Even the Stars Burn Out

I created aj_insane to watch my fiction posted at InsaneJournal. Because I only have a free account, it truncates the header after a certain number of characters. Since I post a picture with my header information on IJ, you might just see an error code instead of the picture or text. But the subject line tells you the name of the story, the pairing and the rating.

I know I don't post much here. Like George Lucas, I'm a perfectionist with my stories and am never satisfied enough with them, so many of them just sit on my hard drive, never finished and never seeing the light of day.

With the whole LJ kerfluffle, like a lot of other folks, I made a bunch of journals on other sites. One in which I was already active is InsaneJournal. I like the creative community there and have actually been active in some challenge communities. I have stories posted there that aren't over here. The link to my sites are on the side of my pages here.

I'm not exactly leaving. My paid status lasts until mid-November after which I will revert to free status and will have to re-design my layout to manage that. I just wanted you to know that I am still writing, but you might see more of it elsewhere.

( I've come undone )

Look ahead cause they're not filling that hole yet.

Another LJ TOS controversy.

I really don't care about what LiveJournal's suits objected to. I wouldn't even bother with free speech issues. That's not really what's wrong here.

What is wrong is LiveJournal's business practices.

Here's what I don't understand: were the recent suspended users repeat offenders? I mean, were they given a warning and then did it again anyway?

I just don't understand why LiveJournal has played such a heavy hand with this. I don't mind that LiveJournal takes actions against users, even if I don't always agree about the circumstances of those actions, but for crying out loud, act like adults about it!

Really, if a business treated you like this, would you shop there again?

It would make sense to me to adopt a better way of handling these cases. There certainly is reason for some kind of action in regards to offending material, especially when it's been brought to their attention and if they agree that it is against their TOS.

But, for a one-time offender? Somehow it doesn't make sense to permanently ban the user, honestly. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Maybe it was an artistic expression (which can be offensive to some people, certainly). Whatever. Give the user a chance to make right. The users obviously want to be a part of this community. Why doesn't LiveJournal want its members?

Here's a simple solution: if I were a first-time offender, send me an email stating that my account is temporarily suspended until I remove the offending material, and that I have, say, 24 hours to do so. Refusal to do so will cause the account to be come permanently suspended.

So if I disagree and created another account in spite of the command and post the offending material again, well, then, I become a repeat offender. I'd have already been warned. Now LiveJournal could permanently suspend me.

What if I'm so ticked at all this and created yet another account and posted the offending material again just out of malice. By now, LiveJournal really wouldn't want to deal with a user like me, so a permanent ban would be perfectly acceptable. After all, I'd be a repeat offender who has been warned multiple times by this point.

That seems rough, but if LiveJournal offered at least a little warning shot across the bow, as a consumer, you could consider that LiveJournal has that right, remove the material, and quietly post elsewhere where the owners of those servers don't mind. (There are, in fact, artistic servers/journals that allow the kind of art which was removed here at LiveJournal recently.)

I think this would be fair. I know not everybody would be happy with doing it like that, especially if the person's "offending material" was what the user thought of as "free speech," but this is LiveJournal's server, they provide the time and effort and money (through means of paid members, ads and investors) in order to keep it up. They can dictate what they deem acceptable to be hosted on their server or not, quite honestly. But they need to be both clear and respectable about it.

ETA: And this open letter addresses all the issues, really. So go, read, sign.

TITLE: Joyful Abundance
AUTHOR: agentj / agentjedi
CHARACTERS: Padmé Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker
RATING: Mature
WRITTEN FOR: skywalkathon
RECIPIENT: Luthe / rabidfangurl
REQUEST: Anakin/Obi-Wan/Padmé. Get them into bed. Make it work. Make it hot.
SUMMARY: Padmé considers just how much her galaxy has changed.
CONTENT WARNING: explicit sex, polyamory
TIMEFRAME: Prequel: post-Revenge of the Sith
CATEGORY: Vignette: Alternative Universe
AUTHOR NOTES: I know I said that I wanted to do something other than smut for a change (you folks are such a terrible influence on me!) but after the latest kerfluffle on LJ, I stopped writing my other story and wrote this hot threesome instead.
DATE WRITTEN: May-June 2007
WORD COUNT: 1,421

( She rocked her newborn daughter to sleep... )

Since this is a fannish-only journal, with no personal blog entries, you know what this is about. And because it's all been said, I'll let a fellow LJ'er present the case for all of us succinctly and poignantly:

( Public letter to Barak Berkowitz, CEO of SixApart )

TITLE: Out of Bounds
AUTHOR: agentj / agentjedi
THEME: Sodom and Gomorrah (Lust) for sw_mythology
CLAIM: Anakin Skywalker
RATING: Adult/NC-17
CHARACTERS: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala
STATUS: complete
DATE WRITTEN: ? 2005, January 2007
TIMEFRAME: Prequel: end of the Clone Wars, possibly during Revenge of the Sith
SUMMARY: Obi-Wan knows.
CONTENT WARNING: Same sex and opposite sex pairings. Explicit sex. Nonconsensual sex.
THANKS TO: gizzi1213 for the beta
WORD COUNT: 1,028

( Obi-Wan awoke with a start. )

The results were interesting.



Yes, it's very important to keep Anakin clean, and connecting with my inner Skywalker is something I try to do every day. And who isn't out there looking for better smut fanfiction? XD I just hope that putting fifty rots a month into savings will help me buy more Star Wars....

Psst! imadra_blue! There's something I need to tell you... :)

TITLE: Shattered Knight AUTHOR: agentjedi GIFT FOR: obi_fan in the jedi__santa exchange RATING: Adult PAIRINGS: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker TIMEFRAME: Prequel: during Clone Wars SUMMARY: One night was all it took to shatter a lifetime between master and padawan. WARNINGS: Same sex pairing. Graphic sex. WORD COUNT: 4,526

( It shouldn't have happened. )

( About the Story )

Ripples in time only make matters worse between Master and former Padawan....

PROMPT: arcana_fic: Page of Wands, au100: Ends
STATUS: WIP / unfinished
GENRE: alternative universe
CHARACTERS: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala
TIMELINE: during Revenge of the Sith
RATING: PG
WARNINGS: none

( PART 2 - Time Being )

( Other alternative universes for Obi-Wan and Anakin. )