MILES to GO || before I sleep

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~!)

( It's not goodbye, it's 'We'll see you soon!' ... and more weird dreams. )

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

Ah... I just woke up. (That SHOULD sound unusual regardless of your timezone; as I write this, it is 4:16pm Pacific Time, to give you an idea of how "late" I'm waking up.) To start from the end and backtrack to the beginning, Eva didn't drop me off until a little after 6am this morning; we got lost, stopped at two gas stations to look at a map, and got stopped by police (the officer who spoke to us was a total prick, too, although he was "helpful" enough to point us in the right direction to the 118-E). Before that, we drove all the way from Knott's to some 24-hour Vietnamese place called Pho-Ha (I think) in Westminster; as per the usual Pho-Ha, the bowls were huge, but it was good eating and not too expensive. Eva had to drop off all her roommates and one of her former roommates before I could even THINK about sleep. I was basically the one keeping her awake by talking all the time.

Eva's roommates and associated friends seem like nice people; I didn't really get the chance to interact with them too much and find out lots, except that they're bio majors, they think Arco gas is "watered down", and 3/4 of them are terrified of roller coasters (boo!). I'm not entirely sure if I made a good impression or what they think of me, but I had a good time. It wasn't until the restaurant that one of Eva's roommate's friend's friends even said something contrary to me; this was in respect to Eva having a demi-blind date (today!), and as is my usual annoying-older-sister mode where Eva's concerned, I gave her the whole lecture.

Be careful, wear heels, remember your kick boxing! Nothing evil, nothing like "whine whine, don't trust boys, don't go!" I'm not a nag. Maybe I've picked up a bit of the motherly tendencies from Rochelle or something, but I feel it's my role as a friend to let people know how I feel if they're walking into a situation that carries some big risks (as blind dating/meeting people from online does). If something happened to a friend that did something, and I didn't say something when I had the chance, I would feel much worse about it later on.

For example: if I have a friend who is tempted to use drugs and I don't try and talk her out of it, I wouldn't be doing my "job" as a friend. At least, I don't feel that I would. Whether or not my friend listens to me and follows my advice is her decision, but at least if I tell her how I feel, then that's a step. The same applies to a multitude of other situations, regardless of the who and the what: should I meet a strange guy that I've only talked to online?; I'm a little bit drunk, but I still think I can drive... blah, blah, blah.

I haven't heard from Eva yet, which kind of worries me, but I have faith in her as a mature person and a good friend of mine. I'm sure she's smart enough to handle whatever's coming her way, and even if she hasn't actually BEEN THROUGH as much shit as I have (and thank god for that), I hope my storytelling, recounts of horrid incidents, and general "mothering" has gotten through to her in some degree so that she doesn't think I'm just trying to be a pest. I know what Eva meant when she said she just tunes out some of the stuff that her own parents say, but I emphasize that all parents only nag you because they worry, because they care, because they love you. Some of the stuff you tune out and forget; some of it stays with you without you even realizing it.

I hope I'm not coming off as making excuses to justify some annoying behavior of mine; Eva is one of my best, closest, and dearest friends in the world, and sad as it is to say, we don't communicate a lot. When we are together or have the chance to talk, I'd like to think we cover a lot of territory; we try and leave no thing unsaid (having an LJ makes this easier...). But given the short amount of time we could actually talk yesterday, I wanted to make sure I did my part, and not just leave Eva with "So long and thanks for the ride!" or something. She as a person means more to me than that.

Well, long story short, we only went on 4 attractions: the haunted maze/asylum, the merry-go-round (euch!), the Jaguar mini-coaster, and the Xcelerator roller coaster (WHEE!!!). In the maze, I don't know what prompted me, but the monsters that kept leering at me (note: knott's has changed SOOOO much since I went there. Unlike Six Flags, though, on Halloween, almost all their costumed employees wear masks or full costumes-- not just makeup. However, at 6F, the "just makeup" is done so well, it almost looks like Hollywood.) made me laugh. One of them kept coming up to me and whispering in my ear, but I was laughing so hard-- so he says "You know, the cute ones die first!" and I think in the middle of laughing, I just turned so red (not that you could tell in the black light)! It was very flattering! ^_^; Am I silly, or what?

I'm still a bit out of it, even with 8 hours of sleep under my belt. I have nothing planned for this weekend or Monday, and I kind of have a headache... I might just lay low for today, anyway. I'll probably try and work on some fics later today, plus the new (annoying) layout of Darkness Rising. BEA and DRFA also need new layouts, but since those are much more time-consuming and require special coding around the PHP, I'll save them for last. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated!

...Does someone understand DIV layers? Even with the latest Dreamweaver 8, they're still a pain in the ass! :P

So much for a great start to October.

If you didn't hear my voice post, here's my half-hearted attempt at making an entry with a fucked up hand. I cut my hand on the can of dog food over at Debbie's house Saturday night. I was stupid and tried to open it with a spoon when the can opener didn't work. I may have severed a tendon or a nerve (or two), as my right hand's ring finger and pinky won't bend at the top joint. I have 10+ stitches, it hurts, and I was on narcotics for a while.

But at least the nurses said I'm probably ready for Lamaze now. :P Not that I'm pregnant or anything, but it's good to know my pain tolerance has increased, ne?

Scott was a saint for staying with me (while he was STARVING, too!) for 6 hours at the Northridge Hospital ER. It was ridiculous how long I waited and how much it hurt while getting stitches, but... at least I can KIND OF use my hand now. Kind of, but not really. He had to fill out all my forms on one of them, and he filled out one (to stay with me in the ER) as "common law husband." Even if he was just doing it so he could stay with me while I hollered at the nurses, it made me feel all WAFFy inside. He put "friend" on a later form, but who cares? I know he still loves me. *stubborn mule*

I went to Kaiser today (Larry, Debbie's husband drove me) and I got my Keflex antibacterial, but no Vicodin-- I have generic Hydrocordone at home, super-strength, from grandpa, if the pain gets too bad. And Scott's hopefully staying with me until my grandparents get back on Wednesday. It's not as if I need the company, but it's nice having comfort and help when I need it. It sucks being "one-handed." My stitches make me look like Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas.

At least I got a box from Mom today. o_O She sent me a bunch of weird stuff. Aside from 2 things I asked for (my duffel bag and my photo albums), she also sent me a nightgown that didn't belong to me, two extra bags I will probably never use, my magazine racks filled with old coloring books and comics, #5 of Saint Tail, some Japanese manga I forgot I had (Hinata 120%!, Ranma vol. 32 - original edition, Prism Time #1 and #2), and two Beanie Babies-- both dogs. Oh, and a penguin stuffed animal, which did not make me feel better. >_> If you listen to the phone post, you'll know why.

BTW, phone posts are standard OGG vorbis format. Get yourself a compatible player, else you're behind the times. They're smaller, often clearer than MP3s, and license-free! :P

eFiction!Dragonfayth is coming along okay-- I still have a funky error on the authors.php page, but the site is "readable," although plain. More mods may come later, but for now:
(1) What categories should I use? The same old ones: AU, AR, Challengefics, Crossovers, etc. etc. or something different?
(2) Who wants to be a mod? Same as last time, if you have time, but also people to help the site administration when I can't (as in, disabled with just one hand) or aren't available.
(3) Where should I pimp the final version?

On the categories note, I can have SUB-CATEGORIES, so it might make more sense to put GENRES in the sub-categories, and use something else for "genres." My thought:
ACTION/ADVENTURE
FANTASY
SCI-FI
ROMANCE
-Hentai
  -Non-Con
  -Threesomes
  -Whatever kinky things you can think of
-WAFF
-Romantic Angst
-General

You get the idea? I was being sarcastic about the non-con and threesomes stuff, but they're just examples of the sub categories I can have. Then I can set the things like "type" of fic as "genres." I don't know I should probably look at some more sites running eFiction and see what they do.

It also occurred to me that Circle of Seven could have a sequel. I know it sounds crazy. But both WDKY and CO7 are going to have "endings" that actually leave you with some questions, and there could be a sequel, making the saga a trilogy. No idea what I would call it or what I would do in it (except for one possible big thing, but saying what that "thing" is would ruin the plot of both WDKY and CO7, so... ^_^ I'm shutting up). Let's just say I was inspired by "Flight Plan," which Eva, Scott, and I saw last night at the Fashion Center. Why did we see a movie? Because Scott pwned us both at Gin Rummy.

By the way, I finally "met" Lance. It's a cute car-- a white Lan EVO. Good on Eva. (I think Lance is gay. Bwaha!) Eva, you still owe me a game of Truth or Dare Jenga, though. *laughs* Did you know Jenga is actually rated for "adults!" HEH! Eva and I also discovered that my birthday falls during CSUN's Spring 2006 break. Halle-fucking-luliah. Where will I get drunk? I can go ANYWHERE! *mad giggling*

Oh, and the Clubs Conference wasn't too bad. I got free stuff, won the raffle (got a snappy red CSUN water bottle that pops its top!), and saw a teeny tiny kitten on a leash! =^.^= nyao! But this morning I read a sad story on the back of the Calendar section/Kid's Section about a (fictional) dog named Gumbo, who was abandoned (not by the owner's choice) in New Orleans. ;_; I cried, and Scott got all worried about me. I wanna know what happens to Gumbo, so I'm going to read tomorrow.