it's not that scary. Unless you hate hot pink. It's only scary because I remember changing her nappy not that long ago. And because she was such a bald baby, and I just finished paying for a haircut on hair that reaches down to her how-can-I-put-this-but-remember-we-were-just-discussing-nappies area?
Think there is a dimensional whoopsie in action here!

The Facebook button we need

Conspiracy of Silence

On October 6th 2010, Kate Harding had this to say (in the wake of the tragic suicide of Taylor Clementi) :
"Seriously, half the problem here is the astonishing number of adults willing to come to the defense of the kids who are tormenting their peers, day in and day out.....Can we stop making excuses for the bullies and start standing up for the kids they torment? ....  I simply can’t understand why so many adults are so eager to dismiss bullying as a childhood inevitability of no real consequence, something on a par with skinned knees, maybe a broken wrist at worst. Something that heals quickly and turns into a distant memory or even a funny story. I can only assume those people were once bullies themselves — perhaps they still are — and are thus loath to acknowledge how much serious, long-lasting damage they might have done."
(original article can be found here : http://kateharding.info/2010/10/06/)
Bullying takes so many forms, and the outcome is never good.
An 11-year old boy has died in a pool of his own blood. He was shot by his 12-year old cousin during an argument about taking a knife out hunting. Triston Papuni will not be growing up any more; he will not be standing up to any more bullies. That, you see, is what killed him. Triston called his 12-year old cousin 'an arsehole' and the cousin poked him with a hunting rifle several times before grabbing two bullets and loading the gun, asking "Are you going to get cheeky now I'm sticking bullets in it?" Triston turned his back. So his cousin shot him in the shoulder, and the bullet destroyed his windpipe.
Here is a list of the things that sicken me about this story.

• This 12-year old killer was a bully who had been reprimanded at three of his previous schools for picking on his classmates. At 12, he had attended at least three schools, where his bullying behaviour was..reprimanded.That obviously put the fear of God into him.
• Two boys get into an argument, and one of them picks up his fathers' hunting rifle WHICH IS JUST LYING AROUND and loads it with live ammunition WHICH IS ALSO JUST LYING AROUND and shoots another child in the back to prove how superior he is. You can see the source of the problem right here. What kind of arsehole teaches a 12-year old how to load and use a hunting rifle and then leaves it AND THE AMMUNITION lying around? The kind of arsehole that calls bullying harmless; that kind of arsehole.
• We know Triston's name. His killer, however, has permanent name suppression. This has been granted to allow him the opportunity to 'eventually reintegrate into society'. He is getting a choice. He has permanently deprived Triston of any choices whatsoever.

No sentence would assuage a family's grief at losing a child. This killer (I'm not calling him a bully any more) gets 20 months in a juvenile detention centre; his father gets 2 years for attempting to cover up the shooting by telling his son to lie to the police and make it look like an accident.It doesn't start to cover the damage done.
Here's the thing that really made my heart ache. These kids are part of a close community. The family of the victim had this to say :
"It has been a torment to us that those sentenced today have remained in the community since the death of Triston. It has seemed to many that their being in the community meant that there were no charges to be answered."
Too many adults willing to take part in the conspiracy of silence that prevents bullying behaviour from being treated like the social evil that it is. Right THERE is what killed Triston Papuni.

Musing about bullies

Two years ago, Beloved Son had to make a speech about social evil, and he chose bullying. I worked with him on the speech and reminded him that the first thing a bully does is the same as the first thing a predator does - cut one out from the herd and hunt it.
Beloved Daughter knows this one only too well. A young girl at school is being treated this way and Beloved Daughter has chosen to make sure it isn't possible for the predators to cut her out of the herd - by  siding with her, by teaming with her in the games where the stated objective is to get her out, by leaving a table full of petty girls to go and sit alone at another table so this girl has somewhere to go.
Girls do this sort of thing so much better than boys. Bullying, I mean.
And so Beloved Son has had cause to discover in this last week. Deliberately, publicly and pointedly excluded from a party by a girl with the face of an angel and the disposition of a Rottweiler, he was so crushed he asked to stay back from school the next day because he couldn't face people, and I let him.
I daresay it's not the last curve ball life will throw at him.