Eight Days of Happiness: Original Fiction on the Internets
The One with Magic Horseradish. Beat That, Harry Potter. Why Is This Night Different?, by Janni Lee Simner.
This one might only make people who have celebrated Passover happy, but as it so happens, I am one of those people! And we are talking about things that make me happy, so.
Okay. I sat through Seders as a small child waiting intently for the moment when we opened the door for Elijah. Beyond that, it was just a lot of Hebrew before we got to eat anything. (For reasons that turned out to be very good ones, no one went into much detail with me about, you know, the plagues of Egypt and so on. Why was this a good idea? Well, to give you some idea: I cried through The Prince of Egypt, and when I say "through," I mean that I started during the opening credits and kept on pretty much until the closing ones, traumatizing Best Beloved and astonishing the kids around us. At one point Best Beloved turned to me and whispered, "Why are you crying for Ramses? You do realize he's killing your people, right? You can't root for both sides!" But in fact I am perfectly capable of, if not rooting for, at least crying for both sides, even if one of the sides is, you know, pretty much intent on enslaving and killing me. This is why I don't like team sports or elections much.)
Anyway, my point is: to me a Seder is lots of talking before you get food, and the world's most terrible wine. (Is there some kind of religious requirement that Passover wine has to be bad? Someone must make good Passover wine, right?) So when I say this story brought new meaning to Seders for me, it doesn't exactly mean it rocked my religious world. It's just that most rituals would be a lot more meaningful if you added vampires, I think.
And I also love this because - look. I, too, read The Vampire Lestat as a wee proto-slasher, and I too loved it despite all its flaws because OMG LOUIS/LESTAT 4EVA SQUEEEEE, except I was much too snotty as a young teenager ever to type anything like that. (If I had been in internet fandom as a fourteen-year-old, I would have been the person starting wank about improper use of semicolons. As opposed to now, when I just kind of rant about it in my head. I have grown as a person and mellowed with age for sure.) But sometimes I want the other side of vampires, where they are not sexy, not deliciously homoerotic, not pretty pretty princesses with body glitter, but rather, you know, crazed undead killing machines who probably smell like old blood, which those of you who have smelled it will know is not a supersexy aroma likely to be heavily featured in the next BPAL set. And this story does indeed feature that kind of vampire.
So, overall, this story makes me happy twice. (And I think there's a Doors song about that. Anyone who sings it gets a fork to the ear.)
The One That Demonstrates That Power to the People Sometimes Just Results in Electrocution. Figuratively Speaking. Wikihistory, by Desmond Warzel.
For many months after reading this story, Best Beloved and I would be discussing some internet storm, and we would end up by saying one thing at pretty much the same time:
We're adults; can we keep sight of what's important around here?
And that line is why this story makes me happy. I mean, yes, it will certainly appeal to anyone who has spent any time reading Wikipedia talk pages, where you can meet people who have true and intense rage over pickled vegetable classification, who would, if they could just get their attendants to let them out, go and hurt people over their hideous bad wrongness with respect to pickled vegetables. (The sad part, actually, is that most of them are not locked up, and are probably perfectly kind and decent people who just, for some reason, lose their shit when pickled vegetables come on the scene.) And it will certainly make you deeply appreciate the various time agencies who have, in fiction, kept control of time travel out of the hands of the common person. (Okay, many of those agencies are various kinds of evil and oppressive and so on, but at least they aren't streaking at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which is absolutely the first thing that would happen if college students got hold of a time machine.)
But most of all, this story reminds me, every time I read it, that people are often Wrong on the Internet. And even when they aren't, they are very much inclined to obsess over minor side issues. (Of which I am guilty! Totally and completely guilty! I've definitely been Wrong on the Internet, too, but at least I'm sorry about that. I am proud of being obsessed with minor side issues, which makes me one of the internet crazies.) The last line of this story reminds me to bring it back to what really matters.
And to open a damn window, from time to time.
This one might only make people who have celebrated Passover happy, but as it so happens, I am one of those people! And we are talking about things that make me happy, so.
Okay. I sat through Seders as a small child waiting intently for the moment when we opened the door for Elijah. Beyond that, it was just a lot of Hebrew before we got to eat anything. (For reasons that turned out to be very good ones, no one went into much detail with me about, you know, the plagues of Egypt and so on. Why was this a good idea? Well, to give you some idea: I cried through The Prince of Egypt, and when I say "through," I mean that I started during the opening credits and kept on pretty much until the closing ones, traumatizing Best Beloved and astonishing the kids around us. At one point Best Beloved turned to me and whispered, "Why are you crying for Ramses? You do realize he's killing your people, right? You can't root for both sides!" But in fact I am perfectly capable of, if not rooting for, at least crying for both sides, even if one of the sides is, you know, pretty much intent on enslaving and killing me. This is why I don't like team sports or elections much.)
Anyway, my point is: to me a Seder is lots of talking before you get food, and the world's most terrible wine. (Is there some kind of religious requirement that Passover wine has to be bad? Someone must make good Passover wine, right?) So when I say this story brought new meaning to Seders for me, it doesn't exactly mean it rocked my religious world. It's just that most rituals would be a lot more meaningful if you added vampires, I think.
And I also love this because - look. I, too, read The Vampire Lestat as a wee proto-slasher, and I too loved it despite all its flaws because OMG LOUIS/LESTAT 4EVA SQUEEEEE, except I was much too snotty as a young teenager ever to type anything like that. (If I had been in internet fandom as a fourteen-year-old, I would have been the person starting wank about improper use of semicolons. As opposed to now, when I just kind of rant about it in my head. I have grown as a person and mellowed with age for sure.) But sometimes I want the other side of vampires, where they are not sexy, not deliciously homoerotic, not pretty pretty princesses with body glitter, but rather, you know, crazed undead killing machines who probably smell like old blood, which those of you who have smelled it will know is not a supersexy aroma likely to be heavily featured in the next BPAL set. And this story does indeed feature that kind of vampire.
So, overall, this story makes me happy twice. (And I think there's a Doors song about that. Anyone who sings it gets a fork to the ear.)
The One That Demonstrates That Power to the People Sometimes Just Results in Electrocution. Figuratively Speaking. Wikihistory, by Desmond Warzel.
For many months after reading this story, Best Beloved and I would be discussing some internet storm, and we would end up by saying one thing at pretty much the same time:
We're adults; can we keep sight of what's important around here?
And that line is why this story makes me happy. I mean, yes, it will certainly appeal to anyone who has spent any time reading Wikipedia talk pages, where you can meet people who have true and intense rage over pickled vegetable classification, who would, if they could just get their attendants to let them out, go and hurt people over their hideous bad wrongness with respect to pickled vegetables. (The sad part, actually, is that most of them are not locked up, and are probably perfectly kind and decent people who just, for some reason, lose their shit when pickled vegetables come on the scene.) And it will certainly make you deeply appreciate the various time agencies who have, in fiction, kept control of time travel out of the hands of the common person. (Okay, many of those agencies are various kinds of evil and oppressive and so on, but at least they aren't streaking at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which is absolutely the first thing that would happen if college students got hold of a time machine.)
But most of all, this story reminds me, every time I read it, that people are often Wrong on the Internet. And even when they aren't, they are very much inclined to obsess over minor side issues. (Of which I am guilty! Totally and completely guilty! I've definitely been Wrong on the Internet, too, but at least I'm sorry about that. I am proud of being obsessed with minor side issues, which makes me one of the internet crazies.) The last line of this story reminds me to bring it back to what really matters.
And to open a damn window, from time to time.