From http://community.livejournal.com/care_faith_hope/:

care_faith_hope is a fandom auction to benefit faithhopetricks. Bidding begins on September 28, 2009, Monday, 10 a.m. Pacific time, and closes on October 10, 2009, Saturday, 11:59 p.m. Pacific time. Please do not bid until bidding opens.

What’s the cause?
This auction is to raise money for the medical expenses of faithhopetricks and her husband. They have no health insurance and no savings, and her husband requires immediate heart surgery.

Her husband has a congenital condition which caused him to have a heart attack and double stents placed while he was still in his thirties. He now needs to have either multiple stents placed or a bypass operation. Which occurs will be determined by his doctors this week when he goes in for surgery. It has also not been determined how much of the costs of the operation will be covered by the hospital: it may cover most of the costs, some of the costs, or none of the costs.

Regardless of the costs of the procedure itself, he will require cardiac rehab afterward. He also has multiple and, given his heart condition, potentially life-threatening other conditions, all of which have gone untreated or poorly treated due to his lack of health insurance. faithhopetricks also has multiple and severe health conditions which have also gone untreated or poorly treated due to his lack of health insurance.

This auction is to raise money for their combined medical and medical-related expenses. (Medical-related includes things like taxi fare to get her husband to his cardiac rehab appointments.)

Folks, there are some great things in this auction. There are hand-made items, rare books, custom written fanfiction stories, all up for grabs for you to buy and help out this person, who is obviously a Buffy fan, judging from her LJ name. You get something, she and her husband get their medical problems treated. Follow the link above for more information, and look for an autographed copy of Queene of Light that’s up for grabs in the auction.

Okay, I know that authors, especially female authors in genre fiction, are supposed to be this supportive little cluster of hens who never say anything bad about each other because viewing other women as competition is wrong and we’re above that and also we’re really creative and creative people need to stick together because we’re so misunderstood blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit let’s pretend like this isn’t a business and we’re a big sorority instead.

That’s why I’m not going to name names here. I’m just going to give a little constructive criticism, okay? And it can be about whoever you want to make it about, or maybe you could just take it to heart, in case you start spouting off incredible bullshit one day.

If your first novel came out in the early nineties, you did not “pioneer” vampire fiction. You did not create the Urban Fantasy genre. Buffy did not steal anything from you. Twilight owes nothing to you.

You are still relevant. You are still special. You are still selling more books than anyone else in your genre.

You do not need to wave the banner of “I was first.” Because you weren’t. Vampire myths, even vampire fiction, was around a lot longer than your books. Unless you wrote that first vampire novel while in the Tardis visiting Queen Nefertiti, you didn’t start the vampire trend.

A lot of people have been first. Marie Curie was the first person to discover radium. She died from radiation poisoning. Being first isn’t always the best.

Buck up, buttercup. There are literally hundreds of us out here, our noses to the keyboards, trying to make a living with our writing. You did it. You succeeded. You’re good enough. Stop with the ridiculous claims that no one is buying. You didn’t pioneer the vampire genre anymore than Al Gore pioneered the fucking internet. Be happy with what you’ve done and the success you’ve got, and stop acting like your readers are fucking idiots who never heard of Anne Rice, especially when you’ve got a carbon-copy of her main character swishing around your books, okay?

Okay, first of all, who do you have to blow to get to write one of those licensed Doctor Who novels? Seriously?

Anyway, instead of lamenting about my lack of licensed properties I’m allowed to write about and still get paid, rather than just posting it to fanfiction.net and waiting breathlessly for comments, here’s a versus battle for y’all.

Battle Of The Sci-Fi Monsters, Round One: Daleks vs. Borg

What They Are
Daleks Tentacled creatures resembling octopodes who motor around in heavily armored salt-and-pepper shakers whilst seeking to remove anything not Dalek from the universe.
Borg A cyborg race on a massive, intergalactic scavenger hunt to collect as many species as possible and “assimilate” them into their hive.
Advantage: Borg

Home Planet
Daleks Skaro, a planet devastated by nuclear war and inhabited by failed mutation experiments. Also, they have like a hundred Starbucks.
Borg Anywhere they feel like it; someplace in the Delta quadrant.
Advantage: Dalek

School Motto
Daleks “EXTERMINATE!”
Borg “Resistance is futile.”
Advantage: Borg

Multipurpose attachments and tools
Daleks An egg beater that can kill basically anything; plunger.
Borg Laser goggle that will never heal if you don’t stop picking at it; bionic arm.
Advantage: Daleks

Cool Club Name (No Girls Allowed)
Daleks Cult of Skaro, which sounds mysterious and cool.
Borg The Collective, which sounds like an art school project.
Advantage: Daleks

Arch enemy
Daleks The Doctor.
Borg The whole effing Federation.
Advantage: Borg

Double Dare Physical Challenge they would soooo fail
Daleks Stairs, but they totally fixed that problem.
Borg Running, because they’re in no particular hurry.
Advantage: Daleks

Holiday
Daleks International Talk Like A Dalek Day, November 24.
Borg None.
Advantage: Daleks

Round One goes to: Daleks

The Borg put up a good fight, but let’s be honest… it’s not like they’re ever going to get you… they’re in the future, in space, and you can easily outrun them if you’re in modest shape. The Daleks, on the other hand, have come to Earth, can vaporize you with their egg beaters, and are basically unstoppable, now that they’ve overcome that pesky stairs situation.

On the other hand, the Borg are communists, so I suppose they’re enemies to our freedom or some similar empty rhetoric.

Tune in later for Round Two, Daleks vs. The Gentlemen (Buffy The Vampire Slayer).