While playing D&D last Friday:Xapmat (the DM): "So he has a dagger in his back."aleximoon (the smack-talking wizard): "Well then, I pull out the dagger!"aleximoon's Grandma (the priest): "Sluuuck, Sluuuck, Sluuuck."Brooke (aleximoon's cousin and the fighter): "Uh, you okay, Grandma? Should I get you a soda?"Grandma: "I'm fine. Pulling a dagger out makes a sucking sound."aleximoon: "You're adding sound effects?"That's right, last Friday night, we taught my 76 year-old Grandmother how to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the geekiest and probably the oldest of the table top games. And she liked it. Hell, she provided sound effects and bought a 'tankard of ale'. I obviously discovered where my geeky-gamer inheritance comes from.
Like I keep saying, I am still working on an update for ANFSCD. I really would like to finish it. I've borrowed a laptop off of Xapmat again and I've been dragging it to work with me. When I'm not slacking off and watching anime on it (Samurai Champloo kicks ass) I'm writing.
And if anyone has ever wondered what I look like Xapmat went a little nutty with the camera a couple of weeks ago and I actually like this picture. :-)
http://www.xapmat.com/gallery/woo-hoo/acoIf anyone is reading ANFSCD here, I haven't updated here in ages. There are four more chapters at ffnet.
K
"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, the road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, and the highwayman came riding-" Alfred NoyesWhoot! So I was all depressed Friday because of Millennium Actress. But then Vegeta arrived and he was bearing gifts. I am now the owner of a pretty little IPod! I was so pleased! I've wanted one for a while. I had a little Lyra player but that could only hold around 89 songs and I have a lot more MP3s than that!
The next day we, Vegeta and I, went to Disney. We didn't leave until late and thus we didn't get there until 4:15. I wanted to go to Animal Kingdom, which was closing at 5. But that was all right, I had a mission. I wanted to ride Dinosaur (remembered the ear plugs this time!) and get my picture taken with a tiger and my IPod. The mission was successful.
A Girl, her IPod, and a Tiger. After the rousing success of my getting a picture with the IPod and the tiger we also got one with a komodo dragon, an elds deer, and a cool looking bird. We're now considering creating web page devoted to pictures of me and my IPod. Yes, we can be pretty silly.
After Disney we went to the Mall at Millennia and there I got a blue leather case for my IPod. Vegeta bought me a Jaken plushie. And I got 3 new volumes of Inuyasha manga. It was a good, good day.
As far as fics go, I'm not feeling at all motivated to write. I had wanted to get to a certain part in Chapter 23 of ANFSCD and as soon as I did I didn't feel inspired anymore. I think I'm going to be spending most of this week quilting, there is a pile of fabric on my table that is calling my name. So with this delay I probably won't be updating ANFSCD for a couple of weeks yet. Blah.
K
"After all; it's the chasing after him that I really love." Millennium ActressThere be spoilers ahead, consider yourselves warned.
So I've owned millennium Actress since sometime in October. I finally watched it tonight. Why did I wait so long? It wasn't intentional, really, it wasn't. I just knew what I was going to be getting myself into by watching it.
millennium Actress is a movie by Satoshi Kon, who is a director/animator of anime. One of my favorite anime movies, Perfect Blue, was done by him. So when I heard about millennium Actress I decided to buy it. I knew enough about the plot to understand that it wasn't going to be a happy movie. It's about an aging movie star from Japan's Golden Era of movies. There is a tragic love story. I knew that things weren't going to end well for Chikoyo.
She loved him. She didn't even know his name, but still, she loved him. Her whole life was built around following him, hoping to find him, hoping to be with him. You see it in all her movies. You see it in the way she lived her life. She never finds out that he died. That he had been dead for so many years. All that time that she spent trying to get to him and he was already gone. And she never even knows his name. In the end, she can't even remember his face.
I cried.
I don't cry over movies. But just thinking about it makes me want to start crying all over again. Damn it. I need to watch something ridiculously fluffy now, like maybe CCS or Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi.
Drat it all.
K
When snow melts, what does it become?
It becomes water, of course.
Wrong! It becomes Spring! 'Fruits Basket' #2 Natsuki TakayaI need to get some new quotes, or at least, the next volume of Fruits Basket since that seems to be where most of my quotes comes from. I could whip out the big ole Shakespeare book or one of my many poetry books but that seems like so much effort and Fruits Basket is right here...
I
finally finished watching the first season of Sailor Moon uncut on my DVD set. That is an entirely different show, I swear, than what was on Cartoon Network. So I'm watching the last two episodes, now if you're familiar with the
horror that is DIC you would be aware of the fact that DIC edited so much out of the last two episodes that they were able to combine them into one, and it was a short episode too. So I've never seen the last two episodes the way they were meant to be seen. It was painful, you know the Sailor Senshi and dying in the dub, but it's so clean, there's an explosion then a fading image of the Senshi in question smiling back at you before they're gone. Not this time. No, no, no this time I got to see the poor Sailors be virtually crucified. And I'm sitting there going
I will not cry. Damn it, I already know how this ends, I will not cry.Oh, I have a livejournal account now which I'm also writing too. I've decided to post story snippets and plot bunnies there instead of going through the trouble of making a workshop page here. So if you want to read any of the previously mentioned plot bunnies, they're over there.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/aleximoon/
...But there's still something I haven't grasped. I let it slip by me. I never realized... She smiles... At even the smallest things. Yes. She's always smiling. And then she tells me... What I most want to hear. Why didn't I realize? How could I miss that? So at peace, all by herself... No one's like that. 'Fruits Basket' - Natsuki TakayaI had no idea.
None at all. Why would I? I don't
like twinkies. How could deep frying one make such a difference? How could that spongy, funky flavored little cake suddenly transform into a thing of tasty wonderment? It was crispy. It was warm. It's insides were like melted ambrosia. It was blanketed in a fine layer of powdered sugar.
I had no idea.
Vegeta bought the fried twinkie today at the rhythm and Ribs festival that we went to with friends. It was a lot of fun. Yummy ribs, good music, and frighteningly friendly people. For those of you that don't know, I'm rather anti-social. So it's a bit difficult for me to handle the little old lady who I have never laid eyes upon IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, forcing her sliced bbq sausage on me. I also had to talk to some of my parents. (When I say my parents, I am referring to the parents of the children in my 3yr old class.) Apparently a couple of them were mooning other parents through the fence on Friday. I know that it's not funny, but actually, it really is funny.
If we hadn't realized...we would have...left her to cry all alone. 'Fruits Basket' -Natsuki TakayaThe weekend did not go so well.
The bright day is done, and we are for the dark. 'Antony and Cleopatra' - ShakespeareI'm going to Disney World! I'm going to Disney World! I'm going to Disney World!
Not that this is an unusual occurrence. Vegeta and I go to Disney World at least once a month. We have seasonal passes. It'll be hot today. And it's spring break time so it will be crowded but that's one of the pluses of having a seasonal pass. We can go down there, walk around a bit, ride a ride and then skedaddle. I think we're also planning on hitting China Jade (my favorite Chinese Buffet. They've got Mongolian Bar-B-Que!) and then the Mall at millennium.
Wee............
You'd think I could have picked a cheerier quote.
The dead have risen. You smell the smoke, hear the sirens. Screams and shots fill the air. You have been unable or unwilling to properly prepare your home--what now? 'The Zombie Survival Guide' -Max BrooksAhh, zombies, who doesn't love them?
This blog was originally going to focus on silly fanfic writers and their Mary Sues. Not to knock original characters or anything but why do people write Mary Sues? And why are they so certain that their original character is not a Mary Sue? Here is an example of a Mary Sue that I just came across...
Naeomi, a punk goth inu demon who also lived through the Fuedal EraDoes the author not realize what she's doing? I try to avoid Mary Sues like the plague. Hell, I've got an original character in my Eriol/Tomoyo (yes, I am also writing an E/T fic) who will probably have a total of five lines the entire fic and I feel guilty. His whole purpose is to be pretty, make Eriol jealous, and possibly convince Tomoyo to eat a cookie. And yet I shudder every time I write him in.
But what's worse than your standard Mary Sue is the Ginny Sue. Not that I've ever heard it referred to as a Ginny Sue before but it should be. My greatest pet peeve in fanfiction is the Mary Sueing of Ginny Weasley. I cannot tolerate fics where she comes back from her fourth year and suddenly...
The most extraordinary girl stepped into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This was not her first year but this year would be different. Her flame red hair shined in dim light while the flickering of a thousand candles caught the honeyed highlights. Her shining blue eyes sparkled with an inner light the likes of which had never been seen before. She walked the length of the hall past row upon row of seated students, the bottle green eyes of Harry Potter lingered on her longingly while Draco Malfoy oozily tried to gain her beauteous attention. But Ginny paid them no mind, there would be time enough for passion later. She had not the time now for only her, Ginny Weasley, had the power to defeat the Dark Lord!, Save the World!, and Break the Hearts of a Hundred Boys! all before breakfast.Well there's my example. If you read fanfiction at all then I'm sure you've come across this type of character before. Man...I hate Ginny.
But they knew...There would never be room for an onigiri...in a fruits basket. 'Fruits Basket' - Natsuki TakayaSo I've realized tonight that Pretear is not the anime that it portrays itself to be. At first glance, it looks light, fluffy, and filled to the brim with cute characters.
But they lie.
It's not happy, it's not cute, and it is certainly not filling the fluffy anime void left behind when Card Captor Sakura ended. Himeno (main character) has spent the last five episodes in tears. There are only 13 episodes total so you can imagine the effect that has on things. She's not being over-emotional either. Things have just gotten that bad. And from what I hear, the manga is worse. Sigh.
And it wasn't hard to figure the plot out either. Yes, it's true that I read spoilers, but that only proved all my theories. Well...I can always hope that they will be like RahXephon and pull a Sailor Moon. The next volume comes out in a week so at least I don't have to wait very long.
I only ever say ... really mean things ... to Her. 'Fruits Basket' - Natsuki TakayaSo I bought this manga over the weekend, no Vegeta, not Ranma 1/2... Well, actually I did buy the first three volumes of Ranma 1/2 over the weekend but that's not the manga that I want to talk about right now. I want to talk about Fruits Basket.
Fruits Basket is everything that I mock in manga. Fruits Basket is my sister's type of manga and if you have any allusions as to how much respect I have for my sister's choice of anime and manga then please read the previous post to be correctly informed. This is a story with a completely ludicrous plot, several of the main characters change into animals of the chinese zodiac when hugged by a member of the opposite sex, our heroine honestly thought that living in the woods in a tent was an 'ok' idea, and the boys take skinny (I should be modeling underwear!) to a whole new level.
And...yet...
Despite all of the reasons why I shouldn't like this manga...
I find that I do like it. I like it a great deal. I can't wait for the next volume to come out in April. I've read the first one four times in the last two days. Damn Shojo manga...
I suppose everything will work out. Just don't tell my sister.
