Valerie

The following is an excerpt from the graphic novel, soon to be a movie. As it may not appear in the movie, I thought it would be of interest to those going - as perhaps a showcase of what the movie is all about...

Crucifer

****

from V for Vendetta

Written by Alan Moore. Art by David Lloyd.


I don't know who you are. Please believe. There is no way I can convince you that this is not one of their tricks. But I don't care. I am me, and I don't know who you are, but I love you.

I have a pencil. A little one they did not find. I am a woman. I hid it inside me. Perhaps I won't be able to write again, so this is a long letter about my life. It is the only autobiography I have ever written and oh God I'm writing it on toilet paper.

I was born in Nottingham in 1957, and it rained a lot. I passed my eleven plus and went to girl's Grammar. I wanted to be an actress.

I met my first girlfriend at school. Her name was Sara. She was fourteen and I was fifteen but we were both in Miss. Watson's class. Her wrists. Her wrists were beautiful. I sat in biology class, staring at the picket rabbit foetus in its jar, listening while Mr. Hird said it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew. Sara did. I didn't.

In 1976 I stopped pretending and took a girl called Christine home to meet my parents. A week later I enrolled at drama college. My mother said I broke her heart.

But it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free.

London. I was happy in London. In 1981 I played Dandini in Cinderella. My first rep work. The world was strange and rustling and busy, with invisible crowds behind the hot lights and all that breathless glamour. It was exciting and it was lonely. At nights I'd go to the Crew-Ins or one of the other clubs. But I was stand-offish and didn't mix easily. I saw a lot of the scene, but I never felt comfortable there. So many of them just wanted to be gay. It was their life, their ambition. And I wanted more than that.

Work improved. I got small film roles, then bigger ones. In 1986 I starred in "The Salt Flats." It pulled in the awards but not the crowds. I met Ruth while working on that. We loved each other. We lived together and on Valentine's Day she sent me roses and oh God, we had so much. Those were the best three years of my life.

In 1988 there was the war, and after that there were no more roses. Not for anybody.

In 1992 they started rounding up the gays. They took Ruth while she was out looking for food. Why are they so frightened of us? They burned her with cigarette ends and made her give them my name. She signed a statement saying I'd seduced her. I didn't blame her. God, I loved her. I didn't blame her.

But she did. She killed herself in her cell. She couldn't live with betraying me, with giving up that last inch. Oh Ruth. . . .

They came for me. They told me that all of my films would be burned. They shaved off my hair and held my head down a toilet bowl and told jokes about lesbians. They brought me here and gave me drugs. I can't feel my tongue anymore. I can't speak.

The other gay women here, Rita, died two weeks ago. I imagine I'll die quite soon. It's strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and I apologized to nobody.

I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one.

An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I don't know who you are. Or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you or cry with you or get drunk with you. But I love you. I hope that you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better, and that one day people have roses again. I wish I could kiss you.

Valerie

X

Procrastination

Hmmm... Should I play DDO or WOW?

That's the latest dilemma I face. Sad, I know, but there you have it.

World of Warcraft has the larger population but it's getting more and more boring. Endless similar quests of "Kill this and return that" and "Take this there" are beginning to wear me down. I rarely see Horse, Scythe and Kitten on these days which just adds to the monotony of playing alone on a Massively Multiplayer Online game. I've even considered creating a new character and joining a brand new guild but the issue there is that I've done it all before. It's just getting BORING.

Dungeons and Dragons Online, on the other hand, is brand new. You HAVE to join up with other players to do quests and, because of this, people are encouraged to join up in guilds with complete strangers to begin with - which sounds like fun.

But I suppose in the end I'm just getting bored with the lack of interaction within games. Is it just me who has the time and the inclination to play these games? Surely not...

Other gaming news, Stargate the Alliance has been cancelled amid reports of the company making it going bankrupt. Guess I'll just have to wait for the MMO instead.

EDIT: Finally, decided and bought DDO, and now giving it a go. So far so good. It's as different from WoW as day is to night. The fact that you are encouraged to group up to begin with means you're working co-operatively with other people from the outset and not when you hit level 50.

EDIT2: Noticed that this is the first post I've made in a while. Sorry, but due to real life situations I've been a bit busy. I will another post this week.

Promise.