Is it just my degree that makes me sensitive to plot devices like a prenuptial that neither party can get rid of even though both want to rip it up or a contract that one of the signatories isn't permitted to have a copy of or people thinking you can just throw away business deals because you don't like a person? I'd love to think that I would have found those things a little silly even before I went to business/law school (I've always been a cynic, frugal, and more interested in the money than the people), but sometimes I do have to face the fact that my education did change my perspective.
But at the same time, these plot devices just seem lazy. I love a romance with a lot of friction just as much as any smut fan, but it seems to me that we can come up with a plot device that doesn't throw out what seem to me to be common sense rules.
A prenup (or any contract) can be rewritten if both parties desire it (the signers are not slaves to a piece of paper if they both want out, even if only one wants a change, there are mechanisms, but I'm willing to overlook knowledge of that). A copy of a contract cannot be withheld from a signatory. Businesses owe the making of a profit to more than just the owner and can't throw away meetings, deals, and partnerships willy nilly. Is that just the degree talking, or is it common sense? Am I doomed because I am a lawyer/accountant or are these really lazy plot devices?
I've always been forgiving of the criminal procedure snafus. Media did it's work well in creating the "sneaky defense attorney/criminal oriented legal system/rule-playing prosecutor who can't get away with anything" myth*, and maybe my lack in these areas (I have no interest in criminal law) make them easier to overlook. Is that hypocritical? I don't forgive the basics (even in criminal procedure) and these things seem like basics to me.
How painful must it be if you are a doctor, or a biologist, or an engineer, or a computer expert?
*don't get me wrong, it's a hard job to be a prosecutor too and it is an undertaking to fix the technicalities manipulated by the defense, but very rarely do criminals get off on mere technicalities (come to think of it, the technicality thing does make me *facedesk keyboardsmash*)
You know what I want. A romance where a prenup isn't an evil thing used to call someone a gold digger and that isn't torn up to prove the greatness of their love. Or where the partner signs away any rights to the partner's assets to prove that s/he really does love the partner, not the money. I want one where, you know, maybe to create a stronger relationship, they sit down together and talk candidly about their assets and liabilities and develop a prenup that protects both of them and ensures that they are each treated fairly if things fall apart or one of them dies.
Because
A) Prenups aren't just about divorces, they also help with estate planning in the event of a death, because marriage or no, when we are talking about large assets, people are going to fight the spouse for every cent. Or if you have heirlooms you want to make sure stay in the family.
B) If you had a previous marriage with children, this is a way to ensure that the children from a prior marriage don't get the short stick. I know we all want to think the best of our partners, but stuff happens. Prenups prevent emotion from interfering with equity.
C) If you are in a business partnership and don't have a prenup, your spouse becomes a partner with power over the business (even if s/he has no experience) when you die, and if you blame the partners for not wanting that, you are a stupid business person.
D) Prenups can be used to ensure equitable division of assets in a divorce, so that you plan this when you like each other rather than spending thousands of dollars sorting things out when you hate each other, trying to use assets as a weapon.
E) You might think it's romantic now to say you don't want your partners money in a divorce, but if you do get divorced and end up with nothing, you are going to be real pissed that your investment in your marriage and support of your partner is treated as worthless even though you think that that support helped create some of those assets. Or you don't get stuck with some debts you can't pay that you didn't even know that your partner had incurred.
Whenever I see these big dramatic, "romantic" moments, in which the rich partner tells his family where they stick their prenup and the poor one says, "Oh, Love of my Life, Light of my World, I would have signed; I don't care about your money; I just want us to be in loooooove," all I can think is that these characters are stupid and will be sorry later.
So, I have decided to resolve this by posting a piece of the story. If you recognize it as yours, please let me know. Comments are screened. If no one claims this fic, I'm going to assume it is mine and post it.
So, I'm cleaning out my old files and I find a fanfic in my "Writing" folder (generally used for my own writing - not stories I betaed, but I am terrible about keeping things in their place) that I can't remember writing. For the most part, I read and reread and refine my stories so much that I could never forget them, but I just don't remember this one. Could be that I never reread it after the first writing though.
It was on my laptop, which I never write on, and while I might have written it while at school, I would have transferred it to my desktop for editing, so maybe I never did. OR it's on my laptop because I received it for beta, and thought I'd beta at school or I downloaded at school. ON THE OTHER HAND, I would not have had a writing folder on my laptop, so I made it specifically for this story, and I would suspect that if it was a beta story, I would have made the folder specifically, but not named it "Writing".
In addition, it's written in an .rtf. Which I never use, BUT my beta at the time always wanted me to use to send to her, so maybe I just put it in that format to start with.
It definitely has turns of phrase and imagery that I would use and it is a subject matter that I really wanted to write about.
BUT, the name of one of the characters is one that it isn't likely I would use. On the other hand, I HATE coming up with names. Really, I either agonize over them or decide it doesn't matter and pick the first one I think of. It is a name that I would have seen used in fanfic, and I may have just snagged it because I couldn't think of anything. (It's not an unusual name - Kayla).
It's really the issue that I didn't remember writing it and the .rtf that has me wondering if it is mine and the name of the character kind of reinforces that.
So, I looked through old emails to see if it matches any of the stories sent to me for beta, but none of them match this story. I would not have deleted the email until I sent the story back betaed and it has no beta notes on it, but does have errors that I would have noted if I betaed it.
So, should I:
Assume that it is mine and post.
Assume that it is mine and never post, just in case.
Assume that it isn't mine and delete it.
Send it to the people I betaed for at the time - that I remember and are still - and see if they recognize. (The thing that I'm hung up on for this one is that I don't know some of them well enough to stop my "what if they claim it falsely" paranoia I have. I'm really possessive of my writing.) Would I then assume that the people I don't remember, or don't respond didn't write it?
Or, something else.
Thing is, it's a beautiful story, otherwise I'd just let it go. Even if I didn't post it, I'm enamored of some of the phrasing and would want to use it in another story.
And on the effective use of summaries and other header elements.
I don't expect anyone to read this. It's a babble written mostly to satisfy my mind so I can go to sleep. ( Collapse )
And now my cat has gotten sick of telling me to go to bed (by getting in the way of the screen), and is trying to sleep in awkward and pathetic positions between the keyboard and the monitor so that I won't feel abandoned, even though she needs her sleep.
I was kind of happy to hear that Supernatural was finishing at the end of Season 5. Now, I hear it might go on, and I got to thinking about whether it should.
In the beginning of Supernatural's second season, I posted a meta in sn_theories about what spirit animals would best represent Sam and Dean. I never posted it to my own journal and had all but forgotten it, but I received a very flattering email from silverruffian about how that discussion inspired her. It was especially meaningful because I've always enjoyed her work. So, I decided to move the post into my journal, so I wouldn't lose it again.
It was interesting for me to reread this post, because so much has changed since the beginning of Season Two. I'm not sure how well my ideas have aged. I don't know how much they still fit with what more we have learned about the characters. On the other hand, spirit animals are chosen early in life, and don't change each time the person undergoes life altering events.
I was never sure what animal fit with Sam, but I was always sure that Dean was Coyote: Trickster, Hero, Outcast.
I dreamed that a huge group of killer whales was swimming alongside our boat and we could see them really well, even though they were underwater and we had been above water before they showed up. I put my hand on the window and one of the whales rammed into it and dented the window. My mom put her hand on the window and this time the dent turned into a little hole. The whales came through the tiny hole and into the boat where they had fur and paws and looked like panda bears. I'm pretty sure they were still whales, though, because they started dying because they were out of the water.
You've all already heard about Aaron Hall. But have you seen the headline news today: "Nicole Kidman joins the ranks of actresses over forty." Important news when people are being brutally murdered.
I give up on humanity. You can't make people care. I'm going to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, cuddle my cat, and hope I die quickly in a nuclear blast or whatever end of the world event comes.
confused
depressed