'Call for help'
Ten days ago I posted the start of my novella, with a vague promise of 'more to follow'. A few people in my life(well... 3) have heard further details. Now I'm filling the rest of you in.
I have written three short stories about zombies, each with an unusual bent. The first, as you have seen, is about zombies attacking a man and his burgular. The second sees two humans and a zombie shipwrecked. And the last is a discussion between two zombies - one of whom is having marriage problems.
There are still a couple of drafts of each tale left to do, but I plan to pretty soon print a short run(say fifty or so) and sell them(for around a quid or two)1.
I have a problem, however. I have titles for the last two stories, both of which are based around zombie puns. The second story is called "Desert Island Deadite"(one for the 'Evil Dead' fans) whilst the last is called "Un-dead, not un-wed". I can't think of a title for the first story though.
Which is why I'm asking you guys for help - wanna think of a sorta-funny title for me, that relates both to zombies and the plot of the story(a break-in). The lucky commenter will of course be thanked in the acknowledgments and receive a free copy of the book.
So get to it - leave your suggestions in the comments section of this post!
1 - Two things might seem ridiculous to some readers. a) That I would think 50 people would want copies and b) that they would be prepared to pay money for them. Believe me - 50 is a very small number, and demand will actually outstrip supply. Which is kind of the point. Also, it's not like I'm charging to make a profit on these - I will definitely lose money(printing stuff nice is expensive, yo), I just want to assign value to the product, psychologically speaking.
Oh, and I definitely have plans for two follow-ups, focusing on vampires and then clowns. Because clowns are just as scary as zombies and vampires. You know I speak truth.
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'Confusion'
Most of my internet reading is done via Net News Wire, a RSS reader for the Mac. I keep things relatively simple - it just grabs the relevant text and pictures from whichever feed I'm browsing and doesn't apply any styles. Just black text on a white background.
With the exception of the favicon, so I know which site the article I'm looking at came from.
Yesterday I started reading an article called 'Better Than Free' on the official Squarespace blog. I didn't realise that at first. Because this is the favicon for Squarespace:
It, not co-incidentally, happens to be the same favicon as the one for Leo's blog. Which meant that for a few seconds, I wondered why on earth Leo was blogging about the 'eight things that are better than free'.
25 square pixels was all it took to utterly confuse me. That's how weird the internet is nowadays.
This is a round-a-bout way of me admitting that I should change the favicon for this site, since it is no longer up to date. Yeah, I'll get right on that.
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'Links for 13/05/2008'
Apple Mac Music Video - The title doesn't do it justice. Just watch, and keep watching(it takes about 40 seconds to start getting really impressive).
MUTO - Animation made by painting on public walls. It's freakin' amazing!
Hold the Cheese - A video starring four of my coursemates. Hilarious at times.
The Paper - Episode 1 - MTV show about a high school paper. Better than it sounds - Amanda(the star, at least in her mind) is an amazingly complex human being. (Unfortunately .gif-filled)Post about her here.
This American Life, Season 2 Episode 1 - For the Johnny Depp fan out there. The person at the center of this episode can't talk, so Johnny Depp talks for him. It's unspeakably(HA!) cool of the Depp.
Okay, there's at least an hour's worth of stuff I'm demanding you watch. Apologies.
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'So... that was a bit of a break.'
You know how it goes. One day off turns into two, into three, into a week. Especially when you've got a big honking essay to do. Especially when you're going to treat the essay seriously this time.
During my absence I did bring back comments. I've outsourced to Disqus, because it's a lot easier than writing my own system from scratch again. If you like you can head over there to set up a profile/account so that when you leave a comment here it'll have a little picture of you next to it or whatever. It's all about online reputation building. Apparently.
But anyway, feel free to comment. And apologies for my absence. It's not meant to happen, is it?
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'‘Rape’ as character in Veronica Mars.'
"If you like rape, you'll love Veronica Mars!"(Belknap, 2006, Episode 39) 'They' say you should start off an essay with a bang - something that'll grab the reader. I've been steered away from beginning with a quote in the past, but I think this one packs an appropriate punch.1
What's more - it's true. Veronica Mars, the story of titular heroine Veronica and her weekly encounters with the seedy, noirish underbelly of (fictional)Neptune, California has a truly epic 'rape-count'. A cursory examination of the series' timeline(MarsInvestigations.net, 2007, /timeline.php) reveals at least fourteen characters to be victims of rape(or similar sexual assault - always non-consensual). "Rape ... appeared to be the norm in Neptune."(Thomas et al, 2006, p. 75)
One could, right off the bat, criticise my attempts to explore 'rape' as a character, perhaps insisting that 'rape' is better discussed as a theme - and rather an ugly one at that. Veronica Mars is a complex show, with many themes including "The Broken System ... Innate 'Rightness' ... 'Revenge"(paraphrased from Thomas et al, 2006, p. 141-145). A quick crowd-source via Google(apologies) with the search term "veronica mars main themes" reveals too many bloggers and reviewers to count who also believe that the class divide, institutional bureaucracy and loss are major themes in the show. Amy Berner ranks "Daddy Dualities" as pretty important, too(Thomas et al, 2006, p. 59).2
I'd also posit that family, death, feminism, love, hate, the assimilation of pop culture terms into everyday speech patterns, race, politics and entitlement are some other pretty good summations of the show's main themes. And for those who think 'rape' should be classed as a theme and not a character - I would instead suggest that 'the effects of rape', or 'coping with rape' are both much better examples of the thematic thrust3 of Veronica Mars than simply 'rape', which may be too much of a 'catch-all' to indicate the subtle nuances with which the show deftly handles the 'rape' character.
Obviously, 'Rape'4 is not a character in the traditional sense of the term. It doesn't have a physical body with which to interact with other characters, it never speaks a single line of dialogue and other characters never refer to it as anything other than a concept or action someone has taken. However, it does bear other, less obvious hallmarks of characterisation.
The mark of a good character is often said to be that they should be 'well-rounded' - "Develop your characters ... to prevent them from being flat and stereotypical"(Ballon, 2005, p.58). I believe that 'Rape' is one of the most well-developed characters in the entire series, moving through an interesting and varied 'arc'.
We are introduced to 'Rape' almost as soon as we meet Veronica. The heroine's line "You want to know how I lost my virginity? So do I."(Thomas et al, 2004, 'Pilot') moves us into a flashback showing us a rather stereotypical view of rape - a young, attractive woman consuming a drink laced with GHB at a party and waking up the next morning with no underwear and no recollection of what happened. This is our baseline for the 'Rape' character - from here we see other forms of rape as the show progresses through three seasons. Before the show(as a whole) draws to a close, we witness incestual rape, paedophilic rape, anal rape, faked rape, premeditated ritual rape, collaborative rape, 'accidental' rape, homosexual rape and implied rape.5
Each time 'Rape' appears in the show, it is in a different yet still clearly recognisable form - growing and changing ever so slightly each time. In season one we see only a few cases, but as the character continues to grow in importance we eventually came upon an official 'rape epidemic' in season three, as Veronica's college campus becomes the site of a spate of sex attacks.
I am aware that this argument (that the development of 'Rape' makes it a character in it's own right) could still be seen as evidence for 'rape' as theme(a heavily explored theme) rather than a character. However, I would counter by saying that I see 'Rape' as Veronica's main antagonist throughout the show's run. And a theme can't be an antagonist.
First, let's clearly establish that Veronica is the protagonist of the show, which shouldn't be too hard. After all, her name is right in the title. She also conforms to Linda Aronson's rule that "Whoever speaks in voiceover is the protagonist"(Aronson, 2000, p.63) since, well, Veronica VO's a lot - "I like it when our voiceovers reveal Veronica's attitude"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.34).
"The protagonist is the one whose life is being made difficult"(Aronson, 2000, p. 62) - again, Veronica fits the bill. For a bleak (and slightly homophobic) assessment of how 'difficult' Veronica's life is, Lani Diane Rich writes "Basically, this babe is some black eyeliner and two angry lesbian poems away from taking a dive off the Coronado Bridge herself"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.12).
So why is 'Rape' the antagonist? "The person ... making it difficult for them is the antagonist"(Aronson, 2000, p.62) - I'd say that 'Rape' is the primary 'difficulty-maker' in Veronica's life. "The season one plot arc ... Who killed Lily Kane?"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.24) is all about Veronica coping with the loss of her innocence, something made very literal by her rape(which not only took her virginity, but did so very quickly after Lily(Veronica's best friend)'s death). Veronica's rape is vital to the show. Creator Rob Thomas: "Had it been excised from the pilot, Veronica's motivations would have become fuzzy. The pilot wouldn't have made sense"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.6). 'Rape' returns to haunt Veronica continually through-out the show's run, through direct attacks on Veronica herself, or on those close too her. 'Rape' even follows her on trips away from her regular life(in season two's "The Rapes of Graff".)
Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of other antagonists in Veronica's life: Logan Echolls, Sheriff Lamb, and Vice-Principal Clemens to name just three of the many antagonists she encounters in the pilot episode alone. The thing is that through the course of the show... she defeats them all. In fact, she spend so much of her life fighting the various enemies and injustices that crop up in 60 hours worth of television that even Rob Thomas, her creator, remarks "Do I know when Veronica has time to do her homework? Not really."(Thomas et al, 2006, p.94)
The problem is that when the premise of your show is that your heroine has "near-fantastical detecting skills"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.102), it's hard to show her failing against any other human opponent for any considerable length of time without making her look like a chump.
And yet, "if a character is 100 percent invulnerable, he or she is closed off, complete, dead"(Horton, 1999, p.31). Veronica needs an opponent that can be a believable threat to her without watering down her detective skills. ‘Rape’ is something that Veronica can't fight with her superior cunning - both times she herself has been a victim of rape/attempted rape happened whilst she was unknowingly intoxicated and unable to act.
Another reason that 'Rape' is a fantastic antagonist(or 'fantagonist') for Veronica? Well ... she's a woman.
I'm not saying that if Veronica Mars was 'Vernon Mars' then rape wouldn't have figured into the equation. But it's unlikely - "Male rape is a taboo subject; it happens but it is concealed by the victims who are too ashamed to speak out and by a society that is not prepared to listen"(Mezey, 2000, p.V).6
The use of 'Rape' as main antagonist serves to subvert that which makes Veronica so very unique. In the words of Samantha Bornemann, "the teen girl is the hook"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.192). Veronica's femininity is at the heart of the show, and so that femininity must be attacked. And 'Rape' is the perfect attacker - "The threat of rape... is a constitutive and sustained moment in the production of the distinctly feminine body"(Cahill, 2001, p.161).7
So there it is. 'Rape' in Veronica Mars is, in my opinion, a fully-formed character that grows and develops along with Veronica herself, providing not only an enemy for her to fight, but the series' main antagonist and the cause of a majority of conflict on the show. It's a great antagonist because it's not something that Veronica can use her prodigious talents to handle, and because it strikes at the very core of what Veronica Mars is about - feminine power.8
1 - I should probably clarify that I in no way view non-consensual sex in anything approaching a flippant manner. Rape is "a most detestable crime"(Hale, 1736; quoted in Taylor, 1987, p. 75). That said, 'rape' is the main topic of this essay - so that word is going to get used a lot, and may get robbed of it's gravitas as we move forward, especially considering that I'm discussing it in the context of a television show. This is unfortunate.↑
2 - At this point, I'd love to have a different word for 'theme'. My brain, after several cycles dedicated to the issue, is coming up blank. As is thesaurus dot com. Looks like we'll need to keep on trucking whilst I beat this word mercilessly into the ground. Apologies.↑
3 - Check me out, coming up with a new way to say 'themes' after all!↑
4 - From here on, I shall capitalize the word when referring to the character of 'Rape', as opposed to the act of rape, which shall go unmolested. Ironically.↑
5 - Seriously - there's a lot of rape in this show.↑
6 - Indeed, there are at least 3 victims of male rape in the show, one of whom(abused as a child) becomes as mass-murderer as a result. "Evidence has also come to the fore that sexual abuse of children has grave consequences both immediately and in the long-term"(Hoghugi, 1997, p.1) - can't get much 'grave'-er than mass murder!↑
7 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, another show revolving around a larger-than-life teen girl, also resorted to using rape to provide a more damaging assault on the slayer where vampires, demons and even gods had failed. Buffy's rape, however, is seen as partially her fault - "I was more upset by Buffy's cold-hearted treatment of [her rapist] prior to the assault"(Billson, 2005, 113). This, of course, is dangerous thinking for a mainstream television show to perpetuate, especially given that "rape is still in many ways tolerated in our society"(Gavey, 2004, p.17).↑
8 - Veronica Mars is available on DVD from Amazon, Play and all the other great websites that sell DVDs. I'd recommend it, muchly. It's not all about rape. Just... mostly.↑
References
Aronson, Linda - Scriptwriting Updated: New and Conventional Ways of Writing for the Screen(New South Wales, AUS:Allen & Unwin, 2000)
Ballon, Rachel - Blueprint for Screenwriting: A Complete Writer’s Guide to Story Structure and Character Development(Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005)
Belknap, Matt - Never Not Funny(Los Angeles, CA:AST Radio, 2007)
Billson, Anne - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A Critical Reading of the Series(British Film Institue, 2005)
Cahill, Ann - Rethinking Rape(Ithaca,NY:Cornell University Press, 2001)
Gavey, Nicola - Just Sex? The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape(Hove:Routledge, 2004)
Hoghugi, M - Working with Sexually Abusive Adolescents(SAGE Publications, 1997)
Horton, Andrew - Writing the Character-Centred Screenplay, 2nd Ed.(Brekley, CA: University of California Press, 1999)
Mezey, Gillen - Male Victims of Sexual Assault, 2nd Ed.(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Projansky, Sarah - Watching Rape Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture(New York:New Yourk University Press, 2001)
Taylor, J - Rape and Women’s Credibilty: Problems of Recantations and False Accusations Echoed in the Cases of Cathleen Crowell and Gary Dotson(Harvard Women’s Law Journal 10, 1987)
Thomas, Rob et al. - Veronica Mars(Los Angeles, CA:UPN, 2004)
Thomas, Rob et al. - Neptune Noir: Unathorized Investigations into Veronica Mars(Dallas,TX:BenBella Books, 2006)
Various - MarsInvestigations.net(http://www.MarsInvestigations.net, 2007)
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'How [Avery] got her [saddle] back.'
Last friday I locked my unicycle up outside the front of halls. I'd been doing it for a couple of weeks, mostly when I knew I'd be back outside within a couple of hours. I've a new lock that's much better than my old one, so I wasn't worried about re-occurance of theft.
When I went out later that evening, the unicycle was still there. Sort of. I undid the lock and had almost mounted the thing when I realised I could not - the saddle had been taken off. It's fairly simple to do. Annoyingly.
I walked to and from my destination instead, seething the whole time. A second instance of unicycle-related theft in six months. And in both cases the unicycle was locked up. My twitter for that evening was "I hate Southampton".
Yesterday, though, a serendipitous chain of events occurred. As I walked(ugh) to class, Stefan from the performance group told me that he'd seen some lads throw the saddle over a wall last friday. He'd apparently questioned them, but I certainly don't begrudge the fact that he didn't lay down his life for some foam and metal. I thanked him, and planned to look over the wall near where the bike had been locked up. There was still a small chance it was there, right?
I was dropping off my stuff back at halls before I went out to search when my R.A. called my name and asked if I'd lost my saddle. He then went to his office, and presented me with it - good as new.
That is awesome.
A new saddle and seat post was looking to set me back around £40/50, so this is pretty fantastic. I've learnt an important lesson, too - now I'll be removing the saddle myself and taking it with me, whenever appropriate.
Every now and then something will happen that will re-invigorate my faith in 'order'. Something will happen that will dispel the despair that I sometimes feel for the current state of the universe as a whole. Something like getting my saddle back.
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'The Writing is on the Wall'
Inspirational Slogan + Crayola Pens + Emulsion Paint = Guilt Free Scribbling on the Bedroom Wall.
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'From my novella. Due soon. Probably.'
A sharp intake of breath and a bleary-eyed glance at the clock on the nightstand - two fairly standard reactions to hearing something crash in the middle of the night.
"Am I... Am I being burgled? Am I being bloody burgled?"
No-one in particular to hear me, sure, but I felt it needed vocalising. I had to say something, if only to kick-start myself into maybe dealing with the situation at hand. Okay - first things first - I would have to investigate.
But I was only in my boxers. Problem.
Okay, dressing gown. And something to hit the bastard with. If there even is a bastard. Something to hit the hypothetical bastard with.
"People keep baseball bats by the bed, don't they? Why don't I do that?"
The closest remotely heavy, blunt object was the bedside lamp. I'd got it from Ikea earlier - hadn't even been plugged in yet. Perfect. A nice solid, steel base too. Something to hit the fucker with, if need be.
Creeping downstairs was an odd experience - I usually don't have to sneak around my own home. Desperate times, I suppose. He was in the kitchen, I could see the silhouette of a hooded man through the frosted window. A hooded man. Never a hooded woman, is it? Never an attractive, available and aroused woman breaking into your maison at midnight. Always a bloody man.
Well, he was going to get the lamping of a lifetime.
I tiptoed up to the door, raised the metal base of my newly-purchased night-stand knick-knack, and prepared to smash his brains in. I was ten steps away, at most. Inching closer, masking myself in the silence.
And then we both heard the second crash.
"What the hell?"
That was him, that time. He'd spun around quickly and simultaneously raised his particular weapon - a crow bar. Which was a much better choice, I must say, than a lamp. Still - he knew this crap was going down, I was a little late to the party.
"You've not got a partner in crime, have you? Someone who might be in the front living room breaking one of my vases?"
He shook his head at me, there was a little fear mixed with the confusion on his face.
"No, I figured not. I don't have any vases."
"I know I should probably be the expert," the burglar again, "but what do you reckon the odds are of someone being robbed blind by two separate thieves on the same night?"
I didn't have to give my answer of 'not very likely, really', because we both heard the moaning. The shuffling. The guttural grunts emanating from the shifting mass of presumably decaying corpses in the next room. The horrible sounds that were getting closer, and led us to both to the same conclusion.
"Zombies."
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'And remember - I'm supposed to be a girl.'
I saw 'Iron Man' earlier and absolutely loved it. I'm definitely going to see it at least three or four more times. Not kidding(on a related note - thanks, Cineworld unlimited card!)
When I got home, I scoured the 'net (five mins on Google Image search) trying to find a wallpaper featuring Tony Stark's glowing chestpiece, but couldn't.
So I made one.
It gets geekier.
I had the chestpiece wallpaper, but it lacked a certain panache. So I imported the .png into iMovie and added a fade in and out to it, making it a twenty second long movie.
Using Deskshade I put the movie as my wallpaper on a continuous loop, so that I have the chestpiece glow in and out as I work.
The original wallpaper(1024x768) and movie(heavily compressed by Flickr, full size available on request) can both be found on my Flickr account.
Welcome to Nerdville. Population: me.
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'Trangst'
Someone on a queer youth web-forum pointed this out the other day, and I started noticing it myself. Recently I've started adding a lot of old friends to my Facebook account, for a whole bunch of reasons - a desire to see what they're up to, an attempt to keep gossip about me well-informed, and(vainly) to see how many of them recognise me(quite a few don't).
The ones that do, though(or the ones that work it out from the various blatant hints on my Facebook profile, or the ones who already knew from other sources) have a tendency to message me and ask how things are going. Which is fine. What's not cool is when they address me as "Kyle".
It should be made pretty plain by my profile that I'm not 'Kyle' anymore. I'm sure in their mind it's a way of saying "I know that you're Kyle, so you don't have to explain things", but that's not how it comes across. It comes across as rude, to be frank.
Still, I can't see any way to authoritatively deal with it without seeming like
I swear, one of these days I'll make a post that isn't about trans issues.
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