Bookflog: Divine Misdemeanours chapter one & Darla news

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I made a promise to myself that I should try to post more news to the comm when I come across it rather than hoard it on my journal.  I've been following Darla's progress on the internets since she left Team LKH. She's written a book called "Working for Miriam" and shared some parts (sorry, she wrote some "antedotes"), but unfortunately could not find an agent to pick it up. So she turned her energy to writing a scifi/fantasy novel, but hasn't mentioned anything about that for a while.  But the latest is that she's going to publish her Anitapedia on Lulu.

And lets hear it for those that love us! Me particularly.  LOL!  I am not going to burn the Anitapedia now. Someone I know pointed out, that lots of hard work went in to that so why not self publish since I have been waiting almost nine years.  So I will.

I cannot put into words just how much I want this. Purely for science! And possibly FOR GREAT JUSTICE! Or at the very least Great Irony.

In other news, LKH has the first chapter of Divine Misdemeanours for download as a PDF on her website. Or, as LKH announced, "Divine Misdemeanors, who’s first chapter is up on our website." -- the book is a who now.  And she wasn't lying when she said she got it straight from the publisher, because it's still in its raw formatting stage.  Thankfully, those spelling errors that were in the first few paragraphs that she posted have been corrected.  Well, "eucalyptus" is still a pronoun, but now Merry works for Grey Detective Agency: Supernatural Problems; Magical Solutions.

Now that I got your hopes up, I can dash them by revealing just how bad the writing still is even after editing.

Merry is at a crime scene.  We know this because she's wearing a pretty, pretty dress and her hair is loose, but she can't tie it back because she's wearing latex gloves.  Her life, so hard.  All the other cops around can manage a small degree of professionalism, but none of them are totally legit faerie princesses!

On a side note: as someone who lives in a country full of eucalyptus trees...they're not spicy. At least, not to me.  I have a shocking sense of smell, but gum trees smell zesty, or possibly lemon fresh-y to me, and it reminds me of cold medicine.  I don't know, they might seem exotic to someone who isn't around them all the time, but given that Merry says that southern California is her home away from home...uh, she ought to be used to it? I'm confusing myself now.

If it had been this many adult human-sized bodies the Eucalyptus wouldn't have had a chance, but they weren't adult-sized.

I read this line via Twitter when LKH was teasing fandom with one sentence at a time, and I wanted to Tweet back to her, "are you talking about the trees being human-sized?" because that's how I read the sentence.  And the more I look at it, the more I get O____o because it's...just...

Look, let's rewrite this: If there had been this many human-sized bodies, the smell of blood would have been overwhelming. Thankfully, the corpses were not human.

There, I fixed it for you.  And for all I know, demi-fey smell like lavender and rainbows when they're dead.  They're faeries.

There's a coy dance around saying "look, there's a bunch of demi-fey that are dead," by going through the agonising description that they were the size of dolls, but they were not dolls, and somehow their wings were frozen mid-motion (which does not make any sense if they're posed on their backs - unless their wings are propping them up? Which makes even less sense given how fragile butterfly/moth wings are), bouquets of wilted flowers still grasped in their tiny dead hands, and finally the whole thing like it's some graceful dance. So...dead people got served? They died in the middle of busting a move? Who's the unfortunate one stuck stirring the pot or raising the roof? Either the bad guy had a freeze-ray to accomplish this, or there was a lot of fiddling about with pipe cleaners to get them posed likes this.  That is one dedicated bad guy.

Detective Lucy Tate turns up, and insert headdesking here.

[Lucy] was wearing a pants suit complete with a jacket and white button-up shirt that strained a little across the front because Lucy, like me, had too much figure for most button-up shirts.  But I wasn't a police detective so I didn't have to pretend I was a man to try and fit in.

lkh_lashouts has had a field day over this so I'm not even going to rehash the indignation.

So, on with the show.

"They're laid out like something from a children's storybook down to the dancing poses and the flowers in their hands."

Lucy nodded. "It's not just like, it is."

"Is what?" [Merry] asked, looking at her.

...

Having read the chapter, the next part should be about a vital clue in the form of a page from a children's book that has an illustration just like the grisly scene before them. Instead, we get a paragraph waffling on about how Merry is both a detective and a faerie princess, and if she had only been one of these things (or neither), she would not be there.  No, the vital clue comes after Merry's private me-time.  Despite the page being in a plastic evidence cover-thing, and Merry wearing gloves, she still doesn't touch it for fear of contaminating the evidence or something equally dumb.

Merry points out that the bad guy had to bring the clothes the demi-fey are wearing, because they never would have worn anything like that outside of the Sithen.  She knows this because she's seen them wear "three piece suits and formal evening wear." In LA weather? Okay. Lucy asks if they could have worn their current outfits out here anyway, and Merry says no, because "[t]hey wouldn't have matched perfectly without planning it this way."

"We were thinking he lured them down here with a promise of an acting part, a short film," [Lucy] said.

This is both hilarious and tragic (hilagic?) to me. This is LA! Everyone wants to be in the movies! Does anyone ever go to LA for any other reason?

UGH. LKH's fondness of defining things that people can either work out for themselves, or already know, now rears its head.

"The demi-fey, the small winged fey, have a particular fondness for natural circles."

"Explain."

"The stories only tell humans not to step into a ring of toadstools, or a ring of actual dancing fey, but it can be any natural circle. Flowers, stones, hills, or trees, like this circle. They come to dance in the circle."

I, the humble reader, am not stupid. Anyone that's stuck with the books this long is going to know this.  Anyone who's never read a Merry Gentry book but knows that it's about faeries (and why wouldn't you? It's usually right there in the blurb), can probably work this out.  And what's more, I'm pretty sure Lucy is not an idiot, otherwise she would not have made detective, and she's probably got some mean note-taking skills or at least a freakish memory in order to look this stuff up, specially if she's been dealing with faerie-related crime for a while.  But no, all this pales in comparison of Merry's smarts and she's right there as a resource, so she might as well spout as much information as possible. This could be Lucy's very cunning plan to learn as much as she can in one hit and then exclude Merry from the rest of the investigation in case she screws things up, in which case I adore Lucy and I want to be her when I grow up as I would not have nearly so much grace in the face of such a moron, supernatural royal or otherwise.

There's a bit of a back and forth between Lucy and Merry as to what the possible motive of the bad guy could be. Lucy thinks the bad guy lured the demi-fey out there with the promise of a bit-part in a short movie, but it's also possible that the guy was stalking the demi-fey if they frequented this particular clearing.  If it's the former, then there's more leads for the police to track down and thus less use for Merry around, but if it's the latter...well, it's harder to be a detective of any kind.  I'm sorry, I had no idea that solving crime was more about looking at what might be easier to investigate rather than finding out what happened.

Then Lucy says, "Don't say he. You don't know the killer is a he." (which seems weird because she's the one that referred to the Big Bad as a "he" in the first place, and never mind that statistically there are more male serial killers than female) and Merry agrees and asks if the police assume the killer is human. Her reasoning is that humans are not strong or fast enough to do this.  Also, we finally get a cause of death -- the demi-fey had their throats slit.  Lucy asks if the demi-fey are as fragile as they look, and Merry says no and repeats that they're fast.  However, she has to concede that with some magic, a human could do this to them.  When asked what kind of magic someone might need, Merry replies:

"I don't have a spell in mind. I'm not human. I don't need spells to use against other fey, but I know there are stories of magic that can make us weak, catchable, and hurtable."

Right, so back in book two when Merry had to use the fertility ritual for Maeve, that had no spell component to it at all.  Admittedly, I haven't read beyond Mistral's Kiss, so there's probably been some patches to Merry's Princess app that I'm missing.  I am purposely overlooking the "catchable and hurtable" thing just so I don't give myself an anneurism.

Merry goes off into screen saver mode while she monologues internally about lesser fey dying from mundane causes like falling down the stairs, and immortality isn't what it used to be.  Goddamnit, I hate it when we import cheap immortality knockoffs even if they do look very, very shiny.

For once, a character in the story notices the glassy-eyed, head-tilted heroine and calls her on it. Lucy kinda snaps Merry out of it and Merry pleads a severe case of "I'm not used to Seeing Dead People (tm)." before finally answering the question that yes, demi-fey were meant to be immortal.  If this were CSI, we'd have Horatio make his pun by now, slide his glasses back in place and we'd be rocking to The Who. But no, we're not done with the internal monologuing yet. Lucy asks how the killer manage this -- look, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the killer slit their throats, but what do I know? I'm not a faerie princess -- and Merry goes on about how this one time at band camp, an Unseelie noble used a cold iron blade to kill a demi-fey.  And the court had killed him.

AHAHA.

We'd killed the sidhe who did it, although he said that he hadn't mean to kill her. He had just meant to wound her through the heart as her desertion of him had wounded his heart -- poetic and the kind of romantic drivel you get when you're used to being surrounded by beings who can have their heads chopped off and still live.

I can just see this guy waving a knife around all, "OOPS, MY BAD. I ONLY MEANT TO KILL HER A LITTLE BIT. YOU THINK SHE'LL TAKE ME BACK?"

Anyway, back to the case at hand. Merry does not think a sidhe did this as it "had the taste of something much more convoluted than that -- a motive that only the killer would understand." I don't know about you, but I'd think that being a detective would mean trying to figure that part out and, like, detect the killer.  I could be over-thinking this.

I looked carefully at my own reasoning to make certain I wasn't talking myself out of the Unseelie Court, the Darkling Throng, being suspects. The court that I had been offered rulership of and given up for love.

I would love to see an Unseelie try to say something like, "Princess Meredith, we offer you rulership of our Dark Court," with a straight face.  It might be a drinking game -- see who can get the furthest through the declaration before cracking up, the loser has to buy the next round.  It's entertainment for the whole family.

But whatever, this is an excuse for Merry to break out the "woe is me" card and reflect upon how people died, y'all, some she even killed herself, and that "Love had just been the emotion that had led me to what I truly wanted, and who I truly was."

Lucy has to snap Merry out of it again, and we're back to being dumb.

"What are you thinking, Merry?"

"I'm thinking that I wonder what emotion led the killer to do this, to want to do this."

"What do you mean?"

"It takes something like love to put this much attention into the details.  Did the killer love this book or did he love the small fey? Did he hate this book as a child? Is it the clue to some horrible trauma that twisted him to do this?"

"Don't start profiling on me, Merry; we've got people paid to do that."

"I'm just doing what you taught me, Lucy. Murder is like any skill; it doesn't fall out of the box perfect. This is perfect."

"The killer probably spent years fantasizing about this scene, Merry. They wanted, needed it to be perfect."

"But it never is. That's what serial killers say when the police interview them. Some of them try again and again for the real-life kill to match the fantasy, but it never does, so they kill again and again to try and make it perfect."

OKAY. STOP RIGHT THERE, YOUNG LADY. BACK THE FUCK UP. Let's just ignore that this is the very definition of a serial killer, and just look at the big picture.

I want to say someone's been watching too much Criminal Minds or CSI, I really do, but given how much LKH loves to tell us about how she wants the mundane world to be so very real-to-life, I have no doubt that she's done her research.  I call into question just how much research she's done or how she uses it, but I don't doubt that she's hit the books and at least spoken to a couple of people associated with law enforcement.  And this reeks of the author basically flashing all that knowledge she's gained. LOOK AT ALL THIS RESEARCH, LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF I KNOW! SEE HOW COOL I AM TO KNOW THIS? IT MAKES THINGS REAL IN MY SILLY URBAN FANTASY STORY! And in the effort to show off all this really-real stuff that she's got notes on, she's cramming it into the scene where it's just not necessary.  Now, she might think that the scene is better for it, but from a reader's perspective, the story suffers for it.  I'm going to guess the story suffers a lot in this book, much like the reader does.  There are better ways of incorporating research and having the heroine spout knowledge -- especially if this is knowledge she never previously had -- at someone is not it.  It's clumsy and makes the heroine seem uppity and arrogant because she knows these things while the highly trained police detective frantically scribbles notes like this is a message from up on high.

On a side note, I desperately want the murderer in this story to have left the picture and other clues just to fuck with the police.  But that would be clever and interesting and possibly hot, and this isn't allowed.  Merry won't let us have nice things.

To really make matters worse, Lucy then goes to tell Merry, "You don't just rely on the magic; you actually try to be a good detective." Because Merry's just proved to be a shining star of observation and deduction so far.  Merry then repeats the whole thing about how this scene is perfect and it shouldn't be, as serial killers don't suddenly pop up with the perfect crime, and then her dress wafts a bit (it's purple! we should care!) and Lucy apologises for calling Merry out on a Saturday. But apparently her boss has a new girlfriend, so he's unavailable. Right.

I'm still wondering why Merry doesn't have coveralls in her car for this sort of thing. Even Anita has enough sense for that sort of thing. I know this because there were a couple of scenes where Anita was happy to have found a skirt she can wear in them while working a scene.  Whatever, this is a chance for some girl-talk about how everyone's weekend is now a bit ruined.

Hey, if you were wondering where the My Little Pony Men were, this is where we finally find out that Doyle and Frost (yes, he was turned into a stag - he got better) over by the car.  For those interested: Doyle is still black all over, except for his earrings, and his hair is in a braid.  Frost still has silver tinsel hair, all loose and floaty like some romance novel hero or, as Merry says, "looking like some model with a wind machine." And he's magically tangle-free.  You know what? That actually sounds awesome. If you're going to be a bitchin' immortal hotass, you might as well have magically tangle and snarl-proof hair too.  Never mind that Frost's hair is still ankle-length and is probably heavy as hell, specially in LA's temperatures, he's an immortal hotass. Your argument is invalid.

And now for a description of everyone else on the scene in their regular human clothes. Damn us for not being as pretty as faerie mens.  And a rehash that Merry's worked with the police before, which is why she's allowed past the line and the boys are not.

"No murderer is this good the first time, or did you get a new flavor of killer while I was away in faerie?"

"Nope. Most murders are pretty standard. Violence level and victim differs but you're about eighty to ninety percent more likely to be killed by your nearest and dearest than by a stranger, and most killing is depressingly ordinary."

"This one's depressing," [Merry] said, "but it's not ordinary."

Yeah, because we hadn't established that the other two times it's been discussed in the space of ten minutes.  Also, you'd think that the "faerie" would be capitalised, because it's not like you say, "oh dear, did you get a new kind of killer while I was in spain?" Not to mention, it would help differentiate between the magical-creature-faerie and magical-dimension-faerie.  I'm just saying, as a puny human that is looked upon with such disdain from these people, it might help a bit with the interspecies communications and relations.

Merry offers to warn the local demi-fey about a potential serial killer stalking them, and this leads to a conversation about how some demi-fey can change their size from Barbie and Ken sized to short-person-sized, and then Lucy sees Merry out of the scene with a cheerful, "Enjoy your Saturday." But no! Merry is on the case! Going to the beach with her mens will have to wait because she's got this moral obligation to a) warn the demi-fey (because picking up a phone or sending one of the dudes is hard) and b) see if there's any magic in LA that can steal immortality.  But to do it in such a way as to not cause a stir.

Then I realised that there wasn't a way. The fey were just like humans -- they understand fear.  Some magic, a little near-immortality, doesn't make you un-afraid; it just gives you a different list of fears.

So, magical beings from a whole other magical universe, beings that do not age and some had the power to destroy and remake the world on a whim, beings that are as far from human as you can get with their knowledge and beauty, are at the heart of it just like everyone else. Riiight.

This is baaad! It's almost physically painful to read! I just want to go through it and rewrite it in English so it doesn't hurt so much! LKH has learned about the existence of semicolons and by goddess she's going to use them!

Not gonna lie, LKH is one of the reasons why I got to writing about faeries. Simply because I was so overwhelmed with this capslock rage of "I CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!" It's nice to know that at least this is the consistent reaction out of me, and then I wind up writing deathfic for a few days. So this isn't entirely a bad thing for my productivity. Just my brain cells and sanity.

Comments

[artemis-rex.livejournal.com]

For this post, I think I love you.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

For this comment, I shall love you back.

[artemis-rex.livejournal.com]

It's a mutual admiration society.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I, too, wish to express my love.

[sweetpirate.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't read this during NaNo. My inner editor just woke up and went--wait, what? You're not editing while you write? NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Your summary makes me want to write quality again, not just quantity.

[sweetpirate.livejournal.com]

PS, that wasn't really a 'no! stop that!' comment, more of a 'thank you, but ouch-for-me' comment.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I understand completely. It's a lot of effort to not reach for the red Sharpie and draw all over the computer screen while trying to read this. Or hell, just typing it up, because my brain and fingers want to translate this into proper sentences that make sense. And probably give it more plot and personality. /o\

Homg, you have my utmost respect for doing NaNo. Good luck with your word counts! And if you can make your target, there's always December for editing and bringing it all up to quality.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

I know writing is terrible when I want to rewrite it. That's why I don't read Dan Brown... I am constantly reordering sentences in my head. That's also why I stopped reading LKH. It's just. GRAH. Edit woman. I don't even like editing and I want to tear apart her books.

As a forensic psychology major, her thoughts on serial killing are just like *facepalm.* In theory, she's right, but just like anything else in the world, things can break from the 'norm'. I've done a lot of research on serial killers, and I probably talk about it more than I should, but dammit, LKH, just stop trying to show how sparkly your information is.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Given how much badfic/trashy literature I read, I'm surprised the urge doesn't hit me more often. But LKH provokes this need in me every time. I think part of it is because I hold her to a higher standard and get frustrated when she does not meet that expectation.

Considering that there's so many crime shows around that give various insights into serial killers, I think it'd be nice if LKH didn't treat her audience like complete idiots on the subject. CSI is pretty much accessible to everyone, and unless she's planning on writing a faerie version of Silence of the Lambs, there's no real need to cram all this information into the opening scene. It leaves no mystery as to the who or why later, or even the chase to catch the killer.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

This might be just me, but I almost like reading about serial killers, without all the posturing about how they all "think", and figure it out for myself (probably why I'm going into this field), and then comparing it to other killers. No "it's never perfect the first time, it had to be love to be this perfect, blah blah blah." She's trying to show off, and as you said, it leaves no mystery. Even Silence of the Lambs (I haven't read the book yet, just saw the movie) handled it way better. But then again, it had good actors and good writing. She's trying too hard, and the writing is suffering.

I don't watch crime shows much anymore, except the errant Law and Order rerun I catch when I'm bored, but I read a whole heck of a lot. But just flipping the channels, holy crap is forensics and criminal thinking popular nowadays. I've always had kind of a weird interest in serial killing and how criminals think, ever since I was shockingly young. I used to get a lot of weird responses for my interest, and now people are like "oh that's so cool." It makes me laugh to think that LKH isn't nearly as edgy as she thinks she is.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Half the mystery is trying to piece together the evidence to get why this is significant to the bad guy. This is why I love Criminal Minds (other than the really, really ridiculously good looking cast that kinda crawl into each other's heads), everyone has the skills/knowledge to put things together, but every case is basically unique. Even in the cases when you see the bad guy doing their bad guy deeds, there's still this nagging sense of why and will he be stopped in time? There's none of this here; he's done his thing, he's off baking scones while he plans his next move and Merry's talking about how the secret ingredient here is love.

The book of Silence of the Lambs is pretty good, Jonathan Demme made a fairly faithful adaption in the movie. So is Red Dragon. I have my reservations about Hannibal, both the book and the movie -- I liked the book, but it's a bit pedestrian, and WTF RIDLEY SCOTT? but haven't gotten around to Hannibal Rising due to hearing about how bad they both are. Even though Gaspard Ulliel is smokin' creepy hot.

Exactly. SVU has their own FBI profiler on hand to help out and he sometimes crosses over shows, and I know CSI (Vegas) has Morpheus Dr Ray Langston now, and he was a criminal psychology lecturer at college. NCIS had Ducky study forensic psychology so he could do a psychological autopsy as well as the physical one. It's everywhere, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand it, so bludgeoning us with this information just hurts the story more. Even Lucy says there are people that are paid to do this sort of thing so why aren't they doing it? Merry's a princess and a PI, that's it. She didn't study criminal psychology, near as I can tell she doesn't watch a lot of crime shows or read lots of books, so...to me this sparkling insight into serial killer pathology just came right out of left field (possibly leftover from when Anita was showing off in Skin Trade) to try and show us that Merry Is Awesome. Only it did not have the desired effect.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

As a forensic psychology major, her thoughts on serial killing are just like *facepalm.*

Sorry, that made me blink and go, "Wait, LKH is a forensic psychology major?" before I realized you were a forensic psychology major. I think I need a nap. Did you mean to say, "As a forensic psychology major, I feel that her thoughts on serial killing are just like *facepalm.*"?

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Yes. I have the dumb today, I'm sorry. You are correct. And here I was, ranting about her writing when I can't do it myself today!

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Okay, I just assumed I was exhausted and reading things in a weird way. :)

I wonder where that form of phrasing came about, anyway? I'm pretty sure LKH herself has used it. You know, maybe something like "As a faerie princess, life gets hard when you have to start building a male harem." It should be "As a faerie princess, I have found that life gets hard when you have to start building a male harem."

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

I usually word it correctly, because I'm often a grammar stickler when I'm paying attention. I think I've just had a long hard day, dealing with family drama, illness, and lack of sleep with crappy dreams. That would throw anyone off her game. However, it doesn't explain why LKH's work is constantly terrible.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathies and internet hugs. :(

(None of those for LKH, though!)

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I appreciate it. It just all piles on at once sometimes, you know? <3

[darkese.livejournal.com]

>>OKAY. STOP RIGHT THERE, YOUNG LADY. BACK THE FUCK UP. Let's just ignore that this is the very definition of a serial killer, and just look at the big picture.<<

I swear I heard the whole "Some of them try again and again for the real-life kill to match the fantasy, but it never does, so they kill again and again to try and make it perfect." almost word for word on Criminal Minds recently.

Anyways, LKH flashing this knowledge would be slightly impressive if the killer was a serial killer and not a mass murderer. Serial killers differ over mass murderers in that their murders take place over a period of time, mass murderers kills all at once.

*facepalm*

[dwg.livejournal.com]

The thing about LKH flashing this knowledge is that you just know that it's not going to turn out to be a mass murderer. It's pretty much set up from the start that the world will magically twist upon itself like a Gordian Knot to prove Merry right, just so that she can help save the day. I don't think it would occur to her to write the story any other way, specially after hearing about how Incubus Dreams and the whole Vittorio thing was her way of showing that her books weren't all stand-alone mysteries and that sometimes the bad guys get away, and that after finishing Swallowing Darkness she did not want to do any more long story arcs. No, I'm pretty sure the story will unfold exactly as it's set out here and that really leaves no mystery to be interested in. Not that the story will probably even be about that, as I'm trying to find the tweet where I think she mentioned this book was going to be heavy on the sex. SADLY, NOT WITH THE SERIAL KILLER. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING.

MEANEHILE I AM MESMIRISED BY JOHN HAMM DON DRAPER WINKING AT ME.

[darkese.livejournal.com]

BY THE POWER OF WIKI, I AM slightly more informed. Turns out to be a serial killer the time span has to be over 30 days and be at least 3 kills (mass murderer is 4 kills). So if you kill one person every 7 days for 3 weeks you're not quite a serial killer yet.

I have no doubt that this killer will be labeled a serial killer all through the book but I think that is because LKH can't be bothered to even google serial killers and find the facts out about them.

I believe she decided she's done all the research needed on them and everything else a long time ago and now goes on her faulty memory and outdated, spotty research.

[darkese.livejournal.com]

oh, he's winking at me. Not you!

[denelian.livejournal.com]

ok... i ask because i feel i am missing something.
a mass murderer is *only* when a person kills 4+ people. [i presume at once - otherwise serials killers would be mass murderers, after they hit 4 victims? i think?]
a serial killer is a murderer who has killed at least 3 people, but over a span of time, minimum one month [so a mass murderer isn't also a serial killer, unless they kill 4+ people, then at least 31 days later, somehow kills more people?]

so... is there a name for someone who does the example? kills 3 people in a 3 week time-span? is there this other classification, that i don't know of, that is more than "just" a murder but less than a serial or mass murder?

seriously, i am just being curious. i had always just assumed that the only difference between "mass murder" and "serial murder" was that a mass murder did it at once, and a serial murder took longer. i figured that shooting 3 different people, on the same day but with time in between sort of deal, would still be considered "serial". or maybe the difference was a "mass" was going for just a large group while a serial was going for specific targets? i... honestly, i'm sort of disturbed in general that we [as a society, i mean] had to come up with different titles for these sorts of things :( and *really* disturbed at how LKH treats it badly. sigh.

[darkese.livejournal.com]

I read a paragraph in wiki on the numbers and stuff for mass and serial and regurgitated all I know here. I did know that to be a serial killer it had to be over a period of time with a break between kills but not that it had a 30 day minimum period.

I read that terrorists are considered mass murderers and not serial killers even though they kill over a period of time as well. Might be they are missing some psychological aspect (the need to kill?) that is required to be a serial.

Interesting questions. Maybe I'll dig deeper into this classification thing.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

hmmmm...


i will, too. i was being lazy, because i *just* finished a HUGE paper on how to lower the rate of military rapes, so i was tired of stats and horrific crimes.

but it is interesting, and sort of odd [i had NO clue that there was any sort of time-frame difference - i actually thought that "mass murderer" and "serial killer" were essentially the same] and one day, when i grow, i'm supposed to have a journalism degree. of course, i'm doing badly at the growing up, being that i am almost 33 and all. :D

but, seriously - thank you. i research for fun, and this looks fun[ish]. but not before bedtime...

[dwg.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, the difference is the MO of the kill. Serial killers have a particular ritutal to follow, while a mass murderer's objective is more about maximum damage. I can't speak with any authority because I only watch a lot of crime drama, I don't actually study it. But that's how it filters through my brain.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

...
that is an excellent point. i'm gonna go ahunting tomorrow [no class. yay veteran' day!] and see what i turn up.
if you are correct, it means that it's probably not possible to be *both*. so that's an intriguing idea, too...

thank you!

[magdalen77.livejournal.com]

Well, you know she does have that awesome 25-year old biology major that enables her to be an expert on virtually everything. I'm sad that when they gave me my biology degree back in '81 they didn't alert me to this. I could have enjoyed many years of pretending to be an expert on all subjects.

[ever-obsessed.livejournal.com]

Hey, guess what? Most killers... don't perfect it like this the first time. Did you know that?

[naeko.livejournal.com]

Then there's the fact that killers who kill like this don't make it perfect the first time; not sure if you're aware of that.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

apropos of nothing:

as a person with ridiculously long hair [no, really, it's almost to my knees. which i justify because it's in a tight bun 99% of the time, almost never "down", and even then is only in a ponytail...] i have to say -

WHAT. THE. FUCK.
hair to your ankles but NEVER a tangle? because "the wind like [you]"?

it's just about the -only- thing i have ever been jealous of, about *any* of LKH's characters. i mean, from the descriptions, i don't think *I* would think most of them were "hot" or especially attractive, most of them have ZERO personality, [i like sex, i like penises, but i DO think that too much of a good thing is bad], they tend to have horribly stupid fashion choices... the ONLY thing i am jealous of is the NON-TANGLY-HAIR.

and seriously - that's cheating. how much you want to bet that, with exception of the mens who spend forever "getting pretty" for Laurita-Merry-Sue, *ALL* of them are going to start having magical hair?

[yes, i know that this is probably a stupid and petty thing to be annoyed at. but i get tangles just sitting. once your hair gets to a certain length, there is NO way to prevent tangles. tangles are a fact of life. it's the trade-off - i can have long hair, or i can have easy-to-brush-hair. it just annoys me.]


in less-minor annoyance, WTF is up with this "flavor" bullshit, ALL THE TIME!?
and that specific line - "No murderer is this good the first time, or did you get a new flavor of killer while I was away in faerie?"
i hate the way she does dialog. THIS IS WRONG. i can't even say WHAT or WHY, but she uses this specific pattern ["this thing is this, or did this thing get a new flavor?"]. WHY does she do this? she has done this since the first fucking Anita book, and it's like nails on a chalk-board.
would the *correct* way to say it be more like "No murderer is this good the first time - unless you found a new type of murderer while i was gone?".
or - no. ya know what, it bugs me *because* it's always meant to be fucking patronizing. it says "This is going to go one of two ways: either I am going to speak a universal truth that everyone will know is the truest truth ever - or you're going to be stupid and try and tell me i am wrong when everyone knows i am right".

is that just me? can anyone else explain this better than me?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I used to have hair long enough to sit on, and it took forever to dry and yeahhhh you get tangles just sitting there and doing nothing. But I'm willing to overlook that in favour of supernatural elements and they may have better hair-care secrets that may not exist in reality. It's the only rationalisation I can come up with for this.

I...I honestly cannot read the whole "flavour" thing without being all IT HAS A FLAVR! and that instantly takes something headachey and makes it fun. But yeah, it's one of those phrases that she seems fond of (right up there when something "flat out does it for me" or "pulse like candy on my tongue"), and winds up being one of her idiosynchrasies. At least we know this is Genuine Hamilton, accept all substitutes.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

*snort*
"imitation" Hamition *SCARES* me!

i used to be amused by the "flavor" thing, especially because i used to use it in a similar fashion, among and about my family and friends. i *never* used it to describe someone who wasn't in on the joke, and LKH turned me off the joke entirely.
but i realized it was the "flavor" itself, so much - it's the continual "He was a sexy man-beast, or is that a new flavor, now sexy beast-man" type patter/bullshit. it always sounds so CONDESENDING, ya know?
"That's a lovely new dress, or is it an old flavor newly recycled?"
"that's a bad plan, or are there more flavors to your power than you've told me"
"I'm the most desirable and desired woman on the planet, or are you just the wrong flavor of gay that my ANIMERGINA can't "convert" you?"


i have to go now... i have to finish reading the 4h Twilight book [and hope that i don't destroy THIS copy, too] so that i may FULLY appreciate my NEW LOVE - "NIGHTLIGHT: A PARODY".
i recommend, btw, because its put out by The Harvard Lampoon, and [i might have details wrongish, it's been awhile since i saw the article] the Harvard Lampoon said that if "NIGHTLIGHT" did well, they were going to parody an Anita book [or it may have been "another Anita book". like i said, it's been a bit since i saw it.] seriously, if NIGHTLIGHT does well enough, we might get something like "MASOCHISTIC PAIN: A PARODY OF GUILTY PLEASURE". or SOMETHING along these lines :D

[mitrian.livejournal.com]

Mass murderers - now available in Bacon Flavor!

[denelian.livejournal.com]

*falls down laughing*

[kd-lalala.livejournal.com]

My Little Pony Men is the best goddamn description I've heard for that lot XD

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Kudos should go to freyalorelei for using it first. But it really is the best description for this ridiculousness. <3

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

LKH has learned about the existence of semicolons and by goddess she's going to use them!

Funnily enough, I'm trying to slog through Anne Rice's newish book, Angel Time, and she seems to have entirely forgotten they exist. Every sentence runs on and on without a halfway decent break; just commas. And I noticed it almost painfully, as she used to wield semicolons on a regular basis. It's making it harder than it should to read it.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, I haven't read anything by Anne Rice since Blackwood Farm and that was pretty rambly with the run-ons. So it's been a while since punctuation got a decent work out with someone so verbose.

Maybe there was a punctuation exchange with LKH - she's gained semicolons while Rice has gone to the great god Commathulhu.

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is much worse. I could read Blackwood Farm without a problem, but almost immediately did I notice the lack of semicolons this time around. It jumps at you.

Rice had a garage sale: 2 for 1 semicolons, well-used. Possibly dirty.

[unrund.livejournal.com]

The thing with the pipecleaner really cracked me up *is amused*

Also, as most of your posts are, great post.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, thankyou!

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

Excellent post!

LKH's purile, repetetive, self-congratulatory keyboard barf, with copious chopped carrots, not so much....

[flirtswithfan.livejournal.com]

Loved the flog, but waited breathlessly for you to skewer my favorite line and you flew right over it! You know >the wind.. through the high leaves<. But what are they high on? The same thing as lkh?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

HIGH ON EUCALYPTUS, JUST LIKE THE KOALAS. The koalas that aren't in southern California, but if they were, they'd be high right there.

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

High like wallabies in a poppy field?

You remember that whole thing right?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I do! I still giggle over it. XD

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

I just read this entire post, and the one thing that leapt out at me was this:

Not gonna lie, LKH is one of the reasons why I got to writing about faeries.

You write about faeries!?!?!? WHERE!?!?!?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

omg, huge apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I need to check my notifications more often. I...currently have some stories on the go (and some (http://dwg.livejournal.com/973677.html) ficlet (http://dwg.livejournal.com/966499.html?thread=4151651#t4151651) things (http://dwg.livejournal.com/968132.html)), and a huge problem with finishing, but the one story I do have done is this one (http://scarimonious.livejournal.com/5495.html). Gah, at the very least I am totally going to write some kind of MG deathfic where the real faeries are all "wtf? who's in charge? You? Okay, you die now." /EPIC SELF PIMPAGE.

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Self pimpage is always good.

Thanks for the links, can't wait to read. And anytime you decide to re-write MG, I'll be there cheering you on!!!

First off, can we make her taller? With less boobs?