Onaji hoshi ni umare~

[azurite]

guardian_kysra, thank you! ^^ Yesterday after you suggested I invoke/pray to St. Anthony, I did just that-- and not a few hours later, Mom called to tell me she found my deck box right where I dreamed I'd left it! So she's going to send it to me soon, along with a bunch of my manga. :3

Something that's been annoying me
* People calling Priest Set(o) "Seth." For the billionth time, "Seth" is a Hebrew name. According to ancient history, the Jews/Hebrews and the Egyptians have never gotten along. There's also a controversy in regards to whether or not there really were slaves. I don't mean whether there were Hebrews there or NOT-- I mean that our idea of slaves =/= the Egyptian idea of slaves.

So even if there were "slaves" around at that time in Egypt (and also of note is the fact that neither 3,000 nor 5,000 years ago are accurate representations of the Egypt shown in Yu-Gi-Oh. Yes, the years cited are "canon," but they're not historically accurate. And since there's no "th" sound in Japanese NOR are there any hieroglyphic representations of Kaiba's past life name, we have NO WAY OF KNOWING what his name "truly" was other than what Takahashi told us, historically out-of-whack or not) Seto's father was a high priest- and brother to the former Pharaoh. Even if his wife was a "slave" or a "Hebrew," Akunadin would have had another, main wife who was Egyptian-- and she would have borne him sons that would inherit his property and duties. But afaik, Seto is the only child, and he was born to a high, esteemed life. It's unlikely that he was a slave's son.

During pharaonic times no slave markets seem to have existed. But even if slavery was never as pervading in Egypt as it was to be in other ancient societies, such as the Greek or Roman, it appears that slaves were traded widely from the New Kingdom onwards.

In Yu-Gi-Oh, it's said that Atemu's reign/the start of the AE arc takes place during the 18th Dynasty/VERY beginning of the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1295 BCE). But the original manga and anime says 3,000 (considering the series started in 1996, that would be about 1004 BCE) years ago, while the dub opted for 5,000 years (c. 3004 BCE) ago. Who the hell knows why?

Something I noticed was that, AE plot aside, the idea of a Pharaoh being erased from existence certainly rings a bell. Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten, anyone? But he ruled from c. 1332-1336 BCE. He may have been Tutankhamun's (King Tut)'s father, but we don't know for sure.

To put it in a nutshell, "Seth" is a Hebrew name; the character we see in Yu-Gi-Oh (based on his, his father's, and his cousin's/Atemu's established past) is thoroughly Egyptian. Pharaohs and even high priests tended to have multiple names, all Egyptian. Even if somewhere WAY THE HELL DOWN THE LINE Seto had some Hebrew lineage, his current family line would NOT acknowledge it. His name would most certainly not be Hebrew, especially if he's considered the next in line for the throne if something were to happen to Atemu (which he is).

By the way, this is coming from someone with a strong Jewish lineage herself. Passover (the celebration of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt) always squicks me, because it's based on traditions passed down from thousands of years ago that may have been rooted in misunderstanding! Just like this whole crazy name thing. Call him Set (because there's a supposed interview in which Takahashi says that Seto's name was based off that of the god, who, if you some research, was NOT a nice guy. Even compared to Death-T!minty-fresh!Kaiba) or call him Seto, but don't call him Seth. -_-; He's not Jewish.

Onward and upward.

I've decided to restart Project: Sailor V. Tokyopop/Mixx lost its right over Sailor Moon. Del Rey/Kodansha is showing no signs of picking up the manga release. Is Takeuchi still having issues with Toei? But that's an anime thing, not a manga thing. In any case, the Sailor V manga has never been properly, accurately, and nicely scanlated.

I don't like quitting on good ideas. I didn't really have the means, motivation, etc. to work on the manga before, but I sure as hell can now. I have PSCS, a good grasp of Japanese, and there are already textlations out there (by Alex Glover). Other projects include:

* getting ahold of the Infinity Artbook's 20 page parody manga, as it was never hosted on mahoushoujo.net, and of all the other places with the Infinity artbook, none of them seem to have it as well. I wish I could find a place that was selling the actual book; for once I would actually pay the astronomical price for it, even though it was never intended to garner a profit. But its rarity is what makes it worth the $300+ price tag. I'd also like to do "embedded" translations, a'la the Materials Collection, if that's possible, and translate what all the people wrote in the artbook.

* translating the Parallel Sailor Moon manga from the back of the Sailor Moon: Materials Collection artbook. It's already been scanned by Sailor Venus, but not translated. The materials collection has been partially translated at The Oracle, up to the Sailormoon S movie/Luna turns into a human arc. I'd like to finish what The Oracle didn't, and get the rest down. This includes liner notes from the back of the book.

* scanlate the Yu-Gi-Oh! Gospel of Truth character guide. False Memories hasn't scanlated this, and Jenniyah is about as unreliable as it gets when it comes to well-translated, available scanlations. I've already done bits and pieces here and there; if I had a team of fans to help me out with editing and translating, I could easily do the entire book. (This is less of a project_sailor_v thing and more of a Yu-Gi-Oh fan thing, but I'd hate to start a new Y!G for no reason. PSV could be considered my Scanlation Group! :P)

* Yu-Gi-Oh! R ... was already started by False Memories, and possibly another group (not sure), but they never finished the whole volume. Janime.info has summaries, but that's never enough! The reason why I like R! so much is for it having Anzu as the only one in danger, which adds to the tension and drama with her (and the other boys!). Kaiba also gets some good duels in. The problem is, it took me forever just to find Volume 1 in stores when I was in Japan, and the manga is serialized in a monthly Shonen Jump magazine called "V-Jump" which is just as impossible to find. If there were a way for me to find Vol. 2 (if/when it comes out), I'd say yes to this immediately...

Everything else
* Update the Animanga Collision eFiction installation
* Update Dragonfayth (and later, Animanga Collision's) mods
* Update the various skins; see if I can get WritingPlus from Calic0cat so I can make a speshul skin based off pgsm-fanfiction.net's silhouette skin, which I like oh-so-very-much!
* Link to all these amazing SM sites I've been finding lately
* Update or write some Sailormoon fic, because I wanna
* Write a guide for Sailor Moon: Another Story, because there don't seem to be any definitive sites for it anymore (with images, media, etc.)
* Remember the Midis: I used to love SM midis. I want them back! :O Was there ever a SM:AS midi site? I seem to remember so. I'd love that OST. I need more Sailormoon albums. I miss my Orgel Fantasia! ;_;
* Finish WDKY23 (it's almost done~!)


So yesterday I found out while shopping in the supermarket with Baba and Grandpa that... a) Mom found my deck box (YAY!) and b) that Eva was going to see Harry at his base. Of course, when she called me she was still figuring out what to wear, so luckily, I had time enough to go home, relax a bit, and wait for her. I also made Eva a deal that if she didn't call me once for directions, I would give her a treat-- so I bought a box of Krispy Kremes for her and Harry to share.

The ride there (to wherever the base was, in a place that sounds like "Doritos") took a while, so during the entire time, Eva and I talked. I made so many weird analogies, and I apparently invented/made use of some fun words, including fucktard and others. Eva will have to remind me of the rest, I really can't remember.

By the time we got there, it was already getting pretty dark, and at Harry's insistence, there was nothing to do in the area, so we went back to LA, to the Promenade Mall over by Pepperdine. It reminded me of a mix between Fashion Valley in San Diego and the Galleria at Sherman Oaks-- lots of nothing disguised as swanky something. We tried to see "Hoodwinked," but it was sold out. Stupid signs didn't even SAY it was sold out! How lame. So we left there, not wanting to eat at Rubio's or anything. We headed back to Westwood and ate at Olive Garden, at which point my sciatica started acting up. Me and my bad back!

But we still talked a lot... though being broke (all my money was on my AmEx gift card, which has all of $7 left on it), I didn't eat anything-- I just nibbled on some breadsticks. I also got to take the leftover sticks home, which is TEH YAY, because Olive Garden breadsticks are teh shit. I think I'm going to have ravioli for lunch, anyhow.

Long story short, I was exhausted by the time we finished up, so even though Eva wanted to see Harry off at 2am, I had to get going home. I wouldn't have been good company, anyway. Harry drove back to Northridge (so we made it in fabulous time), and I wasn't the least bit nauseous (I don't know why I was earlier. o_o), and since I'd already done my sappy goodbyes in San Francisco when he dropped me off from bowling, I just did a hug/see you later thing. The night was good-- and ended on a good note, too.

I went straight to bed (it was around 10pm), and I didn't wake up until 10am... though I seem to recall waking up sporadically around 6:30 or something. In any case, I had crack dreams again, so I'm beginning to think it has something to do with the longer you sleep, the deeper you sleep, so the more likely you are to dream (or at least wake up and remember your dreams).

I only remember bits and pieces, but I woke up with these in mind:
* The entire song from the Disney animated feature "The Little Mermaid" -- "Part Of That World." After I was fully awake and tried to recall the lyrics, my brain froze up on me. But there was a point while I was dreaming that I knew  I was dreaming, and I remembered the song backwards and forwards. o_o It was very creepy. As a note, I have not seen nor encountered anything Little Mermaid-ish in a while.

* Power Rangers: Ultimator. Does such a series exist? I seem to remember talking to darclion_xvi about the differences between the US Power Ranger series and the original Japanese series (sentai) that they were based off of, but that was a long time ago. Was one of them called "Ultimator," or am I just pulling that out of my butt? In any case, the Red Ranger was a female, a Latina, to be precise. I seem to know that because she had that really nice color skin and reddish-brown hair, and chocolate-brown eyes. She was pretty, but she was kind of athletic and not too into girly things, and she had a pretty short ponytail (only about 5 inches long, I'd say). I seem to remember her in costume, and the director was saying something about how her helmet had to be PERFECT! She had to be able to do this and that and that other thing in it-- everything except eating. She had to sleep in it, and I remember thinking, "WHA?!"

Yeah. Like I said, crack.

HEY, MAMONO! ONLY 3 MORE MONTHS UNTIL YOUR BIRTHDAY! (thought I forgot, didn'tcha?)