MILES to GO || before I sleep

 I remember a few years ago reading part of Jonah Lehrer’s “Imagine” -- because I tend to devour any sort of book on creativity. I have an entire shelf devoted just to writing books. 

What ended up pissing me off about his book was the notion that in order to be a creative person, you have to be inherently depressed, angry, or some sort of addict (whether it’s drugs, alcohol, or something else). I hate that idea, even if history seems to support it.

I just finished watching a Fuji TV program called “Ghostwriter” on Crunchyroll. It’s only 10 episodes, but it’s easily one of the most dramatic, unpredictable shows I’ve ever watched. That it’s about something I love (writing) made it even more watchable.

I’m not sure how accurate a portrayal it is of the Japanese publishing industry and trends when it comes to writers (for example, there aren’t a lot of works by co-authors, or ghostwriting is considered extremely taboo there), but the suspense kept me binge watching, practically Netflix-style.

( Read more... )

Every time I go away from Dreamwidth blogging for a while, Dreamwidth goes and gets more awesome. I decided to nix my Premium account because even though I love the site and service, I was using it so rarely I couldn't justify the expense, especially when I've got my own domain and am often trying to post to my various WordPress-powered blogs on sites there.

The problem is, my sites are so new, so thin on content, that I don't have that built-in community.

This gets crossposted to LiveJournal, and why? Well, LJ has been around even longer than Dreamwidth, but LJ also had so so so many issues when Six Apart sold it (even before that, when Brad sold it to Six Apart). I really didn't like a lot of those changes, and I saw a lot of my fellow LJers move over to Dreamwidth. The communities sometimes followed, but not always.

I have a permanent account on LJ, which means it's not supposed to go anywhere, ever. Theoretically, all the interconnected services there are these days should mean that it's EASIER to cross-post and always stay up-to-date, but the real experience of LJ and DW are the Friends List/Reading Page, and these days, if I'm reading anything for a prolonged period of time, it's Facebook. Yes, there are fan communities there too, but it's very much NOT the same.

I never really divided my fandom self from my "real" self-- I'm not afraid to tell people who I am on Facebook or deviantArt or wherever, and I've never particularly cared about "IRL" friends or family finding out about my fandom activities.

"Judge not, lest ye be judged" I guess.

( Long-winded entry continues here... )

Long time no write--at least, here. I've been trying to keep up with writing 750 words (about three pages, which is the suggested amount from Julia Cameron's famous "The Artist's Way," except she called them "Morning Pages"), and I've been semi-successful at that, though November has been all kinds of crazy.

I tried to do NaNoWriMo too, and though I've got an explosive opening for my first original novel (set in a fantasy world that my BF David is developing for a roleplaying game), I do not have a full and complete novel by any stretch of the imagination.

In the meantime, I've been trying to set up my sites as WordPress sites now, since learning Joomla! was just too damn difficult and time-consuming, even with a Lynda.com membership. I've been using WordPress off and on for years for various other sites, and it makes sense to use the biggest, easiest-to-use CMS for my own personal fandom sites, too.

Now, it's not (currently, as far as I'm aware) possible to integrate WordPress with every other script out there--I'd love it if there was eFiction and WordPress integration, but there's not. I'm keeping Dragonfayth around as the Azureshipping fanfiction archive, but I'm considering not making Epiphany, the archive I was going to use to gather all of my own fanfiction, using eFiction.

I was considering WordPress, since I'm planning to make all my fandom sites using WordPress as well, and it seemed appropriate (maybe) to make individual sites for my particular epic fanfics, like "What Doesn't Kill You" (especially since the PLANS for that story involve at least two sequels), and "Wax and Wane" (formerly "Only 16").

A quick Google search reveals that plenty of people use WordPress (the self-hosted variety OR the WordPress.com variety) to post fanfic, much as people use Dreamwidth and/or LiveJournal. The thing is, a blog-style format for posting fanfic ISN'T a great idea. It's timeline-centric, and the whole point of fanfics is that they can be found and read by anyone, at any time. You'd need to take extra steps to make navigation so people can get to all your fics, make that navigation obvious, and make it uncomplicated--which is why "Pit of Voles" or not, fanfiction.net is the repository for fanfics on the web. It categorizes everything by type of fandom, name of fandom, world/universe, author, rating, genre, characters, language...you name it.

I could probably very easily post fanfics as "Pages" within the WordPress schema, and have another "Master Page" that I update regularly with new chapters, edits, or whatever, but I'm just wondering if anyone else out there has taken this approach or has suggestions for another.

My main WordPress projects now are getting the non-fanfiction material from my fandom sites up on my new network of WordPress sites, and for those sites that might be specifically fanfiction related, there's a ton of other content to include: ideas, Easter eggs, edits, fanart...stuff like that.

I have this nifty tool on my Mac called beaTunes 3 (it's available for Windows, too!) that helps you take better care of your music and make better playlists. If you're missing information (genre, album artist), if information is misspelled, or if it's inconsistent (Utada Hikaru sings in Danish?!), it can fix it for you. It can also provide interesting information about a song, such as its "color" and what key it's in.

The color is supposed to help you organize your songs. For example, red songs tend to go better with other red songs.

This reminded me of how folks make fansoundtracks and fanmixes for fandoms, characters, pairings, and so on. There's a huge mish-mash of music out there that I never would have heard had it not been someone putting it together for the sake of this fandom we have in common!

With that in mind, I propose a challenge for myself and anyone else who wants to try and take it on.

Pick one of the following colors:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet
Magenta
Brown
Black

I will pick five songs that fit into that "color," and you will tell me what fandom to write ficlets or drabbles for them in.

So for example, if you say "Red," you might also say "Sailor Moon," and I have to find five songs that I can somehow relate back to "Sailor Moon," and possibly (somehow) explain why that song fits a "red" color. And I shall do it with fic! You can also give me other information to work with, like a character or pairings, a period of time from canon, etc. (Just don't be overly specific, otherwise it'll be like a commissioned fic or something...)

The only rule: A fandom can't be repeated with the same color.

If you do pick a fandom, please pick one that you know that I know...(as in, have watched/read), even if I've never written for it before. Otherwise it might be too challenging! :P

So, here's what we all get out of this:

Me: practice writing again, a sense of excitement
You: a fanfic or five that you've helped create, some suggestions for interesting songs that fit your fandom/character/pairing of choice! It's like a mini-fanmix!

Sometimes my devotion to canon irritates me. It's a like a mole I can't remove without surgery. In the spirit of my new class in Instructional Design, here are a few facts:

Given a birthday of June 30 for the character of Usagi Tsukino/Serena from Sailor Moon
AND
Given a typical start month for new school in the month of April in Japan (with the exception of university, which starts in September)
AND
Given the need for high school entrance exams that typically take place in February or March (presumably right before the April when high school would start, but I'm not sure...would they be taken the February/March the year before? That would imply that Year 3 junior high students already know what high schools they've gotten into!)

How is it even remotely feasible for Usagi to be age 16 and still in junior high?

I don't think it is.

The Japanese school system generally follows this numbering: 6, 3, 3, 4. There are six years of primary school (elementary grades 1-6), three years of junior high (grades 7-9), three years of high school (grades 10-12), and four years of university.

If Usagi was 14 years old, as she stated in the first season's early episodes, and in the eighth grade, in 1992, that would give her a birth year of 1978. If eighth grade is her second year of junior high, she still has a year left.

Thus:

Age Range/Year	Grade	Sailor Moon Anime Season Equivalent	Only 16 Universe	Date Range for Usagi/Serena
12-13	7 (Year 1)	N/A; only Code Name: Sailor V manga	N/A; only Code Name: Sailor V manga	June 1990-June 1991
13-14	8 (Year 2)	Season 1/Classic, part 1 of Season 2/Returns	Season 1/Classic	July 1991-June 1992
14-15	9 (Year 3)	part 2 of Season 2/Romance	Season 1/Classic, part 1 of Season 2/Returns	July 1992-June 1993 (high school entrance exams in Feb/March 1993 for the O16 universe)
15-16	10 (Year 1/HS)	Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon SuperS	part 2 of Season 2/Romance	July 1993-June 1994
16-17	11 (Year 2/HS)	Sailor Moon Sailor Stars	part 2 of Season 2/Romance, Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon SuperS, Sailor Moon Sailor Stars	July 1994-June 1995 (high school entrance exams in Feb/Mar 1995 or SuperS season in the regular SM universe)
17-18	12 (Year 3/HS)	N/A	N/A	July 1995-June 1996

...So, if I've got all this right, even if Usagi is a bit older than her classmates, being born the June before, and for whatever reason, she wasn't a younger student in an OLDER class (e.g. the year before Ami, Makoto, Minako, and Rei at their schools), there's still no way she'd be 16 and still in junior high.

If she's 16, it's past June 30, 1994. If it's past June 30, 1994, but the other girls are still in junior high, then it's not yet February/March of the year they take their high school entrance exams. So how...? Or do I just have to "screw it" and:

a) Make Usagi 15
b) Remind people that the Silver Crystal "reset" time-space, and the year or more that was filled with the Dark Kingdom's activities essentially got "done over"
c) Have Usagi be older because she flunked a grade or had something wrong with her as a child that kept her from going to school on time
d) use a different school system--one that starts in August/September or so, instead of April.
e) Change the title

How do I handle this? I really don't want to change the title, but I don't want it to be a "pointless" title, either. At some point in the story, Usagi's got to be 16, but if she's 16, then the exams would have happened and she (and the other girls) would be in high school! But the high school entrance exams are a huge thing in Japan (where the story DOES take place, even if I do use dub names...or have used them in the past, I'm still undecided on whether I want to use them for the "Only 16" revision), and I don't want to add that kind of stress onto Usagi, or handwave it and make it non-existent.

The only other option I can think of is for Usagi to NOT go to high school, or, if it's possible, to go to high school late. Somehow with all her friends and everyone, I can't see THAT happening either, but I don't see how else to make the timeline work.

I think I've painted myself into a corner. Help!

And now for one of my favorite topics in all of fandom...romance! 'Shipping! WAFF! TAFF! Orange Crush! (Hey, waitasec...)

Yes, it's time for the 30 Days of Sailor Moon meme once more, brought to you by Sailor Failures on Tumblr.

( ♥ » Day 05 – Best canon couple )

Back in late August, I wrote a Star Wars/Sailor Moon crossover for sailormoonland that, for reasons unknown, wasn't included in the Criss-Cross challenge's entries or results. Not sure if I submitted it too late or it was just too darn long (it was too long for a textarea, I know that much), but now that the results are out, I'm free to post it all over the great wide Intarwebz!

Title: Hope
Rating: G/K/For Everyone
Genres: Gen/Sci-Fi

Spoilers: For Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Sailor Moon Sailor Stars (season 5 of the anime)

Word Count: 1851
Status: Oneshot, Complete

Summary: Princess Leia Organa is captured by the Empire, and the plans for the Death Star she painstakingly worked to deliver to the Rebel Alliance may have been lost...but a cell mate aboard the battle station gives her hope.

Hope

Did you know that 30kisses has been around for over FIVE years? I'm so proud. Anniversaries for things like that are the sort of thing I don't remember, so I don't make a big fuss about it. :P

For those of you that don't know, 30kisses is the fanfiction & fanart challenge community that I run on LiveJournal. It's also got counterparts on Dreamwidth and AO3. People pick a fandom, a pairing (couple of characters), and a Theme Set List with 30 themes, and then try to write to each of those themes, along with a central "core" theme. For example, 30 "kisses," where a "kiss" has to appear in each story/piece of art, along with 30 individual themes. Submissions can use more than one theme at a time, or have one theme spanning multiple chapters, be Alternate Universe/Reality/Timeline/What-have-you, whatever! So it's a great challenge and it's been very popular over the years. I created it in response to the absolute SLOWNESS of the original 30_kisses community, and I haven't looked back since. Apparently, people like it enough, because FIVE YEARS...!

It's amazing! And we've had some fantastically supportive, active members, one of whom has been churning out great fics for all sorts of fandoms, using various Theme Set Lists, including the most difficult one we've got, List Zeta/memory. As a thank-you and reward, we've given her a 1-Year Paid LJ Account and for completing the list, a 140 userpic Add-On over at LJ. It's not much, considering the community itself isn't paid and doesn't have a fancy layout, but I really wanted to thank people that seriously stick with the community, contribute to fandom, and of course, make my life easier by following all the rules... :D

I'd really like to bring 30kisses over to Dreamwidth, and I've already got the community token used, but I'd rather not have to create a dummy mod account just for the sake of managing the community. If a community can ACT like a regular user, posting entries and whatnot, that would be great. Or maybe you can already do that, and I don't know about it? Can anyone with some DW community experience share?

I'm working on overhauling the Hall of Fame for 30kisses; it's pretty plain looking, but at least the coding is valid, and it's easy to find everyone's entries. Still, I think most people read directly on LJ, because you know what order to read in, exactly what themes go to what number, and so on. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to do that for a Hall of Fame (on LJ or off), considering the SIZE of the HoF. I don't like the idea of breaking it up onto multiple LJ pages. :(

I also want to change up the way the banners look. Five years is enough time using the same narrow, vaguely-cutesy banner with a "kiss/lipstick" logo, right? If you've seen any awesome banners used for awards and the like online, let me know--I need ideas!

I'm very happy about this--among other things--right now. It's a good day, and I've accomplished many things, with the support and belief of others. Thank you, everyone! :)

So I saw "Eclipse" the other night with Stephanie. I didn't pay for it: she used passes! So I have kept my promise of never paying for anything involving "Twilight," except for the time I saw the first movie, and that was genuinely for the LULZ. I was so obnoxious--and I admit it!--during the screening that it more than made up for the cost of the movie and the Junior Mints I think I ate. I wasn't quite as obnoxious during this screening, but it was great to know there were other folks in the theatre who just saw it for the LULZ.

( FURSPLODE! )

These tend to be fun, even if I should actually be, yanno, writing fic.

Stolen shamelessly from rose_of_pollux.

( To fic or not to fic: that is the question! )

So rather than wail about all the Post-Its I have lying around with things to do, my near-empty Listography book, and the things I wish were working out, instead, a list of things I've accomplished today, big and small:

* Read a lot of emails and deleted the ones I don't need (have several thousand to go, but boo hoo)

* Heard back from both Adobe and JourneyEd regarding CS5: I have to spend $449 if I want it, because I don't qualify for the post-announce free upgrade, and there's no discount for an "upgrade" version of Design Premium from CS4 to CS5. So that, plus a camera are now on my Wish List.

* Got approved for the "In Plain Sight" - Mary x Marshall fanlisting - now I just need a name for it! YAY!?

* May be on the waiting list for a focus group and put my name out there for another one; they pay well and don't take long, so why not?

* Put the dishes away

* Registered for the NSCS Region 5 Summit in Seattle, WA on July 6th and 7th. It's my last conference as an NLC member (well, a "retiring" NLC member)!

* Am researching travel options for getting up to Seattle, esp. so soon after cousin Erin's wedding in Los Angeles on the 4th. Virgin America and Southwest are looking the cheapest, since the Amtrak Coast Starlight just doesn't mesh with my needed arrival and departure times. (Also: Anime Expo from July 1-4! So 1-3 = Anime Expo, 4 = Wedding + Fireworks, 5 = ? 6-7 = Seattle! Talk about a packed schedule for one week!)

* Also researching potential post-graduation travel options. Should I go down to San Diego after my orthodontist's appointment, and then head back up with Aunt Joyce in time for the bridal shower, or hang out in North Hills with cousin Jill and fam for a few days and meet up with Joyce on the day of the shower? Train ticket to S.D. would cost me $30-32, but it's more like "What the heck would I do down there?" and "Would I be intruding?" I suppose I should ask at least, so I have the option open, right?

* Got a huge scene done in the revision of Only 16, Chapter 2: A Look Back, which starts the flashbacks that reveal more about Serenity and Endymion's past. I'm contemplating deleting those from Endymion's point of view altogether, since Only 16 really is Serena's story, and even if Darien DOES remember his past completely and is just hiding it from Serena, why give him THAT much screen time? Isn't it more suspenseful having you wonder how things are really going from his end? I've only gone into his POV a few times in the revision so far, and never very deeply. But re-reading Lilac Summers' "First Truths" has made it a lot easier to 'ship them again (*shock!*).

* Updated WikiFic to 1.15.3, and added the much-debated lyrics of "Ahead of the Game." Mass consensus agrees that the garbled lyrics in the second verse are "My liquidity, giant balance sheet. All my secrets, Hey! I'll even cheat." Though how "I'll even cheat" makes sense when Kaiba (whose image song this is) is bragging about how much smarter, more creative, etc. he is than his opponent, isn't cheating making him look worse, not better? I personally think he should have said "I won't even cheat," as if he's restraining himself from cheating just to get a horrible duel over with. What do you think?

* Got started on my graduation announcements--the paper ones. A few family members left to get addresses for and send out, and then...have to figure out the rest. *bats eyelashes* Can YOU come?

MOAR LEFT:
* Dabble in revisions and/or additions to the following fics: Aftermath of Angels (FF8 x YGO), You and Me (body-swap YGO Azureship fic; thanks a lot for reminding me, mischiefmagnet!)
* Story-So-Far comparison of the book Paprika to the movie
* Revisions to previous chapters of WDKY + uploading to all the usual suspect sites -- someone on AnimeXX.de asked me if they could do a German translation of the fic! I can't read German to save my life, so should I say yes and just pray they do a decent job, or say no because I'd never be able to understand it?

So I joined list50 on Dreamwidth (list50 on LJ) because they're having a mini-list-festa right now, where you can list less than 50 (10, 15, 20, 30) of your favorite fics/art/vids/whatever that fit a certain theme, genre, what-have-you.

I, of course, selected Azureshipping/Seto x Anzu from Yu-Gi-Oh. You don't have to "claim" the lists like you do with other communities, since these are just lists of recs, and unlike rec50, where apparently you have to be more detailed in your recs, this is really: just. lists. It's very convenient, and kind of adventurous! There are already loads of great lists out for tons of cool fandoms, so I highly recommend you check it out. (I rec the recs!)

I probably could have done a full list of 50, but I wanted to keep it short and stick with some of the most memorable ones that covered a variety of genres, with a minimal amount of WiPs. Of course, I didn't include a single one of my own fics. :P

I would, however, appreciate input on other fics that I may not know about for an extended version of this list. I culled my selections from my FFnet favorites page and LiveJournal memories, but I know there are more awesome fics out there that I've either stupidly forgotten to bookmark in some fashion or have never gotten the chance to read.

Here we go!

( The list + stuff )

Another meme. I'm bored.

Comment on this post saying you want to do this. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

Ganked from rose_of_pollux, so she selected the seven interests; feel free to ask about other ones, but then expect me to ask about yours!

( Interesting! )

Bad News: Yesterday I bought The Sims 3 at $20 off MSRP from Target. I opened it up this afternoon with the intent of installing it only to discover...no DVD! I thought at first that maybe that's why they give you the "plumbob" USB drive, but nope: nothing but music, wallpapers, and other such extras on that. I also didn't get the green carabiner as shown on the box.

I wonder if I have to go back to the exact same Target to switch it out? I know I'll have to open the new copy in-store, since I don't want to go home and end up gypped again.... yeesh.

Also, Frustrating News: still no solution on getting my bookmarks OFF my Android myTouch 3G phone. All kinds of ways to get my bazillions of computer bookmarks ON THERE, but that's not the point. I don't care about that. I want my bookmarks OFF, and I can't even do it when I plug in my phone to my laptop, because of all the data recognized when I mount it, none of it seems to be "bookmarks." Maybe it's hidden, or under a weird name or strange file type...any suggestions? My Google-fu has failed me in this regard. It's no good if I have to get another phone browser, unless it can IMPORT the bookmarks from the default phone browser and then allow me to export them elsewhere. There are bookmark apps, but none I've seen with export. Does this mean I just have to wait for Android 2.0 or a Bookmark Sync feature from Google? *le sigh*

Good News: I did finally get a gel skin, a wrist strap, and a new protective screen. I still intend on switching out my ZAGG screen that got fuzz-covered for a new one, but maybe AFTER I've gotten more settled here. Hopefully this means the back of my phone won't keep coming off and letting the battery pop out.

More Frustrating News: Still no solution as of yet for how to edit my custom Layer Style on LiveJournal that I use for getting an RSS feed of my Friends' Page, even the authenticated entries. NetNewsWire is the only RSS reader I know that lets me log in and stay logged in, and while it's been working mysteriously good for the past few weeks, it's annoying trying to decipher entry subject lines among HTML. Other RSS readers convert it to actual links; I don't care either way. I posted to everything_lj, but no response yet. :( I'd try figuring it out myself, except I don't want to break the layer altogether, especially not when it's actually working!

Good News: I started reading a new Egyptian historical fiction, Michelle Moran's "The Heretic Queen." So far, so good. I'm actually getting somewhat inspired for CO7, which is better than nothing. I'm starting to develop the opinion that to write something--anything--is better than to write nothing at all and be stuck in this rut of "have to write in order!" At least if I have some scenes down, I can work with a beta or someone to fill in the blanks.

Eh News: I've got a few ideas for some GD articles, but they're comparable to the form of clouds: light and wispy. I'll need time to get them solidified, and in the meantime, there's homework!

Oh! News: Turns out my DeVry professor was right about the whole Photoshop slice badge thing in my last quiz. It was a trick question; the slice badges CAN display whether or not a slice is linked, but only in the optimization process, not with normal slices (although the question probably should have specified that, using "normal slices" instead of just "slices" in general), and rollover effect badges aren't seen since ImageReady went the way of the dodo. So...yeah, layer-based. Whoop-de-doo, it's only 2 points. I'm still getting an A. And it feels good to at least have clarified and asked, because otherwise I would still be confused and a little angry.

So I've been watching Inuyasha: The Final Act on Shonen Sunday's website (yay for free subbed anime every week), and the most recent episode actually got me thinking about fandom meta and fic, considering nothing I ever expect actually happens in Inuyasha. Though, I never finished watching the MAIN series, so I can't say for sure how it (or the manga, for that matter) really ended.

Still. ( Osuwari! )

I joined Archive of Our Own (which I was strangely calling AoOW for some reason) recently and put the 30kisses lists up there as a Collection for people to post to. Given the difference in format between LJ and AO3, I had to adapt some of the rules, but so far I think it's a great option. I've offered to "bang on the code" for the coders and test what I can, but I have yet to hear back from the Volunteer & Recruiting Team, which I just emailed earlier today.

I think I finally started reading a metafandom post that had me reading about how yuletide moved to AO3 and that got some people's knickers in a twist. I've never participated in Yuletide or really known all that much about it, so I wanted to read more. Some users felt shafted by mods freezing or deleting threads/posts asking about just why Yuletide's move to AO3 made other users unhappy, but the mods basically said: it's off-topic, it's debate, and we just don't want it here.

So users could host debates or explanations or whatnot elsewhere, but yeah, the community's for Yuletide, leave it at that, even in the comment threads of mod posts discussing the move.

But I am still curious: why do some people dislike AO3 so much?

If I've got a story -scenes, moments, whatever- in my head, should I just get it out of my head by writing it, instead of writing outlines of the scene in a file and storing it away until later?

It bothers me that I keep thinking of these other stories, other ideas, other universes other than WDKY, because I REALLY want to get WDKY done. But whenever I think of it and its characters, I get off-topic and go to this other story (you can probably tell by now that the characters are the same, but the story is different).

Maybe I should start becoming the sort who writes fics and posts them when they're done, instead of being this insane WIPer? I wonder if that'd help keep the hair in (on?) my head.

Can anyone point me at a Wiki or something that explains how vampires work in the CLAMP-verse? I mean xxxHolic/Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles and wherever they sourced their vampires from, like X/1999 or some other CLAMP vampire title.

I know "game" (gah-may) comes into play somehow, but I'm not sure how. Help?

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!?)

Ah, another Ed Hardy sale! The discounted prices at ideeli are actually quite reasonable, but it's for two things I'd never use/wear: purses and a scarf!

Of course, upon graduating I assume I'm going to have to alter my wardrobe a bit to fit in with the so-called "real world," and maybe then I'll get into things like accessorizing with scarves, but until then I'll just stare at the beautiful art that is the Ed Hardy line and imagine a day when something I'll actually use/wear will come out (without making me look like a total conformist!?).

(That said, I saw a clip of Zac Efron's "17 Again" with him dressed ENTIRELY in Ed Hardy, and telling his friend-playing-father that "Kevin Federline wore this!" as if that was supposed to make it "cool" to wear in a high school. But yeah, it's K-Fed... So now it makes me wince to think of someone showing off "too much" Ed Hardy.)

Keyword Manager for iPhoto (by Bullstorm) has finally been updated to 1.5! This means it's compatible with iPhoto '09. Huzzah! I already downloaded and installed mine; since I'd purchased a previous version, the upgrade was free (I think). Another way of getting organized: labeling all my pictures with metadata tags!

I added a few old entries (some of them Friends Locked, because let's be honest here: I was stupid not having protections on my old blog back in the day) from my old Blue Reflections blog, back when it was powered by Greymatter and on the rosedreams.org domain. I'm working my way through 2002, and it's sadly amusing, the kind of stuff I wrote. I've got a lot more to go before I'm all "caught up," though.

Finally signed up at Ping.fm (thanks to an article on helpful websites on GeekSugar). As I was going through the various websites/networks to add, I was surprised at a) how many I'm on and b) how many I'm not on. I guess there's something to be said for simplicity: I mean, what's the point of being on too many of the same site? (That sounds lame. I'm on every big name social networking site because of the fact that, the more places you are, the easier it is to find you--for better or for worse!)

Let's see, my networks are: Twitter, Facebook, AIM, GTalk, MySpace, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, LJ (duh), Delicious, Friendster, and Yahoo 360. Hey, that's actually not that many! And some of them (e.g. Facebook and LiveJournal; FriendFeed and... well, everything) are already connected, which gives me the mental image of playing cat's cradle with something very sticky.

Finally had my appointment at the Klotz Student Health Center dental clinic-- they kept having to reschedule my appointment! I got worked on by a student intern today, but everything looks/feels fine; I'm just hoping the numbness on the entire lower right-hand side of my face goes away soon.

As I was leaving the Health Center, they were showing "Armageddon" on DVD. I thought it actually looked cool, and, shockingly enough, I've never seen it. So that's to be added to my list of movies to see (both on DVD and in theatres). I also want to see "17 Again" and still "Fast & Furious" as well as "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and probably "The Soloist" (even if Jamie Foxx is a touch-and-go kind of guy; sometimes I think he's a great actor, other times I think he's a bizarre, if downright rude man).

I also decided to shift gears on my as-yet-unwritten submission for sm_fanswap. I was originally going to do this dark, political piece, but I think I'm going to shift that to the back burner and work on an older idea that still fits the requirements for the swap. Of course, I can't say more.... :X

DeviantART finally has gotten its act together-- or at least part of it. I don't know if there have been any HUGE changes in policy or significant changes in management (such as firing the douches that make dA look like it was being run by a bunch of bigoted idiots), but there is a new category for doll edits, which are one of my primary forms of fanart submissions. It's nice to be recognized! I still disagree with their policy that they should be "Scraps," because they say that they're prepackaged and there's no effort involved. Uh, excuse me, the dolls are a collaborative effort! On top of that, a lot of the ones I post are heavily modified in Photoshop, and I think the hours spent count as EFFORT. That said, I have put most of the dolls into the new category, but some of them won't go in, supposedly because the only filetype allowed is GIF. WTF, dA!? Since when are PNGs a bad file type for dolls? Not every dollmaker uses GIF files, and on top of that, if we DO "tool" the dolls ourselves, we should be able to save the resulting file however we like! GRR!

Do any Mac users have a recommendation for a good time-tracking utility? Specifically, I'd like something that integrates with iCal so I can keep track of how much I should make from the hours I spend at work. If I ever did freelancing or consultation stuff (for web design or just general tech support), it'd be nice if this tool had an invoicing feature, too. I've heard of several, but I want to know if anyone on this FL actually HAS one and used it, and of course, liked it.

Ah, so much to do, so little time.

Well, spring break has at last come to a close. It went fast, but at least it was fun and relaxing. It certainly was nice sleeping in till around 10:30 a.m. every day; tomorrow my "waking up at 6:30 a.m." routine begins anew. Oh, and also my habit of going to the Arbor Grill for occasional morning breakfasts; I'm looking forward to enjoying a breakfast burrito again after a week of waffles, cereal, and toast.

I didn't post during spring break even though I had the time; it was more like my thoughts were pretty scattered and I tried to be out as much as possible-- or at least doing stuff.

I went to Opening Night for the Giants at AT&T Park with Steph, Kathryn, Nora, and a guy named Melvin who was only there for a blip of time, it seemed. I shouted myself hoarse and then ended up sick as a result-- I've got awful congestion, a dry nose (ow) and an occasional cough, but I hope to be better by my birthday. I'm being smart about what I'm eating and drinking, and that, of course, includes medicines to help me get over this.

I also got to see Evie, Eva, Crystal, and (surprise surprise!) Louie (from high school) again at our Chevy's night. As is my luck, I got a certificate from Chevy's THE DAY AFTER for a free entree. Isn't that always how it works? Whatever "it" is? Well, maybe I'll go this weekend in San Diego: the closest Tex-Mex to the border when the border is more or less off-limits!

Oh, oh, oh! I also got the real "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (a.k.a. Furyo, which translates to "Prisoner of War") soundtrack, which I think is beautiful, so even though I don't like Utada's sophomore U.S. album (not counting her days as Cubic U, of course), I applaud her for indirectly introducing me to another composer and his music (Ryuichi Sakamoto). I actually like the title track of the movie (which is what Utada sampled from) a lot more than this song... sorry Utada! Although I am curious if the vocal version, "Forbidden Colours" is the same "Forbidden Colours" that is a special bonus on one of Sarah Brightman's Canadian albums. If it is, it'll be interesting to see how she redid it; I didn't like the vocal version too much, but maybe that has to do with the kind of "spacey" quality it had as a song.

( Read more... )

I'm really craving a red velvet cupcake for my birthday. I wonder if any bakeries around here have them?


 This One (Crying Like a Child) by Utada from This Is the One (Rating: 0)

Interesting things that have happened as of late:
* Sci Fi Channel plans to change its name to SyFy, to supposedly attract a wider audience (because "sci fi" is still recognized as a derivative of "science fiction," which supposedly conjures images of pimply boys playing D&D in their mom's basements. Well, even if they do, those guys run the world now, so hah! Way to generalize! Also, way to stereotype the audience you're supposedly trying to appeal to! ). Fact is, they want [more crappy] non-sci-fi programming. I think they're going to bomb on this front no matter what they try and explain.

SyFy, meet Song Airlines. Now, both of you go back to the class and sit with the cobwebs.

* 4Kids releases uncut unsubbed episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh! on their YouTube channel (a day after littlekuriboh subscribes to them on a lark). Now if only we could get proper subs-- not dubtitles, including for the opening theme song (which should remain unchanged, plzkxthx!). Then put them on DVD and release them in a massive boxed set. Which I would buy in a New York minute.

Tuesday's NSLS Orientation meeting went okay. I goofed a little by not having enough time to finish my agenda before the meeting and print it out, so I was really winging it when the meeting actually got started. The meeting got started a bit late too, because another group was in the room until nearly the last minute. I hardly had any time to set up and figure out how all the equipment worked. I was so nervous, I forgot to do the icebreaker first, and when we finally did do it, I realized it wasn't a great way to sort people into SNT groups-- I had people stopping to talk to one other person on their side of the room (after I asked people to move to one side of the room or the other, based on a choice: e.g. "Chocolate or Vanilla?" where chocolate is the left side of the room and vanilla is the right), but someone pointed out that everyone would talk to at least one person that another person HAD NOT talked to, so everyone would be in everyone else's group! But still, there were enough commonalities for groups to form-- for the most part. The folks that only attended the online orientation or folks that couldn't make the Tuesday one for whatever reason will be assigned by our new SNT Coordinator, June.

Class got out early yesterday, so I came home and relaxed with some CSI:NY repeats until 7pm. I took a nap, fully intending to be awake for the new episode at 10pm, but I didn't wake up on time! I'm surprised Baba and Grandpa didn't come in to wake me up or anything-- I kept right on sleeping until 12:30am! I ended up catching up on the new episode this morning via cbs.com.

( Strange people on CBS.com. Also, spoilers for 5x12 )

I saw another dead animal today. This time it was a cat, which... I don't know how to put it, but it hurts. I love cats, and to see one run over just breaks my heart. It also reinforces the fact that I'll never drive and think a good lot of drivers are complete idiots. That said, yes, I do appreciate getting rides home and things like that, but only from people I trust to be attentive when they're on the road.

At least it seems as if whoever hit the cat (or maybe someone found the cat) brought it to the side of the road-- it was on the patch of lawn under a tree, positioned in such a way that the cat could have been napping, dreaming of chasing a mouse, with the way its paws were kind of twisted. But I realized it was dead when I saw its eyes were blackened and its organs had been squished to one end of its body. Other than that, the cat was surprisingly clean-- a bright orange tabby coat, very beautiful. It didn't look like it had been run over, but still... *sigh* I didn't see a collar on it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't someone's pet. Even if it wasn't, I still feel awful. No animal deserves to die because of some idiot driver.

Career Day for the Journalism department is today. I better pack up my things and head over there now.

Greetings from the Oviatt Library of Cal State Northridge (where I was when I first started writing this post)! It's finally the late afternoon, and Inauguration Day is winding down at last. Of course, I was up at 7:30 a.m. for my 9:00 class, so I missed all the inauguration fun, even though Dad called me at 6:30 a.m. to bug me about watching it. He (and several other members of my family) seem to think Inauguration Day ought to be a holiday, but as for me, I've been looking forward to today as the first day of school long before I knew about who was going to be taking the Oath of Office this morning.

In any case, I've managed to catch up with play-by-plays, fashion reports, and transcripts of Obama's speech, so I don't feel as if I've missed out on much. Of course I'm excited and hopeful, but I also know I'll be able to watch it tonight if I so wish. After all, tons of stations are having Encore Presentations of every aspect of the inauguration, so....

As for classes, it was great seeing Prof. Lisagor for my Food Science Lab course again! She even hugged me! :) I was quite glad just to be remembered, but I immediately got into techie mode because some people couldn't log into the shiny cinema-screen Macs (sadly, with Windows pre-loaded on them; the Food Processor program we use for class is Windows-only. Blech!). We spent a lot of time talking about what the class is going to involve, but we moved onto our first big project: a cultural foods meal plan.

We're supposed to think of a culture other than our own and imagine that a person coming from that culture/country has come to the U.S. and has come to us in need of a dietician. Obviously, my first thought was for Japan! So I'm working with a classmate from India named Mythri (My-three), and we've both got to invent a person and come up with a meal plan for them that includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and 2-3 snacks for two days. Four of those meals have to be cultural foods (that is, Japanese) that are prepared. Everything should be "made at home," not "fast food" or whatever.

...For some reason, the first person that came to mind was Usagi Tsukino. More specifically, the Usagi that's in a very particular fic that I read recently on Aria's Ink, where she's come to the U.S. on a study abroad program.

Besides, it's not as if I don't know all her vital stats: she's 4'11", 99 lbs., 15 years old (well, we're imagining Season 1-3 Usagi here), and leads an active lifestyle-- what she lacks in P.E. she makes up for with Sailor Senshi duty and running like a mad chicken on her way to school. Inputting all that in, I've discovered just how many calories, vitamins, and minerals she ought to be taking.

Bearing all that in mind, now I've got to come up with 4 simple recipes that are Japanese in origin that Usagi might eat if she's seeing a dietician for whatever reason. I'm tempted to watch a bunch of Sailor Moon episodes to see how food appears in it, and what Usagi's eating habits are (other than just "voracious").

After that class, I went to Yoga. A surprising amount of people were wearing jeans, which made me roll my eyes. Really, the syllabus says "wear comfortable clothing," and people think "jeans?" The teacher seems like she's strict but interesting-- she reminds me of a professor I had in Journalism in my freshman and sophomore year where you either loved her or you hated her, but if you loved her, it's because despite the strictness, you learned. I'm hoping that'll be the case here, too.

Work today was pretty cool, too. I only had a short shift, but half of it I worked at the kiosk upstairs in the library, which we've started doing the first few weeks of the semester to introduce campus technology and the IT department to the people milling about the first floor.

Tomorrow I've only got one class-- my Public Relations class. Normally I'd have my long Biology lab, except the professor's postponed the first class session until next week, which is nice, because it gives me time to get adjusted to my other classes, get my textbooks and other supplies (seriously $114 for a biology NOTEBOOK!?!) and get used to the campus life again. I'm hoping I can use the rare extra time (because normally Wednesday would be my all-day session) to work on WDKY26 more. So far, it's coming along quite well... ^_^

ARGH! - Financial aid check didn't go through YET, so I couldn't get my PSP and SO2:SE as planned today, let alone check out the mall for some **free** makeup. Meh, I didn't need it (the makeup) anyway, and I don't need the PSP and the game RIGHT NOW, either. Textbooks are more the priority, anyway. Surprisingly, the bookstore actually has the cheapest rate for some of the textbooks. Some of the other textbooks, unfortunately, simply can't be found on Half.com or Amazon or whatever-- they're those special notebook lab packs. But that doesn't mean I'm out of resources yet!

Also: new icons! Yay. But I still need more for some of my other fandoms. There are also some I can't bring myself to get rid of even though I rarely use them. But hell, I've got nearly 200 userpic slots, so what does it matter!?

Sorry for all the post-spam, but...

(1) Firefox 3.0.5 is being an absolute bitch when it comes to Bookmarks. I don't normally bookmark things to begin with, but for some stupid reason, if I have anything in my clipboard, that URL appears in my bookmark's URL field rather than the page I'm actually trying to bookmark. I went to the MozillaZine forums, and it seems to be a cross-platform problem with the browser, not with the software and a particular extension. Still, we're slated for an update soon, so I hope it updates and fixes this error... though people are saying Mozilla hasn't even registered the existence of this bug, so I don't want to hold my breath.

So while I'm going to stick with Firefox, it's not perfect. But that's also why I love it-- because the people are willing to acknowledge the issues and fix them (soon-ish).

(2) I'm trying to find a semi-decent RSS reader for Firefox. I've been using Mail.app, but it doesn't support cookies, and frankly I'm sick of missing protected entries on my friends' page (there tend to be a lot). I've switched from Sage to Sage-Too to Simple RSS Reader to Wizz RSS. None of them are perfect. They seem to be affected by the same error that the Bookmarks are, because a lot of my feeds (like if I imported them from the Livemarks, or if I was trying to paste the URL into the manual add feed area of the reader) kept getting the wrong URL.

Also annoying but not completely awful: the little icons beside the feeds keep changing depending on what my active tab is.

What I want: something that sits in my sidebar that shows the journal/community name, subject line, and timestamp. I don't NEED extra bells and whistles like indicator dots for the "read" status, but I do NEED it to allow me to either preview it in another pane or open it IN A NEW TAB.

Sage: no longer updated
Sage-Too: see above; also has persistent XML parse errors for no explicable reason
Simple RSS reader: settings pane has no "close" option; doesn't parse subject lines of LJ posts properly, so all that I really see is the username of the journal

Wizz RSS looks cool, but it might be too heavy for my needs. So far it does have the subject lines and journal name thing down pat, as well as organization by time, but I need to have a new tab already open or my current tab will be overwritten once I click on a subject line in the reader. There's no way to preview a post without clicking on it and thus opening up the whole post in a new tab. So what's the point of the preview?

Does anyone have any suggestions? Searching through the Mozilla add-ons collection for "RSS" for 3.0.5 produced an array of results and there's no way to know if any of them are halfway decent. I could judge by reviews, but they seem to be skewed anyway

(3) Also, I do want to update BEA with the Fanart and Fanfics, especially the latter. However, I'm wondering if there should be a new format for the recommended fics with reviews, but I don't know what that format might be. Suggestions?

On the same subject, one of the FFnet C2s I'm in shared a host of Seto x Anzu fics. Excited, I checked them out; turns out they're all by the same author. When the first fic I clicked on displayed clear lack of grammar knowledge/usage (despite the author complaining about that very thing in her profile), I cringed a little, but I made the effort to keep reading. The plots are a bit cliche, but both of them are... vaguely in character.

Some of the stories are more or less PWP, in which case slight amounts of OOC are fairly excusable, except for the underlying feeling I get that SETO WAS A RAPIST. I really didn't like the idea that the author intentionally (because you don't put something in a fanfic "accidentally") had Anzu resisting him and then just falling into bed (or wherever) with him. Part of the reason why I (and countless other Azureshippers) enjoy the pairing is because Anzu doesn't hesitate to tell Kaiba off. She is very vocal and open with her feelings --about him, about her friends, and about how he treats her friends. It's part of the fun of their relationship. Even the author acknowledged this on her profile page.

But she's got Anzu telling Kaiba off for a brief moment, and then he just says something like "I won't take 'no' for an answer" or he does something that gets her to shut up/moan instead/blank out on whatever she was in the middle of saying. And not only is that OOC for Anzu (because I think even in a sexual situation, she wouldn't let ANYONE take advantage of her), but Seto too-- even if you envision him as a sexual being (and you take into account his canon asshole personality as it shows up from time to time), that doesn't mean he would force a woman to have sex.

Rape is about control and violence, NOT about sex. And yet... the author seems to think it's "sexy" to have this implication of rape, as if Anzu's resistance and eventual giving-in is something steamy.

For me, it just makes me shudder.

And it got me thinking: How does one write a good Seto x Anzu fic? Not just steamy/sexy fics, but Seto x Anzu (Azureshipper) fics in general? I'm also going to pose this question at setoanzulove, but basically I want to compile opinions for a new feature at BEA (while I'm contemplating what to do for the Fic section as a whole).

The temptation was there to
a) leave a review... which I fear might come across as a flame because when you've got something so huge as RAPE in the fic, it's hard to focus on the good aspects. Also, I have issues with "sandwiching" reviews where you say one nice thing, a critique/something you didn't like, and then something nice again. It's not only formulaic, it misses the point of true concrit.

b) MST the fic. Like seriously, lambast it.

c) Include it as a "How NOT to write Seto x Anzu Fic"

But I don't think any of those are appropriate. So I'm just going to stew for now and try and think of some positive things to get out of this whole experience. I'm not going to write every little thing the author's done as godawful; I'm reading some of her other stuff and it's not all or completely bad, but... it's not really good, either.

I had no problem with reviewing things with 3/5 (or lower? I didn't read the old stuff carefully) on BEA before, but for some reason I think doing it for every one of this person's fics would be a bit of an overkill. I do think people WANT to grow and learn, and aside from one end-of-the-fic comment where the trite "If they were a little OOC, it's fanfiction, so I can do what I want!" excuse was, I do think this author is one of them.

( A very belated digital card of the handmade variety )

an_ardent_rain, keep your eyes peeled-- I'll get that ficlet done (hopefully before midnight) soon!