Playgans Songs

2005-09-24 [Fireblade K'Chona]: Well, then I guess I wouldn't know the tune anyway. ^_^ And Orycon?...I don't think so. I think it's sad that people can read Mercedes Lackey and go, "Hey! I'm a Guardian! Despite the fact that she just made this up!" Misty wrote a rant about it on her webpage. More later.

2005-09-24 [Rondel]: ...but for the rest of you, I'll try to score the melody into a MIDI file. If all goes well, I may even manage to include the guitar chords. That part is my husband's specialty, not mine, but I'll do my best. I'll try to get that .wav file recorded, too. Anyone interested in the URL of a pagan music collection (with Yule Carols as well as other seasonal songs, some of which are funny)? THEY have music, for learning to sing them by ear, & they include some of [BarleySinger]'s pagan songs (also found in Pagansong Volume 2).

2005-09-24 [Rondel]: Did I ever tell you that I used to babysit Misty Lackey's godchild? (The world of fandom is a small one, & I grew up in it.) She's a nice lady, from what I know of her, but far from the only author to have had her fictional characters latched onto that way. *sigh* It's happened to ALL of the authors named in this song, among many, many others... *sigh* It would be beyond my means to name them all.

2005-09-25 [Fireblade K'Chona]: I feel sorry there are crazies out there who torment these authors like this. And no, you didn't tell me. But as far as I can tell, too, she is nice, but people either think SHE'S a Guardian or whatever, or that THEY are a Guardian. I've only read her Valdemar books and the Joust ones so far. -sigh-

2005-09-25 [sequeena_rae]: *needs to read Misty Lackey's books* I haven't even heard of her *ashamed* :)

2005-09-25 [Fireblade K'Chona]: Oh, don't worry about it. She's not as famous as J.K. Rowling, but she's still a pretty good author, it's just that she hasn't become world-famous.

2005-09-25 [sequeena_rae]: Oh right...J.K.Rowling is the Goddess of the ink

2005-09-25 [Fireblade K'Chona]: Heh.

2005-09-25 [hanhepi]: is misty lacky the same as mercades lackey?

2005-09-25 [hanhepi]: nevermind, i answered my own question. yes she is. i've reead atleast 2 of her books: elvenblood and elvenbane. i rather enjoyed those.

2005-09-25 [Fireblade K'Chona]: Yeah, those were quite good! But people will probably think now that their parents were shifted dragons and they have to get back to their own shape. -sigh-

2005-09-25 [Tolmeni]: My sister and her friends only read the ones with Vanyel in them, because they're self-proclaimed Yaoi Girls. It's very annoying.

2005-09-26 [Rondel]: I've already met one of those, [Fireblade K'Chona], before M. Lackey ever wrote about the topic. LOL He swore up and down that he was "a dragon in another dimension", and "had itches in places where he didn't have places". You'll note that he's in the song. His "mystic bullshit" (our standard term for such behaviour) proved useful at one point, though -- through rather convoluted logic, I first convinced him that the goddess he referred to as "Grandma" was the one that I referred to as "Mom", making me (metaphysically speaking) his aunt... ...and then I convinced him that a tree in my yard was sacred to the goddess (easy enough, it was a hawthorne), then put his cigarette out on it, &

2005-09-26 [Rondel]: told him that he'd anger the goddess if he ever smoked again. Got him to stop, cold turkey, for a full week...but then he went back to them, showing that it wasn't physical addiction (that's broken in that time) but behavioural. Still, I thought it was a pretty good attempt at turning a person's personal mystic bullshit to good ends. *wry laugh* I was also much younger then, & I don't think I'd risk feeding someone's delusion that way, these days. But, it was an interesting experiment, & I learned some things from it. I *do* think that related techniques could be used to create a successful ritual to help pagans quit smoking, for instance, "inner workings" being some of the easiest.

2005-09-26 [Rondel]: As for "Misty" vs. "Mercedes", I tend not to use authors' nicknames unless I've had personal connection/interaction with them which would justify it (in this case, the connection being through my provision of regular care to her god-child (and said god-child's sibling) over an extended period); even now, I hesitate to use the more intimate term in a public forum, but I think I was caught off-guard because I was talking to someone who'd already referred to her that way. I've read most of her early works (the Valdemar books, Vanyel series included, Diana Tregarde books, etc.), but she's one of many authors I've had to quit reading due to my inability to buy/tolerate new-to-me books.

2005-09-26 [Rondel]: Still, I recommend her books; they're quite good, the Diana Tregarde series being unusually so, for their genre. The early Valdemar books were, according to those who knew her most intimately, "Mary Sue"s, in that they were clearly about an altered version of herself and her life... ...but to a reader who didn't know her, they read quite well, regardless. I must admit, some of these issues have affected my own temptation to write fiction; on the one hand, I believe in "writing what you know", yet I don't want to do a classic "Mary Sue" -- and, more importantly, I don't want to write anything that can be fixated upon in an unhealthy way. NOTHING can stop people fixating on an author's

2005-09-26 [Rondel]: work, so far as I can tell... ...but some writing creates greater risks than others. For instance, one could probably power a generator off of Heinlein's spinning in his grave, due to the number of people who justify their polyamorous lifestyle based on his novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", given that his own personal beliefs were quite conservative. Tolkein's heirs must wince every time another knock-off novel ("Sword of Shannara", for instance) is written, but even that must not be as bad as watching people use your books to justify their personal descent into delusional insanity. I've a number of pieces in process which I can't not write, but may not share, for these very reasons.

2005-09-26 [Fireblade K'Chona]: I refer to her as Misty because it's shorter. That's it. Yes, some of her early stuff is Sueish, but it gets a lot better-and it's not fanfic, which is a point in its favor! And I wince every time another knock-off of LOTR emerges too, and I tend not to read them. If you've read Eldest (sequel to Eragon) well...anyway, yeah, it's bad to watch people go insane. But I'm writing anyway. I've set it in a different world, with invented gods, but someone's probably going to try and worship Morophel or something. -sigh- Well, he's one evil SOB, (and he's my character, so I can call him that) so hopefully that will deter people. I'm rambling, yes I am!

2005-09-27 [Rondel]: Ever seen how many people obsess on Elric? Or Thomas Covenant? Painting your main character as an evil SOB is no guarantee that people won't obsess on them.

2005-09-27 [Fireblade K'Chona]: Or Darth Vader, for that matter. Damn. -sigh-

2005-10-01 [BarleySinger]: There is a Wiki here on Elftown for people who really like Malfoil in the Harry Potter series.....and I did notice at least one major person in TV who obviously noticed that way too many of his fans were SCARY....and that was the creater of Buffy/Angel. He did a thing in the Buffy series with "the Triad"....a group of "fan boys" gone bad, and toward the end of the series he had the "Buffy Charater" say outright to the only surviving member of "the Triad" (who had killed another one of the Triad) to "stop it", that "he had killed his friend" and that he was always acting like "life was just a story"...and that it wasn't. It was real an he really did kill his best friend.