[pass it on]

State of the Decade: Yes, It's More Statistics

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 10:53:25 GMT

I can't help but get giddy over a lot of ff.n's new features. The character filters, the crossover sections, the "Just In" top 100 list, and now there's popularity filters in each of the category pages! Ah~ ♥

Based off of data collected between 10 and 11 PM EST, Thursday December 31^st 2009.

REIGNING FOUR CHAMPIONS (75K+)
1.) Harry Potter (436.6K)
2.) Naruto (220.5K)
3.) Twilight (125.6K)
4.) Inuyasha (90.9 K)

BIG-LEAGUE SEVEN (35-75K)
5.) total "Final Fantasy" titles (60.1K)*
6.) Yu-Gi-Oh! (50.0K)
7.) Kingdom Hearts (48.5K)
8.) Lord of the Rings (42.7K)
9.) Gundam Wing/AC (40.2K)
10.) Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (37.6K)
11.) Bleach (35.4K)

* = FF Agito 8, FF I-VI, FF IX, FF Tactics A2, FF Versus XIII, FF VI, FF VII, FF X, FF X-2, FF XI, FF XII, FF XIII, FF: Crystal Chronicles, FF: Tactics, FF: Tactics Advance, FF X-Overs (on the Misc. genre page)

MIDDLE LEAGUE SEVEN (25-35K)
12.) Digimon (32.6K)
13.) Dragon Ball Z (31.5K)
14.) Supernatural (31.3K)
15.) Sailor Moon (31.1K)
16.) Final Fantasy VII (29.6K)
17.) Fullmetal Alchemist (29.5K)
18.) Pokemon (28.9K)

LITTLE LEAGUE EIGHT (20-25K)
19.) Teen Titans (24.9K)
20.) CSI (24.2K)
21.) Card Captor Sakura (23.3K)
22.) Star Wars (23.2K)
23.) Yu Yu Hakusho (22.7K)
24.) Stargate: SG-1 (22.0K)
25.) Avatar: The Last Airbender (21.9K)
26.) Wrestling (20.6K)

PEE-WEE FOURTEEN (15-20K)
27.) Death Note (19.9K)
28.) Beyblade (19.0K)
29.) Doctor Who (17.9K)
30.) Pirates of the Caribbean (17.7K)
31.) High School Musical (17.4K)
32.) Sonic the Hedgehog (16.8K)
33.) House, M.D. (16.7K)
34.) Prince of Tennis (16.5K)
35.) total "Star Trek" Titles (16.1K)*
36.) Rurouni Kenshin (15.9K)
37.) NCIS (15.8K)
38.) Fruits Basket (15.5K)
39.) Stargate: Atlantis (15.2K)
40.) Legend of Zelda (15.0K)

* = ST: Deep Space Nine, ST: Enterprise, ST: Other, ST: The Next Generation, ST: The Original Series, ST: Voyager

IDDLE-WIDDLE TWELVE (10-15K)
41.) Gilmore Girls (14.9K)
42.) X-Men: Evolution (13.3K)
43.) One Tree Hill ties with Final Fantasy VIII (11.8K)
45.) Transformers/Beast Wars (11.6K)
46.) Charmed (11.3K)
47.) Bones (11.1K)
48.) Power Rangers (10.9K)
49.) Smallville (10.6K)
50.) X-Men: The Movie (10.4K)
51.) Ranma ½ (10.3K)
52.) Hannah Montana (10.3K)

PER CATEGORY:
heavy hitters (sections with 10K+ stories)

ANIME/MANGA (9P)*
1.) Naruto (220.5K)
2.) Inuyasha (90.9K)
3.) Yu-Gi-Oh! (50.0K)
4.) Gundam WIng/AC (40.2K)
5.) Bleach (35.4K)
6.) Digimon (32.6K)
7.) Dragon Ball Z (31.5K)
8.) Sailor Moon (31.1K)
9.) Fullmetal Alchemist (29.5K)
10.) Card Captor Sakura (23.3K)
11.) Yu Yu Hakusho (22.7K)
12.) Death Note (19.9K)
13.) Beyblade (19.0K)
14.) Prince of Tennis (16.5K)
15.) Rurouni Kenshin (15.9K)
16.) Fruits Basket (15.5K)
17.) Ranma ½ (10.3K)
[CUSP: Ouran High School Host Club (9.9K)
an' then there's Shaman King (8.9K) and One Piece (8.2K) flanking
CUTE: D.Gray-man (8.3K)]

BOOKS (9.5P)*
1.) Harry Potter (436.6P)
2.) Twilight (125.6K)
3.) Lord of the Rings (42.7K)
[CUSP: Phantom of the Opera (9.2K)]

CARTOONS (3P)*
1.) Teen Titans (24.9K)
2.) Avatar: The Last Airbender (21.9K)
3.) X-Men: Evolution (13.3K)
4.) Transformers/Beast Wars (11.6K)
[CUSP: Danny Phantom (9.5K)]

COMICS (1P)*
CUSP: X-Men (9.4K)
(really, there's not much here)

GAMES (6P)*
1.) Kingdom Hearts (48.5K)
2.) Final Fantasy VII (29.6K)
3.) Pokemon (28.9K)
4.) Sonic the Hedgehog (16.8K)
5.) Legend of Zelda (15.0K)
6.) Final Fantasy VIII (11.8K)

MISC. (32 sections)
Wrestling (20.6K)

MOVIES (8P)*
1.) Star Wars (23.2K)
2.) Pirates of the Caribbean (17.7K)
3.) High School Musical (17.4K)
4.) X-Men: The Movie (10.4K)

PLAYS/MUSICALS (65 sections)
TOP: RENT (6.8K)
(same situation as "Comics" and "Misc.", except sadder)

TV SHOWS (9P)*
1.) Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (37.6K)
2.) Supernatural (31.3K)
3.) CSI (24.2K)
4.) Stargate: SG-1 (22.0K)
5.) Doctor Who (17.9K)
6.) House, M.D. (16.7K)
7.) total "Star Trek" titles (16.1K)
8.) NCIS (15.8K)
9.) Stargate: Atlantis (15.2K)
10.) Gilmore Girls (14.9K)
11.) One Tree Hill (11.8K)
12.) Charmed (11.3K)
13.) Bones (11.1K)
14.) Power Rangers (10.9K)
15.) Smallville (10.6K)
16.) Hannah Montana (10.3K)

* =given Firefox 3.0.5 for Ubuntu browser on a Kubuntu 8.10 ("Intrepid Ibex") OS with screen resolution 1024x768, tabs running: a "page" is the whole of the web page visible in the window at any one point in time, counted through "pgdn" and "pgup" keys

CROSSOVERS:
Anime/Manga (5P) - most popular section: Naruto (4.4K)
Books (4P) - most popular section: Harry Potter (6.1K)
Cartoons (2P) - all sections below 500 stories
Comics (68 sections) - all sections below 300 stories
Games (3.5P) - most popular section: Kingdom Hearts (1.0K)
Misc. (28 sections) - all sections below 500 stories
Movies (4.5P) - all sections below 900 stories
Plays/Musicals (34 sections) - all sections below 50 stories (sad, really)
TV Shows (5.5P) - most popular section: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (2.3K)

Sooo. Looking back at the last report: HP, Naruto, and Inuyasha are proceeding as expected, and Twilight is doing this distressing "asplodey" thing; Supernatural and Bleach positively leaped forward; Death Note jerked up a bit in the rankings, with House, M.D. inching along behind; and we have several newcomers, including Transformers/Beast Wars, Bones, Power Rangers, Smallville, X-Men: The Movie, Ranma ½, Hannah Montana, and NCIS (which decided that starting off in the lower tiers wasn't good enough, so it appears to have barrelled its way through the lower rankings into a seat currently between Rurouni Kenshin and Fruits Basket).

As for D.Gray-cute, ~~IT'S OVER EIGHT THOUSAAAAA--~~ a year ago I wrote that "pre-February [2008] I think the archive had between 500 and 1000 stories; by the 23rd [of Feb 08] it was 1464; 2536 by the fourth of July; 2637 on the 14th [presumably also July 08]; and the current story count [as of Dec 08] is 4396." As of about 5:45 AM EST (January the first 2010), the D.Gray-archive is up to 8331 stories. *wibbles* Since the last, the dub has premiered, more manga has come out in the US, and the manga proper has gone through a massive hiatus and come out the other side to a monthly update format. (I have also graduated high school and gotten through my first semester of college with a 3.6 GPA, go me!) At this rate, it's definitely going to hit my list within the next six to nine months. D.Gray-man is darker and more sporadic than either Inuyasha and Naruto (and the early anime was hilariously low-budget), but it does have its own appeal. ~~And my heart. ♥~~

Notes: After a long and agonising decision process, I went for lavender as the colour for "TV Shows," as deep orange just wasn't cutting it. *angst*

Also, to all the Naruto fic-writers out there: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WRITE! WRITE LIKE YOUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT! No way in hell is Twifail overtaking our position! For crying out loud, neither of the main characters has a personality! ガンバレヨ！

ode to fanfiction.net

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:52:19 GMT

So, so, I'm easing my way into fanfic again, and going over old files and stirring up old memories (because once I read a fic, even if I only read it once and I hate it, my stupid brain manages to remember every last little detail, filed away in dusty drawers of my memory), I remember this one D.Gray-fic where the girl writing it (it's almost always a girl; so goes the genre) got the idea from her telenovelas. I think it was called Sorpresando Amor! or something.

And my brain sort of...percolated/curdled/fermented/fiddled with it for a while, and I was remembering in theatre class the vague generic scene-starters for characters 'A' and 'B' with ambiguous age, gender and identity that you were supposed to assign a certain setting (complete with pantomime) and then take it from there. (Heh, I remember this one time we turned this innocuous script into disposing of a body, and split up the pantomime duties between us--who gets the imaginary blade to dismember it, who gets it into the imaginary plastic bag, who digs the imaginary hole and buries it, who does the imaginary cleanup work, who's in charge of the gear in the imaginary van--good times.)

So...yeah. Sorpresando Amor! (or whatever it was), in generic script form! Apply it to whatever fandom you choose.

SCENE ONE
(characters A and B are making out)
A: While we’re at it, I just thought you should know: I’m pregnant.
B: Wha—pregnant?
A: Yup!
B: But—you—we haven’t even gotten to second base—I—waitwaitwait, back it up, you’re a GIRL?!
A: (blinks) ...You mean you’ve been making out with me thinking I was another guy?
B: Well...I mean...that is...
A: (evil grin)
B: Stop—stop looking at me like that! anyway, why—who’s—who’s the father?
A: (cheerfully) Your best friend!
B: .........

SCENE TWO
(character A is meeting with her boss, character C)
C: So, about your last mission—
A: What would you do if I told you I was a girl?
C: (blinks) ...Uh, why?
A: Just curious.
C: (skeptically) ...All right. Well, I’d ask why you didn’t mention it earlier, since we do have women in our organisation on equal footing with the men.
A: Okay! What would you do if I told you I was pregnant?
C: (chokes on his/her coffee)

SCENE THREE
(take it from here~ ♥)

(Upon Googling it to figure out the author's pen name (Razeasha), oh god she made AMVs for it XDDDDD I love you so, fanfiction.net. You bring in the bizarre without even trying.)

(Miranda! I'm questioning my sexuality! Make out with me! ♥ ♥ ♥~)

ode to the holiday season

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:52:35 GMT

oh the economy outside is frightful
but the sales are so delightful
and you never know 'til you try:
come and buy, come and buy, come and buy!

blinkblink

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:59:33 GMT

Okay, fuck imeem, we have bigger problems right now than the decimation of a beloved community music host. Namely the shit that's been being pulled over this health care bill. And the shit that's going on right now.

According to the Washington Post, the Republican senators in Congress are planning on blocking a bill to fund our military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to delay the health care bill long enough to miss the deadline and force it into the 2010 campaign season. Putting aside for a moment the fact that that will cause the legislation to become even more derailed by political posturing in the realm of "hot-button issues" than it already has (which is saying a hell of a lot, considering what the Senate in its infinite absurdity has done to the bill), since when is it acceptable--politically, economically, or socially--for Republican politicians to jeopardise funding for our soldiers who are on the ground right now endangering life and limb for a mission that may or may not be the right decision but nevertheless puts the lives of these senators' constituents--and friends and family of still more constituents--in jeopardy? What the fuck Twilight Zone are we living in that it makes it okay for a bunch of old bloated fat cats in Washington to put American lives in danger just because they or whatever corporate insurance blowhards are bribing them are throwing hissy fits over a bill that doesn't even do much to help the American people? (Well--pardon that remark, it actually does help some American people: the private insurers.)

And all this bullshit about "woowoo abortion" and "omg the socialists are winning!!!!!" is such a pathetic fucking smokescreen when we are closer than ever before to pushing through actual health reform, however minimal. What the fuck is wrong with this country? I'm being completely serious here. What the fuck?

RIP also my little blue roommate. We'll miss you, Jasper.

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:04:33 GMT

MySpace/Imeem Deal Leaves Thousands of Artists Unpaid | Epicenter | Wired.com
MySpace buries Imeem | CNET News
MySpace Kills Streaming Music Apps Powered by iMeem's API | ReadWriteWeb
MySpace “Migrates” imeem Into Nothing | Social Times
MySpace Responsible for Killing imeem | CRENK
Slashdot | MySpace Buys and Then Takes Down Imeem
Updated: MySpace Music buys, crushes Imeem | VentureBeat
MySpace Buys imeem, Rolls it Into MySpace Music | WebProNews

Since I first discovered imeem in--oh, it must have been early 2008--I've visited that site without fail several times a week. I built massive catalogues of discographies, discovered and fell in love with new artists, and even started building my own playlists so that I could listen to albums straight through without needing to individually click on every link--dozens of them. I had everything from RURUTIA, Every Little Thing, JUDY AND MARY, Amano Tsukiko, Takahashi Hitomi, ORE SKA BAND, Kalafina, Emily Loizeau, Poe, Ani DiFranco, and India.Arie. I had collected catalogues of the OPs and EDs of Naruto, FullMetal Alchemist, BLEACH, and D.Gray-man. I had tracklists for every set of winning AMVs at Anime Boston for the past four years.

As of last Tuesday, the sixteen million users of imeem's services have lost everything that we've worked on, all the resources we used, all the content we uploaded and didn't back up somewhere else. Now any imeem.com link redirects to a page at http://www.myspace.com/imeem that tells us, "MySpace is working to migrate your imeem playlist to MySpace Music. We’ll email you about that once we have more details." I have about as much faith in this statement as the commenters and article writers in the links above.

I'm too poor to afford CDs and a player for them. The CD player for my laptop is shot. I can't download music--legally or illegally--because it would crash my computer. I don't have the money to be able to afford another. When I found imeem, after years of subsisting on short-lived half-assed YouTube AMVs with shit sound quality and parts of the track cut out, I was ecstatic. It was like a dream come true: access to music by my favourite obscure artists--whose tracks elsewhere on the internets are few and far between--in a format that doesn't slow down my computer, has much wider selection than YouTube, and had a wonderful community on top of that. I've never seen anything like it.

Other music sites are essentially useless for my purposes. YouTube barely has anything, and videos are constantly being taken down for one reason or another. Last.fm does not play music except for a Pandora-like "radio" feature that doesn't play you the music you were looking for. Other video sites have too much extraneous shit going on to slow down or freeze the browser and load malware onto your machine. I found a streaming site that played me DJ Tenchu's ELT trance mix, but it had the same problems as the video sites.

MySpace never fails to crash my computer, and the shelf life of tracks I find there seem to be shorter even than that of a YouTube video. The site design pisses me off, and pages on that stupid site are constantly crammed with add-ons and pathetic n00bish code for sparkly text and which-famous-ass-are-you quizzes and pointless eye-bleeding bullshit that freezes Firefox, crashes my laptop and prevents me from getting any work done. How can anyone stand it? How can anyone really care about all that shit? I block all those apps--yes, all apps--on Facebook for a reason. All I want out of a music source is consistent performance, a decent array of available music, and a design simple enough that I can have it running in another tab while I work on things that need to get done. I didn't even mind imeem's faulty search algorithms.

I understand with the current economy how difficult it is to run any site with free content. But what MySpace has done to imeem crosses the line. To forcibly gut a competitor without even trying to consider its loyal user base shows Rupert Murdoch to be the douche everyone says he is, and further proves that MySpace has become the soulless commercialised wreck we all suspected.

(I mean, Jesus, Merry Christmas to you too, Murdoch. I'm actually finding myself wanting an "angry!" icon because of this.)

"Writer's Block" (of a sort)

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:29:09 GMT

In the order in which I did them (is that sentence grammatically correct?):

If you could choose one super-power, what would it be and why?
- already been over this, word for word; goes with “wishes”. But if we’re doing superpowers, in a world where they’re like vaguely common and the government doesn’t dissect you...of the classics, flying, fire, weather, ice, etc. are cool. Let’s go over the one I wrote a year ago...

“The first and most obvious hurdle is, should I wish for world peace? (Or something along that line of inquiry.) Me being me, I came to the conclusion after a while that major global, national or even local change would just be fucking with shit I don't understand, and the world has a precise and proper balance, and some shit just needs to happen for the good of the future, and yin-yang/light-side-dark-side/use-the-fork-Luke/who wants to be blamed for the Apocalypse anyway.”

However, if there was some cosmic apocalypse about to happen, like some object or phenomenon literally about to annihilate the earth, that’s definitely something to intervene with. (Also, if it wouldn’t cause undue harm to the economy or have some sort of backlash/unintended consequence, paying off the mortgages and affording college and health insurance would be a wonderful, wonderful thing.)

But back to the topic at hand. After finding, and languages, and the physics/temperature/pyrocryostuff, and the aminal whispering/underwater breathing/kinetic-lev-flight/hippie earth-water-sky stuff, and past observation, and weather/eckeltricity/energy/etc. Small magics are cool. Cooking/culinary/chemical/mad-scientist edibles etc. magic would be awesome, for cures and tonics and poisons and delicious, and textile stuff like Sandry’s awesome, and Daja’s and Briar’s metal and plant magics, or Evvy’s stone magic, or the glass worker Tris teaches, or...practical magic is awesome, really. Small stuff that is useful and you don’t expect it to win a war except for when it does.

As to Marvel and DC: No telepathy or empathy because of the “noise,” privacy issues (esp. my own), and stigma. With superstrength I would worry about hurting or breaking things. Superspeed...eh. Also issues. Personal fast or extreme healing just seems to invite interesting methods of torture. And the power to heal? Superficially awesome, but the moral dilemma with who to heal and who not to heal, and the whole natural balance and not having your own life etc. Invisibility isn’t very useful if you’re a noisy person, or if you can’t confer that effect onto things you’re wearing or carrying. Astral projection leaves your body too vulnerable. Wings, like capes, are just impractical. Rogue’s ability is admittedly cool, but the stigma and difficulty is too great; maybe if it was more easily controlled, but still. Mystique’s power is kind of awesome though. Unfortunately, not so much if you can’t bring, like, clothes with you. It’d be really awkward to have to find a convenient fern every time you assume a human form. I would hate seeing the future—so depressing, and takes the fire out of life—except if it was something like grab the person next to you and duck because here comes a meteor. The sort of avoidance of imminent danger might be useful, like a spidey sense without the spiders. I’ve addressed my aversion to fucking with time before, so I won’t repeat it. Reality-warping would just be bad; unintended consequences sort of multiply like bunny rabbits when it comes to that, plus the difficulties of balance and free will etc. etc. etc. Teleportation is kind of problematic if it comes without some form of safety net, like kinesis if you accidentally ‘port off a cliff or barrier/shield something if you wind up in fire or lava or rock or something that would cause your life to go kaput.

Illusion—the manipulation of light and shadows and colours etc.—would be cool. Also unmagic, some sort of immunity to powers—awkward if you need magic healing, but excellent for defence etc. And maybe what a situation really needs is a professional damsel in distress. Someone who’s good at being a hostage, leverage, kidnap material and ransom fodder. Someone vulnerable but durable, so that there wouldn’t be any deal-breaking mishaps. Weapons/fighting magic I suppose would be convenient, sort of Slayerish but without the dramatic oops-I-cracked-your-ribs bit; a subtle enough increase on agility, flexibility, reflexes, strength, speed and instinct so that it’s not anything bizarrely inhuman but weaponed or weaponless fighting comes easily and is proficient at. Yes, I know, I just broke the English language, boohoo, like it wasn’t mangled to begin with.

(haha, I think too much.)

What three items would you place in a time capsule to help future generations understand you?
(a) a diary or electronic file of some sort containing a bunch of things I’ve written/drawn/taped, about myself and my world and everything else; (b) my little stone, the pretty one I found on the playground when I was five and I’ve treasured it ever since; (c) MY MUMMIFIED CORPSE AHAHA not really, uhhh...I dunno. Music maybe? Or something from a precious person, like Kate or Kathy. Maybe Stacey’s jacket. Or something about my godson. Or, I dunno, something.

What (if any) books would you ban from a high school library? Are there certain subjects that you feel are inappropriate for teenagers regardless of literary merit?
Haha censorship can kiss my ass. YES there are things five-year-olds should not be exposed to, NO treating teenagers like five-year-olds will not solve anything. All censorship does is cause more problems—like making people want to read the things you ban, or bloating something’s scandalousness or significance beyond what it needs to be, or creating complexes that take years of therapy to undo, or generally being an asshole. Bitch.

What is your favourite holiday and why?
HALLOWEEN. Halloween Halloween Halloween. Part of this is what Sprite says, that Christmas is when you get free stuff and Thanksgiving is when you get to eat until you’re sick and New Year’s is when you get to party all night and Halloween is when you can do all of these and you get to dress up. Part of this is that if there is a god that cares about holidays, it must be Halloween, because I’ve seen shit weather on every other holiday (messy nasty miserable Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Fourth of July, etc.) but for some reason Halloween is always beautiful, either clear or cloudy, warm or cool, but never rain or sleet or snow or hail or lightning or anything, it’s gorgeous. Also, October is the most wonderful month of the year: you don’t hate school much yet, it’s getting crisp and cool finally, the deciduous trees are breaking out in colour, it smells amazing, it’s apple season! and and and so, so beautiful, and harvest moon and weather and perfect perfect perfect. (Yes this is influenced by the fact that I’ve lived in Boston, Massachusetts, USA for all of my life. What can I say? It’s beautiful up here.)(...Okay, and I now attend college in Salem, Massachusetts, the Halloween capital of the planet Earth, and I do enjoy the crazy and the free and the controversy and the awesome. Halloween has some of the richest mythos of any holiday. Also, FREE CANDY :DDDDD yes please~ ♥)

If your best friend forgave his or her partner for cheating and lying, would you try to forgive him or her too? Would you find it difficult to spend time with them as a couple?
I feel (and this may be outrageous, because I still struggle with this whole interpersonal people stuff) that it is my duty as a friend to be a small lion. I beat up the ex and console and make very bad jokes and help graffiti and burn in effigy and am a shoulder to cry on and someone to talk to, even if I’m usually not much help. If one of my friends’ partners hurt them I would rise up in indignation; if my friend forgave them I would support them in their decision but invest in a metal baseball bat just in case. I would indeed find it difficult to spend time with them as a couple and keep my sympathetic hostility under wraps; however, I would do my best to be open-minded.

If you could have one extraordinary talent, what would you choose and why?
Uh is this not exactly the same as the superpower thing? Jeez, people, try to be original once in a while. Knitting and crocheting and sewing and other textile-related things would be nice, to be able to design and make garments and such for myself and others, but that’s not really extraordinary; it’d be awesome if I could cook really well. Martial arts would be cool. Greater flexibility and strength and endurance go along with that. It’d also be nice to have less difficulty with everyday life. Less bizarre anxiety and depression would be great, really. Then maybe it wouldn’t be painful to even contemplate writing that fucking paper that’s the reason behind me doing this “writer’s block” shit, because it’s not writer’s block so much as a block between me and being a fucking human being but this is not the forum for that rant so yeah, hahaha, later. Ha. *sulk*

(...Because, because, I actually am kind of really awesomely smart and talented, but I can’t exercise this because there’s always that mental block, that fear and difficulty that makes it hard for me even to keep a diurnal schedule and feed myself. It’s so fucking stupid, but it’s....there, and I’m always struggling to get around it. Also, I think I did shit on my Bio lab practical exam because I was fucked up by withdrawal. Goddammit. Of all the classes to mess with, it has to be the one I have the least difficulty with. *headdesk*)

(A note.)

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:59:16 GMT

"...A certain sort of inevitability brought about not by some all-encompassing spider-woven tapestry of destiny but by the sort of simultaneous independent coincidences of ideological breakthrough along the lines of the separate developments of agriculture by early peoples, Darwin's and Wallace's formulations of evolution by natural selection, the invention of the telephone and other such examples, exacerbated by the accelerated dissemination of ideas enabled by broad and frequent cross-cultural contact, communication and trade."

(cliology would call them memes)

The above is what happens when I write things down as they form in my head. Perhaps a bit wordy and confusing, but smoothly (for me) conveying the concept I'm trying to get across. Unfortunately, I do not often enough get or take advantage of these opportunities, which becomes one of the sources of my difficulties in writing--when I remember what I want to say, but not how I can say it. It's kind of...maddening. *headdesk*

(Also, this icon is kind of really...pixelated. It's almost painful. I need to do something about that...)

is slow

Wed, 06 May 2009 22:06:35 GMT

⁽¹⁾

...So. Part of me probably knew that something like this was a possibility, but...despite my ability to separate canon fact from fanon fiction in my mind in order to safely wallow in the depths of ff.n, some of the popular theories and assumptions necessary for using his character in a story must have rubbed off on me: I expected his past to have featured some sort of revenge-quest-inspiring tragedy in Japan, rather than...this.

(In my defense, such tragedies feature often in the pasts of the manga's characters; also, given the situation of the world setting, there is a sharp increase in probability of those close to members of the Black Order--indeed, even completely unfortunate strangers like, say, cops investigating suspicious disappearances, passengers on a boat, nuns at an orphanage--meeting horrible horrible demises, and if the ones you love are dead and you know who's responsible, wouldn't you want to gear up and set off hell-bent on not coming back until you have their bloody decapitated head(s) in a burlap sack?⁽²⁾)

...Um...that terrifically convoluted paragraph just above is code for "I'm not one of those fans who are incapable of separating Kanda Yuu and Uchiha Sasuke (as two distinct characters from two distinct fandoms), I swear." Despite the timing of my falling into the D.Gray-fandom coinciding with my falling-out with the Naruto fandom, despite my incredible obliviousness and myopia when it comes to my own psyche, I am in fact aware and appreciative of the fact that D.Gray-man is not Naruto, never was never will be, and in fact is quite unlike my former fandom in...well, probably not every way, that would be unrealistic, but a lot of ways; as such, the characters are not the same set of people and should not be treated that way.⁽³⁾

For one thing, this fandom's pissy sword-happy Japanese prettyboy happens to be an artificially engineered soldier who constantly sees lotus blossoms that aren't really there.

...

That's right. Kanda is a pretty pretty test tube baby who hallucinates pretty pretty flowers.⁽⁴⁾

8D

Win~ ♥ ♥ ♥

Although really I'm just happy we got any information on him at all. It may be precious little, and incredibly vague and ambiguous to boot, but it's the most insight we've had into his character since...uhhh...frickin' Mateel, man. That was like a million years ago.⁽⁵⁾

See, I'm one of those people who aren't satisfied with their understanding of a story until they can crawl into each major character's head and live there, and Kanda has been giving me grief since day one. We know practically nothing about him--his motivations, his past, his goals--and this is compounded by the fact that he's the type of character that avoids other people and never talks about himself. For almost two hundred chapters, we didn't get even a single flashback, while Allen, Lenalee, Miranda and Krory were spilling themselves all over the place; hell, even Lavi, the closemouthed Bookman apprentice, got some time in the limelight (largely thanks to Road's attempt to dissect him). Kanda eats alone, trains alone, fights alone. That in itself has been an insight into his character, but for me it's not enough. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why he fought for the Order, why he placed so much importance into completing missions successfully. No matter which of the fannish theories I borrowed--ancient family curse, clan massacre, famine, pestilence, big family, small family, richer or poorer--none of them fit.

It's probably because most of us have been assuming that since he's Japanese, he grew up in Japan. In fact, given enough thought, it should've been clear that D.Gray-man's Japan is an Akuma-infested wasteland,⁽⁶⁾ and all the Asian cultural influences on the characters have been Chinese: the Asian Branch is in China, traditionally run by the Chang clan, and the casual (well, non-uniform) outfits we've seen Kanda wear have all been Chinese in style. Whether he was genetically engineered from the beginning or biologically enhanced at a young age, he must have been raised at or near the Asian Branch; the Order may be all he's ever known. Rather than an Accommodator randomly chosen by the Innocence, he was actually designed to be the perfect soldier. That's why he acts like he's trying to be one. Insert epiphany here.

Many others have probably figured this out already; despite my IQ and ability to memorise random facts, I'm ridiculously slow. It took my brain forever to connect the dots between Kanda's lotus and the rose from Beauty and the Beast. It took even longer--until the third reread of ZONE--for the connection between "Robin" as an Akuma with Julia's soul and Allen in chapter 36 with Mana's skull hovering above him. Also, chapter 186 was released on the 23rd of April, and I didn't read it until a couple days ago, and didn't reread it until today (I was hoping sleeping on it would help the implications sink in more). So, uh, if this isn't news to you, please for to disregard. I'm used to looking like an idiot.

Now I'm off to don the cape and mask of OCD-Creature and spend hours collecting and analysing everything we've ever learned about this elusive character...because that's what I do.⁽⁷⁾ *exeunt*

_{(1) I have decided, on a whim, to stop cluttering up my paragraphs with misuse of parenthetic comments. Now I will be abusing footnotes instead! *yay* As for whether or not this will be an improvement, well...time will tell. Onward!

(2) Well, maybe I'm assuming too much violence of the supposed "you." In the lens of a character in a Shakespearean tragedy shounen anime/manga, then.

(3) No matter how many fic there are on the Pit involving Kanda's whole family being murdered horribly when he was young--except for him, obviously--and he swore he won't die until he's taken revenge on whoever did it (usually the Earl)...!! Fangirls can be so original.

(4) Ostensibly, these flowers also tell him to set things on fire and kill people.

(5) (Okay, 170 chapters, same difference.)

(6) Heh, wonder what that says about Hoshino-sensei...

(7) Also, must needs to recalibrate some of the stories I spin to entertain myself when I'm bored, distracted, can't sleep, or...well...whenever I zone out, really. It would count as fanfiction if I ever wrote it down, but I never record any of the crap I've come up with in my head for any fandom, whether it be Inuyasha, Tokyo Mew Mew, Naruto, D.Gray-man, whatever. My reasons are a mishmash of low self-esteem, laziness, jealous possessiveness not really wanting to make them public (they're mine, dammit), and my ass-covering face-saving mantra of never-leave-a-paper-trail (or electronic trail, as the case may be): I've seen people so embarrassed by their past work that they have to forge an entirely new identity to get away from it, and know for a fact that despite my rapid growth I have been far too much of a n00b in the past--had I been posting all the stories I spin in my head up on fanfiction.net, you would see a rapid progression from ignorant American to wapanese wannabe to shameless pr0nner to experimenting RYFG to snobbish intellectual to my current standing, all interlaced with various grades of autistic tunnel vision and hasty retconning to cover up the varying levels of shame. My one serious project on FF.N (a) went nowhere (b) was completely rewritten (c) was then relentlessly revised and edited over and over again until it was abandoned.⁽⁸⁾

(8) ...Okay, that was a long-ass footnote. *headdesk* Must...contain...verbal...diarrhea...!! Why does my brain have no shut-off valve? *laments*}

synonymous but not equal

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:56:30 GMT

Is it just me, or was NASA's move to name Node 3 "Tranquility" instead of "Colbert" or "Serenity" a total cop-out?

I can understand their logic in not using Colbert, if I squint and try to fit into a hyper-publicity-conscious headspace. I can even understand not using Serenity, and instead picking from the other top names (excluding, of course, the bot-flooded suggestions like Socialvibe and Myyearbook). But choosing a substitute that means the exact same thing as one of the top three winners in the opinion poll? That's just adding insult to injury.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/name_ISS/index.html

All that talk about democracy and populist votes. If they weren't going to pick the names that the people want, why put up an opinion poll at all?

(A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE TOP CONTENDERS AND WHY "SERENITY" BEATS "TRANQUILITY" ANY DAY)

When the dust cleared, more than a million votes had been submitted. 1,190,437, to be exact. Of the four options provided by NASA--which, ostensibly, had been slaved over by the finest PR minds the nation can offer--EARTHRISE garnered 9% of the vote; LEGACY had 13%; SERENITY had the uncontested lead with 70%; and VENTURE brought up the rear with 8%.

"EARTHRISE" is pretty, but clunky. "LEGACY" is nice, but this is a space toilet we're talking about; I don't know about you, but when I think of what I want my legacy to be, I don't think of a urine recycling system. "VENTURE" is great and all, but doesn't go quite as well with Nodes 1 and 2, UNITY and HARMONY. "SERENITY," on the other hand, both blends well and caters to a section of the space-happy sci-fi fandom (and if you don't know what section that is, GET THEE TO WIKIPEDIA).

Of the suggested names: COLBERT led the pack (230,000 votes, according to experts, which is 40,000 more than SERENITY), with MYYEARBOOK, GAIA, XENU, SOCIALVIBE, BUDDY, UBUNTU, TRANQUILITY, SYNERGY and VISION rounding out the top ten. (Past contenders include VISTA, HORIZON, HOPE, PEACE, ENTERPRISE, and SUNSHINE; Vista and Enterprise were doomed from the start, I think, Enterprise because there's already been something named after it and...well...we all know why "Vista" was a bad idea.)

Let's get this out of the way before anything else is said: "MYYEARBOOK" and "SOCIALVIBE" are obviously automated votes from bots for some two-bit social networking sites sad about the fact that they aren't as popular as MySpace and Facebook. For all NASA's shiny technology, its anti-spam security sure is shoddy. "GAIA" and "UBUNTU" might also be bots, but there's a chance that instead of forum-crawlers and brainwashed minions of the Linux penguin cult ~~(ALL HAIL THE PENGUIN OVERLORDS)~~ they're just New-Agey Earth-lovers and Nelson Mandela fans.

"XENU" is, of course, the infamous evil alien overlord of the cult of Scientology, who (I think I'm getting this right) persecuted other aliens, flew them to Earth, dropped them in a volcano and hydrogen-bombed them...and their tortured ghosts are the reason why cousin Susie cuts herself in the girls' bathroom between classes. "BUDDY" is representative of everyone who ever wanted a space puppy; "TRANQUILITY" and "SYNERGY" are SAT-word versions of "SERENITY" and "UNITY." As in, someone went to thesaurus.com for ideas. *lame*

I would've liked SERENITY, or COLBERT, or even XENU or BUDDY or UBUNTU or EARTHRISE. I would've been okay with LEGACY or VENTURE or GAIA or VISION. Hell, I wouldn't even have minded SYNERGY. But dangling a democratic vote in front of us, pretending to consider using the people's choice, and then tossing even second-best out the window and going for some completely random Jonas Quinn? I'd advise against wounding the geek populace: they are unmatched in terms of viciously passive-aggressive grudges held above and beyond the call of duty.

And now, a short, pointless and entirely uncomprehensive list of the reasons why "TRANQUILITY" is inferior to "SERENITY":

(1) "Tranquility" does not cater to the fans. Fans and geeks, and fan-geeks and geek-fans, rather appreciate being catered to.
(2) 'S' comes before 'T' in the alphabet! I rest my case.
(3) "Serenity" implies a sort of humanity; you hear about "tranquil ponds" and "serene smiles," but not so much vice versa. Serenity generally retains the air of life; tranquillity feels more alien, inanimate, chemical. Forced.
(4) Take, for instance, valium, or tranquilliser darts. Firearms, drugs and restraints tend to evoke more alarm than peace and calm.
(5) Even the American Heritage Dictionary agrees with me!: "Serenity" is generally defined as a lack of stress and anxiety; "tranquility," on the other hand, involves a lot of still and undisturbed quiet. Sounds more like a dead person to me than something soothing to think of while you use the toilet and look out on the Earth...but that's just my opinion.
(6) Not to mention that no matter which way you look at it, the number of votes for "Serenity" had to be vastly greater than however many suggestions for "Tranquility" they received. As in, probably twice as many or more.
(7) Last but not least: IT'S UGLY, BITCH. "Tranquility" is just too big and clunky and unattractive, unlike the simple classical elegance of "Serenity." "Tranquility" tries too hard; do you really need a 'Q' to feel good about yourself? And why does it have one less 'L' in America anyway? I know we drop 'U's a lot, and switch some of those high-maintenance 'C's out for cheaper 'S's (and are then forced to patch up the words we took those cheaper consonants from with whatever wild 'Z's we can round up), but are we really so broke we can't even afford the extra 'L'? I mean, Christ, they're part of the 'L-M-N-O-P' bargain package at Wal-Mart, it's not like we have to import them from France.

*may have gotten a little carried away with that metaphor*

Were I to put a clumsy analogy on it, I'd ask how the American public would have reacted if, after the 2000 elections, Congress had sent a pretty marathoner onto a talk show to propose that the new president be--not Bush, nor Gore--but Nader.

Nader.

feels the need to geek

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:08:49 GMT

*having read the Mar. 28 issue of Science News*

DAHAHAHAHA I knew it, I knew it, I knew all those diets and low-calorie and low-fat and low-sugar crap was ridiculous bullshit, SKIM MILK CAUSES CANCER.

(...Well, not exactly, it's that animals aren't meant to be lactose-tolerant after infancy and although most people have evolved tolerance (or invented anti-lactose-intolerance stuff), it's still not quite natural, especially since it's cow's milk we drink; the stew of hormones in milk (while it varies depending on the cow's trimester) has been linked to heightened risk of cancer (mostly prostate, and also breast and ovarian cancers), especially the estrogen (and the androgens only make things worse), which is perfectly fine when our own bodies are producing it but when random outside hormones come into the equation? Things go a bit haywire. The hormones provoke or speed up cell division, causing greater risk of tumours, and feeding cancerous tissue. 2% milk has more hormones than whole milk, skim milk has more hormones than 2%, and buttermilk is off the freaking charts (which is a shame, because it's used in making some of my favourite foods). A + B = Cancer.)

(Although it has to be said that it's not that much greater risk, less than double, and everyone has individually varying risks for cancer so it really depends on the person, and like all science there are a shit-ton of variables and new discoveries are disproving old theories each year and even in the 21st century we know so little about cancer and the processes involved, but still, I have more reason now to complain about skim milk than just because it's disgusting and it's a single drop of milk in like a bucket of water! I've always sneered at all that low-fat low-sugar low-sodium low-calorie bullshit, and whenever I see someone with some spiked energy drink I get pissed because (a) there's like cocaine in those things and (b) calories, or, more properly, "kilocalories" (they probably took off the kilo- because they thought it would scare people) are UNITS OF ENERGY YOU IMBECILES why the hell do you think the "energy drink" industry is making such a profit now?!? And people go, "Oh, but I'm so fat, I need to lose weight ~~and besides I like the high I get from all those chemicals~~" but why are you fat? Because you sit on your ass all day long.

... *coughs* Uh, sorry about that, pet peeve.)

One of the scientists quoted in the article concludes that, well, apart from growing kids and adults with nutrition issues, nobody really needs milk anyway. Of course, in my case, there's no way in hell I'm giving up dairy; it's the same argument I give people who ask if I'll ever go vegan--having never really eaten much meat even before I went veggie, I need as much protein as I can get, nevermind the calcium and vitamin D, and anyway God clearly intended us to enjoy ice cream the way it was meant to be: rich and creamy. I won't touch that soy and rice stuff. I like my ice cream to taste like cow.

(Also, giving up chocolate and cheese and sour cream and cream cheese and butter and yoghurt and whipped cream and pizza and fried mozzarella sticks and grated cheese on pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches and rich hot chocolate and milkshakes/frappes and pancakes and waffles and doughnuts and the deliciousness of melted Muenster on my crackers? HELL TO THE NO.)

*clears throat; I hadn't realised how much I love dairy...* In other news:

a sixty-first moon has been found for Saturn (damn, that's a lot of satellites)
black holes do obey math after all
"Give that dino a hand:" T.rexes' arms really were that useless
"Honey, They Unshrunk the Fish" *dies laughing*: y'know how overfishing has encouraged fish to evolve smaller? we can fix that--but it'll take time
the same proteins that cause mad cow disease may also cause Alzheimer's
prescription antacids mess with heart patients' blood-thinners
some chemo drugs can actually make brain cancer worse (remember what I said about how we don't know shit about cancer?)
autism and gastrointestinal problems are somehow linked (wtf?)
really bored scientists have discovered that some printer inks smudge because they're too "gloopy"
they found a 1.5 million-year-old human footprint in east Africa
5000 years ago people in Central Asia were milking horses (why are there so many cow- and milk-related articles in this issue?)
grade-school kids who switch virtual genders in online games still act like the boys and girls they are IRL
(cover article) cells communicate through teeny-tiny tubes, analogous to telephone wires, and HIV and other diseases take advantage of that to spread infection
(major article) archaeologists are still fighting a losing battle against looting and black-market eBay sales of ancient goodies
(major article) physicists are working on bending light backwards so that they can invent an Invisibility Cloak (and also so they can see the hidden light waves inbetween microwaves and infrared)
more hate mail ♥ (I think the bitchy letters sent to Science News and National Geographic are hilarious)

Scientists make such dorky puns. ♥

(Also: why the hell is Twitter asking for my email password? I'm proud to say that I've never been hacked, and I don't plan on that changing anytime soon...)

fun tiems with memes

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:16:55 GMT

From dayadhvam_triad :
"Comment with OOOOO PICK ME! and a fandom and I'll give you a character. You post answers to the questions under the cut. OK? OK."
I have been assigned Kanda Yuu of D.Gray-man.

1. Do you like this character?
Um, yes? He ties with Road Camelot as my second-favorite D.Gray-character. (The first is Allen Walker; third gets rather muddled with General Cross Marian and Tyki Mikk and Lavi and Lenalee Lee and Inspector Howard Link and the Millennium Earl all vying for position and by the time I try for fourth I don't know which way is up...) He hits up some of my favorite characteristics--bitchy, trigger-happy, ummm, pissy, vicious, cold, carries a weapon, blunt, pretty, blatant fanservice, fun to mock...actually, most of those are different ways of saying the same thing... [[EDIT: How could I have forgotten his potty mouth? He swears more than I do. ♥ ]]

2. What name/names do you call this character?
Um? In the past, Bitchyface, um..."Kanda." Prettyboy. Ponytail. Token Samurai. Actually, I made that last one up.

3. What image-colour do you associate with this character?
Um. *squints hard* I tend not to do stuff like "associating colours" with characters, but...black? dark blue? blood red? forest green? hot pink for the lulz?

4. What image-song do you associate with this character?
...Song? People do stuff like that? Wait, I guess they do. OSTs and FSTs and all. Gah, I have no idea. Kanda's the one main character we haven't really gotten to know--Walker chicklets Miranda Lotto and Arystar Krory have more background than him, and they're not even in the Fab Four. We barely know anything of his character or backstory, which is one reason fanfic portrayals of him range so widely in character. (Of course, the other eight-hundred-and-ninety-two reasons are that FanFiction.Net is where good writing goes to die, and a great deal of fantards seem to have selective memory when working from canon and total amnesia when writing AUs.) Also, I am a pop culture n00b--or of any culture at all, really--and completely fail at having appropriate music like that.

Unless you want me to pick a Rurutia song for him, in which case, let's have a go! Um, "ELEMENTS" from R° (track 01) seems most suited, followed by "GOLA" from Promised Land (track 09) and "ABINTRA" from Chorion (track 01). [mE] [mG] [mA] "PAVANE" from Water Forest (track 01) and "HALLELUJAH" also from Promised Land (track 01...wait, I'm sensing a pattern here...beginning tracks of all four albums? if I were superstitious I'd be climbing a tree right now) aren't that bad either. [mP] [mH] The Meme album proves entirely useless, and Seirios isn't translated enough yet--and seems to have an entirely different tone and songwriting style besides. They all might be a bit too girly though...I dunno.

[[EDIT eight months later (what is wrong with me indeed): I've been turning it over in my head and decided a long time ago that ELEMENTS fits him very well if at all (the bit about a shepherd coming, brandishing a sword and ripping through the silence and laughing all the way (ha ha ha), well, it works); for some reason I've latched onto Cross, actually, for PAVANE, and ABINTRA was always a general theme for the entire series. (Also, Seirios? NASA. *hee*) Thinking about it now, HALLELUJAH sounds more like the Noah to me; GOLA...can't think of anything at the moment, but in light of the more recent revelations about Kanda's character I do think that of all the songs I mentioned ELEMENTS is the best. It's also the first track on the first album, and I'll always associate the music with that one YouTube video of high-speed neon car racing...]]

5. What blood-type do you think this character is?
Well, I could tell you for certain...but then I'd have to get up out of the comfy chair, leave my heating pad, climb two flights of winding stairs, clamber over my bed (my room looks like something exploded in it, seriously), grab the tankoubon, and make my way back...only to discover that I have the wrong volume, because my life just works like that. (The Three Cardinal Laws of my life: there was but one true prophet; his name was Murphy; and he was an incurable optimist.) I'd guess he's an O or maybe an AB, though science has proven ketsueki-gata to be about as credible as astrology...I'd totally die laughing if Kanda's a B. *screw it, I'm going to go check the books* Nope, he's AB. *feels special for having guessed something so patently obvious as to be self-evident*

6. Of all of the titles that this character appears in, what character do you like to put this character with?
I'm assuming by "titles" you mean "pairings"/"ships"? I could tell you the most commonly found sooner than I could tell you my personal choice. o_o Um, seriously, the only canonish pairings that have rushed in and struck me over the head with a brick labelled "SHIP" are RoadAllen, LaviLena, KroryEliade (Kroriade?) and NoiseMiranda (Marienda?). And of course Lenalee's head over heels for Allen, and they're obviously going to wind up together eventually, and Cross' habit of hitting on Klaud may or may not be significant, and sometimes something pings me with a tiny "Leecest!" (but I'm good at ignoring things like that)...but for Kanda? Not a peep. He has beef with Allen, history with Lavi and Lenalee, works well with Noise, and doesn't appear to give a fuck about anyone else except his mysterious "person" (whom he may love, hate, have promised someone else he would find for them, hell it could be some random dude who owes him money, I have no fucking clue).

Of course, crack is another story. D_T aptly suggested MugenKanda, which actually makes more sense than most other popular Kandaships if only because hey, it's his ~~innocence~~ sword, and he does appear to enjoy using it...moving on from the innuendo, though, there's always the cracky gay triad bubbling in the Pit involving various permutations of him, Allen and Lavi.

7. What would you want to say to this character?
Uhhh... Okay, um, to be frank, I may coo and wibble and mock and belittle Kanda and other characters like him, but if I actually met the guy live and in person? I would be very very quiet and very very respectful and trying very very hard not to piss him off. I'd like to live past adolescence and the hormonal stage, thank you very much.

8. Which do you want to do with this character: Shake hands, hug or kiss?
Again, Kanda? Really? I probably wouldn't even touch him for fear of getting my hands (or other important body parts, like, say, a leg...or head) chopped off. What little sense of self-preservation I have tells me that I'm better off not glomping someone who looks like they'd rather kill me than engage in prolonged nonviolent physical contact. Again, I still don't have a firm handle on Kanda's character, but no way in hell would I push my luck on a chance like that.

BTW, I hate hate hate this horrid pastel theme for my page and I've hated it ever since ten seconds after putting it up (much like that disgusting red-and-black thing that was up before, tasted too much like emo vampires) but I'm too fucking lazy to redo all the work it takes to switch themes without losing my settings but OH MY GOD IT FEELS LIKE THE INTERNET IS VOMITING EASTER INTO MY FAAACE [/dramaqueen]

[d'awww]

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 02:44:09 GMT

Found: On top of the recycle...bin...thingy on the Common just outside of Park Street Station, around 2:15 PM Friday: a composition notebook, organic cardboard brown with faded forest green binding, and

"
LINED
______
______
______
"

printed on the lower left and

"
(wavy logo thing)
environotes®
RECYCLED COMP BOOK
---------80 SHEETS---------
"

printed on the lower right; at the upper right corner, "Haben" written large in purple thick-tip Sharpie (at least, I think it's Sharpie), and, below, "HW · Notices".

On the back, in the upper left corner, "MADE IN U.S.A."; below, a bar code, with the numbers "0 - 70972 77270 - 0"; below that, a little version of the American flag, borderless, with gray stripes and, instead of the fifty stars, the triangular recycling symbol on a black background, with the words "AMERICAN" and "RECYCLED" above and below, respectively. In the centre, a mid-sized logo of the Earth (spec. Western Hemisphere) with a scroll containing the word "SUSTAINABILITY" draped across it, and a small "®" tucked in the lower right; below that:

"
Sus-tain-able
1: capable of being sustained
2a: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource
so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged
2b: of, or relating to, a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods
"

At the bottom:

"
ROARING SPRING® [ * ] PAPER PRODUCTS
ROARING SPRING, PA 16673
[recycling symbol]RECYCLED COMP BOOK[recycling symbol]
Contains a Minimum of 30% Post-Consumer Waste
_____________________________________
9 3/4" x 7 1/2 80 Sheets College Ruled
"
(*=a larger version of the wavy logo thing)

Inside is fairly standard comp book format, on the inside front cover spaces to write name, address, school, class schedule, etc., and on the inside back cover "Useful information" i.e. conversion and multiplication tables.

It would have been much easier to find the kid who lost this if he had put his name and address or school in the spaces provided; as it is, there are homework assignments dating from September 9th of last year all the way up to last Thursday, but he never wrote the names of his school or any of his teachers anywhere--didn't even write his full name anywhere easily visible; the only clue I had was that, thankfully, his fifth-grade class had to write down their ancestry as part of a homework assignment, and so a few pages in he recorded the names, birthdates, and birthplaces of himself, his parents, two grandparents, and two great-grandparents. I Googled my fingers off searching the phone book, immigration records, and, finally, in a last-ditch effort to return the thing, his last name and the words "Boston" and "school": the second page of that search turned up back records of the Beacon Hill Times (a short and somewhat boring weekly newspaper focused on my neighbourhood) that featured a 2006 article on how the 3rd and 6th grades of the school associated with my childhood church had engaged in a community-service art project involving that shiny new version of the Charles/MGH Red Line station (dammit but I miss that pedestrian bridge; despite the addition of more traffic lights and a sidewalk island, Charles Circle remains one of the most insanely dangerous intersections in this city, especially when trying to get to the T).

(Me being me, I've impulsively decided that this is an omen indicating that Anglicanism is my one true religious calling, and ~~the Catholic church can kiss my ass~~ therefore I should probably think about going to church every other Sunday or so...or at least on special occasions...the Church of the Advent really is a nice place, all old and historic and chock full of nice people with even better food...mmm, Coffee Hour...)

So, will nip down to the school on ~~Monday~~ EDIT: Tuesday (forgot about MLK Day) and inquire as to whether the kid still attends there, and if not how I could get in touch with his school and/or his parents, or something. 'Cause my fifth-grade experience may have been rougher than most, but it really would've sucked had I lost my homework book right before the end of the first semester.

[always been a winter person]

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:39:35 GMT

Found: on the ice and snow outside the Roxbury Crossing Orange Line train station in Roxbury (duh); last night, after night school, around 9:25 PM. Loosely scattered rose petals, mostly the traditional blood-red, but a few cream edged with a blush of...uh...my childhood crayon memories are telling me carnation pink? (Though, considering how often carnations are dyed, I'm not sure how reliable that is...)

I picked up as many as I could without wasting too much time--I always try to catch the 9:25 train to Oak Grove so I can get home by ten--and proceeded into the station; it was a cold, crisp, clear night, the moon just shy of full, and there were just enough clouds in the sky that every now and then one drifted past and filtered the light so that the moon was surrounded by a watery greenish halo of blurred shine, encircled by a deep, rich, burnished bronze-copper ring. The petals were frozen stiff, some stuck to each other, and a few beads of ice frozen from where drops of water had once been. They defrosted a bit on the way to Downtown Crossing; the wind took one of the cream petals on Winter Street walking home. The silly romantic side of me imagined that perhaps someone's heart was broken that night, and the drops were her tears or something cheesy like that; it was probably from a shipment or decorative arrangement, but hey, what's imagination for if not making shit up?

Last night was beautiful. Tonight was probably even more so (I didn't take the opportunity to go out and see it), being a full moon and all. But last night, walking home, it was just me and the wind and the moon and the frozen rose petals, and although it was quite chilly I didn't feel the cold at all, and it was just so beautiful.

I have this weird sort of...spirituality? that flows through my default bipolar mix of embedded childhood Anglicanism/Catholicism and instinctual scientific cynicism/atheism, and guides a lot of my motivation. Sort of a Wicca/nature thing, like everything has meaning and significance and purpose, that if something means something to someone then it's important, that things happen for a reason; not that some omnipotent masculine godlike figure guides all of existence and has a Plan, but like nature and luck and fate (and Murphy's Law). The smallest pebble by the curb, the fluffy seed pod floating by, the lost glove on the street, the sky and the moon and the earth and the ocean and other such hippie crap. Old things. Growing things. Lost things. Stories. Everything has a story, and it deserves to be told. Because the meaning of life is different for everybody, life is what you make of it, and we are constantly surrounded by little surprises, details that most people miss while rushing past in their busy, frenetic day-to-day lives. Like the world has a soul, and a million things to show and tell you if you just take a second to watch, and listen. (And I know that sounds really rich coming from someone with the attention span of a two-year-old on speed, but.)

If I could spend my life just communing or meditating or zoning or whatever with the world around me, things would be so much easier; our society and constructed ways for how we must get from point A to point B are so insanely complicated, but the wind always feels like an old friend caressing my skin, and the full moon is mesmerizing, and I'm constantly finding small joys everywhere in what people and nature have left behind, which usually results in me picking weird shit up off the ground, the sidewalk or the floor or the street, and taking it home. I'm quite accustomed to people looking at me funny: everyone has their own distinct "WTF" face, and in the past I've had far too much fun provoking them.

Stats: filters yay!!11oneone1

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:28:52 GMT

First off: a while back, can't quite remember when, I went around to all the sections that had hit my list and checked for character filters. I distinctly remember Pokemon not having one while a less likely section was more fortunate; alas, I lost the records, so I went around to all 43 sections and checked again. Every single one, and D.Gray-man, has been bedecked with a nice shiny new filter, except for the following: of the Final Fantasy titles, only the contributors in the thousands (I-VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, XII) benefited, while the crumbs of the fandom (XIII, Versus XIII, Crystal Chronicles, Tactics, Tactics Advance, Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift) went without; of the Star Trek titles, curiously enough, all but the "Others" section had the filter--I guess the Trekkies have a solid enough foundation (or at least enough infamy) to merit closer attention; and, of course, the Wrestling section, because either nobody wants to deal with that or there are simply too many performers to keep straight.

But the more important part of the news is that D.Gray has character filters. *suppressed squee*

-65 (apparently a popular character, by the rankings; the science team's robot sidekick)
-Alestina (probably dead exorcist)
-Allen (Walker; protagonist whut ♥)
-Andrew (probably dead exorcist)
-Bak (Chang; Asian chief)
-Bookman (little old objective dude)
-Buzz (I think he's that grieving Finder Kanda was strangling in the 2nd(?) tankoubon, the one Allen intervened to save)
-Chakar (probably dead exorcist)
-Chaoji (exorcist trainee from Anita's ship)
-Cross (Marian; drama queen general dude, Allen's trainer ♥)
-Daisya (Kanda's dead teammate)
-Fo (weird Asian statue/wall/robot/spirit/thing)
-Froi (Tiedoll; Kanda's general trainer)
-Gwen (probably dead exorcist)
-Hevlaska (creepy tentacle-monster! ♥)
-Jasdevi (twin hermaphrodite Noah)
-Jerry (flaming Black Order cook)
-Johnny (poor guy never catches a break)
-Kanda (Yuu: the pissy one ♥)
-Kazana (probably dead exorcist)
-Kevin (probably dead exorcist)
-Klaud (9; really hot general with boots and whip and monkey!Innocence ♥)
-Komui (Lee; the brother with a complex)
-Krory (Alystar: emo vampire; does not sparkle)
-Lavi (magical girl ♥)
-Lenalee (Lee; *wibbles* ♥)
-Lero (whiny umbrella that occasionally turns into a ginormous honking sword/claymore/whatever)
-Li (probably one of Lou Fa's science teammates)
-Lo (Fa; Allen's one true fangirl)
-Louis (can't remember whether he's dead or not, can't be bothered to look)
-Lulubell (bizarre emotionless "Lust" shapeshifter Noah)
-Mana (Walker; LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER.)
-Millennium Earl (honestly some scary shit... ♥)
-Miranda (Lotto; emo clock exorcist ♥)
-Noise (Marie; Kanda's blind undead teammate)
-Reever (Wennham (or was it Wenhamm?); Komui's babysitter/sidekick)
-Renny (if that's how Hoshino spells the North American Section Chief chick's name...)
-Road (Camelot; made of win ♥ ♥ ♥)
-Sammo (who?)
-Sheryl (that new Noah, I think)
-Shifu (who? someone from the Asian branch, at least)
-Skin (Noah with anger management problems, sufficient excuse for prettyboy fanservice)
-Sol (probably dead exorcist)
-Suman (Dark; indirectly got Allen killed, directly got 95% of the Order killed (thanks, dude))
-Tapp (science type; the source of everyone's emo nowadays)
-The Ghost (possessed Lenalee, had a really awkward lisp, turned everyone into zombies for the lulz ♥)
-Timcanpy (shiny thing, apparently indestructible)
-Timothy (random new character! 8DDD)
-Tina (definitely dead exorcist chick)
-Toma (Allen's first Finder (d'awww))
-Tyki (Mikk; card shark with style ♥)
-Winters (Sokalo; or at least that's one of the spellings...dude w/the iron mask and the S&M tendencies)

Half these people are faceless names who were all dead by the fourth tankoubon, and they forget to put in Anita-san?! Blasphemy! Oh well. This is ff.n, after all. Are people even paid to do stuff like this? Watch the whole thing be run by temps in their spare time when they're not in the sweatshops in some Southeast Asian country making sneakers. It would certainly explain a lot.

I probably shouldn't play with the filters until I'm sure everyone's been using them. So I'll keep to the usual for the D.Cute-section:

/10/0/x/1/0/0/0/0/0/1/
Total English (code 1): 3685s (148p)
Spanish (code 2): 438s (18p)
French (code 3): 149s (6p)
Portuguese (code 8): 92s (4p)
German (code 4): 1s (lengthy Kanda and romance with no other specifics; self-insertion?)
Russian (code 10): 1s (either KandaAllen or gen, no clue which)
Italian (code 11): 6s (three possible genfic, two KandaAllens and an Allenalee)
Swedish (code 17): 2s (a Tsubasa crossover and a Halloween-themed genfic)
Polish (code 13): 3s (two KandaAllens and maybe Kandalee)
Indonesian (code 32): 15s (five LaviAllens (one of them a Death Note crossover), four gen, two KandaAllen, one combo Lavi/KandaAllen, one LaviOC, one gratuitous combo Tyki/Lavi/KandaAllen, one GetBackers crossover with random canon/OC ship)
Finnish (code 20): 4s (two KandaAllens, a LaviAllen, and a TykiAllen)
Catalan (code 34): 1s (LaviLena)

NUMBERS: The top three languages doubled again; the Portuguese asploded and tripled; Italian doubled, Polish tripled, Swedish and Finnish sat placidly, none of those numbers matter because they're so tiny, and the heavens opened up and gave way for a great wave of Indonesian fic that is now more than five times what it was in July; and we have three new languages!: German, Russian, and Catalan, each with one seed story.

SHIP: There is pr0n, and it is gay. Definite resurgence in LaviAllen among the obscurer languages: it's challenging KandaAllen, or, by its RYFG name, "Yullen," for Ship of the Year. Also, Lenalee has a fun name.

~Close-up on English archive ('*' = newer genre)~

/10/x/1/1/0/0/0/0/0/1/
Total Adventure (code 6): 266s (11p)
Angst (code 10): 562s (23p)
*Crime (code 18): 6s
Drama (code 4): 480s (20p)
*Family (code 19): 100s (4p)
Fantasy (code 14): 65s (3p)
*Friendship (code 21): 210s (9p)
General (code 1): 1156s (47p)
Horror (code 8): 93s (4p)
Humor (code 3): 1009s (41p)
*Hurt/Comfort (code 20): 244s (10p)
Mystery (code 7): 54s (3p)
Parody (code 9): 57s (3p)
Poetry (code 5): 64s (3p)
Romance (code 2): 1809s (73p)
Sci-Fi (code 13): 3s ♥
Spiritual (code 15): 29s (2p)
Supernatural (code 11): 85s (4p)
Suspense (code 12): 44s (2p)
Tragedy (code 16): 138s (6p)
*Western (code 17): 0 ~~(T_T)~~

NUMBERS: Everything is growing splendidly at the expected rate. There's three lovely lovely sci-fi (all KandaAllen, unsurprisingly enough), although no Western yet. Goddammit, where did I put the Whedonfan catnip?

*suddenly feels compelled to sort it*

Western - 0
Sci-Fi - 3
Crime - 6
Spiritual - 29
Suspense - 44
Mystery - 54
Parody - 57
Poetry - 64
Fantasy - 65
Supernatural - 85
Horror - 93
Family - 100
Tragedy - 138
Friendship - 210
Hurt/Comfort - 244
Adventure - 266
Drama - 480
Angst - 562
Humor - 1009
General - 1156
Romance - 1809

(*shifty eyes* I may or may not have been driven to graph this early morning after New Year's Day. *when god was handing out attention spans I was off chasing butterflies* The hypothetical pretty columns allegedly could designate rankings: CHAMPION, at ginormous size, is Romance (sex sells, especially in an RYFG market); HEAVYWEIGHTS, about half that but still towering over the competition, are General (lazy bums) and Humor; MIDDLEWEIGHTS, half their superiors' size, are Angst and Drama; LIGHTWEIGHTS, half that and struggling to hold any sort of height, are Adventure, Hurt/Comfort (big surprise there), Friendship (actual surprise there, hurrah for gen) and Tragedy; FEATHERWEIGHTS, cowering tiny against the independent axis--alleged! alleged axis!--are Family (w00t gen), Horror, Supernatural, Fantasy, Poetry, Parody, Mystery, Suspense and Spiritual; and the EENSIES, not even registering at the hypothetical 125-stories-per-line scale, are Crime, Sci-Fi, and the poor neglected Western. (Seriously, people.))

SHIP: *points to Romance category, taking up almost half of the whole freaking archive--fic is, first and foremost, for ship* ~~(Too far past bedtime to be profound and thorough. Grarrrgh.)~~

/x/0/1/1/0/0/0/0/0/1/
Rated K (code 1): 375s (15p)
K+ (code 12): 751s (31p)
T (code 13): 2022s (81p)
M (code 14): 538s (22p)

NUMBERS: K- or G-rating hasn't grown much; K+ or PG is half again as big as it was in July; T or PG-13 has almost doubled; M or R has doubled.

SHIP: The pr0n! It's aliiive!! (also, there are some fics in the K filter that make me wonder about some people's concept of "G rating")

/10/0/1/1/0/0/0/x/0/1/
Completed (code 2): 2073s (83p)
In-progress (code 1): 1612s (65p)

NUMBERS: ...Yup, still pretty much the same, just half again as bigger. *suddenly wants baked apples for no reason*

SHIP: Durrr, pr0n? PWP is probably behind door #2, epic romances door #1, Judy's bad sleeping habits on the windowsill...

/10/0/1/1/x/0/0/0/0/1/
under 1K words ("the drabblets"): 930s (38p)
1K-5K ("the shortfic"): 1714s (69p)
5K-10K ("the shorter stories"): 485s (20p)
10K-20K ("the short stories"): 310s (13p)
20K-40K ("the mininovels"): 154s (7p)
40K-60K ("the novels"): 47s (2p)
60K-100K ("the double novels"): 34s (2p)
100K or more (code 100) ("the epics"): 22s

NUMBERS: Shortfic rule over all, followed by half as many drabblets and then shorter stories, short stories, and mininovels; there are two pages of novels, a little over a page of double-novels, and a whole page of epics. Impressive. Everything has pretty much doubled. I think I might start officially reviewing the longer ones soon... (Note: total count was 4415 when I did this section, not quite enough to skew the overall stats, but it's been over 24 hours, so.)

SHIP: (I can't feel my left hand and can't really move my right. Damn temperature.) There are only six of the epics without "Romance" in their genre, and, of those six , one is KandaAllen, one is Allenalee with lots of secondary canon/OC pairings, one is questionable, one is that odd "Smirking Shadow" Allen-centric thing that I'm pretty sure was written by a guy (it's been awhile, though, and I'm tired, so I may be wrong), and two are Mana and Bookman, some classic speculative gen backstory fic. Of the other sixteen stories...let's see, a whole lot of KandaAllen, a few Allenalee, two definite LaviKanda, and...uh...TykiKanda? Huh. I think that one's a first.

/10/0/1/x/0/0/0/0/0/1/
sort by: update (code 1) OR publish (code 2)

Overall, I heart this fandom and need to get back to trolling it before it gets too big for me to devour (if it hasn't already), and there are always the little moments when you find something so well-written that it hits you right there in the pit of your stomach, and it makes everything worth it. Viva fandom.

I can never stay away from statistics for very long...

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:27:56 GMT

...The graphs are just so pretty. Also, I have this crippling need-to-know complex. And ADD. And...yeah, you know the deal.

Heavy Hitters (10K+ stories)

Top Eleven (30K+)
01) B Harry Potter - 383,928
02) A Naruto - 174,684
03) A Inuyasha - 84,230
04) B Twilight (*shudder*) - 53.3K
05) G total Final Fantasy titles - 52.6K
06) A Yu-Gi-Oh! - 46.5K
07) B Lord of the Rings - 41.6K
08) A G Gundam Wing/AC [ties with] Kingdom Hearts - 39.4K
09) T Buffy: The Vampire Slayer - 33.6K
10) A Digimon - 30.9K
11) A Dragon Ball Z - 30.0K

Middle Ten (20K-30K)
12) A Sailor Moon - 28.2K
13) A Fullmetal Alchemist - 25.1K
14) G Final Fantasy VII - 24.9K
15) G Pokemon - 22.9K
16) Ca Teen Titans - 22.7K
17) T CSI - 22.3K
18) A Card Captor Sakura - 22.2K
19) A Bleach - 22.0K
20) A Yu Yu Hakusho - 21.9K
21) Mo Star Wars - 20.75K

Lower Twenty (10K-20K)
22) T Supernatural - 19.8K
23) T Stargate: SG-1- 19.7K
24) Ca Avatar: The Last Airbender - 18.4K
25) A Beyblade - 18.1K
26) Mo Pirates of the Caribbean - 17.1K
27) Mi Wrestling - 15.9K
28) A Rurouni Kenshin - 15.5K
29) Mo High School Musical - 15.2K
30) A Fruits Basket - 14.5K
31) T Gilmore Girls - 14.2K
32) T Doctor Who - 13.9K
33) T total Star Trek titles - 13.8K
34) A Prince of Tennis - 13.7K
35) G T Sonic the Hedgehog [ties with] Stargate: Atlantis - 13.1K
36) G Legend of Zelda - 12.9K
37) A Death Note - 12.8K
38) T House, M.D. - 12.4K
39) Ca X-Men: Evolution - 12.0K
40) G Final Fantasy VIII - 11.4K
41) T Charmed - 10.5K

It's been...uh...six months since the last check. This time, can't remember why, used decimals on the grand...oh well, it'll just complicate the comparison algorithm a little...~~although I just remembered that I've always hated subtracting. Damn sneaky numbers, always borrowing without asking first!...~~But yes! to the numbers: HP went up 21K, Naruto 25.5K, IY 3K. Roughly the same trends as always: Inuyasha fandom is in long-term cooling, Potterdom is still rolling along at the pace its sheer size requires, and the Narutards are still trying their darndest to cream Harry's British clock with a teeny-tiny (but very enthusiastic) Rasengan. Meanwhile, KH, FF7, Pokemon, Bleach, Supernatural, Stargate: SG-1, Avatar, Wrestling (god part of me still can't believe that section exists, and so prolific at that~ XDDD), High School Musical, Prince of Tennis, Sonic, and House have all bumped up; that can probably be attributed to new material in the respective franchises. Happy news!: we have new members of the Cool Kids clique--Doctor Who and Death Note (w00t ♥). Also, Twilight doubled.

In other news: the Comics category rates so low on the fanfic scale--it barely competes with Miscellaneous when it comes to number of sections, not a single one of the sections makes it to the Heavy Hitter list, and only five sections even make it past a thousand (X-Men, Batman, Spider-Man, Jhonen Vasquez, and DC Superheroes)--that even when I added up all the story counts from all the title sections in the entire category, the total was only 23,974--not even as much as Final Fantasy VII alone. I have several theories about this, including but not limited to the following: (a) Comic geeks have more lives than gamers/otaku, bookworms and screen geeks; (b) comic geekery tends to be more casual than game, anime/manga, book and screen geekery; (c) comic geeks and the like are less literary in their habits than otaku, bookworms and screeners, tending more towards collecting and other, more local methods of fandom than online slashing and networking; (d) FanFiction.Net is not representative of all fandom and comickers just don't like ff.n and the giggly slashers who live there; (e) I have no fucking clue, comic books are not my purview, I'm not qualified to analyze this *headdesk*

Also, on the D.Gray-front: pre-February I think the archive had between 500 and 1000 stories; by the 23rd it was 1464; 2536 by the fourth of July; 2637 on the 14th; and the current story count is 4396. If it keeps doubling every six months or so, and I do suspect that this trend will continue, then D.Gray-man will hit the Heavy Hitters in less than a year and work its way up. The second the dub hits major broadcast channels, all the odds are on the side of there-goes-the-neighborhood, here-come-the-numbers.

(this is just part one, I'm coming up soon with something specifics on Naruto and D.Gray-man and characters and all those shiny new toys that have been updated...though I'm kind of embarrassed I don't recognise half the names on the D.Gray-list, it's really annoying they don't put full names)

"Writer's Block: Use Your Power" ["what if" is serious business]

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:11:52 GMT

Our holiday gift to you: the question submitted most often to Writer's Block—if you could have a superpower, what would it be and how would you use it?

View 500 Answers

OMG I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS SO MANY TIMES you have no idea XDDD

Um, but to be more coherent. I have over the course of my lifetime--that's from 2:36AM EST Friday February 16th 1990 to, like, now--thought about this so many times I actually have a list in order of preference. Because, because, what with being a small hyperactive over-analytical bookworm with a wild imagination and from small Catholic grade school to mostly repressed year in massive public school to small special ed middle school to art high school, theatre major, and chronic lifelong insomniac with nothing better to do in the midnight hours lying in bed staring at the ceiling than (a) thinking about my day/week/life (b) making shit up (c) fantasizing if I had magic powers (d) making up stories (e) angsty preteen existential introspection that led to angsty teen emo poetry (and fic, natch)...well.

I tended to use the "three wishes" model for what-if; when I was younger, I had some Goosebumps books, some straight-up first-person stories but also some second-person choose-your-own-adventure stories, and one of them was about this kid who finds a genie in a soda can, except she's this really sadistic passive-aggressive bitch, and so for years I had this thought in my head (still do) that if I ever found a genie in a bottle I would slam it shut and GTFO...because seriously, trying to think up orders specific enough with no leeway for godawful ironic/karmic Armageddon is waaay too much effort, and playing with fire and all that jazz. But because it was the middle of the night and I was bored, I kept thinking about what I would wish for if I ever had that chance. And thought, and thought, and thought, and over the years came to several very specific decisions.

The first and most obvious hurdle is, should I wish for world peace? (Or something along that line of inquiry.) Me being me, I came to the conclusion after a while that major global, national or even local change would just be fucking with shit I don't understand, and the world has a precise and proper balance, and some shit just needs to happen for the good of the future, and yin-yang/light-side-dark-side/use-the-fork-Luke/who wants to be blamed for the Apocalypse anyway.

The next hurdle is, should I wish for a million dollars? Problem with that is, the government would probably want to know where the money came from, and if you introduce too much new currency into the system you might induce an economic collapse or something, and they've done studies on lottery winners, it's scientifically proven that a sudden huge windfall can royally mess you up. Like a movie, minus the heartwarming morals at the end and plus a celebrityesque overdose of heroin after discovering that you've fathered an AIDS baby or something. Also, money? Not much fun if you're working with wishes--I mean, you have the power of a god at your fingertips and you wish for something earthly and unoriginal? Lame. (Though it would be nice to pay off the mortgage and afford college...maybe health insurance...mmm, health insurance...)

Then you come to (if you haven't thought of it already) the biggest (and funnest) hurdle of all: Should I Wish for Superpowers? Me being me, I immediately concluded that it would just not be worth it to wind up dissected in some government's sekrit experimental lab. Of course, me being me, I also thought of a way around that--write up clauses in the wish! (Of course, there is the teensy problem of hiring a lawyer to help with the language.) Something like, I want my sudden magical powers to be completely discreet and inconspicuous so that (a) I don't have to become a celebrity (b) I'm not exploited/turned into a guinea pig. Like how when magical girls put on a different outfit, not even their own mother can tell who they are.

(Yes, I do believe that the best way to deal with a djinn offering wishes is to have your attorney serve him/her/it papers. You have to be careful these days...)

But--to the question asked in the first place. What would my powers be? *goes and gets list*

(1) The ability to find things lost. Because I lose everything all the time and it's maddening. Also, could make a mint charging for business--LOST AND FOUND: You Name It, We Locate It! Does Not Apply To Witness Protection. Inquire Within--I mean, everything from runaway Fido to missing persons to oh-crap-I-misplaced-my-keys-again.
(2) Fluency, written and spoken, in all languages ever. Because it would be awesome and awesome and awesome and do you know how much money translators can make? I mean, damn. And--for science! All those dead and dying languages, can you imagine? Whole cultures and histories recovered.
(3) Control over temperature. However you want to say it--able to slow or excite the molecules, magical ice/fire, just something that would involve, at its extremes, the ability to set shit on fire with my mind. And freeze stuff, of course, because however much of a pyro I am, I am also very much a winter girl. Maybe with subtle control too, so I could like pull A/C in the most sweltering depths of summer.
(4) At this point the list sort of wavers, from "omg I would so love this" to more of a "hey that would be kinda cool" vibe:
from some sort of BeastMaster/Animorphs/Horse-Whisperer thing with--and this is the determining criterion--the ability to form a meter-or-so wide "bubble" of sorts inside of which no arthropod could come (because, like, MASSIVE bug phobia that I've only now managed to quiet down to a sort of muffled panic);
to the ability to breathe underwater, plus something for pressurization, so I could swim without a great big honking facemask (I can't open my eyes underwater, or regulate my breath so that I don't need a nose plug);
to the ability to fly/levitate/mess with telekinesis for the ~~smaae~~ same (cool typo!) sort of result, 'cause for some reason I dream about it all the time and it's terrifying but it's awesome (my dreams tend to be like really bizarre video games, it's like an adventure every night);
to some sort of elemental/hippie/Wiccan earth-water-sky magic thing, which is yeah kind of generic, but we're talking what-if superpowers here, so why the hell not?

[/tl;dr]

EDIT: also, this wasn't on the list because I've only been considering it recently, but: a form of limited time travel, only for the past ((a) because I don't believe time is two-dimensional (b) because I've never been a fan of time travel in general, it goes in the "major shit I have no business messing with" category), and strictly in an invisdible observation capacity, with no chance for interference. Because I think it would be awesome, and edifying, and cool, and terribly useful for science/history/anthropology/etc. to be able to really see and hear and smell and feel and taste what ancient civilisations were like, and even beyond, to like dinosaurs and shit--because (a) awesome (b) awesome (c) AWESOME and did you know that the Eocene epoch (about 56-34 million years ago, fairly recent in relative terms, the continents were all pretty close to the positions they are now) was when cats and rodents and bats and marsupials and a bunch of other smallish mammals appeared and there was mad global warming so the whole planet was warm and wet (with high sea levels) and covered in temperate and tropical forest and rainforest, trees everywhere, and even Antarctica was full of life. ~~Best. Vacation. Ever.~~ [/geek]

SON OF EDIT (like mad long after--it's one of those OCD things): power over electricity/storms/weather was on the table at one point, just, y'know, to put that out there. There was something else I wanted to write about, something terribly profound and meta about superpowers/magic/etc. and wanting them and fantasy and etc., but in true Terranova fashion I forgot it soon after thinking of it in the first place (much like my dream this morning...)--oh wait I remember! Yes. That, instead of all these epic superpowers instead a group of smaller gifts, more unobtrusive, like the ability to open/unlock anything, or the finding talent, or a limited version of the lingual talent like automatically assimilating any language come across, and a story about such would be so much more...well, interesting than the traditional comic-book superstrength /superspeed /telekinesis /telepathy /fire /weather /lasers /etc. stuff. Like Tamora Pierce's Circle saga, without Tris's more dramatic magics, leaning more toward the smaller, more specific types like Sandry's thread magic and etc.

I haven't had a countdown on watch since GoF. -^^- nostalgia

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:13:31 GMT

"Writer's Block: Forbidden Reading"

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:22:26 GMT

From Judy Blume to V.C. Andrews, there's always a book circulating among teens that their parents don't want them to read. What favorite book did you have to hide from your parents?

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(Woohoo, somp'in ta waste ma tahm with.)

I don't think my parents ever tried to stop me from reading a book (probably because they either "wanted me to grow up an enlightened child" or (more likely) were too lazy~~(mother)~~/clueless~~(father)~~ to bother), but there are a few vaguely relevant bits I can remember:

First; when I got into my mother's considerable stash of trash novels around the tender age of...oh...I was probably eight or ten, I don't think she was too happy about it--but that was mostly because I would squirrel the ones she wanted to read/was in the middle of reading away into my room and it would take a team of professional excavational spelunkers to find them again.

Second; in school I was always reading something under the desk/table when I was supposed to be paying attention, and while this ticked the teachers off, it wasn't until I'd switched from my regular fare (Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Sweet Valley High, Babysitters' Club, Goosebumps, Wishbone, American Girl, Boxcar Children, Anne McCaffrey, Tamora Pierce, Diana Wynne Jones, etc.) to what was clearly soft-core porn that they attempted a full-on intervention. Also, when I (in my early primordial flailing attempts at pre-otakuness) was reading the novelized versions of the Sailor Moon anime, I would get embarrassed and recover them with paper and pretend to be reading something more intelligent than watered-down cartoonish pap that couldn't even spell the word "whoa" (it seems that, even then, I was something of an elitist).

Third; my friend Kate (who I first met when she was a beleaguered summer camp counselor and I a whirling precocious seven-year-old hellion with a vivid imagination, high IQ and a penchant for biting people; over the past decade or so, she's been something of an amalgam of teacher, mentor, babysitter, godmother, sister, idol, and friend) once forbade me from reading The Lovely Bones until I was old enough; for the first time in the history of my life I actually did what I was told, and when it was on my summer reading list in high school, she gave me her copy.

~~I think that's it.~~ EDIT: Ooh, ooh, also! My friend Jessica B-L (I know waaay too many Jessicas) gave me her copy of the Necronomicon when she moved down to ~~South~~ North Carolina with her Iraq vet combat-medic husband; before that, I would flip through it when I was over at her parents' place (I thought--and still think--that it's the most adorable thing ever), and I would randomly pick a page and read melodramatically and she would freak out and tackle me and wrestle the book away (it didn't matter whether I was reading from "The Conjuration of the Fire God" or the Acknowledgements).

(Hee, downstairs I can hear my cat fussing and scratching in her labohratohree; three guesses what that is. Socute. ♥)

GAAAH-- runs into painful thing e.g. wall

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:41:14 GMT

*flails* It's Sarah Rees Brennan's birthday, and I'm late again. >.<;;;;;

Sarah Rees Brennan --> Maya --> sarahtales is (a) the reason why I'm willing to walk into a bookstore again and look into new books (b) a wealth of bookish knowledge and expertise I've been desperately waiting to tap into my whole life (c) a fanfic writer so skilled and witty I will actually read copious fic for a fandom I usually don't patron of a pairing I normally avoid because of my personal opinion of its likelihood (if you're interested, it's "slim to none") (d) a new author coming out with the first of her debut YA SFF trilogy in Germany in March of 2009 (because US and UK take longer, apparently) for which I will happily learn German and find a way to purchase it online just for the chance to read it earlier (is that too much italicising? my "melodrama" instincts are perking again) (e) ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Hence, the flailing. About a year ago I ran across her work Drop Dead Gorgeous (reasonable use of italics, hurray) while halfway through infiltrating the lovely FastForward Sarge's pro-SasuNaru RYFG Yahoo!group (incidentally, curiosity killed the cat and nothing Eugene O'Neill says can change that), fell on the floor laughing (can you keep track of my manic ADD parenthetic-interjection-infested narrative? I know I can't), looked up the author, discovered a personality overwhelmingly worthy of stalkage, read all her public LJ posts, friended her, and started a cult. Okay, maybe not the last part, but I should have! Because somewhere around--oh, was it November? It might have been November--she landed an amazing multi-figure book deal that splashed her fame all over the internet and beyond. That's an awful lot of cult members; we might even weigh out Scientology and Dahn Yoga if we recruit hard enough. Shortly after, she Came Out on LJ, gave her name as Brennan, Sarah Rees, and collected several hundred more rabid fans (If not several thousand). Even more exciting, despite having been a BNF (Big Name Fan for those who, like me, are constantly out of the loop) for like forever and rapidly becoming an actual celebrity, she actually responds thoughtfully to comments on her journal. (And let me tell you, those italics were quite merited (those too!).)

Have I said hence-the-flailing yet? I have? Good.

So, it's her birthday, and I don't know quite what to do (seeing as I'm a bit of a no-name, after all, and that's most certainly the way I like it) besides spontaneously (and impotently) declaring today (September 21--at least I think it's not midnight yet...Lord, but I do suck at this birthday thing) an international book-loving holiday; I don't know her personally, she doesn't know me personally, I highly doubt she reads my elljay, and have I mentioned the flailing yet?

I don't know what to do. This is pretty much what it's like for me all the time, so I guess I'll do what I always do: something rather stupid with a lot of big words thrown on top to make it seem like the appropriate thing to do. (Hey, it's gotten me this far...) I copied D_T's idea of birthday posts earlier, and though I'd thought to limit that to friends/people who actually read my journal, the flailing won out. And look, it's not even f-locked (at least, I think it isn't; this technology claptrap-whippersnappers-etc. tends to confound me, and then deliver a swift kick in the ovaries). Yay?

So, celebrating how cool I think Sarah Rees Brennan/Maya is, this post is born. And it took less than an hour, holy crap. That's a first...

(Merited italics!--oh wait, the joke's over? Sorry about that...)

...

(See? Even thinking about her makes me more verbose! She chafes the rust off my vocabulary despite years in inner-city Boston--which is quite the achievement, let me tell you [vague approximation of audience/friends/my mother/my cat--oh, who am I kidding, my cat hates me].)

*shuts up*

July Update: D.Gray-man on the Pit

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:02:54 GMT

View Poll: *polly poll poll*

Second in a series of stupid impulsive actions: The Random Stupid Poll. (The first one...well, I'll get around to that later.)

(Hoshino Katsura will actually be making a public appearance at Germany's AnimagiC con in the first week of August, so...I'm tempted to actually put money on a gender bet in order to collect in a month and put towards the ephemeral dream of college...)

In regards to the previous post: Harry Potter is now at 363,889 stories, Naruto has hit 150,697, Inuyasha is lingering at 80,821, and D.Gray-man now has 2637 stories. So cute. ♥ Respectively: 1362, 1576, 161, and 101 new stories in the week or so since that was posted. However, this report is based on numbers collected on July 4th, so regard this paragraph as a postscript.

(I was curious about which sections had the character filter option, so I worked my way down through the list of ten, five, nine; it turns out that all (yes, all, from Yu-Gi-Oh! to Sonic the Hedgehog to Charmed) of the sections listed in the report have character filters, except three: Pokemon (Games category), High School Musical (Movies category), and Wrestling (Miscellaneous category). (Yes, there is a Wrestling section; yes, it has 14,327 stories as of today. There's actually quite a lot of shipping and epic!rivalry!stories, as well as lonely trailer-park OCs finding excitement. No comment of mine could actually make that more bizarre, so I'll leave the half-wit cracks to the anime section where they belong.) Now, for the latter two, both of which are in the Bottom Nine of the heavy hitting list, this is not a bad thing. But Pokemon? I cry discrimination! Not only does it have more than twenty thousand logged stories (20,596, to be precise), but it's a timeless cultural classic and does in fact embody my childhood. This needs to be brought to the attention of the proper authorities; I, however, am far too busy/lazy/overqualified/uninformed/pick-your-excuse to do the job.)

TO THE STATISTICS!

D.Gray-man's archives have doubled in just four-and-a-half months, to 2536 stories total (that's the equivalent of 102 pages of fic).

/10/0/x/1/0/0/0/0/0/1/
Total English (code 1): 2197s (88p)
Spanish (code 2): 225s (9p)
French (code 3): 72s (3p) (mad "Yullen", LaviAllen, other slash, and Allenalee; some oddities e.g. KroryAllen (them crazy French!)
Portuguese (code 8): 29s (2p) (more "Yullen", Allenalee, some random Kandalee, etc.)
Italian (code 11): 3s (some Allen-centric gen, a character piece, and something involving Allenalee (I think))
Swedish (code 17): 2s (a Tsubasa xover and a Halloween-themed piece)
Polish (code 13): 1s (it's either KandaLavi or Kandalee...I think...)
Indonesian (code 32): 3s (a smutty "Sleeping Beauty" bit with L, K, and T x A, & side CrossKomui; a LaviAllen; & GetBackers xover w/random Roadalee)
Finnish (code 20): 4s (Kanda and Allen; Allen and Lavi; "Yullen"; and TykiAllen. I think. My Finnish is a little ~~nonexistent~~ rusty.)

NUMBER: The top three language archives have essentially doubled; the Portuguese (or Brazilians, or wherever) put out nine more stories, about 50% of its former size; nothing has budged in the Italian, Swedish, Polish, or Indonesian camps; but the team from Finland (the Scandinavian source of Ievan Polkka, or "the Leek Spin song") exploded into action and quadrupled the size of their archive. This would be more impressive if that meant more than a handful of stories, but oh well.

SHIP: Overall, esp. in the English and Español sections: the "Yullen" ship is still making like Fibonacci bunnies, with "Lucky" somehow still by its side; Allenalee is a strong het challenger, with LaviLena and Kandalee its sidekicks; LaviAllen, TykiAllen, and LaviKanda occasionally proliferate (the former more often than the latter two); the strange yaoi sideship Roadalee gleefully dominates what little yuri there is; and the rest tend to be crossovers (Rozen Maiden, FMA, Naruto, Harry Potter, Inuyasha, etc.), unfortunate cases of mpreg, and crack/niche pairings (e.g. JeanLeo, BakFou, MarkClaire, GuzolLala, KroryEliade, TykiSuman, "PierrotAllen"(?), CrossMana, CloudMiranda(XD), KomuiBak, RoadLavi, CrossCloud, KandaMiranda, TimcampyLenalee(XD), KandaKomui, KroryMiranda, CrossAnita, and something I scribbled in my notes as "Leeeeeit", which is either some odd Lenalee pairing or my writing hand having a seizure. EDIT: Wait, wait, I remember! One of those 'e's was a 'c', and the 'i' was actually an 's', making the actual pairing Leecest. *feels like a special literary detective* *despite the fact that it was my own crappy handwriting*

~Close-up on English archive ('*' = newer genre)~

/10/x/1/1/0/0/0/0/0/1/
Total Adventure (code 6): 8p (186s)
Angst (code 10): 14p (335s)
*Crime (code 18): 2s
Drama (code 4): 12p (278s)
*Family (code 19): 3p (61s)
Fantasy (code 14): 3p (52s)
*Friendship (code 21): 5p (104s)
General (code 1): 31p (761s)
Horror (code 8): 3p (54s)
Humor (code 3): 25p (603s)
*Hurt/Comfort (code 20): 5p (101s)
Mystery (code 7): 2p (28s)
Parody (code 9): 2p (40s)
Poetry (code 5): 2p (42s)
Romance (code 2): 41p (1005s)
Sci-Fi (code 13): 1s
Spiritual (code 15): 17s
Supernatural (code 11): 3p (52s)
Suspense (code 12): 23s
Tragedy (code 16): 4p (81s)
*Western (code 17): 0 (T_T)

NUMBER: Everything except Western (*sob*) has gone up dramatically. Adventure, Drama, Family, Poetry, and Romance have all increased by about 50%; this is most noticeable in Adventure, Drama, and Romance (respectively fifth, fourth, and overwhelmingly first in size of all genres). General, Humor, and Mystery have gone up by about 75%; this is more obvious in the former than the latter, as Mystery is small fry next to the top six. Angst, Fantasy, Friendship, Horror, Spiritual, Supernatural, Suspense, and Tragedy have all doubled; Angst is the only genre for which this is visible, since the rest are still pretty tiny. For five of the genres, something very special has happened: Hurt/Comfort and Parody have actually tripled in size, Crime and Sci-Fi (♥) actually gained stories for the first time, and Western...well, nothing happened to Western. *tear* Overall, the order in size of the genres hasn't changed. Romance has pulled even farther ahead of the other genres, General and Humor rolling along in its wake, and Angst has edged farther ahead of Drama, but Adventure is still the distinct cutoff point before the cloud of other genres. (I totally have comparative graphs.) I'm terribly pleased at the growth of the new genres (Family, Friendship...Hurt/Comfort... XD that one's just too silly), and at Sci-Fi's adorable new story, and of course I weep for Western. Not even a tumbleweed to accent the loneliness...!!? *threatens JossWhedonness again--steampunk/cyberpunk alien settlers in the Wild Wild Frontier against vampiric alien natives!!! I'll do it! I really will!*

(...That's actually a lie, I'm too damn lazy.)

SHIP: Just look at the growth in the Romance genre. Yeesh. Top of the charts, wot wot? Cheerio... [/lame]

/x/0/1/1/0/0/0/0/0/1/
Rated K (code 1): 11p (258s)
K+ (code 12): 21p (507s)
T (code 13): 47p (1158s)
M (code 14): 12p (277s)

NUMBERS: The ratios have remained the same; there are still almost as many T-rated stories than all the rest put together, and M and K ratings are still jockeying for last place. T-rateds have actually skyrocketed in the past few months; K+ less so, but at least it's trying. M and K...well, at least they moved.

SHIP: Although on the surface it looks like the pr0n is at a standstill, I have seen many a T-rated fic that rather deserves to be marked NC-17, and quite a few M-rated fics so tame they're almost K+. Remember...the bored horny twelve-year-olds with no lives are always among us... (...And sometimes they're 22 and have learned to write good smut, and the age-appropriate part of the fandom rejoices. But this is unfortunately rare.)

/10/0/1/1/0/0/0/x/0/1/
Completed (code 2): 49p (1209s)
In-progress (code 1): 40p (991s)

NUMBERS: Pretty much the same, just twice as big. The Completed ones are the one-shots and the dedicated authors. The rest are either actually in progress or have been abandoned (alas; alack).

SHIP: ...I got nothing.

/10/0/1/1/x/0/0/0/0/1/
under 1K words ("the drabblets"): 626s (26p)
1K-5K ("the shortfic"): 1008s (41p)
5K-10K ("the shorter stories"): 273s (11p)
10K-20K ("the short stories"): 156s (7p)
20K-40K ("the mininovels"): 80s (4p)
40K-60K ("the novels"): 30s (2p)
60K-100K ("the double novels"): 13s
100K or more (code 100) ("the epics"): 11s

NUMBERS: The ratios largely remain the same except for the double novels, which have actually gained more among their ranks than the epics. Yay for them. Mad new stories: two more for the epics, nine for the double-novels, 23 for the novels, 58 for the mininovels, 137 for the short stories, 264 for the shorter stories, 712 for the shortfic, and...uhhh...apparently 943 for the drabblets, though that's, like, crazy. Oh well. *whew* Also, math is sexy.

SHIP: Durrr. Well, all the double-novels and epics appear to be overly angsty "Yullen", except for artbug and Dhampir72's lovely lovely gen. ♥ Gggggeeennnnnnn. *worships teh winfic*

/10/0/1/x/0/0/0/0/0/1/
sort by: update (code 1) OR publish (code 2)

Overall, damn but this fandom has grown fast. And now that Funimation's licensed it for dubbing, the tsunami of American n00bfans can already be seen in the distance, ready to turn my precious precious tinyfandom into the likes of Bleach, Inuyasha, and Naruto. I don't know whether I want to swell with pride or lock D.Gray-man in its room and tell it it's not allowed to date until it's thirty... *sob* They grow up so fast...

(Also, this would have been posted like five days ago had the computer not been taken apart, moved from one room from another, put back together, broke down, fixed, caught a virus, quarantined, scanned, and reset. AND THEN LIVEJOURNAL DECIDED TO HATE ME. Mother of God. *deathglares at evilthing*)

Quick FF.N Stats Update

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:30:59 GMT

I have to share this computer with my mother, so I don't have the time or resources to update the D.Gray-man or Naruto stats yet.

(I have bad luck with computers. I was raised with my father's webless Apple laptops and desktops, then was donated a little Apple desktop by my cousin (a native of Tennessee who currently lives in Texas with a succession of cats named after dead French royalty), and when that fried I was introduced to the internet via PCs. For a period of time I was using an old PC desktop (I believe this dates back to 2004, about as long as I've been on the net, always as Kohikari), then a friend of mine got herself a new laptop and gave me her Vaio (Angelina). We existed in happy n00bness for a while before my mother decided in 2006 that since she needed Windows XP for work, instead of getting a new or used computer, she could just use mine ("temporarily," of course). As a consolation prize I was given her ancient Windows 95 laptop, which liked to produce new problems with data corruption for me to deal with every other week. That thing finally fried of old age in February; luckily, we had already gotten me a new laptop (with Windows XP *love*) for college. Unfortunately, the new laptop decided to die right in front of me sometime in May (why must all my hard drives do impressions of delicious greasy breakfast foods?), its last message a cryptic blue-screen "KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR." Alas, after all the trouble I went to to research good names, finally settling upon Hermione despite the HP connections... So now I'm time-sharing Angelina again with my mother. Yaaay.) [/tl;dr]

I reviewed the heavy hitters in all the categories (comics is still utterly bereft of anything significant):

Top Ten (30K+ stories)(total series actually 11):
1) B Harry Potter (reigning champion) - 363K
2) A Naruto (reigning challenger) - 149K
3) A Inuyasha (reigning block of wood) - 81K
4) G combined Final Fantasy - 49K
5) A Yu-Gi-Oh! - 45K
6) B Lord of the Rings - 41K
7) A Gundam Wing/AC - 39K
8) G Kingdom Hearts - 35K
9) T Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (yay Joss Whedon) - 33K
10) A A Digimon [ties with] Dragon Ball Z - 30K

Lower Five (20K-30K stories)(total series actually 10):
1) B A Twilight (back back foul creature!!) [ties with] Sailor Moon - 27K
2) A Fullmetal Alchemist - 24K
3) G Ca A Final Fantasy VII [ties with] Teen Titans [ties with] Card Captor Sakura - 22K
4) A T Yu Yu Hakusho [ties with] CSI - 21K
5) G Mo Pokemon [ties with] Star Wars - 20K

Last Nine (10K-20K stories)(total series actually 20):
1) T A Stargate: SG-1 [ties with] Beyblade - 18K
2) A Bleach - 17K
3) Mo T Pirates of the Caribbean [ties with] Supernatural - 16K
4) A A Rurouni Kenshin [ties with] Avatar: The Last Airbender - 15K
5) Mi A T Wrestling (trufax: 14,255 stories in the section) [ties with] Fruits Basket [ties with] Gilmore Girls - 14K
6) Mo T High School Musical [ties with] combined Star Trek - 13K
7) A G Ca T Prince of Tennis [ties with] Zelda [ties with] X-Men: Evolution [ties with] Stargate: Atlantis - 12K
8) G G Sonic the Hedgehog [ties with] Final Fantasy VIII - 11K
9) T T House, M.D. [ties with] Charmed - 10K

It's been about four months since my last survey; the Harry Potter section has grown 18K, the Naruto section by 22K, and the Inuyasha section by 5K. Remember way back when when Naruto was tiny and Inuyasha was the #2 section, but then it reversed? Yeah, this is why. Naruto keeps exploding, especially since the timeskip manga was released in the States and I'm pretty sure Shippuuden is already dubbed or will be soon. Harry Potter is over. Inuyasha kept going and going and going until everyone lost interest (including myself; I was flabbergasted the other day when a friend of mine informed me that the manga has actually come to a conclusion. ~~I was like, Closure? In my old fandom?~~). Naruto, though it has jumped the shark ~~and broken my heart~~, is still ongoing and apparently relevant ~~*twitch* *twitch*~~, thus popular.

D.Gray-man has mushroom-clouded by 1072 stories--that's almost double what it was four months ago! I attribute this to the dub licensing of the anime, the issue of the Crown Clown and Ark arc tankoubon in America, the awesome crack of the recent manga chapters, and the fact that the anime is actually good now (I'm thinking of skipping the awful filler entirely, should I ever get back to YouTube...). *huggles adorable 2536 stories--it's badly written yaoi in eight different languages! Have you ever read Indonesian fanpr0n?*

Apart from the top three, nothing has really budged much except Kingdom Hearts (up 4K) and Twilight, which has actually doubled. If it weren't for Jasper Fforde and Sarah Rees Brennan, I'd give up all hope for the future of modern literature. (If anyone compares Stephanie Meyer to J.K. Rowling, they're lying.)

۩

moar, obviously...

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:44:48 GMT

- kohikari 02.15.08 [[this is pt. II of "do this kind of thing a lot"/"catgirls: the golden years"]]
- -
- [cutcutcut--again, I'm too hot for LJ to handle!]

- I looove the Earl. His design is so epic I don't even know where to start squeeing.

- I'm taking a break from the Naruto manga for a while. 386 was a bit of a stress point for me, and I've got a lot of work to do in order to graduate in June, so I decided to cut an internet responsibility to make room. Although now I have to catch up with both the Naruto and D.Gray-man anime... >.<

- Mother lion! :D ♥

- Yeah, engaging villains/antagonists are always a big draw for me. I've got the habit of rooting for the bad guy half the time (Go Team Rocket! You can do it! I believe in you! *nostalgic tear*), and besides, if there isn't a good villain (a) the conflict loses much of its interest and (b) so does the hero. The hero is most interesting when counterbalanced by their enemy.

- ~~The Kabutorochi name is my own creation, but for Itachicaust I cheerfully blame CAPSLOCK_NARUTO~ (http://capslock-naruto.livejournal.com/~~)

- For some reason I just don't care very much about the Asian Branch staff, and it's weird. Because normally I'd be all over characters like that. Maybe my intense fangirling for Allen and Bitchyface and Road and the rest has worn me out?

- *takes bandages* Qué?

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- d_t 02.25.08
- -
-

OH GOD. THE EARL. He is so incredibly awesome. I mean, his design! Once you pointed out that it was a mockery of cartoonish supervillains... XD

Aw, I hope that the work doesn't pile up too much. ♥ I have been rather lax with the anime recently. The Naruto anime has never been known for a good sense of pacing >_> (ugghh, so many flashbacks!), and D.Gray-man has a few episodes to go until it reaches the Ark arc. (Ark arc. XP)

Rawr. *grins*

I am very amused by the Asian branch staff. :P Also, I can't help but see Bak/Fou prancing around in front of me. XD

(You had a flesh wound, or so you said. :P)

[[I've totally drafted a lengthy response to this involving Victorian history, public response to the Earl, and general sqeeing...somewhere...]]

- - - - - - -

d_t 02.13.08 [[continuation of "merry fangirling road"/offering of bandages]]
-

Ed-Allen, Al-Timcanpy (makes sense in an interesting kind of way XD), Cross-Hohenheim, Mana-Trisha Elric, and the Fourteenth-Sloth work for me too. :) Hmm, I’d say Komui was Auntie Pinako, and Bak and Fou would be Roy and Hawkeye, respectively. Lulubell as Lust makes sense *nods*, and Jasdebi would just be Envy, imho. Tyki fits Pride more, and Road would be Wrath. Ack, I hope I’m not confusing the manga with the anime—some of the Homunculi in the manga are different, and I’m trying to match up their personalities as best as I can. Oh, I know who the Millenium Earl would be!—but it’s a manga-only character, Father. I guess he’d be Dante in the anime, but Father fits better, I think. (hint hint: read the manga! :D) Miranda --> Scieszka totally! Don’t worry, they give her a slew of different spellings, so I don’t know which one’s right anyway. XP As for Lavi and Kanda—oh oh oh YES, Lavi has got to be Ling Yao! Also a manga-only character, but he fits so well. And Kanda… *thinks* I’d say either Scar or Izumi, although I’m leaning toward Izumi (sorry Kanda! Izumi may be female, but you look enough like a female anyway XP not that I’m basing this on appearances… >_>). This is really fun. :DDD (Read the manga~ :D I like it more, and there’s a lot of cool internal politics going on right now ;))

Oh yes, the politics! I’m so glad Hoshino’s focusing on internal politics as well as the usual fighting you’d see in shounen manga. Hey, have you gone to the site Manga Fox? I know that under D.Gray-man they put up the original pilot Zone. Here it is! and—well, I’ll let you read it first, but I wonder how the background of Robin (the main character) can be applied to Allen, especially with the recent speculation about his relation to the Fourteenth and Noah stuff. ;)

Don’t feel guilty, I like to talk about this too! :D

Timcanpy as Mana/the Fourteenth? Oh, that’d be interesting… wait, Cross got Timcanpy from the Fourteenth, did he? Or am I completely making that up? It’s curious that the Fourteenth (in the Ark) says only Allen and Timcanpy can do anything with the musical score…

I dunno, my impression is that they don’t have ghosts in the D.Gray-man world, just the Akuma. Allen hasn’t said anything about seeing just ordinary ghost yet, I think.

Puzzlebox motif—so far I think Hoshino’s using it because it looks cool. But I think she could easily adapt it into part of the plot, especially with the Fourteenth. Maybe have a puzzle by the Fourteenth (music again :P) or something like that. :D

LOL It’s just some screwed-up pseudo-Victorian-era time, I guess. Those miniskirts XP—although Lenalee hasn’t been wearing them recently, has she?

Bleach: Yep, that Pez-dispenser thing. *nods* Hmm, I guess it’s a good thing that Kubo Tite likes his characters so much that he can’t kill them, but at the same time it’s not as realistic as it could be (tangent: have you read George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series? Very dark, and realistic, and the author isn’t averse to killing off his main characters, and it’s so good—but again, it’s very dark, so it might not suit your tastes, but I think you’d like it. First book’s called A Game of Thrones, if I remember correctly. Political intrigue and complex family relationships galore! :P) I really must get around to reading through all of Bleach, since I stopped around the Pez-dispenser time. XD

Because it’s so easy to ship the boys with each other as well! Just a Freudian slip… ;P Imho, the entire thing’s like equal-opportunity—I can ship Allen/Lenalee and Lavi/Lenalee and Kanda/Lenalee as well as Allen/Kanda, Lavi/Kanda, and Allen/Lavi; and Bak/Fou too! And crack ships like Lavi/Chomesuke, Lavi/Miranda (hey, why not? We know he has a fondness for older women *is shot*), Kanda/Daisya, Road/Allen, Tyki/Lavi, ~~Tiedoll/his drawings~~ and all sorts of wild-way-out-there ships.

*grins* And the commentary keeps rolling… :DDD Not that I'm complaining, this is awesome. :D

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kohikari 02.17.08
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>.< Ack, I forgot about Izumi--dammit, this is why synching canons is so difficult. The different characters don't always blend so easily; sometimes the different parts of a role don't always fit in one character, and others fit in too many characters. I remember last year when I was bored in class and trying to mesh Naruto characters into Inuyasha roles and ended up copypastaing half of everything--among other things, it involved splitting Sango between Tenten and Sasuke, and adding a third antagonist alongside the Sesshoumaru and Naraku spots...if I'm going to get into the FMA-D.Gray synch, it will require a piece of paper, a pencil with an eraser, and more knowledge of the FMA manga canon than I have right now.

...And I'd have to shuffle through my papers to find my notes (because I usually collect the doodles and plotty things and forget the actual work when it comes to what papers get saved and what get trashed after a semester ends) on that IY-Naruto combo, because I'd forgotten how fun it was, and now I have new notes to add to it...like, like, wait no that wouldn't work dammit. Nevermind. >.< Maybe I should go to bed soon. I think I have the flu (on my seventeenth birthday, I got bitten by a squirrel and spent the day researching rabies; for my eighteenth birthday, I got the flu and spent the day sick in bed, wtf, Murphy?), so I've been a little woozy all day.

*reads ZONE* Oh hey, now chapter 37 + etc. makes sense. Remember, how Allen was like out cold and Eliade was advancing all muahaha and the arm started acting on its own and the eye freaked and an (Mana's?) Akuma skull with a script 'D' came out of it and there was the whole vision and then the eye evolved and yeah, now I get where that came from in the creative process that is Hoshino-sensei's ~~bong~~ brain. I have a couple questions, though--like, Julia was definitely female, but Robin is such a gender-neutral name; if Allen's precursor really was an Akuma, then it would be Julia's soul in Robin's body--but then it's back to, was Robin male or female? Dressed like a little boy, but definitely girly-looking, and with long hair and randomly in a maid outfit...? Because before, I'd always heard that Allen's precursor was a girl (first from the tankoubon talk-page and then from sources), but when it comes to Akuma, does the 'gender' refer to the gender of the 'skin', the gender of the dark-matter-creature itself (which seems to be sort of gender-neutral or just really weird), or the gender of the soul trapped inside?

Yup, Timcanpy originally belonged to the Fourteenth. It's a more different golem with sparkly magical abilities, and Allen is the Uber Special Protagonist, raised by Mana (who made up the secret code with him), so they can do deus ex machina shit together. I don't think Allen's a Noah, though; the only person that special who wasn't a blatant Mary Sue was Harry Potter, and even then...so yeah, keep it to the fanfic. ^^ Yay fanfic.

I don't think anyone's said anything in canon, but apparently in one of the omake there was a little bit about a ghost rumor in HQ...

No, Lenalee's actually dropped the miniskirts...for hotpants. HOTPANTS. What. I don't even know when those were invented...but we're talking about the cusp of the 20th century here, they were still getting over the Victorian era when exposing an ankle was indecent. *flail* So much anachronism.

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- d_t 02.25.08
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- Ah, you must read the FMA manga. :) I really do enjoy it. I don't really spend much time in the FMA fandom, but I like to keep up with the manga, because I think the plot's really cool. And I don't think it's quite as crack as Naruto Part II, imho. :P

- :( ... well, my reply is lamentably late, but the flu went away soon after, hopefully? <3

- Oh yeah, that was crazy. I wasn't sure if Robin was male or female. I had the vague impression Robin was male... but honestly, Robin looked ridiculously gender-neutral, so... When it comes to Akuma--Hmm. I doubt it's the gender of the dark-matter-creature--they seem to be more genderless than anything. I am--inclined to say the gender of the soul trapped inside, considering the first few chapters of D.Gray-man with the policewoman's brother (the skin) who contained his wife's soul. So I'd call it "female," I suppose.

- XD All this indecency. And to think, the Black Order's overseen by the Church, too! Well, that doesn't really signify anything. Silly Leverrier. XD

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- kohikari 03.03.08
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- Ack I'm so slowww at catching up with all of these-- XD;; I just now noticed that there are two I missed from the 25th (including this one), and I'm in the middle of a massive draft for the other 25th reply, and the 27th one I had all drafted but then the computer crashed and it's taken me forever to redo it--ah, I fail at the internets. XD;;;;;;

- The FMA manga is definitely on my List! (Alongside Witch Hunter Robin, Hellsing, possibly Yu-Gi-Oh! (just to see if there's anything worth reading in it after all these years), Princess Tutu, and a couple others~ ah, so much to do, so little time ♥)

- I'm pretty much all better now! ♥

- Hm. It's funny, because Eliade had an unknown gender for her soul-power-source, and her skin was female, and she was definitely female herself--and she was an evolved Akuma personality, so. Even her straight-up mechanical form was distinctly feminine. Also, you have to wonder how much of "Robin's" self was Robin Walker, and how much was Julia Walker, and how much was the reprogrammed/freed sentience of the Akuma itself--and it's also back down to what the hell gender Robin Walker was. >.<;;; Ai-ya, too much unknown variables~ but Hoshino-sensei specifically said that "Robin" was female, so! *sigh* Maybe the Akuma itself, once it achieves Level 2, becomes a certain gender--maybe. Although, does the gender continue into Level 3? All the Level Threes look the same, dammit...and wtf is that Level 4, anyway? But we're talking about Levels 1 and 2 now. Chomesuke was a "male" Akuma in a female skin. Eliade was a "female" Akuma in a female skin. We don't know what their soul/power source/sacrifices were. Robin was a "female" Akuma in an unknown skin, with a female soul/power source/sacrifice/etc. Maybe..."Robin" is essentially distinct as a person from Robin and Julia Walker, and knows their story, and uses one for a skin/identity and the other for a soul/whatever, and fights for them and all her fellow Akuma? Since Cross freed/reprogrammed/sealed/whatever'd her, and so cut the Earl's marionette strings? ~~Ah, why am I suddenly reminded of Princess Tutu... XD;;~~ Unless Julia's soul has somehow been leaking into the Akuma's identity...like how Mana was still distinct within that one Akuma, except that that was Mana, who is clearly Special. @_@ Maybe it is the soul after all?...

- Oh look, I lost my train of thought. XD Ah well, my point got across, right?... *goes to finish other replies*

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- d_t 03.03.08
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- Oh no, your computer crashed? D: I hope you didn't lose too much stuff... Oh yes, I have so much on my to-read list as well. o_O I've heard that Princess Tutu is quite good, and also, Gintama is apparently a source of great crack and hilarity. (It seems there's a terrorist's helper who's dressed up in a duck costume and called Elizabeth--and it also makes fun of other manga for kicks. XD)

- :D ♥ I'm glad you're not sick anymore. ^^

- Yes, Eliade was definitely female. Well, I suppose I shouldn't say definitely. XD So we don't know who was sacrificed to create Eliade, but yeah, her skin was female, she acted female ("I wanted to look pretty!"). And then Robin was from a female sacrifice, was "female," had a really gender-neutral look... Chomesuke was Level 2, and "she" was from an unknown sacrifice--can we really call Chomesuke a "male" Akuma? Granted, I don't know what Chomesuke's "Akuma" form's voice sounds like in the anime; but it was never said for certain that Chomesuke was "male," was it? *ponders* Ah well. And then Robin... @_@ Maybe at Level 1 the Akuma hasn't really "formed" enough to distinguish a gender of any sort; then at Level 2 they take on a "gender," and then for Levels 3 and 4 it's almost sort of transcended gender into gender-neutral? Hmm... it was curious how Mana managed to retain his personality (although that could just be because of the Noah aspect, if he was indeed the Musician :P). Maybe Robin/Julia/? was an original combination of Hoshino's Mana and Allen--the exorcist part, and then maybe the part about becoming an Akuma but retaining the soul... agh, I don't even know if I'm making any sense. XD

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- kohikari 03.03.08
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- No worries, all I lost was the reply. ^^ It wasn't much, really. Oooh, Gintama. *makes a note* Princess Tutu is very much an epic anime. (The manga just doesn't cut it in this case, sad to say.) It's like, Ahiru is...!!: A duck! ~~The Swan Princess!~~ ~~The Ugly Duckling!~~ A fairy princess! An "Average Jane" ballet student! A dancing magical girl! ...A duck?... XD And Mythos is Sir Pantsless, who randomly jumps out of windows without any provocation. ("I can fly!" *splat*) And Rue/Kraehe is awesome, of course. ♥ And Fakir is in the ranks of Hidan and Kikyou, as someone who Just Will Not Die. (Stabbed through the vital organs with multiple Spears of Evil? Dropped into a Dark Lake and submerged for like ten minutes? No worries! He'll crawl right out as soon as the ballerinas finish angsting with their imaginary partners...) And then we get to Ahiru's absolutely insane schoolfriends... *loves on crazycrazy anime*

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- kohikari 03.03.08
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- [I just cut everything to do with the Robinmeta this time... x3;;]

- Eliade was...influenced by her skin, I believe, in wanting to be beautiful; but she as an Akuma was also definitely feminine. I wonder if, as the soul is eroded by the parasitic Dark Matter of the Akuma's being, its self also leaks into the Akuma's personality? I definitely remember Chomesuke being somewhat masculine in manner, and being a little put out by people treating him/it as the pretty woman his skin was; maybe the sacrifice itself was male, and his mourning lover or something brought him back and became the skin. ^^;; I dunno, this is all just wild speculation, but it's fun, so. I looove doing stuff like this. 'M such a geek. XD;;; At Level 1, I don't think the Akuma itself is quite sentient, or particularly intelligent and self-aware. It's a machine made of dark matter, feeding off of a chained soul, and hiding in a human skin; higher-evolved Akuma show a lot of contempt for Level Ones, and Eliade especially thought of them as clumsy and stupid and worthless creatures. (Such is my impression, y'know, her attitude toward them in the flashbacks before her death? It's been a while since I read those chapters, so I might be remembering things inaccurately...) Once Akuma hit Level 2, they become more intelligent, crafty, develop their own personality and ability and sense of self, and perhaps--as the deterioration of the soul increases--some of the sacrifices' identity begins to seep into the Akuma's own. By Level 3, they become both arrogant and exponentially deadlier--the power levels of Akuma, in relation to their phase of evolution, are not linear: Level Ones are pathetically easy for your average Exorcist to get rid of; Level Twos present more of a challenge; Level Threes require a whole new upgrade in power to defeat; and Level Four? Appears to have wiped out all five Rinkaisha in one sweep. That's Froi Tiedoll, the three heavy-hitting Generals--Klaud9 (or however you romanise her name), Winters Sokalo (o.h.y.r.h.n.), and Cross Marian--and freaking Allen Walker, man. The fairy doll may have just taken them by surprise, or it may be on level with a Noah--even, perhaps, with an awakened Child like Tyki currently has become.

- I wandered off topic, didn't I? I'm rather too good at that. Back to the Akuma and their evolving sense of self. The Akuma do not appear to evolve more towards being human--at least, not mentally/emotionally/psychologically. The dark matter of the body grows more humanoid in form, but the personality seems to progress from infantile/subhuman to definitely human-ish (if still controlled by blood lust) to an inhuman warrior with a distinct sense of self and a sadistic joy in killing to...what did the Fairy Doll call itself? Lemme check the translations. Binktopia has "A weapon of slaughter...That's what I am, why I exist..." (ch146p9) I remember there was another translation, by FrankyHouse or MangaShare or something, but all I can find right now is Bink. Dammit. Well, the other trans had something about "massacre", and it was cool, but w/e. Like I was saying: the Akuma's personality/identity/whatever seems to evolve directly from the remnants of two humans in an unholy machine towards the Earl's ultimate purpose: a "weapon of slaughter."

- ...Why was I talking about this again?... *goes to reread everything* Oh yeah. Robin. Hoshino-sensei may not have thought of the Levels for Akuma yet in creating ZONE (btw, what font is this? it's pretty ♥), so Robin may be somewhat of the single ZONE level (presumably the precursor of D.Gray-man Level Ones) with many characteristics of the D.Gray-man Level Twos. I.E. a personality, sense of self, much leakage from the skin and soul (the sacrifices allowing her to (a) hide among humans and (b) keep functioning). Robin and Julia Walker probably contributed a lot towards her identity, but Robin is dead and gone and Julia is...I dunno how the ZONE mechanics work, so Julia may be like a Lv. 1 soul or a Lv. 2 soul. Anyway, Robin the Akuma is a being distinct from the Walker siblings, I think, despite being created from their tragedy. *phew* That thesis took a hella long time to pin down. >_<;;;

- (You make perfect sense to me, dear. ^^)

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kohikari 02.17.08 [[continuation of Izumi/anachronism]]
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*I'm/ too sexy for this postlimit/ too sexy for this postlimit/ so sexy-- *shot**

Oh my god, A Song of Ice and Fire has been recommended as a good series so many times--I really need to get around to it. Especially considering that I don't read many hardcopy SFF novels nowadays because I end up so disappointed when they don't stand up to my expectations...I used to be the biggest Anne McCaffrey fan, I have like all the DRoP books and all the Acorna books and all the Rowan-saga books... =_=;; Is it sad that I read practically nothing but fanfic nowadays because I have incredibly low expectations for it (no disappointment there) and the fantards are funny in their fail and the sociological concept/etc. of fandom is fascinating? Man, I used to max out my library card when I was little, getting like 70-something books at a time, and now look at me. *sigh* *hackcough* Oh well, Good Omens was good and Naomi Novik's a genius despite the overly pretentious wording and Sarah Rees Brennan's debut comes out next year, so that's something to look forward to...

Freud was a grade-A nutcase, man. I don't understand why no one shipped him off to the loony bin. I mean, all his theses on Oedipus complexes and bla bla bla? So clearly were based on his own issues with his family and his own sexuality. He superimposed his own problems onto other people, and was called a genius. *sticks out tongue*

~~TiedollxArt NEW CRACK OTP~~ After a while you get so tired of all the individual combinations of the top four or five characters you start shipping them all together...'tis where the crack threesomes come from. Like NaruSasuSaku, and SakuAnTemaTenInoHina (w/Konan as Official Akatsuki Pimp...or maybe that's just me being stupid XD), and hey why not LaviKandaAllenLenalee with a side of Tyki thrown in for the lulz? ;3

*dies* Man, go to bed sick, wake up sicker. WTF, Murphy?

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d_t 02.25.08
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Oh, you MUST, MUST read it. It's really hardcore, intense, and very dark in places--that's why some people dislike it, really--but I find it really realistic. :DDD

I don't read as much fantasy/science fiction these days either--there seem to be an increase in the number of badly written novels flooding the market nowadays. :( I liked Anne McCaffrey's earlier DRoP novels, but after a while I felt like they were getting repetitive. (Important thing to authors: know when to end your series! I hear Anne Rice, she of the Vampire Chronicles, is writing another vampire novel. As if poor Jesus wasn't enough. XD)

Good Omens is ♥. I haven't heard of Naomi Novik, though. *notes down the name* And Sarah Rees Brennan--she is Maya, right? From the HP fandom? I think I remember reading her fic about Ravenclaw!Draco... I was never too fond of Harry/Draco, but hers was entertaining, even though I thought Draco was wittier than he was canon. But that's just me. :P

I think I've got just tired of 'shipping nowadays. ~~TIEDOLL/HIS ART, YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE.~~ I'm really into cracky stuff right now, cracky ideas in general, or otherwise gen. Pairings--even the ones I usually like--they're rather dull to me right now.

♥ ♥ ♥ I hope you are feeling better now! :)

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kohikari 03.03.08
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Mmmmm~ Sounds fun. I'll check it out next time I'm at a library or bookstore. ^^

How do you feel about Stephanie Meyer? A friend of mine is obsessed with her work, and has multiple copies of all her books, and talked me into reading Twilight and New Moon, and they were funny, and not horribly written, but...

(I had a total readergasm with Good Omens. For some reason Terry Pratchett on his own isn't really my thing, and neither is Neil Gaiman on his own, but together...!! ♥~) Naomi Novik did the Temeraire series. ♥ It's like the Napoleonic Wars, except with dragons. ♥ ♥ ♥ The language can get a bit stumbly at times, as Anne McCaffrey's often did, but like the good old days of DRoP it's very worth it. Yes, Sarah Rees Brennan is Maya~ ♥ (Lots of hearts in this post for some reason... XD;; It must have been too long since I last geeked over good literature!) She's such a brilliant writer, and a hilarious person, and absolutely owns the English language, and oh oh oh what she writes isn't just fic or stories it's prose. *fangirls* Draco's one of her favorite characters, and she's in the "Slytherins Are Underappreciated!" party of the fandom, so of course she tends to expand more into his character than canon did, but oh it's wonderful anyway. I can't wait until 2009. For some reason her debut novel comes out in Germany first, in March, but that's not stopping any of us...!!

ART FTW *SHIP SHIP* Mmm, crack. Mmm, gen. I only have one serious OTP anyway, out of all the fandoms, and it's what clocked me over the head with a cast-iron saucepan somewhere around the Valley of the End and it's not going to change anytime soon. x3;; For everything else, I am the epitome of flexible...!! And crack and gen make the world go 'round.

(One last heart for the road!~) ♥

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d_t 03.03.08
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Do, do! I think you would like it. :D

Stephanie Meyer and her Twilight series--hmm. I read the first book right when it came out, before it turned into this huge phenomenon (at least, that I was aware of), because I happened to see it in my school library and thought, "Cool cover." I... didn't really enjoy it though. I'm probably biased, because I generally dislike the concept of soulmates and such, but--well, I simply didn't like it. Especially how Bella and Edward are in love because they simply are (me: huh? D:), and Edward is attracted to her at first just because she can "keep him out of her mind" or something like that. The rest of this is hearsay, because I never bothered to read the rest of the books >_>, but then I hear that Bella drove off a cliff because Edward left her to go away so he wouldn't hurt her, and my mind is like, "Suicide? Just because he's gone? Honestly!" I'm afraid I generally have no sympathy for soulmate stories. XP I know that the werewolf Jacob and Bella have a much more healthier relationship which doesn't mean they're going to kill themselves if separated, but anyway. Still, I don't think I'll be reading the rest of the series anytime soon--probably skim over the Wiki entries or something. :P (And a pet peeve--all the vampires have amazingly stunning looks and are just wow in appearance, and I was =_=, because I've seen that so many times, and... yes, anyway. It's cliche--granted, cliches are fine so long as they're well-written--but in this case it sort of put me off as well.)

Good Omens is amazing. :DDD I'm picky about which of Pratchett's Discworld books I like, and I haven't read that much Gaiman (I think Coraline, but nothing else, although I'd like to start his Sandman series). I'm going to have to check out the Temeraire series then. :) Dragons + Napoleonic Wars? Awesome! I have to admit I was put off dragons by Paolini's Eragon =_=, but this series sounds cool. :DDD (Geeking over good literature is awesome! I love to talk about books! ♥ ^^)

Crack and gen are just made of so. much. WIN. :DDD Oh, I finally put up ch. 6 for MWtLS XD, so you can take a look at it if you want. :P And crack--crack! crack!--you need to join </a></b></a>sasucakes! XDDD It has so far featured cupcake!Sasuke, humanitarian-clown!Orochimaru, fashion-designer!Itachi, Itachi and Orochimaru in a collecting contest, flying unicorns, and Elvis!Mikoto. :DDD I think you'd have great fun with it. XD

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kohikari 03.09.08
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Apparently, the Twilight series was born when Stephanie Meyer had a funny dream about emo glittery prettyboy vampires.

...I'm serious, that's really what happened. And ugh, it's almost disgusting how popular the books have become--when all they are, really, is the ofic equivalent of vaguely annoying fanfic. They're going to make a movie out of it, did you hear? *sigh* And I would be such a fan of vampires and their genre if the popular version today weren't all irritating Sues from the depths of the trashy Harlequin Regency Romance genre. (I grew out of that area of fiction several years ago, and am never going back...!! Give me plot and dynamic, engaging characterization and interaction, not stupid poncing about in fancy outfits and emoing about "true love" and "soul mates"! (It's a perfectly horrible idea that any one person is only capable of deeply loving one other in their entire lifetime.) Give me a deranged sadomasochistic maniac living in a bloodstained hovel (with a dash of hilarity, of course) any day over something out of Anne Rice! *is an Elitist*)

I've read a few of Pratchett, and I read Gaiman's Neverwhere--it was good, but I'm not planning on rereading it, or buying a copy for myself--but I really think that the cooperative effort on Good Omens is perhaps their best work. Maybe neither style individually appeals to me, but when combined and laced with a healthy dose of irreverent crack, it's totally my cup of tea. (Haha, can you tell I have a new favorite phrase ripped off Maya's new fanfic disclaimers?) And you definitely shouldn't base your opinion of dragons in sci-fi and fantasy (not to mention any other genre ♥--dragons beat out snakes for the title of Judy's Second Favorite Creature) on Eragon. Paolini was a novice (still is, probably), and either consciously or unconsciously slapped a bunch of common SFF themes and plots together to write his novels. Books with insanely fantastic (or fantastically insane) public appeal are often not the best in technique or heart; Twilight and Eragon are two excellent examples of this. I have a concrete background in Anne McCaffrey, and spent my RPing years in dragon-fan forums, so I consider myself an expert on why Dragons Are Awesome and totally not done justice by people like Paolini. *sticks Elitist Nose in air; promptly walks into wall*

Books were my first love~ ♥

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d_t 03.11.08
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when Stephanie Meyer had a funny dream about emo glittery prettyboy vampires.
Oh my god, seriously? o__O No wonder I didn't like them. Wow. Yes, I heard about the movie!--there's an influx of Twilight icons in some of the icon comms I watch, for instance. Agh, yes, I agree with you! True love and soulmates my foot. Anne Rice is... =_= And of course Twilight continues to propagate the idea of beautiful vampires and all that. I want to see something where they're awfully ugly, just for kicks. XD

Good Omens is just made of so much win. LOL cup of tea, British-style! :D Of course I wouldn't dare do that, as if Eragon can really be called fantasy. >_> I mean, common SFF themes and plots, sure, why not, but badly-written SFF themes and plots, no thank you. :/ I remember reading Anne McCaffrey's earlier books--those were good, although I didn't really like her later ones. :D I am still secretly surprised at the amount of popular appeal that Twilight and Eragon have. *sigh* But then again, Harry Potter's always been popular, and even though it had a lot of potential it sort of petered out at the end for me. :/

Books! ♥

And sorry I haven't answered your meta on the Akuma; I'm still trying to figure out what I think of it. XDDD

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kohikari 03.15.08
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Truth is often stranger than fiction. x3 A friend of mine recently got me addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer; if you're looking for not-so-pretty vampires, that's one option.

In my opinion, Anne McCaffrey is a brilliant writer and everything DRoP after The Skies of Pern, Acorna after Acorna's Rebels, and Petaybee after the original trilogy does not exist. Her earlier stuff is what shaped me as a reader; anything Todd wrote doesn't even count. The annoying spinoffs of the Acorna series and the Powers That Be universe I am firmly ignoring. Long live Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern (my first McCaffrey book ♥), the Harper Hall trilogy, the trio of books surrounding Lessa (The MasterHarper of Pern, Dragonflight, Dragonquest), Dragonsdawn, the Pegasus books, The Rowan, Acorna, the Petaybee trilogy, the Crystal Singer books. They, and several others, were the classics. They are the stories I want to remember when I think of my afternoons spent after school in Borders and Barnes and Noble, sprawled out in the SFF section with my nose deep in a 400-page book. *drifts off into senior-citizen-esque nostalgia about the Good Old Days*

Speaking of massive literary fail and Barnes and Noble, have you ever come across this one book about a magical female pilot of a magical sentient crystal ship who risks her life to stop some sort of intergalactic war or calamity or something and gets thrown through time and winds up in the future where she's been made a goddess and--did I mention her hair is a mix of gold and silver and her eyes are violet and she glows when she's feeling particularly special and people have a habit of falling to their knees around her and I think she can read minds or something? *Googles it* Here it is. http://www.amazon.com/An-Accidental-Goddess/dp/B000FCKKTY/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1 An Accidental Goddess by Linnea Sinclair. It wouldn't be that bad a book if it weren't for the fact that she's a total Sue. XD If you check out the customer reviews, there's a lot of romance-novel fans fawning over it but a couple readers definitely have their snark together.

^^ Take your time--I certainly seem to be doing so. *headdesk* So...far...behind... *claws the air dramatically*

: : :

That's the first one. There's another. -_-;; More tomorrow--I'm out of school, applying for a summer job, have nothing much to do. My precious darling Hermione (yes, I named my new laptop, and no, it wasn't specifically for the Harry Potter character--awesome as Hermione Jean Granger is, there is precedent of the name in both Shakespeare and Greek history, not to mention the number of possible nicknames referencing the word "mine;" we have technological possession issues in my house) fried right in front of me not three months after buying it off eBay (curse you, eBay! *shakes fist*) and I've been sneaking onto the computer my mother uses when she's looking the other way. Right now I'm making an effort to catch up on D.Gray-man: rereading ZONE, wtf-ing over chapter 159, going over past notes and compiling new ones. Still trying to screw my head on straight. *emo!sigh*

(Dayadhvam_Triad, if you have any problem with the content being displayed in a Google-unsafe zone, just comment and I'll take it off. Also, I kind of love you. *glomps* ♥)

archivesss

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:38:56 GMT

I am officially dead and this is my spectre come back from the grave to...uhhh...meander around doing random shit.

So! To business. Around January/February/March Dayadhvam_Triad (hereafter referred to as D_T, as the whole name is far too much effort to type out--Eliot was such a drama queen) got into D.Gray-man, and I promptly hijacked her post fangirling about it. I'm rereading it, because I'm easily distracted ~~and because I'm still working on a couple responses to those threads~~. It's too much goddamn effort to keep it all in the indenting LJ format where eventually the sentence is like

At
Lev
1,
I
don
thin
the
Aku
itse
is
quit
sen
or
part
inte
and
self
awa

and of course that's lame, so. My original intent for this account (as I had no idea what had come into my head to make me apply for an account on yet another website I had no interest in at the time) was archiving fandom babble, and in D_T I found a comrade in the joys of geeking, so.

...I end far too many sentences with the word "so."

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dayadhvam_triad 02.02.08 Life as is...
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[...] Also, I started reading through the D.Gray-man manga... I'm already halfway through now. *sheepish*

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kohikari 02.03.08
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Over holiday break, D.Gray devoured my soul.

Because it's adorable like that. ♥

I dunno about which half is better and which is worse (...wait, there are halves? o.o), but I have to agree that the anime is not as good as the manga (and I have a grudge against whoever made that awful choice for Allen's seiyuu).

*kills all essay assignments*

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d_t 02.03.08
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I'm not sure if there's really a proper place to divide it in half--I guess speaking in chapter number terms. :P Allen's voice... is surprisingly, uh, feminine. >_>

But D.Gray-man is pretty awesome, although I'm not big on the fight scenes (but I'm never big on fight scenes XP). It is so adorable, especially the characters. :D

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kohikari 02.03.08
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I don't think there are any obvious division points--there's a pause after the pilot chapter, and maybe right before and after Allen troops off with Bitchyface for his maiden voyage mission, and traveling all the way across the Eurasian continent must have taken some time--but there's no real timeskip, you know? Naruto has it easy. Two-hundred-something chapters of twelve/thirteen-year-olds running around with knives and setting shit on fire, then BAM! They're, like, fifteen, and angsty. D.Gray-man doesn't even pause for breath. ~145 chapters and running with it.

(Ack, I've had too much chocolate and I'm babbling againnn T_T)

I am ANGRYFACE about how docile and feminine that seiyuu makes his voice. Edward Elric, Uzumaki Naruto, the list goes on for decent young shounen protagonists portrayed well by female voice actors. I recognize that Allen's character was originally female in the ZONE manga, but that was that and this is D.Gray-man. Allen Walker is not a very girly character. The producers probably had a really low budget and didn't want to make their hero sound like a thirty-year-old man ~~(coughUchihaSasukecough)~~, but... *flail* Ah, it doesn't really matter in the long run anyway.

I love the characters with all. My. Heart. And. Soul. Allen is too adorable, Road is made of awesome, Bitchyface (Kanda) is hilarious, and Tyki's wonderfully ambiguous as a villain half the time. And that's just the tip of the iceberg~ ♥ Which characters/plot elements/etc. are your favorite(s)?

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d_t 02.03.08
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Yeah, the seiyuu's too... light and high for a boy. ~~LOL Uchiha Sasuke~~

*_* Eeeh, the characters! I think Allen is indeed too adorable :D, and Kanda is just so surly I can't help but like him (although have there been any hints about the "someone" he's looking for and the lotus/tattoo thing?)--also, Lavi is THE WIN. Especially in that Ch. 114-something range where we got a look at the Bookman and past!Lavi stuff, and it was just like Gah. And Tyki--he acts like such a gentleman at times, and I have to confess at least part of my liking for him is based on the expressions the mangaka gives him--the faintly quizzical, the amused, but nothing like HUR HUR HUR I'M EVIL AND GOING TO KILL YOU (because that's cliched XP... well, until what happened to him recently ;_;). And Road is really cool--she acts so childish and capricious and heehee. :D And Bak and Fou and even Chomesuke, and Komui as well. :D For some reason I'm not too big on Lenalee/Linalee/however-you-translate-her-name (I've seen different versions). I don't dislike her, but to me she's just sort of ehhhh, okay. I don't know why, exactly. :/ For some reason she gives me the same impression as Winry from FMA, which I'm not sure makes sense. XP I like Miranda, her inferiority complex was huge, and it's pretty impressive the way she's working through it. And I find the aspect about Allen's left hand for Akuma and right hand for humans really interesting, and also that stuff about the 14th Noah and the strange code Mana and Allen made up. Ugh, I wish we could find out more about that (instead of reading our way through another fight that seems about to break out in the manga with that level 4 Akuma).

*has spent too much time looking for D.Gray-man icons >_>*

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kohikari 02.04.08
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~~Why of course I'm twelve, we ninja just have hormone-laden vegetables and beef that make our voices break early...really, it's perfectly normal for a little snot-nosed tweener to have a baritone...~~

I don't know if there've been any hints about "that person", but in the...I think it was the first Reverse novel? The Witch of something-or-other...lemme check.

The Exorcists Order comm (http://community.livejournal.com/exorcists_order/) is a good source of info and updates (the RAW for 146 came out on the first, I need to get around to reading that...so many papers to write first...), and their...homepage? Whatever (http://www.exorcists-order.info/) has links to a couple translations of the Reverse novels. The one that's completed is of Village Where the Witch Dwells, which has an Engrishy description of Kanda's evil lotus thingamabob and a bit of his relationship to it.

(I love how Kanda's got such a filthy mouth. Swears like a drunken sailor, he does. x3)

Lavi is an awesome character, I agree. (Tell me, what do you think of the requisite ambiguous shounen manga pairings? I'm pretty sure Lavi's head over heels for Lenalee, and she's just as bad for Allen, and Allen...uh...I don't think he feels quite as much for Lenalee, but it's certainly not very platonic so. Kanda's one and only is obviously Mugen, of course. *perfectly straight-faced, really* There's something in how our Token Female Protagonist looks at her brother in the hospital later on that pings my cracky shipper sense, but it might be a false alarm... And of course I think RoadxAllen (she tops, hands down) is the best crack pairing EVER. Because she's hilarious when she randomly jumps him and gets all sadistic and creepy and makes Lavi Assume Untoward Things.) Oh, I'm so good at digressing. So, Lavi=win. I love the concept of Bookmen. Sometimes I wish I could see the original three manga that prompted the series--BOOK-MAN, ZONE, continue. It's so shinyyy~

(Ah crap, I'm being longwinded again. ^^; Sorry for spamming you so much!)

I was total sadface when Chomesuke died. And Miranda, yes, she's awesome. I love her random alcohol problem. XD Hoshino-sensei did a good job with that character. She did a great job with Lenalee too, it's just that she suffers the Shounen Manga Syndrome--it's aimed toward boys, the strongest/most well-developed characters tend to be male, and there must be a token girlfriend/damsel-in-distress/etc. character to fill a place. Hoshino-sensei is good at poking fun at the cliches and tropes of the genre, and I have to say Lenalee sticks stronger with me than most shounen heroines, but...it's like we've seen it all before, yeah? Miranda's more original, and maybe a little more compelling because of it.

Teh Official Romanizations are chock-full of Engrish, but that's okay because D.Gray-man is made of cracky love and win anyways. Froi Tiedoll, Lenalee Lee, Reever Wenhamm, Jeryy (yes, one 'r' and two 'y's), Miranda Lotto, Baron Arystar Krory III, Lavi, Daisya Barry, Noise Marie, Hevlaska, etc. etc. etc. Half of them are randomly named after brands of silver accessories--Timcanpy, Winters Zocalo, Cloud9...

Allen's whole 'awakening' bit--when he reassimilated Crown Clown--struck a weirdly deep chord in me. A protagonist who lives and fights for his enemies, horrible monsters and such? One hand for the Akuma, and the other for the humans, his nakama. So much love in his heart, like Jesus, except with no scary fundies preaching in train stations. It just added so much to his character, and cemented the chain of fantardedness around my neck. Eeeee ambiguity~ ♥ ♥ ♥ I can feel that this manga has a long way to go, and I'd like to be there along with it~ Especially considering how Kishimoto-sensei's magic mushroom habit is turning me off Naruto a little recently...

*is really very sorry for wasting your time with rambleage*

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d_t 02.04.08
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Oh, I didn't know they had those novels! *bookmarks the link* Thanks! :)

Tell me, what do you think of the requisite ambiguous shounen manga pairings?
LOL I agree with you, pretty much. Lavi may like Lenalee, but not as much as Lenalee likes Allen (that's too obvious to me, at least :P). And XP, Road/Allen--that part when she jumped on him, that was just made of the win--so hilarious. >_> ~~Also, I was sort-of-not-really liking Lavi/Chomesuke the short time it/she appeared in the story. *is shot* XP~~ :D Kanda/Mugen = OTP. *grins*

it's just that she suffers the Shounen Manga Syndrome--it's aimed toward boys, the strongest/most well-developed characters tend to be male, and there must be a token girlfriend/damsel-in-distress/etc. character to fill a place
:D Good point there. I dunno--I definitely recognize Lenalee's a very strong character, like when she fought the Akuma over the sea, but then there's the part in the Ark where Noah's trapped her and Chaoji in the cubes, and she keeps saying, "Allen-kun!" over and over again, and... :/ It's unfortunate that there must be the token girlfriend like this, I think I'd like Lenalee lots and lots more if the Shounen Manga Syndrome wasn't so prevalent and I hadn't seen it so many times before. *sighs*

Jeryy? Seriously? I saw it spelled as Jerry all the time. Haha, the romanizations are absolutely nutty. XP

*snort* Naruto is really, really strange lately. I'm hoping that Kishi will stop his mushroom habit soon and clear things up (oh why did I discover Naruto so late, after Part I ended? ;_; Part I was just awesome). But yep, there's so much potential in D.Gray-man as it is now (still wants to know more about Lavi's past, and Kanda, and Mana Walker, and Allen's Crown Clown, and asdfjkl;asdfjkl; toooooo much)! Don't apologize, you aren't rambling at all! You make more sense than I ever would, and why shouldn't we squee over D.Gray-man? :D--there's so much that could happen, and I really hope it keeps going as well as it has. :D

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kohikari 02.04.08
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You're giving me an excuse to fangirl. WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS I DON'T NEED ENCOURAGEMENT (i love you for it buuut--) *dies in Humanities 4 essay tsunami*

(I typed that last post at 1 AM...you can see my sanity and coherency slowly disintegrating as the post rambles on... XD;; I'm going to bed now, that should fix the zombie factor.)

A while back I made a note of the most relevant/efficient/promptly updated D.Gray fancomms; apart from Exorcists Order, which is for news and discussion, there's ummm (crap, I don't have my bookmarks with me because my laptop fried over the weekend and this is a more different one) I think dgrayman and d_grayman (or was it dgray_man? Or d_gray_man...oh well, just try permutations of that, and the comm with the bad KandaxAllen fanart for a bg is sort of this fandom's equivalent of Chuunin. Fanart, fanfic, fsts, icons, rpgs, blogcrews, discussions, etc. Also, I think there's a dgrayicons comm or something? the Chuunin-esque people should have links to that...)

Also, the archive for D.Gray on ff.n is sooo adorable. Like, there are actual good writers, and some cutely bad writers, and some newbie fantards, and it's so cute~ *hugs tiny fandom* I've done a statistics report for it, but I'm not sure if it's large enough to be relevant enough to post... (KandaAllen=v.popular, and some random Lenalee pairings, and then you throw Lavi in the mix and some fans break out the cracky threesomes...oh, fandom, you're so special~ ♥ There's pretty decent gen, too! Try Mana and Cross by um whatever her name is, and Bookman by Dhampir[insert two-digit number here].)

~~Chomesuke/Lavi --> crack OTP FTW~~ Also, did you notice how Hoshino-sensei takes the pretty-boy trope and runs all over Hell's half-acre with it? Every time Kanda gets in a serious fight, he randomly loses his shirt, his hair falls out of the ponytail, and there's lots of injured!fanservice. XDDD

I like how Lenalee keeps fighting to protect her precious people, even when she's stripped of her weapon and strength. She's got a very strong spirit, especially considering that she was formerly suicidal...such drive is admirable, coming from a place like that. (On a more superficial note, I like how she lost her hair--the stereotype across genres and across cultures tends to be that "super-feminine" girls have long pretty hair and "super-masculine" girls have short short hair; Lenalee went from one end of the spectrum to the other, and retains her mix of femininity and fiery spirit. Also, for someone active like a fighter, short hair is OVER 9000 times more practical. *thinks too much*)

Hoshino-sensei's on the goooood crack. Like the stuff Kishimoto-sensei used to be on, before he went off the deep end and the series jumped the kisame and random ninja catgirls started happening ~~(WHY CATGIRLS WHYYY)~~.

I think D.Gray-man is one of the most underappreciated shounen manga right now, in a market that's obsessing over Naruto and Bleach and One Piece and Yu-Gi-Oh! and all the rest. I mean, not that those series don't have their own merit--certified Narutard speaking here, as well as a Bleach fan and former (recovered) closet YGO rabidfan--but there's just something about D.Gray-man that seems like it's missing in a lot of other, more popular manga. Like what the main character cares about. Naruto cares about Sasuke, and bringing him home, and protecting a host of other precious people--despite what Sasuke and the rest of his world have done to him. Allen cares about the Akuma, and the Noah, and essentially all humankind in this war (he's been there before, after all, lost a loved one and suffered the trauma and guilt of turning them into an Akuma), and despite all the shit he's been through he keeps fighting for Mana and all the rest. Maybe it's because I'm an actress, and motivation is really important in connecting to a story for me. But Kurosaki Ichigo's motivations just don't do it for me like these other two manga do. ^^; I'm babbling, and probably going over the LJ postlimit because I think too much, but...

*loves on precious adorable favorite new fandom*

(*loves on you too, of course*)

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d_t 02.04.08
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~~Heehee, we can fangirl together! *is also supposed to be doing work, but...* And awww, essays :/~~

Seriously, you are too awesome. <3 Thank you for directing me to those comms! *beams*

... </a></b></a>dgrayman and </a></b></a>dgray_man, and do you mean the comm with the Kanda/Allen fanart is one of the two you listed? Or another comm? ... *checks again* Oh, it's </a></b></a>dgray_man that's the D.Gray-man version of chuunin then--for some reason the background took forever to show up. XD

*also notes down fics* :D It makes me so happy! First off, less badfic to plow through. :P And ohhh, you should post the stats report. Since this is a great series, it's automatically relevant. <3

LOL I happen to be skimming through some of the anime (non-filler!) episodes right now, and I'm at the "Ghost of Mateel" arc, where Kanda's hair has fallen out. And I remember in the manga--he's fighting against Skin Boric (Bolic?) and his shirt is--burned off, isn't it? I was snickering as I was reading, soo much fanservice. ~~Not that I'm complaining XP And Chomesuke/Lavi ftw!~~

Wow, I have to confess I was terribly unobservant and didn't pick up on the significance of the hair going from long --> short with regard to feminine/masculine stereotypes--I simply thought, "Hey, it'll be easier for her to fight without her hair in the way!" Speaking of which--Kanda's hair is too long, and how does Lavi fight with that scarf of his whipping around? You'd think he'd be strangled or something by accident. :/ (Totally off-topic, but I really cannot wait to see how the past!Lavi and present!Lavi's interactions are animated...)

~~where in the WORLD did the ninja cats and Granny Cat come from? I mean, what? o_O~~

Ohhh you are so much more articulate than me at explaining things! I wish I'd discovered Naruto earlier and gotten to experience some of Part I as it happened *wistful*--I have the feeling that I've come into the Naruto fandom at a point when a lot of people are like wtf Kishimoto and just wondering what's going on, and Part I~~that's one thing I'll always admire Kishi for, even though I have no idea what he's going off on now. The characterization, the characterization is so beautiful ;_; And I feel like Naruto and Allen are very similar, in the sense that they have such huge hearts for almost everyone. *loves on them* D.Gray-man really reminds me of Part I!Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist, which are probably the mangas (besides D.Gray-man) I adore most. (I think the only reason I don't feel I'm so rabidly in love with FMA is because of the slow manga updates, but the characters, the characters in FMA as well! *_*)

I started to read Bleach before, but I just couldn't get into it. What are Ichigo's motivations exactly? I think I got as far as umm, the shell thing starts flirting with Ichigo's classmates? I have a general idea of the storyline, and maybe I should go back and start again, but it just didn't really click with me.

*love love love for D.Gray-man* *and love for you too--thank you for all the links <3, and just getting to read your commentary is awesome :DDDDD*

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kohikari 02.07.08
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(Drafted Tuesday/Wednesday, typed Wednesday, posted Thursday. Ack. So slooow.)

--

(Sorry it took so long to reply--Tuesdays and Thursdays I have night school and don't get home until 10. -_-;; )

^^

It's nice to know that even as you cross fandoms, fantards never change. There's hardcore yaoi and het fans, there's yuri fans and crack!pairing fans, there's the odd gen fan who eventually gains their own following (I'd like to note that Bookman was inspired by Mana and Cross), there's the drabblers and the epic!ficcers and the emo poets. It's sort of comforting.

*puts D.Gray Report on to-do list; it might get done this weekend, or the next, but it should end up being completed by February vacation, I think*

I'm a little upset about how they changed Road's actions--it's so much more ~~romantic~~ dramatic and visceral if she stabs his eye out herself with a single candle, while randomly sitting in his lap (I love you Road~ ♥), than if she gets up, walks away, and flings a bunch of projectiles at him, one of which so conveniently happens to hit his left eye. Am I being a manga elitist/purist, or...?

You're not unobservant--I just think too much. I came up with the whole hair theory right as I was typing that, actually. ^^; When it was happening I just blinked and started panicking (in tandem with Lenalee, it turns out) about Anita-san's hair ornaments. I wonder if Lenalee still has that one?...

*dies laughing at the thought of Lavi or Kanda being defeated by their own clothing/hair* I keep expecting a Noah to just grab Kanda by the ponytail (such an inviting target, really, and a convenient handle) and send him flying or something.

(I actually didn't like Lavi that much until the whole Road-mindfuck arc where we learned about his past/true self/etc. And then I was like, ♥~)

~~It's like catgirls gone horribly horribly wrong. Fangirls like that just aren't meant to live that long...~~

...Actually, on that note, I'm a little surprised Hoshino-sensei hasn't parodied the catgirl trope yet. I mean, she's hit up almost all of the other ones--the tragic pasts, the mysterious figures, the token damsels-in-distress, the crazy/oversexualized archenemies, the cartoonish supervillains, the pretty boys, the comic relief, the badly portrayed historical time periods, the vampfic...the list goes on. She's gotten slammed so much for "crossovers" or maliciously using material from other manga for her own gain, but all of that's ridiculous. This manga is what it is--a shounen-marketed story, an action/adventure, a gothic/horror, and a parody. Because that's what my first impression of D.Gray-man was--a combination of Fullmetal Alchemist and The Nightmare Before Christmas thrown in a blender with all the typical shounen manga cliches and a healthy helping of crack. And it still manages to be a heartfelt, serious story. I have to say I'm a little impressed.

...Crap, I went off on a tangent again. *headdesk* See, this is why it takes me an hour to respond to this thread--I keep getting distracted by my own juvenile philosophical meanderings.

And I get overly verbose, that too.

XDDD "WTF Kishimoto" is actually the most concise accurate description I've heard thus far of the fandom's reaction to the Timeskip. Especially the last forty or so chapters, if not further.

;.; You're right, there's nothing more wonderful than finding engaging, memorable characters, the kind that sort of leave a mark on you even as you pass through being a fan. Hmm. You're right, Naruto and Allen do have similarly wide-open hearts. Makes me wonder if that's what attracts us (or maybe just me) to that type of character?

Ummm...I had a list somewhere around here about what I wanted to say in this thing before I break the LJ-limit and have to continue in another post (or worse, go to bed XD)...ah! Here it is.

[[Officially Over teh LJ Post Limit! The servers can't handle me. :D Cutting...]]

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kohikari 02.07.08
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[[Second part! Woo.]]

I'm sincerely hoping Tyki gets his personality back, because the manga wouldn't be the same without him. It'd be a tragedy along the lines of Kabutorochi and the Itachicaust (1.24.08 nevar forget). No, Hoshino-sensei! Don't follow Kishimoto-sensei down the Shroom Path of Questionable Return...!!

(In chapter 145, I all panicked for a moment because I thought Bak and Reever were dead. Then I used the ~~denial~~logic!hammer and decided they can't be dead, Reever's an important Komui sidekick and Bak still needs to exist for occasional side-character love-triangle stuffs with Fou. And I don't think Fou can leave the base she guards, so.)

*talks too much* And then, and then, at band camp...!! *shot*

*'tis only a flesh wound* Hey, hey, if D.Gray is FMA, and Allen is Ed and Mana is the mother (the Fourteenth is clearly Sloth...in the anime, I haven't read the manga) and Timcanpy is Al (what, they're both sentient metal things in a steampunky era...) and Cross is Ed's dad (again, in the FMA anime), and Lenalee is Winry, and Komui is Auntie Pinako...umm...actually no, Komui would be Roy (that's who he reminded me of at first) unless Bak was Roy and Fou was Hawkeye...and Skinn is Gluttony (sorry, Skinn) and Lulubell is Lust (unless Road would be Lust?) annnd would Jasdebi be Envy and Wrath? Ack. Help me out here? Would Tyki be Envy, and Jasdebi just be Wrath on their own? (Again, I only watched the anime because I'm lazy like that.) Um. Shit, who would the Millennium Earl be. (Miranda is clearly Scieszka. ...Did I spell that right?) Um. Who would Lavi and Kanda be, we need the rest of the Fab Four.

...Aaand I'm off on a tangent again.

I also love the way the plot has turned recently--all internal problems, with the antagonists being higher-ups in the Black Order/Black Church/Black Religious Organization/etc. A problem you can't solve by blowing shit up. It's so...mmm, tense situations and subtlety and intrigue get me all tingly. Also, it realistically portrays the natural consequences of Allen's altruism--his familiarity with the Noahs, his kindness towards the injured Tyki, and just plain bad luck on them finding out about the Fourteenth before even he did. I wonder what will happen when they find out he's actually the perfect sheep for their Order--his whole life's mission bent on destroying Akuma and defeating the Millennium Earl, and they go and lock him up. Dumbasses.

Ack, I'm ranting at you because I haven't found anyone else to fangirl with about this...I feel so guilty for spamming you...

...But not guilty enough to shut up yet, I still have five minutes before I need to GTFO and to bed. *bricked*

Hm. "Wouldn't it be funny if Timcanpy turned out to be Mana/the Fourteenth all along?" Where in the seven hells did that question come from? *scratches head* ...It would be funny, though...

Do you think Allen sees regular ghosts with that eye of his, as well as the trapped souls within Akuma? (Presuming of course that "ghosts" exist in this world.)

And here's a little bullet point of me geeking over how cool it is how everything is made of random hexagons (a vague reference to atomic theory?) and/or puzzle pieces. I'm wondering if the puzzlebox-theme will turn out to be some part of the plot, or if Hoshino-sensei just thought it would be a clever motif for the tankoubon covers and the sky falling.

Also, like hell they dressed like that in the 1890s. The miniskirt alone wasn't invented until the 1960s...

[[Moar limitbreak? I feel so hardcore...]]

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kohikari 02.07.08
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[[Final cut! *attempts enthusiasm* *fails* *goes to bed instead*]]

Bleach is actually pretty cool. The shell thing (you're talking about the Pez-dispenser!soul Rukia got from Hat-and-Clog's, yes?) is sentient and eventually becomes a sidekick/mascot. As soon as Ichigo adjusts to his powers, something happens and he has to set off on this quest to "save Rukia" (who doesn't really want to be Rescued), accompanied by random classmates with magical powers. Before they leave, they have to train; the training arc is full of drama and holds lots of plotty stuff for later on. Also, no one dies in Bleach. Like, someone will have just blown Ichigo up or something, or stabbed him in what looks like the heart/lungs, and he'll keep on going like the Energizer Bunny from hell. It's worse than in other anime--it's like, for some reason, Kubo Tite likes his characters too much to ever kill them or something. So Ichigo and Co. head off to Save Rukia, and become illegal immigrants with the help of a talking cat (I love Yoruichi), and fight their way through Soul Society while the shinigami higher-ups are busy panicking. There's this whole conspiracy, and lots of suspense when it looks like some serious shit is about to happen to Rukia, but after a couple cliched shounen-manga powerups they come to the rescue and have to fight their way out. And then the whole conspiracy is revealed, and random shinigami get character depth, and more shit happens and then they go home. And then in the anime there is a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Filler Arc--if you ever get into Bleach, you'll want to skip that. And then more fun plotty stuff happens. It's pretty good--just not quite on the level of Naruto and D.Gray-man. ~~why do I keep typing D.Gay-man~~

*phew* I'm done. Good night~

~~That enough commentary for ya? ;3~~

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d_t 02.10.08
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Wow. XD I think I'm going to have to take some time to digest everything you said before I can make a good attempt at replying. :D

~~LOL we shall carry on the fangirling :P~~

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- kohikari 02.10.08
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- Yeah, I talk a lot. ^^;;;;;
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- ~~THE FANGIRLING SHALL NEVER DIE~~

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d_t 02.13.08
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Yay! Let us continue merrily on this D.Gray-man fangirling road. :D

(LOL it’s sort of amusing how we have to draft out our responses because there’s so much to talk about. :P)

Whee, D.Gray-man report! I look forward to it. :DDD

Oh, I didn’t see that part in the anime—but they changed it to that? Road’s action of stabbing him in the eye is so much more hardcore and significant emotions-wise than if she was randomly directing candles at him and one hit him in the eye by chance (of course it was by chance…). It’s a little irritating that the animators feel the need to change those kinds of things because they’re “too violent” or stuff like that. It’s a shounen manga, what would you think they’d have? No, you’re not being an elitist/purist (at least I think so), it’d be so much more dramatic if she’d oh-so-calmly stabbed him.

I think Lenalee returned Anita-san’s hair ornaments to her before they left the ship, didn’t they? My memory is spotty, though, so I’m not sure.

I still await the moment in which Kanda’s turned into a propeller blade. Around and around he goes… I suspect that there might be (gasp!) sentimental value behind his hair, because pragmatically it doesn’t make sense. Wait—well, a lot of uniform/hair/etc. choices don’t make sense. So that doesn’t affect anything. XP

Really? I liked Lavi from the beginning—he seemed so amusingly nonchalant and the like. And then Road’s mind-fuck arc came along and young!Lavi was so adorable~ :D Speaking of which, who is your favorite character? (and favorite pairing? If you have one, that is XD)

o_O Old catgirls… *shudders*

… Wow. I think it must say something about Hoshino’s ability to make good stuff out of those tropes that I hadn’t actually noticed the parodying of said tropes until you just pointed it out. XD Cartoonish supervillains--Oh, Earl, you are such a strange entity. He makes me think of a bloated, disfigured rabbit for some reason. XP

You saw the latest Naruto chapters? Kishimoto continues merrily along the garden path to even more wtf. :P

Naruto and Allen—they’re just so willing to help and love others, even those who aren’t their friends (Naruto and the villagers who are a little wary of him, Allen and the Akuma)—unless those people have hurt them and their friends (“precious” is the important word!). Then—omg, watch out! The mother lion pounces with claws extended! (… don’t ask where that metaphor came from. I have no idea. XD) But anyway, I suppose that could be why—there’s a wonderful aspect of magnanimity to their personalities.

Oh, I hope Tyki gets his personality back too. He was such an interesting villain—but now that he’s been turned into Mindless Fighting Strange-Looking Minion, it takes so much out of the oomph of the manga. It’s interesting and complex villains that make up so much of the awesomeness of the conflict.

~~Kabutorochi and Itachicaust, LOL~~

I don’t think Bak and Reever are dead ~~denial!~~, because then their deaths would seem too… ignominious, I guess. And for the reasons you listed, too. :D

*offers bandages*

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- kohikari 02.15.08
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- (I actually do this kind of thing a lot--I'm such an OCD perfectionist I won't post anything without at least two edits...)

- They also changed the "FUCK YOU EXORCISTS!" to "I'VE GOT YOUR INNOCENCE!". I mean, it's not as bad as Viz's edit to "THANK YOU EXORCISTS!", but...

- In the manga, Lenalee was fighting with the hairpieces in, and when everything was burning up she reached out to grab it because it was "Anita-san's precious hair ornaments"; when Chomesuke returned her to the boat and the crystal reverted, she was clutching an ornament in her hand. Dunno where the other went. Also, as the exorcists were lifting off and Miranda canceled her invocation, Anita was wearing one of the ornaments--it fell to the deck floor as she disintegrated from the Akuma virus. I don't know if one is melted and at the bottom of the sea and the other in the shipwreck, or one in the shipwreck and one with Lenalee, or what.

- Hee, propeller-blade!Kanda. x3

- My favorite character is Allen. He's just so--gah, I just want to hug him or something. He cares for his enemies, he lives and fights for the monsters created by his worst enemy, he's a one-man eating machine, he's not loud or brash or annoying like your typical shounen hero (let's hear it for variety), he cheats like a pro at poker, and he was trained as a clown. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I just love the character. ^^; Second place is Kanda tied with Road; I'm naturally predisposed to liking the bitchy trigger-happy characters, so Kanda's a big fat duh, but Road is there because she is made of AWESOME (even if I did think she was a transvestite at first) and and and I love her so much. I don't really know after that; I really like all the characters, Tyki and Cross and the Earl and Miranda and Lavi and Lenalee and Chomesuke and Komui...

- As for pairings...well. >////<;; I knew what kind of character Bitchyface was from his first panel in volume 1, and by the end of said volume had that RYFG-favorite pairing all pinned down. Then I remembered the redhead I had seen in several D.Gray icons and decided that of course the three popular pretty boys, RedheadxBitchyfacexAllen, would be the favorite for crack OT3. As for my own preferences in pairing, it takes a lot to actually make me believe there's a connection and then more to make me care, so...well, I wasn't expecting it, but something hit me upside the head with a ton of bricks and now I'm shipping RoadxAllen and LavixLenalee. Though I recognize AllenxLenalee as pretty damn canon, and LaviKandaAllen will always be the perfect crack threesome. And I have fun reading all the KandaAllen and LaviAllen and LaviKanda fics just to see all the interpretations of the characters and the dynamics (and also because I am easily distracted from schoolwork).

- Why is TykixLavi so popular? I don't get it. They fought once, and it was because Lavi thought Tyki had killed Allen, and then Mr. Mikk pulls the hostage bit with Lenalee, and...and Tyki paid the most attention to Allen anyway, so the popularity of the "Lucky" pairing sort of weirds me out. Just like KandaLenalee, except to a greater extent. (Because KandaLenalee is actually plausible...)

- ~~Grandmother Cat or whatever her name was was an old crazy cat lady with a cat-ear headband on and a long-suffering niece/granddaughter/assistant. It's Catgirls: The Golden Years, I tell you!~~

- - - - - - -

- - d_t 02.25.08
- - -
- - *headdesks* That revision completely changes the meaning of what was shouted. :/

- - With Anita's hair ornaments: I think she lost one while fighting the Akuma, and the one she had in her hand, like you said, was the other one when she came back to the ship. Then she put it in Anita's hair, as told to--so I think both are in the water. Somewhere. :( So I guess Lenalee doesn't have the hair ornaments anymore.

- - he cheats like a pro at poker
- - Oh god, that part made me laugh when I was reading the manga. XD Just--and it's just so, so hilarious. XD Allen is adorable, he really is. His motivation to fight for both humans and the Akuma~ ♥ :D Kanda cracks me up; it'll be interesting to see what his backstory is like. The tattoo + lotus = ??? And XDDD Road as a transvestite--true, I can definitely see that. :P The characters are just all so, so awesome.

- - Oh, pairings. =_= The requisite RYFG pairing Kanda/Allen. XD Lavi/Lenalee--have you seen the latest manga chapters? I feel like there might be something--or it could just be I'm reading too much into it, and it's Lavi being worried (platonic!) over Lenalee and what she's doing.

- - Tyki/Lavi is called the "Lucky" pairing? *blinks* I didn't know that, hmm. Kanda/Lenalee--they have a such an awww sibling-ish relationship, I can see Allen/Lenalee and Lavi/Lenalee more than it. Although I have read good stuff with that ship.

- - ~~I really feel for the suffering assistant--I mean, the cat headbands! WHUT. I weep for the sheer brilliance of Naruto Part I. ;_;~~

- - - - - - - - - -

- - kohikari 02.25.08
- - -
- - It wasn't spoken aloud, it was written on the wall in (Miranda's) blood where the clock used to be.

- - *gasp* The Mysterious Case of the Missing Hair Ornaments is solved! ~~*read too much Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys when she was little*~~ ~~*what does it say about me that I preferred the Hardy Boys over the Nancy Drew novels, and all my favorite anime and manga are shounen and seinen?*~~ I wonder if later on in the series Lenalee will have an angsty/nostalgic flashback to how Anita told her to keep her hair long and not lose it to the war...

- - Allen's "Black" Side is hilarious. It's the only time I can picture him with the creepy Noah!smile, all dark and evil and about to cheat you out of your trousers... With Kanda, canonically we know that the lotus is suspended in water/fluid/whatever, in an hourglass? and there are thirteen petals left at some point in the manga? and with each petal that falls, some of Kanda's life ~~expectancy~~ ~~energy~~ ~~power~~ whatever is taken away. And he heals inhumanly quickly, like probably around Naruto's speed. And the tattoo is definitely connected, when he does the Sangenshiki thing with the Sharingan-mocking three dots in the eyes and pulls life energy-whatever directly from himself and the tattoo gets a broader spread --> re:the fight with Skinn.

- - Road I first thought was a sadistic little boy in a dress. And I blinked and then I thought, okay, whatever, because this is Japanese manga and it's nothing I haven't seen before. And then after the whole arc is through and the third tankoubon is drawing to a close, in the author-talk page Hoshino-sensei says Road's female, and I was like ...what? And I had to reread it all again from that more different lens. XP Jasdebi I thought were male, until Lero called them "-tama" which was noted by the translator as somewhat equating "young lady" or something, and I blinked and was confused for a bit and then decided that that explained why their jeans are so...erm...wait a minute, I don't think jeans were invented until the 20th century! *fume* And someone somewhere said zippers weren't invented until later as well, and Allen's latest uniform is practically nothing but... ...What was I talking about? Oh yeah, so then I thought Jasdebi were female, and I still think so because goddammit their combined form was clearly wearing a dress. @_@;;;

- - Eeeee unique/engaging characters~ *totally in love with this canon*

- - Kanda/Allen for me is a little "eh", it's not as blatantly implausible as Harry/Draco but it's still not as deadpan obvious as Naruto/Sasuke... I was shocked originally at the popularity of the Lavi/Kanda ship in Japan; they have practically no onscreen interaction (despite their obvious history, and that Lavi's the only one besides Tiedoll to call him "Yuu") and when they do it's with or about Allen. *squashes moar crack!threesome theories* But recently in the manga, my LaviLena shipping bone has been twinging like a hurricane's a'coming. Admittedly, it could be taken as platonic, buuut... XD Yeah no.

- - Yup, Lavi + Tyki = "Lucky," apparently. There's "Yullen," too. No cutesy nicknames for other ships that I can remember. I'd peg Kanda as brotherly to Lenalee too--it's just that Komui kind of has that market cornered, y'know? So I figure entirely platonic brotherish friend. (There was this one KandaLenalee fanfic that was based off of J.D.Robb's _ in Death series (which is actually pretty good, despite its roots in the trash novel business), and it wasn't bad. It hasn't been updated in a while, but I story-alerted it...)

- - ~~I can handle 307-309, I can handle 347, I can handle 366, hell, I can handle 386 but the ninjacatgirls? are pushing it. >.<;;;~~

- - - - - - - - - -

- - d_t 02.26.08
- - -
- -

- - *smacks self* Ah, my memory fails me so badly. :/

- - XD So far the D.Gray-man anime has not had that many flashbacks, thank god, but there probably will be one. Flashbacks seem to be a staple of anime (especially Naruto, @____@).

- - I know that after Kanda fought Skinn another petal fell, so now he has thirteen. And yeah, his tattoo has definitely started to expand. I do wonder who "that person" is--one mention, and then it sort of disappeared. XD

- - Road I first thought was a sadistic little boy in a dress.
- - *snickers* Jasdebi--I thought one of them looked male and the other female (the blond one?)--although I can't remember which was which, precisely. However, the combined form? Totally wearing a dress. ~~BELIEVE IT!~~ So... yeah, the genders are really, really strange.

- - I can see how people might be like squee Kanda/Allen. A lot of people call it a rival!ship, apparently, but to me it isn't. They just happen to be two boys who bicker a lot and have very different views of the world, but bickering doesn't --> rivals (unlike Naruto and Sasuke, for instance). Lavi/Kanda probably comes out of the implied history between them; as you said, they haven't interacted much in the actual manga, although I know that there's more in the fillers (but they're fillers, so *shrugs*). And heehee, there has been a lot of... interesting Lavi/Lenalee interaction in the recent manga. :P

- - Lucky. And Yullen. Owwwww, seriously, these portmanteau 'ship names are just so ://// at times. Hmm, that fic you mentioned does sound interesting. :D Could you perhaps link me to it? :D

- - ~~Ninjacatgirls are there to be all catty and make readers go o_O. They've done a good job of it. =_=~~

- - - - - - - - - -

- - kohikari 02.29.08
- - -
- -

- - The Wave/Zabuza arc was at least 50% flashbacks of what had happened five seconds before. XD Padding episode lengths much?

- - The mention disappeared because Kanda disappeared--with no appearances after Mateel until the fight in Edo except in brief interludes in the search for the Rinkaisha. If he was any other character type than bitchy!triggerhappy!prettyboy, I'd've forgotten about him entirely...and yet he's the most popular character in the latest Jump rankings. -_-;; Oh, fangirls: specially retarded the world over.

- - Debitto has shorter dark hair and is the dominant twin (and so might come off as more masculine--as well as the fact that his/her/its name is often romanized as "David"), and Jasdero is the long-blonde with the mouth stitches ("Nihihihihihi!"). I'm going to assume the position that they're transsexual/gender-neutral/hermaphrodites and leave it at that. x3

- - If Kanda had remained in the party after Mateel (lol rpgspeak), he could very well have developed into a UST-y rival!ship. But he didn't. He went off the map and Allen spent the next forever getting in some quality time with Lenalee and Lavi before collecting Krory and heading off to get pwnt by Tyki. And then he was waylaid in the Asian section for a couple weeks or something. And then Edo happened, and the Ark, and the first major climax of the storyline. The two just kind of vaguely piss each other off (and scare Lavi sometimes).

- - I'll see if I can find the link--it's been a while, and I have to go to class now. I'll look for it during lunch~

- - [[3 hrs 50 mins later]]

- - Got it!

- - http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3369736/1/The_Depths_of_the_Deep_Blue_Ocean by sixerine. It's not blindingly awesome, but it's not blindingly fail either; mostly I just liked looking at the shiny AU-ness. Mmm, AU. Mmm, smells like sci-fi. ♥

- - - - - - - - - -

- - d_t 02.29.08
- - -
- - Oh god. My first exposure to Naruto was the English version, precisely during the Wave Arc, when my friend and I were surfing through channels. Needless to say, I was like, "What's with all these flashbacks? They totally ruin the tension of the show!" And I went on, unaware of how it would later drag me into fandom. :P

- - LOL That always happens with the bitchy!trigger-happy!pretty boy characters, it seems. =_= And maybe it's also because he's featured more in the anime fillers, but probably it's mainly his appearance and "mysterious aura." *snicker*

- - Hermaphrodites work. XD

- - And thanks for the link! ♥ AU :D, it'll be interesting to see the author's spin on things.

- - - - - - - - - -

Apparently I have actually breached the LJ journal entry limit. Um, wow?...

(this thing has randomly indented because it obviously hates me. ~~YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO BE SUBTLER THAN THAT, YOU PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE BITCH.~~)

nervous laugh

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:49:40 GMT

So. Um. Mucho with the not-being-on-the-intarwebs. Um. In my defense ~~*suppresses Phoenix Wright joke; I don't even play video games, goddammit*~~ I have good reasons, involving senior year and our graduation requirement as theatre majors and hospitalizations and nervous breakdowns and yada yada yada. Am posting my Shit Needs To Get Done list (in no particular order):

- reassure MMPU that yes I am still among the living (I was about to post in the TT3, guys, I swear, but then I wound up in the hospital for like a week and...well, not so much with the posting. I'm kinda flattered that Rascall came all the way to LJ to look for me, though -^^- )

- arrrgh ohmygod those entries I hijacked on D_T's journal have been dead for, like, TWO MONTHS DDDDX

- *headdeskheaddeskheaddesk* Must...finish...replying...

- renovations/updates/OCDlike edits to do on teh elljay (e.g. FIX THE GODDAMN CUTS, JUDY)

- oh yeah, social life, right...

- get Chuunin off email spam list because what with the not-caring phase with the Naruto fandom and all (sorry, Kishimoto-sensei, but I think the Itachicaust clinched it...I mean, I'll try to catch up, if only for old times' sake, but I just don't care enough anymore to want to have to deal with the 19374920.445 alerts that OMG LJ USER #XXY HAS POSTED ON CHUNNIN!!!111elevently)

- retackle tinyfail on ff.n (I think the D.Gray-fantards might reach 2K stories soon~ *suppresses fatuous squeal* Sooo cuuute~)

- speaking of the precious tinyfandom, have I done the postingness of the statistics yet?...I might need to update that, come to think of it...

- why the fuck are those HP Harajuku Girl Whatever things in the sidebar ads for whatsername so fucking annoying? *kills*

- --Gwen Stefani, that's it! Why the hell was my first thought of Madonna?

- wait, that wasn't on my to-do list...

- figure out which of the 155 (count 'em...155! Hot damn, the last time I saw that number was when I looked at my inbox on dA...hey, speaking of dA... *heads for the hills*) ff.n alerts on my notes-to-self list I want to actually spend time catching up with

- oh, hey, homework. Grades. Graduation. Riiight.

- get ass in gear on (a) burning Finnish/Suomi (specifically Savo) phonetics and transliteration dynamics into brain, then memorizing Ievan Polkka and ~~a couple~~ four ELT songs (FUNDAMENTAL LOVE, jump, Mata Ashita, Koibumi)

- read various hardcopy before I lose the Window of Opportunity

- catch up on D.Gray-manga, possibly Naruto manga

- bother with D.Gray-anime and Naruto anime? Evaluate variables of caring and giving a shit

Et cetera. So, I'm on it! Sort of. MMPU and um I think elljay are my first interweb priorities (right after Googling ultrarapid and ultradian cycling bipolar and hitting up WebMD for a far-fetched answer to the weird facial rashes the doctors can't seem to figure out), and above all, I'M NOT QUITE DEAD YET.

...

WOOHOO! SPRING BREAK! *charges off; runs into brick wall; exit stage left*

is easily distracted

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:49:28 GMT

I have an update to the last Naruto Fandom Report! ^^

*was supposed to be doing her homework, oops*

Heavy Hitters (just 20K+ stories for now)
1) B Harry Potter (duh) - 345K
2) A Naruto (also duh) - 127K
3) A Inuyasha - 76K
4) G all Final Fantasy categories added together (what? it counts...) - 47K
5) A Yu-Gi-Oh! - 44K
6) B Lord of the Rings - 41K
7) A Gundam Wing/AC - 39K
8) T Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 32K
9) G Kingdom Hearts - 31K
10) A Digimon - 30K
11) A DragonBall Z - 29K
12) A Sailor Moon - 26K
13) A T Fullmetal Alchemist [ties with] Teen Titans - 22K
14) A A G CardCaptor Sakura [ties with] Yu Yu Hakusho [ties with] Final Fantasy VII - 21K
15) T CSI - 20K

Gee, I notice a pattern here. Is it that anime/manga fans pwn all other fantards when it comes to fanfic? Why yes, it seems it is. (Perhaps the otaku has less life than the comics fan, seeing as the /anime/ category has most of the large fandoms and the /comic/ category is practically deserted...) Newcomers to the 10K+ field--for TV: Gilmore Girls (13K), Stargate: Atlantis (10K). Movies: High School Musical (11K). Games: Sonic the Hedgehog (10K). Anime/Manga: Prince of Tennis (11K). Significant growth in others: Harry Potter keeps shooting up (about twelve thousand new stories since December), Twilight (ew) jumped 4K to land at 15K total, and Naruto totally wants to be the hero of the wizarding world when he grows up--that section has gained another 14K, more growth than the HP fandom itself. Our favorite orange-clad ninja has a long way to go, though, as Harry Potter's fanfic archive is still almost three times the size of his. (But we all know size doesn't really matter, right, ladies and gentlemen?)

Celebrity Naruto Characters (100+ pages)
1) Uchiha Sasuke (duh) - 1270
2) Uzumaki Naruto (more duh) - 1256
3) Haruno Sakura (duh strikes back!) - 932
4) Hyuuga Hinata (son of duh!) - 416
5) Sabaku no Gaara - 276
6) Hatake Kakashi - 252
7) Hyuuga Neji [ties with] Uchiha Itachi - 248
8) Nara Shikamaru [ties with] Tenten - 149
9) Yamanaka Ino - 130
10) Deidara - 96

I stuck Deidara on at the end because (a) he has a good lead over other characters (the lead of which are still stuck in the late 70s and early 90s...no, not the decades, the fic page brackets) and (b) with so many ties, what else was I going to do to maintain an even 10? Significant growth in the top four (of course); Gaara jumped 30 pages, Kakashi jumped 26, Neji jumped 27, and Itachi fairly flew 34 to catch up with the Copy Ninja. ADDENDUM: I've been poking D.Gray-man, and the results of the Weekly Shounen Jump survey of character rankings circa about chapter 121. (Or was it 112?...) Apparently it's a pan-fandom thing that the token prettyboy character ranks above the, like, title character/protagonist/hero. Oh well, that's fangirls for you.

What Really Matters: the Fantards (30+ pages)
1) SasuNaru/etc. (can we have a resounding chorus of the duh here?) - 513
2) S SasuSaku (equally "surprising") - 444
3) S NaruHina (if you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you need-- *click*) - 187
4) S NejiTen - 114
5) NaruSaku - 113
6) SasuHina - 75
7) ItaSasu/etc. - 74
8) KakaSaku - 62
9) GaaSaku - 58
10) KakaIru/etc. - 57
11) S ShikaIno - 49
12) ItaSaku - 48
13) ShikaTema - 43
14) GaaNaru/etc. - 40
15) NejiHina - 31

The pink "S" marks common RHFG sideships; one of the phenomena of this fandom is that certain groups of shippers have banded together under one flag to ship SasuSaku, NaruHina, NejiTen, and ShikaIno together for eternity. Less flame wars, moar solidarity; I kinda like it. Except when it gets creepy because of how intense some NaruHina/SasuSaku/etc. fans can get, of course. And look! NaruSaku (teh canon) is so close to bumping NejiTen from the fourth seat! I know not everyone is capable of loving Team Seven, but... *waves "GO TEAM" flag* Also, SasuHina has officially ousted ItaSasu from the sixth spot. I wonder, is it because the incest fans ran out of ideas to ship the brothers in together, or is NaruSaku/SasuHina/ShikaTema the sideship group for the more discerning het fan? GaaSaku is helping edge KakaIru out of the top ten (woohoo!--I mean, uh, what a shame, really...), and ItaSaku is now challenging ShikaIno for the right to take the tenth spot from our favorite random teacherpairing. I dunno, I think the top ten list has enough Uchiha and Team 7 as is... *wants moar diversity* Also, breaking news! I have ADD. *shocking, really*

Longfic is looo-- *shot* (10+ stories)
1) NaruHina - 95 (4p)
2) SasuNaru/etc. - 55 (3p)
3) SasuSaku - 40 (2p)
4) NaruSaku - 21
5) NaruIno - 11

The lovely lovely crackpairing of blonde!blue!loud!leaf!shinobi has risen from the depths to explode with youthful...um...maybe I should go to bed soon, I'm starting to sound like Gai. But yes, NaruIno has shot past KakaSaku, ShikaTema, SasuHina, and KakaIru/etc. to join the ranks of the long-winded. This is pretty impressive, considering that the pairing itself has only 20 pages total, and those it surpassed had pages numbering in the...um...more.

...Okay, I'm seriously going to bed now.