MILES to GO || before I sleep

Legend has it that among us, there are those humans gifted with incredible ability. For some, it is the power to make a killer comeback after a lousy period of being slammed with hurricanes, floods, storms, and FEMA excuses. For others, it is the intangible spirit of hope and faith in one's home, that no matter how ravaged it may be, it is still the one place he or she wants to be at the end of the day. And there are those who are all this and more: able to see beauty in words, to craft emotion from mere letters, capable of penning the most incredible fanart on either side of the Mississippi!

guardian_kysra, by now you should know I'm talking about YOU!

I got my fanart donation from the Help Haiti fandom auction today, and HOT SAUCE is it awesome! Kysra has awesomesauce in her veins, among all those other wonderful things above. I'd show it to you, but it's up to her first and foremost, and even then, I'm kind of tired of her awesome stuff getting swiped without credit and plastered all over the 'Net, even though the 'Net IS about collaboration and sharing, especially where all things wonderfully Azureshipping are concerned. I'm a firm believer in "give credit where credit's due," so said fanart will be my personal Reason to Squee #465 for now.

In case you weren't somehow already aware, the fanart is of That Scene in "The Joke's On You," my first-ever multi-chapter Seto x Téa fic, and probably one of my first attempts at something akin to dirty humor. The fic itself is still on the backburner because I never could make up my mind about how to keep it funny or whether people would hate me if it got all dramatic (considering it DOES take place during the Battle City arc of "Yu-Gi-Oh!"), but I'm sure if I stare at this artwork long enough (and you know I will), I might just get inspired to write (it) again, or at least write something.

I am going to frame it, when I have the time and the money.

Speaking of money, later today (because officially it IS Wednesday) I have my live interview about video games from a research group. I managed to clean up the dining room pretty well (many boxes have been relocated to the living room/my room or hidden under the table), though there are still piles of book boxes on one side and empty boxes near the door on the other. I suppose I could break some of them down and put them in the living room or in the recycling.... Anyway, I'm kind of looking forward to this! I don't really know what they'll ask me or what my answers will be used for.

I actually got a lot done: first I went to the DeVry in Daly City, which, despite being very close to the Daly City BART, was annoyingly hard to find once I got there. I went around the building, up some stairs, past the park, around the building again...and then back the way I came, around the building the other way, where the entrance was small and only marked with a white sign. The bad news is, apparently they don't offer the Multimedia Design and Development program like the site (and TV commercials) advertise. Grr. But at least they can help me get set up with other classes, hopefully, even if they're online and I can finish this degree up sooner, maybe get some more units from CSUN transferred over. I have an appointment Friday since they were so slammed today.

Then came the fetching of the fanart at the post office (which smelled like oatmeal). That at least went quickly because about five minutes after I got in line, someone shouted for pickups and three people (including myself) skipped the line and got our stuff pretty quick. Yay!

I went to Japantown and met with staplerx, lilddrpinay2003, vermilionone, and pockyken. I'd gotten Subway near the DeVry campus so I didn't join them for actual food from Tommy's Joynt, but I did drool longingly at the delicious-looking meat and potato salad and desserts. We headed to the infamous GameStop on Powell, where oddly they were very helpful and even greeted me, but I'm still suspicious of the place and think I should try going on there on my own again, instead of with a group (which is half male) from the get-go. After that, we headed through Chinatown to meet ohsupervinchan at the very-cool Russian Hill Bookstore (which actually sells The Settler of Catan and other cool board games! DO WANT!) and snack on some rice pudding at the nearby Loving Cup. An actual cafe devoted to RICE PUDDING.

Even when I think about how much I wanted to leave S.F. after high school, it's little things like these that reminds me of how awesome it is to be here, and how privileged I am to call it my hometown.

Vince had to head back to work, so we took the 45 again to Lombard, where we went to this bar/restaurant called La Barca for a trivia night. We sucked (the questions were clearly not geared toward anyone from my generation, at least), but it was mostly fun. I'd like to go again after I've "studied" more of my random facts. Maybe I need to play more Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy?

Final happy thought: I finished the Hi My Sweetheart fanlisting, Extravagant Sky. All I have to do is make some more codes before I'll officially announce its opening to the folks at TheFanlistings.org and the fans over at D-Addicts, but if you have a sec, check it out and tell me what you think! I designed the layout myself. :)

Royal Straight Flush by ~ the-sweet on deviant ART

Hm, DeviantART's hookup to LiveJournal doesn't seem to be up-to-date. Or maybe it's my Firefox 3.5 beta, which makes some things fabulous and other things annoying as all heck (cookie leakage and this "tag stripping"). Anyway.

Presenting, my latest and thus far possibly greatest Fan (Otaku) Senshi creation! I don't know how this originally got into my head, but once there, it got stick until I finally slapped it together the day before yesterday. The only reason why I'm sharing it here is because it's not merely a heavily-Photoshopped Sailor X v2.10 generator image, it's a plot bunny in the making.

( Artist's Notes )

I don't know if they'd actually be "Sailor Heart" and "Sailor Club" and so forth, but that is the general theme going on here. Also, I'm pretty sure Sailor Kakyuu's cards weren't even playing cards, but those "Magic: The Gathering"-type cards, but her attack *IS* "Royal Straight Flush" (if I'm not mistaken), and you can't get a Royal Straight Flush with MTG cards! Plus, there's probably a way to work that element into the would-be story for more dramatic purposes! Bwaha.

I wish I could have done a better job with Club's lace skirt. And maybe I should have done more with the gradient effects, but I knew I wanted them all to have similar Super-style uniforms (in terms of number of skirts and such), so I didn't want to give them gradient effects on that. Barring doing some crazy stuff with the hair (and I totally could have! Sailor California could probably benefit from such a re-do), that left the shoes to play with, which is why Heart and Spade have the gradient-effect shoes. (I wouldn't have done it with the suits themselves, since the background on standard playing cards is white.)

I don't think I've written any drama/action fics for the SM universe for some time, let alone one starring otaku senshi. If I wrote this, it would (fortunately or unfortunately), be epic. Gaaah. (Is it ironic that I own the Yu-Gi-Oh! Oneshot C2 on FFnet? I mean SERIOUSLY. ONESHOTS? ME!?)

So I've got a few projects on my plate at the moment, almost all of them involving Photoshop. I'm trying to come up with a new layout for my domain so that all the subdomains (like Blue Eyes and Apricots, Azurelist, Dragonfayth, etc.) are all accessible. Plus, I need to have things like Resource/Credits pages, a Contact Me page, etc. I need to come up with a reasonable structure for everything.

My ideas were...
* Woodcut-style (like a Fleur de Lis; I've seen this in several places, but I'm not sure how to develop a few custom shapes or brushes and turn it into a whole layout, even if it is just a "portal" page)
* Jeweled stars (tried it; it wasn't successful with the NM Smith tutorial I tried, but a lot of Blending Options seemed to do the trick... now, what to do with it?)
* Tattoo-style-- like Ed Hardy. (I have no idea how to even embark on this. It's obviously got to do with the airbrush tool, but I don't know where to begin.)
* Retro Pop Art (This is inspired by the Lymabean "Spread the Love" contest logo. I have most of the brushes necessary to create something similar, except for the "retro" striped swirls.



I'm talking about the swirl-like shapes behind the letter E (of "Love") and behind the circles on the left (near where it says "Spread The...") Any idea where to find brushes like that?

Also, does anyone know how to make letters/shapes POP out like they do in the header? Is it just a matter of drawing a bunch of lines and having proper perspective?

And in the meantime, I'm going to separate out BEA's new "Media" page, add some embedded fanart via DA (don't know how much longer fanart's even going to *be* on DA, but...), and HOPEFULLY work on some fic.

Yesterday I did some adding to WikiFic for Yu-Gi-Oh! soundtracks/scores, but now I'm not sure if BOTH albums I bought in SD or just one is bootleg. I certainly didn't consider the possibility when I bought the things (usually I'm pretty good at spotting those kind of things, but these looked totally legit!)... yeesh. So, if you own some legit Yu-Gi-Oh! OSTs and have some free time, care to put up the track listing on WikiFic? I'll be able to grab the lyrics and take care of things like the kanji/furigana and the romanization.

Okay, fanits, a note:

If you find a beautiful fanart on Google Images (or wherever!)and decide to use it for your FanLib story image, GIVE CREDIT TO THE ORIGINAL ARTIST. It's easier than it sounds. See, all you have to do is click on that lovely link that says "Original Webpage" and then you can see if the page says something like "My Fanart, (c) 2008 by Your Name Here" or something else, like "by Jane Doe, (c) 2007." The best thing to do is ask Jane if you can use her artwork on your story-- ask via email, if you can find one, or other contact messages left in the web page, like an IM name or a LiveJournal link where you can PM them.

If you can't find such a thing and/or you're too gung-ho and use the image anyway, at least provide the name and URL of the original page where you got it somewhere in your Author's Notes. Seriously, IT'S NOT THAT HARD.

This concept of crediting the people who originally create something is not NEW. People have been using disclaimers to supposedly fend off hoards of evil lawyers frothing at the mouth for decades. Disclaimers don't really stop lawyers from issuing C&Ds if they feel like it, but it's very nice to know that some people care that fanfiction or fanart means just that: it's FAN-created, not wholly original, and has its roots in someone else's work. It's nice to credit that someone who inspired you so, don't you think?

The same concept applies to fic and art: would you like it if someone took YOUR fic or YOUR art and put it up somewhere else. Wouldn't you like them to at least mention your name and where they got it from, even if they didn't ask you originally?

I'm not talking about out-and-out plagiarists here, who take things like art and stories and pretend that said creations are theirs. But technically, if you don't SAY something isn't yours, you're NOT claiming that it isn't. Thus, if you use someone else's art and don't credit them, you're stealing. You're "plagiarizing" their work. And not only is that not nice, it can get you seriously fucked up the ass in fandom. Especially defensive fandoms who really love their fellow fen.

I'd say Yu-Gi-Oh is definitely one of them. We may have splinter groups of people who either don't know the BNFs of one area or another (or if they do, they don't know enough to care, which is fine; it's like that in a lot of fandoms), but that doesn't mean you mess with the people who ARE close friends with one another.

I'm just hoping this (because this IS a real situation, and this is a real "letter" to someone who will probably never read it) will blow over quickly and easily, without any whining. FanLib's far from being perfect, but they do have at least a system in place for reporting people that use images or stories without authorization. They also seem to respond faster than FFnet does (which means they actually respond AT ALL).

Another note: There is no such thing as Yu-Gi-Oh Season 0. There is also no such thing as Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Shadow Games. If you spent a split second looking at the freaking ORIGINAL a.k.a. Toei series, you would realize a few things:
(1) It is based off the early manga, therefore it is much more violent, uses different wording for many things, and different colors, characters, and much, much more.
(2) It has no subtitle. It is simply "Yu-Gi-Oh." PERIOD. END OF STORY.
(3) There is no such thing as a "Season 0" for any show. There are unaired pilots, cut episodes, deleted scenes, etc., but there is no Season 0.

A completely different studio released a completely different SERIES of Yu-Gi-Oh, before the creation of the show that we all know and typically recognize as "Yu-Gi-Oh!" Said show has never been (and plans have never been announced so that it will ever be) released outside Japan. It will probably NEVER be officially licensed and dubbed into English, at least not by any of the current license holders. It has NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER to the show we call "Yu-Gi-Oh!" other than in name and via a few characters. The show that got licensed and dubbed all across the globe, the series that led to the spinoffs/sequels GX and 5D's, the show that inspired the Yu-Gi-Oh OCG and eventually the TCG is called Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. The spin-off is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX.

The only animated show that does not have "Duel Monsters" in its title is the newest, 5D's, and that's not because they don't play Duel Monsters (they do!), but because it's been over a DECADE since the start of the second series animation, so most people have long since stopped associating Yu-Gi-Oh! (the Toei series) with the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise as a whole.

STOP CALLING TOEI'S YU-GI-OH! SERIES EITHER OF THESE TITLES. THEY ARE WRONG AND ONLY SERVE TO CONFUSE PEOPLE UNNECESSARILY. Call it what it is: Toei's Yu-Gi-Oh. PERIOD. It's FOUR freakin' letters, and not that hard to remember.

That is all. Move along, move along.

lin_ko and guardian_kysra, I'm thinking of creating some new holiday skins for Dragonfayth, and I'm wondering if I could use your fanart for some of the imagery (e.g. the header banner). Let me know if you're okay with this, or if you want to know more, etc.

Anyone else interested in contributing fanart or manips for Dragonfayth, I have a BUNCH of holidays that need translation into graphical form. Of course, there's no written rule that they have to have Seto x Anzu or even Yu-Gi-Oh characters in them, but I'd especially love it if they could. So what follows is a list of the holidays I'm thinking of doing... ( Any holiday is an excuse for presents! )

Speaking of Samhain/All Hallow's Eve, I'm going as a witch (again). And yes, I'm well-aware of the irony. I wanted to go as Snow White, but I just didn't have time to get to a costume shop in time. 'Sides, I'm about broke, anyway, so I might as well make use of what I have. So I'll be wearing an all-black skirt and top combo with my purple-spiderweb witch hat and some garish makeup (that is, purple lip gloss and super-heavy eyeliner). Chances are I'll have to take my hat off in class, but other than that... <|:D

I wish I could go to a Halloween party, though... :P

Though I spent today at home (gotta love my stomach-- it likes to stage mutinies), there is ONE good thing about it all-- I'm like... 99.9% done with WDKY25. No, seriously. I'm just unhappy with some "tell instead of show" in the end scene, but I think I can fix that. I'm breaking out the writing kits and other tools I have, perhaps in time for NaNoWriMo. Actually, I've never successfully participated in NaNoWriMo, and I'm not sure if this month will be any different, what with all the various projects I have on my plate. But if I can finish more of WDKY in November, that'll be enough to keep me satisfied.

I wonder if tomorrow will signal finally seeing my vanishing-act boyfriend (rdrr) again. This top-sekrit video game project of his means I haven't seen him online, heard from him via phone, let alone seen him in person. It's been something like 7 weeks... o_o Baba thinks I ought to forget about him.

Speaking of the B&G, Grandpa tripped on his walk with Mokie (that would be the mini poodle we have, in case you didn't know) and got his face all scraped up-- he's okay now, but earlier he looked a bit like the mummy with his face bandaged up in so many places. He'll have more bruises than ever (and he's already got a lot because he takes blood thinners), but at least he's okay and in decent spirits. But when I came out of the house earlier when Baba called me (he'd been lying in the street and a driver walked him back to the house. If Mokie hadn't sat in the street right next to Grandpa, the driver might not have noticed Grandpa. So for once, I actually appreciate the fuzzbutt), I was pretty freaked out-- he was pretty bloody (but laughing about it!). I guess I'm just glad it wasn't worse. Though my dad knows about it and he didn't go off on a tirade about getting them into a home or getting a personal nurse, it does have me worried about all the What Ifs: what if I hadn't been there, what if Baba wasn't outside to see him, etc.? I'm here to take care of them, but there's only so much I can do, and I rely on them, too! /.\

Ugh, it's a constant to-do list with me! Every time I think of one thing I have to do, another five spring up. Just typing them here might get me more stressed out, and though I spent most of today in bed (because moving HURT), I do have to get to sleep... I figure putting on all that makeup will take a while, so I might as well get enough sleep to wake up early and get all gussied up. :P

Do you know the bathtub analogy about how one's brain works? An idea pops into your head, but there's others. They all pop, bubbling up and disappearing as quickly as they come. So my bubbles recently went something like this:

Christmas... Christmas pictures to show... oh look, that Sailor Christmas I made with the Sailor X 2 Generator from SailorGalleries.com ... crap, no PlayFKiss on here. What? No PlayFKiss or DirectKiss for Mac? Damn... ooh, UltraKiss! Kinda slow, but it works. Ooh, new updates on the SailorGalleries site... not for the generator KiSS doll, but oh well. Ooh look, this artwork by RainbowMoon is nice... hey, who's that? She's new. Oh, a fan-senshi. They're all right. Hey waitasec, I've seen that glyph before. Who IS she?

Here's the fanart that started it (or rather, ended it). Another fanart site calls her "Persephone," but I've never known Persephone to have a glyph of her own. Planets and moons, yes, but I don't think there *is* a planet/moon/asteroid named Persephone (please correct me if I'm wrong). But that sigil on her head- I *HAVE* seen that before, but I can't remember what it's called! I know it's not Vesta, Juno, Pallas, or Ceres, nor is it Chiron. And I know all the other planetary symbols, including the "alternates" for Uranus and Pluto, the "lost planets" and the few moons of various planets that have symbols. So what the heck is that one!? Can anyone tell me? (And show me another site that backs it up?)

This artist has some killer fanart of TONS of fan-senshi, including "remixes" of the Witches 5 as Senshi, the next (several) generation(s) of Sailor Senshi AFTER Sailor Chibi Moon, the Opposito Senshi from the Another Story RPG (with new names, but generally the same uniform), among others.

ETA: Linked to the right fanart, since SailorGalleries has been a bit restructured. Now everything is on SailorMoonFanart.Net.

Back from Fanime!

Swag
* Ayashi no Ceres DVDs, episodes 7-19
* Kindaichi Case Files manga, #12: Tarot Lodge
* Purple dice earrings
* Aquamarine Mandarin short-sleeved shirt (zip-back)
* Shoujo Beat (June 2006)

I loved the Marriott. The hotel staff was insanely nice, the beds were super-comfy (zOMG king-sized MARSHMALLOW!), and the food was pretty damn good-- even if the portions, like the bedrooms, were huge. My Yuna cosplay was pretty successful, and I had no real qualms about my Anzu cosplay other than that there weren't that many other YGO cosplayers. BUT! I did meet chibipriestess, who cosplayed Malik, and her friend, who cosplayed bondage!Yuugi (I would say Yami no Yuugi, except she lacked the Millennium Puzzle, so we can just say that the puzzle got sucked into the 'Shadow Realm' or some such). There was one guy wandering around with a trenchcoat and a Duel Disk, but he was no more of a YGO cosplayer than I am a real pop superstar. :P

I got to meet many of my friends and hang out, so that was cool-- I even got to see some cool things, like "The Myth" and the live-action "Sekachu." I didn't find Gokusen on the schedule though, and I really wanted to see that, especially after mklutz said it was good. Plus, MatsuJun! I mean, that's just an Auto-WIN! I have 37 pics to upload, so you'll see them soon on my Scrapbook! :)

I went to the Fanfic panel on Saturday ... and I actually ended up running it for a while. It was kind of creepy, because I practically worship Joseph Palmer (which I'm sure he found somewhat creepy), but he is like, the ORIGINAL BNF in the Ranma fanfiction, and STILL ACTIVE! which makes him something of a miracle in the fandom. I liked Krista Perry and many others well enough, but Real Life just ate them all up. Even though the panel was smaller than past years, it still inspired a butt load of conversation, and I think there's so much to cover on Fanfiction, even if not every otaku even knows what it is, let alone does it. I met dawnsama there, and we went to the AMVs together, but other than that, it was a short, simple panel.

I hope AX will be more exciting.

Oh! I got some of my grades so far... okay, two of them:
Geography - B (to be expected. I bombed my midterm, so only a miracle could have landed me an A)
Japanese - A (YESSSSSSSS! We didn't have grade sheets this year, so I really didn't know how well I was doing. I had a general idea, but YAY!)

To do:
* Finish WDKY24
* Sell Yu-Gi-Oh cards on eBay
* ( WDKY Calendar )

Er yup. I think that's it. A new weekly_ygo should be coming out tomorrow.

Today in VComm there was the historical/television presentation... and needless to say, it SUCKED. Not only did they get their facts wrong (and then try and shift the blame to me, the "dumb" audience member), but they had hideous images ripped from the 'Net, completely without attribution. (And they spelled things wrong! So many things!) And their presentation was so dry, it needed moisturizer. One thing's for damn sure, my group (cultural/world wide web) will top them.

So I guess it's time for me to have another poll, if you please...

[Poll #614459]

( Eitoku Star Power, Make Up! )

In WRP2, the Story #6 that I worked so hard on (and BSed this evening ^^;) ended up being worth extra credit only... and she may or may not even issue extra credit. Instead, we have to edit a badly written (but similar) story that she gave us tonight. That's in ADDITION to the byline clip project with bonus oral presentation that I still have to do before Thanksgiving. This week is SOOOO busy... ;_; I'm finally tired though, so maybe after some more HYD I'll go to sleep. :)

Ahhh I need to make/get icons. HYD, definitely.

guardian_kysra = The Hentai Goddess
atlantian_magic = The Steam Queen
Me (aka the_sweet) = The Fog Princess

Hentai is the pure substance, sort of like liquid cocaine or something. And since you can't get any higher up than a Goddess, that's Kysra, mistress of us all.

Steam if the next best thing- the stuff that quite frankly emanates from almost all of Atlantis's stories. She even has one by the name of 'Steam' to rub it all in. It's sweltering and hot, enough to make you blush, and it can do all sorts of other things too, if you're a bit open-minded... ^_~ Since Atlantis was next in line to dominate this category for SxA, she's the Queen! (We would do Empress or something, but it just doesn't sound as good.)

And I've been 'nominated' to be the Fog Princess. Why Fog? Because it's sort of like steam, but cold-- and very vague. I seem to be very good at leading you on and getting you lost. You still want to keep going until you finish, but you're not sure whether you'll fall off a cliff or into a pile of pillows. I'm mean like that.

And now I'm making a fanart for this, and I need stuff to work with. And if anyone else (*pokes winterwing3000, svelterose, rhapsody_dragon, and geniusgirl*) wants in, let me know.