I State For The Record

Men can know all they want about women, but unless you ARE one, you will never know what it is like to have a period.

If I am reading Yu-Gi-Oh fanfiction, I do not need you to tell me that Honda = Tristan, Anzu = Téa, and so on. Anyone stupid enough to be in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom and NOT know the equivalent names doesn't have the right to be reading fanfiction anyway. They need to do a bit more RESEARCH first.

If I am reading ANY sort of fanfiction, especially that from an anime (or otherwise Japanese-origin) fandom, I do not want to see your foolish "fangirl Japanese" littering the pages, including such easily-translated words as Hai, Iie, Ja Ne, and so forth.

I have passed third grade English, and I know that words in double quotes refer to people speaking, and words in single quotes refer to people thinking. You do not need to tell me every single chapter.

I don't care about what YOU think about a particular scene in your fanfiction-- keep your damn author's notes until the end.

You look incredibly stupid when you say any of the following:
a) My story sucks, but please read and review it anyway
b) I don't care what you think
c) If you don't like, don't read it
d) Will...?

Disclaimers won't save you from getting sued, but it's considered appropriate to include them anyway, on the off-chance  you get a cease-and-desist order.

Leather is not shiny. Patent leather is, and chairs are not made of patent leather.

If something is illegible, one cannot read through it. Illegible means it cannot be read.

If you tell someone not to do something, they will do it. Hence, saying "Don't flame me" is asking for it, especially if your fic sucks.

Hikari is not a pronoun, a name, or a reference word when speaking of characters in Yu-Gi-Oh.

I hate your Mary Sue.

Seto Kaiba did not push Gozaburo Kaiba out of a window. Gozaburo JUMPED. Read the friggin' manga.

Gozaburo Kaiba is NOT, as the dub says, Seto Kaiba's "stepfather." In order to be someone's step parent, one must marry their living parent. Since Gozaburo did not marry Seto's biological mother, he is NOT Seto's step father, he is his ADOPTIVE father. Get over it. (Foster father, btw, also works.)

Stop changing the friggin' POV every third paragraph. Find a perspective you can write in, and stick to it. There IS such a thing as third-person omniscient, who sees what everyone does, says, and thinks all the time, everywhere. With such a POV (and an easy-to-write one, at that), you have no need for switching between people's POVs all the damn time.

Make up your mind about tense. Present, Past, or Future. Three choices. PICK ONE.

Nobody calls Seto Kaiba 'Seto' except for Mokuba. NO ONE. (Especially if you're aiming for an in-character fic without previous developments of any sort.)

Alaska Airlines costs a lot more than Southwest. Fly Southwest. Eat peanuts.

You're not cool because you put the names in Japanese or putting the family name first. Big whoop.

You're even LESS cool if you think all your abbreviations make you look knowledgeable about the fandom. FYI, there's more than one T in the Yu-Gi-Oh series, and the same applies to M, R, and other letters of the .'

Nobody calls Jounouchi JOU. EVER. EVER!!!!!!!!

You are not permitted to mix sub names and dub names unless doing so in a humorous context. You have no artistic license, as you do not own the series. Stop trying to confuse people or make yourself look cool. Stop being lazy and PICK A FRIGGIN' SET OF NAMES!

Icons!

There are two ways to spell it's: It's (It Is) and Its (Its lid, Its color, Its Drooling Fangirl). There is no Its'. 

There are three ways to use they in a contraction: they're (They Are) their (Their Dog, Their Cat, Their Sexy Abs),  and there (Over there, in the deep dark wood).

You are not cool because you bash a character for the sake of bashing. You are immature, stupid, and blind.

Stop being a fanpoodle. It's one thing to be a fangirl, another to be an otaku, and another to be a disgusting representation of what all decent fanfiction authors LOATHE to tears. Do not be the latter.

P-H-A-R-A-O-H.

If you include the words YuGiOh in your fanfiction title, you deserve to be shot. Many times, with prettyful paintballs. BIG ONES.

No more My Immortal Songs. Matter of fact, no more Evanescence songs, period. Or Sarah McLachlan (if you can help it), or Backstreet Boys, Avril Lavigne, *NSYNC, or Savage Garden. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

And on songfics or the like, DO NOT EVER use the song title as your fic title. Be a bit more original than that, PLEASE!?

SPELL CHECK.

No, I take it back. Get a beta. Lots of them. Make sure they know how to spell. And Spell check after they're done ANYWAY.

No, betas are not people who heap praise on you and tell you "OmG yur f1C is like so kewl!!11eleven."

Hair is not made of silk, chocolate, amber, or any other non-keratin substance. Hair can possess qualities, same as skin can, but it is NOT those things. Don't slap a -ey or -y on things and assume that it makes a perfect description.

Skin cannot be milky. Skin that white is not healthy, and this is coming from someone so white, she might as well be an albino.

Eyes do not express emotion. The eyes are balls of musculature, nerves, and blood vessels with all sorts of other gross parts to them. There is no brain inside. There are, however, parts of your face AROUND the eye that lend to the idea that one's eyes express emotion. So stop saying So-and-So's eyes were "filled with anger" or "twinkling with mirth." How the hell did mirth get in her eyes, anyway?

Comma, space. Period. Space. It's NOT THAT HARD.

Capitalize the first word in every sentence. Not Every Single Word In A Sentence, or eVeRy OtHEr LeTTeR or some strange variation thereof.

Say something back.

A bit more awake, somewhat more inspired

Jounouchi demands to be rewritten. NOW.

Goes to show that you learn something new every day. Or is it 'everyday.' >_o Damn. I can't wait to be back in school, because even if I don't take an English course, the professors will be correcting my odd flubs and that'll reinforce my desire to constantly improve my writing. That's what life is like, folks-- learning! I'm allowed to bend/break a few rules here in my journal, but I do try to take my fanfiction a bit more seriously. ^_^

Just came back from a few hours at Jill's house. Jill is my cousin on my Mom's side, but she's always been more like an aunt to me, probably because she's older than me. She's got three kids now-- Joey, Nikki, and James, and they're all total beanstalks, so I feel ridiculously short around them. Of course Joey is taller than me (even though he's not 18 until September), but Nikki and James are fast approaching my meager height of 5'2". *sniff!* I also met Joey's girlfriend, Kim.

We hung out in the pool for a while (mostly talking about how terrified I am of the Creepy Crawler filter thing-- it ALWAYS comes after me whenever I'm in the pool), but I only went about waist-deep. -_- Being on the red definitely has its downside when your family has a wicked cool pool with a waterfall. Turns out James is very much into the Sims, so we talked about all the expansion packs and cool things you can do-- for some bizarre reason, he's obsessed with making loads of families and slowing down his family's computers. Jill and John (her husband) do landscaping, so they run high-powered programs like AutoCAD and such, so The Sims kinda suck the memory, even for Run-CD things...

We watched Yu-Gi-Oh! (James accused me of having Kaiba as my boyfriend. I thought that was cute.) and ranted about various cartoons-- I tried to sit through a few Nickelodeon shows, and The Simpsons, but the sheer stupidity of the jokes just had me cringing. Seriously-- my one childish, guilty pleasure is Yu-Gi-Oh, and I permit myself to go all-out fangirl when I see it, but... The Simpsons? Homer just bothers me. And don't get me started on Spongebob. Please.

Then came dinner-- which rocked. Potato casserole, salad with balsamic vinegarette, and juicy tender steak with A1 sauce (best in the world!). YUMMERS. I've been doing my best to adhere to Burt's words and not have soda (despite the 2L bottle of Cherry Coke in the fridge, I only had a partial cup today, and I didn't even finish it). I had raspberry Brisk instead-- which might not have been good for me in terms of sugar, but... I'm a bit more energized and less cranky, so I'll take it as a good thing and be done with it.

I chilled with Kim and Joey a bit in his room-- which used to be Virginia (my aunt)'s, back when she lived in the same house. So the rooms are all moved around now, and what was Nikki's is now James's, and Joey's living in a room painted a blood red, coated in KORN posters. Well, KORN and Jenna Jameson. And what was her name? Tailor James? (Think it's pronounced "Tay-lohr" or "Tie-lohr?") And what was hilarious was how Kim and I kept talking about boobs and butts and such, and she reaches under Joey's bed and grabs his Playboys and is pointing out how the Playmate of the Year so totally has implants and everything, but isn't her smile so great? I think it weirded Joey out to have two girls so casually thumbing through porn in front of him. This kind of thing doesn't bother me-- be it my personality or the fact that I come from San Francisco... whatever.

I mentioned Gavin Newsom and how I respect him as a mayor not just because he's young and interested in the communities, but also because of his ballsy-ness-- what he did for gays and lesbians by allowing them to marry. Jill gave me the most neutral answer one could give ("It's good you have an opinion,") so I had to ask Joey later on if his mom was religious or something. ^^;; I had no idea... (I probably shouldn't mention to Jill that I'm bi, and I'm probably not going to have a BOYfriend down here...)

But all that shiz was forgotten-- Jill gave me a ride home and was telling me how enthused she was that I was going to CSUN, how she wants to go back to school herself, and to stay positive (which I am, surprisingly). Her birthday is tomorrow, and she's having a birthday dinner Saturday evening, so I'll be meeting up with them again. ^_^ Yay. Oh, and though I was originally slated to have this place all to myself September 15th - 20th, Baba and Grandpa would worry themselves to tears (they're going to Seattle for Rosh Hashannah), so Jill said she'd be glad to let me stay over. She's close to CSUN too, so that helps. ^_^ Plus Joey and Kim told me about all these places that I have to go-- arcades, cute stores (apparently these mesh-and-bead slipper shoes are in style down here), and such.

Yep. And I want to work on WDKY10 some more, finish checking all my emails, and... yeah. ^_^ Good day. Oh yeah! And did I tell you... I colored in one of Kysra's arts that she sent me-- completely using Photoshop. It looks amazingly good, I think, but it needs touching up. It was a beta of the commission I asked from her-- I forgot what the original quote was that inspired it, but it's Téa in BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform) doing  (for Kaiba) and looking supremely pissed. Kysra did an excellent job on the BDUs, as I can attest to. "You can take the girl out of ROTC, but never the ROTC out of the girl!" -_- How sad.

Hey! Can you recommend some "club" music for me to listen to to "get in the mood" for WDKY10, please? So much action takes place in this club, and the stuff I listen to when I write just doesn't cut it. Fred?