Saturday, December 1, 2001 = 05:14 p.m. = link this entry

Hmm. I knew that my little rant on shippers was a bit unclear (make that: very), so I felt I needed to clarify, but I've been busy (applying for a job @_@ damned USPS being closed weekends). Anyway, now I'll reply to some people and try to clarify my points (I don't take any of them back though! ^_^).

Reinselft, no, I didn't mean you. ^^; I hope I didn't make it sound as though I think all derivative works (fic, wallpapers, skins, and so on) or character/coupling shippers were the exclusive domain of these annoying false fans. Rather that just sometimes, they are. I feel some examples would prove useful here. In the fast-growing Hikaru no Go fandom, for example, you see quite a lot of "well, I haven't seen past the first few episodes raw, but here's a fanfic about Hikaru having sex with Akira," or "Sai is a tragic and beautiful angelic man who's obviously angsting over [fill in the blank with a male character] and the fact that he's a ghost so they can't have sex," which is just so massively out of character that I can't begin to talk about it. These people don't care about the series as a whole; the story and what it's about (basically, some kids coming of age, and also about what the pressures of intense competition in a sport can do to relationships, etc). They don't care about ACTUAL character personalities if it goes against what they want that person to do. They don't care about what the author might have been trying to say with a work. They don't care about whether or not they can fit their thoughts into the larger plot. They might only care about the series because it has nice artwork. These kind of people make me ill.

Let me tell you an interesting story about when Kya and I went to a convention last year. We love King of Fighters. My friend Rachel found us a booth in the dealers' room selling adorable KoF keychains, and we were looking at them and pondering what to buy when a fellow fangirl came up to us.

"Is that Iori?!" she asked in excitement, seeing the Iori keychain in my hand. I nodded. "That's awesome! It's so cute! I love Iori!" she said. I was warming to her. A fellow KoF fangirl, and she liked Iori. I was about to ask her what she thought of some of his moves, or the stupid plot of KoF'99. Then she said, "Is there a keychain of the other guy in KoF? What was his name... uh... Kyu?"

My opinion of her dropped right through the floor. She didn't even know the name of the MAIN CHARACTER of the game she supposedly "loves" a character from (and please, like "Kyo" is a hard name to remember); she did not, on further questioning, know anything about any of the other characters except Benimaru. She'd never even heard of Shingo. She owned lots of KoF doujinshi and read KoF fic, but she said she'd never even seen the game. I wanted to smack her. How can you have a true understanding of any characters without seeing them in action in canon? How can you understand where they're coming from when you have no idea what the world they live in is like, what kinds of other characters they interact with, what they do in different situations, etc. I can't stand this kind of false fan (they're unfortunatly extremely common in gaming). Seeing four eps of a TV show or flipping through a few volumes of manga without really reading it do not make you a fan; they don't even make you knowledgable. And yet these kind of people take over fandoms with their dumb comments and flood of out-of-character fanfiction. -_-## It's like those people who want to write a (non-PWP, suposedly plot-filled) fic about two characters having sex, who convieniently seem to forget that one or both people are attached to someone else.

I don't care if you want to ship for an unusal pairing, but JUSTIFY IT. I can't believe you give a shit about the series or the characters if you just write some stupid shit about them falling in love and going shopping and having some ice cream and going skinny-dipping, and completely leave out the part where you JUSTIFY it in terms of canon. Sounds more like you just thought they looked pretty and decided they should have sex. Maybe this is actually more of a critique on fanfiction (and to some extent, character shrines, depending on what kind of information is mislabled as "facts" about the character).

Then there's the other kind of fangirl I was talking about... Sarah, Charmian, and Metamia, I think the part of my rant which was expressed least clearly was the part about annoying people who have indeed familiarized themselves with all or at least a reasonable amount of a series. Sigh. So here I go again. I can't promise this rant will make any more sense than the last one, but whatever.

Oh, and before I begin, re: "new" fandoms... I call HikaGo, Naruto, and so on "new" fandoms because the anime has just come out in the last six months, which skyrockets the number of fans, or because the manga series just begun to get exponetially more popular here, most likely due to some kind of english release (tran/scan or text translations). Its relative age in Japan does not matter to me, because in my experience the kind of fans who are really annoying don't begin to crop up until the fandom has reached a certain critical mass. Also, although newbies are certainly irritating, they are not the focus of my rage; we are all newbies at some point (though some people, like the ones who don't bother to do a little web research to familiarize themselves with the "common knowledge" of the fandom, or read an ML's archives, are much worse than others). No, it's a certain kind of fan.

Perhaps calling them "false fans" is a little too harsh, but it cannot be denied (in my mind) that they aren't real fans either. It's not that they like characters that I don't like or that they ship for a certain pairing that I find nauseating; for example, the idea of Draco/Harry offends me, and Snape/Harry is even worse, but I know people who like those pairings, and I've read decent fics supporting them. I don't even mind if their perception of a character is radically different from mine. I've read many FF7 fics which presented me with a very different image of Cloud, Sephiroth, and Vincent than I had... but they were still written by people who'd obviously played the game and paid attention to details. They supported their visions of who characters were with details from the plot and dialogue that was in-character. Just because I didn't (and still don't) see the characters that way didn't mean that I had a problem with those people, even though I might not care for their work.

It's sort of hard to really pin down the kind of person I do mean, which is why I couldn't do it before and may not be able to do it now, but I'll persevere. This person doesn't really care about the original work except in terms of what fanwork they can produce from it. It doesn't matter to them what the original is really about, or how characters really are, or what has actually happened in the plot. They join a fandom only because they hear that there's a very slashy pairing in it and they wish to become fans of that pairing (without becoming fans of the actual work, mind you), or because the art is nice and they wish to take it and use it for things without appearing ignorant, or because there's one (or more) characters with an interesting character design (in terms of personality, skills, abilities, etc., not just looks) whom they decide they like before even getting into the series. They don't enjoy or care about the original work for its own merits, and they won't accept all parts of it as being real; they're only bothering with the original so they can strip it for the parts they need for their shrines, fanfiction, or whatever.

I realize it is difficult to determine what a person is like when you only see their work online, but by necessity we must make judgements on what people are like by what they present to us. We can revise those thoughts later if there is something new thrown into the mix, but it's much like real life; your appearance and the things you say will affect someone's judgement of the kind of person you are. Maybe it was a bad hair day and you were in a horrible mood, but if that is the only side of you that they see, then their view of you may be a misjudgment, but it's still what they have. Since we cannot read one anothers' minds over the net (or at all, in fact), we must needs look at people's creations to see what kind of person they are and whether or not we wish to associate with them.

In terms of fandom, what this means is that based on what we can observe (most likely, the person's webpages and fanworks), we determine how much they might love and respect the original work the fandom is based around. Now, normally, I wouldn't give a rat's buttock whether or not someone is emotionally attached to a fictional work. Do I care if you worship the Great Gatsby or, alternatively, if you hate it and think it's the worst book ever? Nope. I mean, I personally thought it was pretty decent, but I don't LOVE it. I'm not a FAN of it. My definition of a "fan" is someone who does have a (positive) emotional connection to a work. They DO care about it, and they care about how it's treated by others, represented in public, and so in. It's a completely stupid and illogical reaction to care about a manmade bit of fiction that doesn't have any feelings and will not be injured or changed by people's treatment of it... but that's what makes us fans. That's why society thinks we're weird. IMHO, it's something you can't really help; it's why you feel anger when your favorite character is pointlessly misrepresented or when someone bashes your favorite series. Because YOU love it.

So, therefore, these people who seem to take things from it (ideas, artwork, etc), and yet who don't appear to actually care about it by itself, without the fandom and fanworks, can make you angry. For the fan who loves something, it's like watching that thing be used for its content and thrown away once the person has extracted everything they need from it. They don't respect it, and when you love it, that hurts. But because we are rational people who can say to ourselves, "it's just a piece of fiction, fer cryin' out loud," instead of going to the emotional extreme and hunting the person down with a shotgun every time this sort of thing happens, you just feel really annoyed. Then you rant about it on your blog.

Okay, so, that was my definition of it today. >_> Looking it over, I can see it's not much clearer than it was yesterday (though it is longer! woo!), but since I lost the AIM log where, in a strange clearness of thought on my end, I more accurately and succintly defined it, this will have to do. If you want to debate the issue (or any others), please feel free to do so or to AIM me, I may reply if I can say anything to defend myself that I haven't said here (and I've been repetitive here anyway.. yes, I know). I can't say I'm the world's greatest debator, or the world's must lucid and clearly worded writer, and I'm certainly not the world's biggest fan (of anything), so... in the end, if you disagree with me, I imagine you'll just go on doing so. And that's fine, cause I'm certainly no authority on fandom or anything else. I just have opinions, sometimes very biased ones (or reactionary ones), and that's what blogs are for.

As a final note, and not to be offensive or anything, but yes, I do think being a fan of something just for the artwork is really shallow. It's one thing to say that it's why you became interested, because at any time, and especially when it's in a foreign language, artwork is an important part of how a work communicates. Artwork + words is the equation for manga, anime, and video games, and so if the art looks shitty, it makes the work less enjoyable than it would be if the art was beautiful. And of course when expressing certain things, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, so again, art can be very important to the author's communication of whatever it is they want to say with their work.

But art is not a full half of the equation... let's say you like the story, and not the art. People don't think that's shallow. Why is that? It's because "story" doesn't mean the "words" half of the art+words dichotomy. Story is a combination of the plot, the characters, the pacing, the overall moral, and also the dialogue and other "words." Story can be effectively communicated with shitty art, even though it might have more impact or be more appealing if the art was good. On the contrary, decent artwork all by itself is very little, in terms of the overall work.

Well, today was certainly opinionated, eh? Now I'm off to watch some MST3K, eat some pizza, and copy some CDs. Kya, let me know when you get your gift, okay? It's insured, and I'm also gonna take a chunk out of the post office if I paid $35 and it doesn't get there in a week. >_> #Y folk, re: snarkiness; kristi is insane, have we created a monster? :D Mwahahaha! I'll do it tomorrow if I have time, but I have anime club and then lots of homework, I may not be online. Remind me to upload my updated disc list tomorrow. Talya, I feel the love from you too. ^^ Heh.

Later. "I heard you late last night, you know, you talk too much... not everything comes through these walls, but just enough to hear the things that I don't want to hear..." -- Jump Little Children

Rar! My comp crashed and I lost my entry. Here we go again:

Today was a busy day; I went to traffic court, paid my $120 ticket, got my transcript, sent Kya's present in the mail, and interviewed one (1) japanese guy for my project. He was really nice and funny. Kya, his personality and fashion reminded me a lot of Takahashi-sensei (no jewelry, though). He wasn't as cute though. ^^; Anyway, he was really nice to wait around the LMC for two hours while I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off at work (today was an evil day, more details later) and finished writing my questions. ^^; Tanaka-sensei sat at my comp and screwed with my questions while I was away. He helped me not sound like a fucking retard, and also added a few comments of his own to, er, spice up my boring questions. Examples:

Question #1: America ni dono gurai imashitaka? Hayaku kaettekudasai.
[Translation: How long have you been in America? Please go back soon.]
Question #2: Doshite America ni kimashita? Mitsunyuukoku shimashitaka?
[Translation: Why did you come to America? Did you sneak in illegally?]

ahhh, Takana-sensei is funny. So Nobuhiro-kun, whose name can also be read as "Shinta" (he goes as both? O_o; one of those weird japanese name things, I guess), thought this stuff was great and insisted that I ask him in our (taped) interview if he had sneaked into the country ("No, I was going to, but then I realized that it'd be hard to get into an American college if I did"). He discussed some of his culture shocks -- such as how Americans wash their shoes and throw them in the dryer, and how American food makes you fat (his advice to japanese people who want to come to america: be prepared to gain weight), and how he likes that there's not the kind of age/class discrimination that there is in Asia in the US. Then he talked about reverse culture shock: for example, when he went back to japan last year, he was surprised to see Ko-gals on the street with their blackface and white makeup on. He thought they looked like freakish rejects from an African tribe. It was a pretty interesting interview, and fun.

Today was also a day where I lost a massive amount of cash. First I had to pay the ticket, and then I had to pay the shipping for Kya's present. I'd never imagined that airmailing something that weighed about 5 lbs to Japan would cost so much, it was like $35. @_@ Wow. You're getting something very lightweight for your birthday, yo. Traffic court was annoying, since it was at 8 AM, but it wasn't too bad. The Judge was actually a very nice lady. Comparing her to the cops only makes them seem more rude, callous, and brutish. >_> and an official transcript is $6. Jesus. Today was a day when my money just drained away like Bill Clinton's political supporters.

Okay, so I promised I'd talk about shippers. Since I've already written a lot, I'll try to keep it short.
Basically, there are certain kinds of fans who really annoy me. They are especially prevalent (or at least noticeable to me) in fangirl communities. Many of them are shippers. Now, actually, I don't hate all shippers. I like some shippers and their ships. But many shippers practically embody the annoying type of fan: the false fan.

I've noticed that there are these people who come into a fandom and get all obsessed with something, and they start giving the characters cutesy nicknames, writing AU fanfiction, and boarding some ship or other. What's wrong with this? Nothing on its own... but it seems like these people wouldn't care about the series unless they could join or create a fandom for it. And by "fandom" I don't mean in the traditional sense where you find something you like and because you love it that much, you join or form a group of people who love it as much as you. No, this is the OTHER kind of fandom. This fandom doesn't care about original works, it seems; all they care about is their fanon. Fan-created works like doujinshi, fanfic, fanart, etc. are all they seem to care about; they rape the original series for basic ideas and then form their own version. How is this different from regular fanworks? Simple: people who love the series as a whole, as well as some or all of the characters, create fanworks that reflect that. When you read their fic or whatever, you can tell that they love and respect the original work. their resulting fanwork is not what you'd call a "derivative work" so much as what you'd call a "tribute."

Even if they take it AU and resurrect a dead character or insert a character, they make every effort to do it in a way that's reconcilable with the original work. If there's a character they don't like, they don't misrepresent or completely leave out the person just because they don't like them, if it seems like the person would be necessary to their plot. This is because, unlike the "false fans," they're not just pillaging a series for ideas, taking the ones they want and leaving the ones they don't -- they're creating something which they want to pretend is PART of this thing they love. Not separate from it. The false fans, by contrast, just use the parts they like. Don't like some aspect of a character's personality? Just pretend it doesn't exist! Is a plot point in the original work (for example, something in a character's past) inconvienient to your desired plot? Ignore it! They don't even care enough to write around things that they can't or don't want to include. Basically, these people write original fic with original characters, then slap on names, convienient powers, and settings from some series or other, and call it a fanwork. They flock to new fandoms based on the pretty artwork that they can take and use for blog layouts, winamp skins, and so forth. They become shippers and focus on their favorite couple to the exclusion of the rest of the plot and characters (even though that massively cripples their ability to accurately portray those characters). They annoy REAL fans who realize that to be a fan of something is to accept it in its entirety, no matter how much some plot point or character bothers them. It's people like this who write bad KoF fic featuring romantic, kind, strong, angsty Iori comforting sobbing, weepy, wimpy, pathetic Kyo in a random alley in a random part of Japan... because they don't care to learn anything else about the game's plot, other characters, or what those two pretti bois are actually like. They just buy some doujinshi, read a few fanfics, and suddenly they think they're fans.

But at least those kind of poser fans aren't so bad, because they don't intrude on the real fandom; the worst kind are the sort who read/watch the whole series, and then pretend 75% of it doesn't exist. They just focus on the one aspect they really like, picking it out like it a goldfish from the pond of ideas that makes up the original work. They see two slashy characters and decide that, even if the plot isn't about those people per se, all of a sudden it is.

For example, to read the fangirl discourse, you'd think that Petshop of Horrors was a show about a beautiful gay man, Count D, who is basically a woman in every way except he traded his boobs for a dick, and his confused lover Leon, a flamingly gay cop who spends all his time either doing stupid things, screwing D, or wondering if he's gay. Oh, and there are some animals in D's house. Imagine my surprise when i watched the PSoH OVAs. I was expecting nice art, angst, X-like melodrama, thinly-veiled sexual innuendo everywhere, tons and tons of compromising situations and flirting, a lot of focus on the character relationships and what they think about one another, and some cute, possibly vaguely innuendo-laden humor every to break up the drama so it didn't get too heavy. Basically I was expecting Yami no Matsuei, with animals. >_>;

I was surprised when the show is about these two cool guys, who are both MEN, who don't act particularly gay (but D is rather fruity, yes). Furthermore, I'd say that what they have is a good friendship. I can see the slash, but it's hardly canonical (I understand that at times the manga veers that way a bit, but nothing you'd call "canon"). On top of that, whatever relationship they have, it hardly drives the show. The show is a horror/mystery genre title with a moral at the heart of each episode, and an overlying subplot (D's past and intentions) overlying it all. Leon is there to provide comic relief and to showcase (by becoming D's friend) how D is different from his family, and how D feels about various things. I really like the show, but when I see these fangirls, I want to ask, "what crack are they on?"

PSoH was a convienient example, but it's hardly the only one. Recent manga/anime from japan seem especially toothsome to these people; perhaps they want to seem l33t by liking things that are relatively new? Growing crap fandoms include the one for HikaGo, the one for Fruits Basket, the one for Naruto, and the one for One Piece. In fact, it's in danger if it runs in Shounen Jump. I call them crap fandoms because when you enter them as a real fan, it's hard to find someone who wants to discuss the series as a whole or even cares about it as a whole, and there's very little there but crap. (And pretty desktop themes to download.) I resent these people not for being shallow sheep who baa at the call of their leaders, but for taking over perfectly good mailing lists, rings, cliques, and the fandom in general. They make tons of contentless but pretty websites, buy up all the good doujinshi, harp on one aspect of the series so much that you begin to hate it, and so on. With their sheer numbers they suffocate the real fans to death; unable to deal with the posers, the real fans just leave the fandom. (Note: they still like the series; they just don't like the fandom.) It's sad to see the people who should be celebrating the popularity of their favorite series being driven out of their own fandoms by annoying newbies and obsessive shippers and brainless sheep. That's why I don't like the bastards. Can't they cannibalize some fandom I don't care about and leave my fandoms in peace, a place where I can have an intelligent conversation with someone? A conversation without the other person mentioning their fav character every 5 seconds or constantly referring to some minor detail related to that character that I don't remember, much less care about (while forgetting important plot points that don't apply to that character)? Rar.

And so ends that. You know, with all that talking, I didn't even clearly make my point. Rar. I wish I hadn't lost that great AIM log the other day where I explained all this a lot more succinctly and clearly. Sigh.

Later. "Where can I find myself an idol, somebody that I can look up to? Who's strong enough to hold me safe in their arms, and never let me down..." -- amanda ghost

Okay, I missed blogging yesterday, but it was busy and I got tired and stuff. I did upload the new HTK layout though. Skies of Arcadia, w00t! I do think that I should have designed something simpler for the linkbolg now, though, and maybe used this for my new layout, because it feels too narrow and cramped for the linkblog. Well, I suppose I'll get used to it.

Bleh. I'm currently working on writing a survey in japanese. I shall be giving it to two or three japanese people, and then in english to two or three americans who've done homestay. It's research for my term paper, "Culture Shock and Reverse Culture Shock." The paper will explore what culture shock and reverse culture shock are, cite some interesting examples and what elements of the original culture and the transplanted culture caused them, and then do the same for reverse culture shock. The using my survey results I'll try to figure out if studying the culture beforehand is a good idea, or if it builds up false expectations, and then I'll use the suggestions of the interviewees as to what they think would be good ways to deal with and possibly avoid culture shock. Also I'll ask them if they think the internet is a good way to avoid reverse culture shock (for those who don't know, reverse culture shock is when you return to your own culture and because you've lived in another one for so long, you can't believe or can't feel comfortable with some of the stuff going on at home). Expect this paper to be tortured and repetitive, dragged out of me like the stinger is dragged from a bee, pulling my intestines and internal organs out until I drop dead. >_> I hate japanese papers. And I really, really hate doing interviews.

Pitas is down at the moment. That angers and annoys me. I don't know why, but it seems like it's down more often these days than it used to be. It used to be fairly stable, but now if it's down for a short period of time every 2-3 days, I'm not surprised.

Onto the social blogging! Calliope, yes, I'm the kris who is increasingly desiring to round up all members of the KNO ML and throw them down a well, and hey, I think it'd be fun to join the suiko RPBlog/boards when I finish the game. (I SERIOUSLY pondered starting it last night. Really.) As to your anime/manga store... do you read Blade of the Immortal? Unlike Ranma or DBZ, BotI is a translated manga that's WORTH collecting all of.

I actually had this big rant about why I find some chunks of fandom to be really fucking annoying, but I lost the AIM log it was in, and it'd take too long to rewrite now, and I have lots of homework, so tomorrow I'll talk about how much it annoys me that some people are fans for the fandom, and how much I fucking hate shippers. Thank you. That is all.

Later. "Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars.."

An entry, just to waste a little more time before I get to my homework which BADLY needs doing and which I've been trying to do since 7 AM. -_-

Kristina: instead of pretending to wait in line for 3 hours at Epcot, just get in a queue on IRC! All the same interminable waiting fun, none of the disappointment when the ride sucks! (Unless your file d/l has errors or doesn't complete. >_>)

Sarah, you amuse me. I had a good laugh at your entries and felt happier this morning. (And that Sei and Sub wallpaper wouldn't happen to look like sak.net's past layout, would it? And would owner of said domain be one of the ones who is the hub at the center of a wheel of adulation and grammar mistakes?) I like your style, yo. I can't be funny. -_- It's not my gift. Stupidly melodramatic? I'm there. Funny? No. In a random tangent not really related to you, I believe humour is one of the hardest things to write, and pointless selfpitying angst is the easiest (aside from "invincibly perfect and wonderful Mary Sue" fanfic or origfic).

This morning I spent two hours reading one (really stupid) essay in japanese (it normally would have taken about a third of that time,I'm guessing, but I kept falling asleep over it). It was all about how, in this movie ("Koi ni Ochite"), Meryl Streep, playing a married woman, is dating some guy. So, she spends all this time deciding what to wear. The article goes on from there and talks about how the colors you wear are actually a statement about the condition of your body and feelings; even though you THINK you just randomly chose that stuff to wear, in reality your subconcious chose it to reflect the status of your being. Then the article gave a few examples of what colors might mean; green means you want to feel genkier, wearing all pink when you're going to see some random guy means you might actually like him more than you think; and so forth. THEN the article talked about "boku no" color classes, where you can trace your "color history," get suggestions on what colors you should wear, and so forth. It was like an ad. 9_9 Then at the end of the article I checked where it came from (I really thought it WAS an ad) and it turns out it was from the Japanese version of Vogue. 9_9

Why do we have to read this stuff for class? The worst thing is that this is probably the last or second to last chapter we'll do this semester, and to read it (chapter 5), we skipped chapter 4, which is about playing games, such as Go, and other japanese board games and card games. >_>;; So instead the next two weeks will be full of us talking about color, fashion, and so on. Bleh. (Plus, the big "unrelated to anything we happen to be discussing for the chapter except for some shared grammar points" article will be coming up! Woo. Hopefully the subject matter will be more interesting.) As a side note, as I read the article and even now, that Monty Python answering machine message where the guy sings, "Hello, my name is Meryl Streep... please leave a message after the beep~~" kept running through my head, complicating the process.

However, I'd like to smack the person who put this article into our textbook in the face. That stuff might be true for readers of J-Vogue, but not me. You know what? I'm a COLLEGE STUDENT. And I'm not even a trendy sexy college student in a sorority. No, I'm the cliched kind of college student living in a tiny, cramped, overpriced room, sharing a bathroom and a kitchen, and not living near a laundromat. You know how I pick my clothes when I stumble bleary-eyed from my bed half an hour before work/class? I pick A) a cool t-shirt if I feel like looking fun that day and i just did laundry, B) something suited for the weather, C) whatever's on top of hte "clean clothes" pile or D) whatever doesn't smell (when 90% of your wardrobe is dirty... thank god I've got lots and lots of socks and underwear. Wearing a pair of jeans for 2 weeks straight, or wearing a t-shirt three times before you wash it, is one thing... but used socks and underwear? That's so gross. I'd rather go commando.)

Ka's Ways to Know You're a Geeky, Stereotypical College Student:

1. You've ever smelled your clothes before wearing them.
2. You've ever badly burned a pizza because you were in the other room online, and you ate it anyway.
3. You think it's okay to eat raw cookie dough/muffin mix/cake batter, even though you used an egg of indeterminate age and milk that is expired to make it.
4. You've ever bought one of those premade rolls of raw cookie dough at the grocery store without any intent to cook it. (Applies to stoners as well as geeks! Actually, a lot of these do.)
5. You use expiration dates as a guideline, not a rule. ("Well, it still SMELLS okay.")
6. Your electronics equipment is the only reason you'd bother with renter's insurance. Because it's worth more than the house you live in and selling it could pay a semester's tuition.
7. You look forward to the end of semester because you can sell your books and eat real food for dinner at least once.
8. You don't know how you'll listen to those tapes for class, because nobody you know owns a tape cassette player.
9. You've ever given someone an old textbook of yours as a christmas present, and they appreciated it because they've got that class next term.
10. Toast with soup and tuna salad is a high-class meal requiring more preparation and time than you usually put forth.
11. You've ever been sick and realized that you miss high school, when going to class was optional because you never learned anything, and when you stayed home sick you weren't really sick. (Also applies to people with jobs.)
12. You realize that you're paying several thousand dollars a year to do homework, and it's still not sufficient motivation.
13. You hate school but you're afraid to leave it.
14. You measure your margins.
15. You realize that there aren't really any cliques or groups, and therefore, you have no natural enemies, but you've also got no natural friends.
16. You find yourself drinking cold 2-hour old coffee. At any time, and any place. Because of the hassle/money it would take to procure more, you just keep drinking it (or, if you're lucky, you stick it in the microwave, repeatedly).
17. You have three categories of clothing: clean, dirty, and "can be worn again as long as I wait 2 or 3 days."
18. You have a belief that anything which didn't get very dirty before (clothing, blankets, coats) will become clean as long as you hang it on a hook or put it on a shelf somewhere and don't touch it for a few days/weeks.
19. You look down on people who eat nothing but fast food, as they're missing out on the health benifits that you reap from canned food and ramen.
20. Spaghetti = our friend.

There's probably more, and the above could be reorganized and some things combined, dropped entirely, or reworded, but I'm in a hurry, and I've just realized I've got 3 hours to memorize 20 kanji and do a really nasty homework assignment, so... later. The above aren't what I'd call side-splittingly-funny or even very entertaining, but I think they're a somewhat accurate portrayal of what geeky high school students can expect. (And no, I don't drink chunky milk or drink sour OJ, though I have been known to just chop the moldy part off of cheese. >_> But only when I was gonna melt it.)

Later. "Hello, my name is Meryl Streep... Please leave a message after the beep..." -- Monty Python Answering Machine Messages

how worrisome. I'm on justin's comp. quick blog because this comp isn't the most stable, apparently. Also, the music on his winamp is largely the kind I'm not really interested in listening to.

You guys ever notice how weird it is to use someone else's comp? He's got his display set larger than mine and has a different sized monitor; IRC has a black bg and red text; winamp isn't skinned with anything worth looking at; the keyboard has some keys moved around just a bit (the backspace is tiny, the enter is huge, "print screen" and "pause" are reversed, and there are "windows" keys). It's kinda disconcerting.

anyway, I had some stuff to say, but I forgot most of it over the last few days. Anyway, one thing: Kya, I've got a new HTKblog layout 3/4 done on my comp if I can just get back home to put it up, so don't worry about it. And if you need some pics hosted, you can ask me to put them up for now (but i've only got 15 mb for the moment. I'll work on getting us some shared webspace as soon as I can afford it, yo).

Priya, I'm gonna be leaving IC late at night on the 20th, is that okay? Are you okay with coming to get me from the bus station at some hour in the dark before dawn?

Kristi, I started a half-assed attempt at a Suiko fic. If it turns into something that doesn't suck utterly I'll ask you to read it. ^^;

Oh! Oh! And I wanted to tell you guys all that I finally saw that show "Smallville" -- they showed the "Beginning" 2 hour special on thanksgiving night, so I watched it, and now I totally want to see more. It was so cheesy, yet cute (and I, the general hater of villains, found myself rather liking Lex at this point). I take some exception to the fact that, in order to prevent all problems from being solved in about 5 superman-seconds, Clark is a fucking idiot with no logical sense ("Ooops, I forgot that I can run super-fast!"), but whatever. It can't be helped if they want to have any kind of length to their action scenes.

I also watched a number of Fox "Reality TV" type shows (hey, I was really bored and I don't normally have tv). I watched "Blind Date," "Elimidate," "The Fifth Wheel," a show where two people in an unhappy relationship decided to go out with other people and then decide if they wanted to stay together, and uh... some game show where they ask people everyday questions and the people don't know them. I can't BELIEVE there are people who don't know the difference between the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. Some of the questions were for slightly more specific knowledge (what is a 9-club for in golf, who is whitney houston married to, what kind of animal is Riki-Tiki-Tavi in the Jungle Book) but... some were so fucking obvious that I couldn't believe ANYONE didn't know them. -_-;;;

The dating shows were, like, frightening. The current idea of what fashion is seriously disturbs me (80's mesh and fishnet, one shoulder halter tops, tube tops... ugh). I've never seen so much bad fashion gathered in one place. Sure, I'm not the most fashionable person, especially in what I wear, because I can't afford most of the clothes I want and I'm not thin and cute enough to look good in them anyway, but at least I know what looks good, even if I don't WEAR it... these are people who obviously CAN wear it... and they choose not to. Very puzzling.

Anyway, it wasn't just their clothing that was obnoxious, so were their personalities... at first I thought this stuff was, like, Made For TV, because I couldn't believe those kind of people were real, for the most part, but Justin told me they are. O_O That's totally scary! These are the kind of people who share my country with me? I've not met many people like that, but i guess there's a lot of them. Distressing. I ph34r them. They're all about looks, money, and other shallow shit, and they never use logic, and the guys are all way too macho and don't think about things, and the chicks were all sluts or just really... annoyingly... I dunno, brainless? Hard to say. Not REAL brainlessness, like, fluffy "I'm pretending not to have a brain so men will like me more" brainlessness. Very weird. Very. Very. o.o;;;

One more thing, I bought a cheapass sucky DDR pad that slides all over, and I've been dancing at mom's house, and i really suck! Trick steps get me every single time! Rar! I can't even get them on the pad. -_-## Rar. More practice...

Laters. "I will only complicate you, trust in me and fall as well..." -- tool

Bleh, it's been a while since I blogged. Busy weekend. I archived. Okay, let's get to the meat of this entry -- Harry Potter, Monsters Inc., DDR, anime, and your mom.

Okay, first I'd like to say I'm now the happy possessor of DDR 3rd mix and 4th Mix (I think). If someone could procure the other mixes for me I'd be happy. I still need a pad, though, or they won't do me any good. Remind me to add them to my list of things on disc. Also, referring to that list, I now have Noir 1-26, Argent Soma 1-26, and Cooking Master Boy 1-6 (I think, maybe it was 7). Sadly, I was unable to get Fruits Basket 1-4. It solidly refused to burn. I wasted 5 CDs trying, and finally gave up. If anyone wants to give me FuraBa, it'd be much appreciated. Also, does anyone know of any better CD burning software than the adaptec my burner came with? The burner is on crack in any case, but it's most likely the SOFTWARE that allows you to burn things with efficiency. The current software subtracts about 15-25 megs of burnable space from every disc, which really pisses me off.

Okay, movie review time! :D First a short review of Monsters, Inc. Well, I liked it. It gave me a warm fuzzy and was extremely cute, funny, and witty. There were many parts at which I laughed out loud, and the animation, once I was used to it, was really amazing. The human beings looked kinda disturbing (I think it was the noses @_@) but the monsters? Superb! And yes, the hair! The amazing hair! @_@ I had no idea you could do that with computers! Snow on hair! Ice on hair! Hair blowing in the wind! Incredible. And all the creatures moved in a very natural way, something you don't always see with CG people/creatures in movies these days. I also totally didn't see the end coming, with the real villain (but the second the girl laughed in the apartment, I knew exactly how the movie would end in that respect... it was soooooo obvious). Minuses? Hmm... The triteness of the relationship of the monster and the girl was sometimes ridiculous. I mean, it was just TOO cute. I'd be like ARGH, he's noticing her inherant adorablness for no particular reason, and it's REALLY ANNOYING ME! Also, the part where they were in the ice cave having the argument was so cliched. I could have smacked them for that. Two friends have fight, one leaves,the other says his name in a querelous, sad voice, then shows up unexpectedly several scenes later when things seem their darkest. Right. That's something new and different. As far as complaints go, that's about it. It was a very enjoyable movie. I don't know that it was the kind I'd want to rewatch, but it is most definitly worth seeing once, and the eyecandy visuals mean it's worth seeing widescreen in a theatre.

And on to the Harry Potter movie! Okay, I know I'm gonna get a lot of shit about this, but am I the only person who found herself cringing a little more often that she'd like? I'm not saying the movie sucked -- far from -- but it wasn't all it could have been, either, and it wasn't because of time constraints. In any case, there were good points and bad points, and I'll list them below. Highlight to read, there's lots of spoilers.

GOOD POINTS:

• *** Oliver Wood. Dear lord, the boy was hot! Get me one of those! My guess is that although he didn't feature hugely in the books, he will be appearing in a lot more slashfic now, probably with the twins, and he is going to lure many fangirls to the series.
• *** Lee Jordan. Another winner! He doesn't look like I pictured him, but that's okay, because he's REALLY CUTE! You just want to cuddle him! He's fucking adorable. We were pissed that they cut almost all his lines, and he said almost nothing at the Quidditch match.
• *** Quidditch uniforms. Them's sexy bitches.
• *** Snape. I don't have a clue who Alan Rickman is, but he looked Snape-y. Although, sorry, we couldn't resist the Trent Reznor jokes. "What was that, Potter?" "Nothing, sir, I swear I love NIN!" It was the hair.
• *** The Scenery! My god, how those backgrounds, clothes, and most of the actors made me want to be there. Also, my friend and I just about cried when they showed the dinner table (we were very hungry at the time).
• *** Hagrid. Looked very Hagrid-y. Also Filch, who looked EXACTLY like I imagined, wow! :D
• *** The chess game. Tre cool. Everyone's saying so, and I agree. Another part that stood out to me as different from the book, but surprisingly cool, was the fight with Quirrel and how he kept turning to rock and disintegrating. It was different from the book, but much more suited to a movie. (Too bad that didn't happen more often. -_-)
• ***Special effects. Even "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" didn't have effects that looked that natural and real. The only time the CG really looked unnatural to me was when there was some humanoid monster on screen (I forget what) and it just didn't move correctly at all. Even the flying looked really good, and the magic wasn't too flashy. Very spiff. And I liked the end with Quirrel turning to stone.

BAD POINTS:

• *** My #1 bad point, the thing I just CANNOT forgive the movie for: JAMES POTTER! AAAAARRRRGHHHH!! What crack were they smoking?! He wasn't a balding, portly, light-brown-haired 40-year-old man! It's not that the actor didn't look nice or dadlike, but he didn't look like JAMES POTTER. James Potter, a seeker, was probably built thin like Harry. He had MESSY BLACK HAIR. He was YOUNG when he died, probably 23-25 at most. (We know this because she describes Lupin as "young" 12 years later, and you stop looking "young" after your early/mid 30's, so my pure guess on their ages makes Lupin about 33-34, which would have made James 21-22 or so when he died. Also, he and Lily probably got married right out of school and had Harry a few years later.) Also, Harry is able to mistake himself for his dad 2 years later in PoA, which suggests to me (even if the author hadn't said so repeatedly, though she DID) that his dad probably looked extremely like him (he'd seen pics by then and would have known if his dad looked that different). I was just offended. I will never stop being offended. Rar!!!
• *** Harry's looks. Specifically, his eye color (blue) and hair color (dark brown). Dude, she says about 500 times that his hair is pure black and his eyes are a bright and unnatural green. With this movie's budget, I think they could have afforded some black hair dye and green contacts. Buu. Bad enough that his hair's not messy... it's not even the right COLOR. I'm not saying the actor was all wrong; au contraire, I think he makes a great Harry except for things like that.
• *** Removal or glossing over of plot to make room for more action. I felt the movie was very poorly paced at times; for someone who hadn't read the books I think it was outright confusing sometimes. Examples:
     1) Harry and friends end up on the 3rd floor and run from Filch's cat. Why? They never say that Mrs. Norris can summon Filch, and they never say that Filch does his best to get students who are where they shouldn't be into massive amounts of trouble, and lastly, it's hard to remember WHY they're not supposed to be on the third floor, you're supposed to remember the one line a long time ago about not going there. confusing.
     2) Who cares if Hagrid is seen with a dragon? They never said it was illegal. (This one really confused my friend Mike who hadn't read the books.) In addition, he'd forgotten that kids weren't supposed to be out after dark, because it was, like the 3rd floor, only mentioned breifly, once, at the very beginning of the movie, at least an hour past. So he was just confused when Draco saw them and everyone freaked out. (Props to them for removing the Norbert scene though; it didn't assist the narrative. Though it DID take out that scene where Dumbledore gives Harry the cloak back.)
     3) how does the sorting hat work? Could everyone hear what it was saying? What's the difference between the houses? Why does Harry's touch hurt Quirrel? How does the Mirror of Erised work, exactly, and why'd Harry find the stone in his pocket? Why'd Harry think he'd see Ron's family in the mirror? How'd Hermione randomly find Flamel in the book? Why didn't Harry seem to care where the cloak came from, even though he never found out? Why was Neville waiting up for them? How do Quidditch rules work? Why weren't there any fouls called? Why did the kids suddenly, and for almost no reason, start suspecting Snape in the middle of the movie? Where the hell did the centaur come from? These were all things Mike asked us that we had to explain later because the movie either left them out entirely or didn't answer them clearly. Most of them could have been solved by cutting about five minutes of Quidditch and adding in one or two lines of dialogue here and there.
• *** A big annoyance: Snape! Yes, he was evil-looking, yes, he shot Harry lots of mean looks and made nasty comments, but no, he didn't seem like he was "up" to anything. After the troll incident when Harry randomly decided that Snape was trying to get the Sorcerer's Stone, I was left going "What? How the hell did you decide that? He's never done anything but be creepy and give you nasty looks and lip, and he's limping (they cut the line explaining the logic, so Harry's just like, "He's limping! You know what that means?! He's the villain!"). But now he's the evil scary villain. Yeah. Okay.
• *** This is just a little thing, but so many characters were cut or short-shrifted to give Harry more screen time; every time Ron, Hermione, or someone else figured out something or accomplished something in the book, it seemed like Harry either did it or helped do it in the movie. It's like they couldn't bear to not let him be heroic every chance they got.
• *** Character personalities: Mike was puzzled as to why Hermione kept hanging out with the guys even though they obviously didn't like her and she was all bitchy. He couldn't understand how she just magically became their friend, and stopped being so anal about everything. Her character wasn't explained enough. (And she got shafted at the end when her trial was removed! Guess it wasn't cool-looking enough to keep, unlike Ron's trial. All she gets to do is tell them to relax, and then take care of Ron.) Mike was also puzzled as to why Harry is such a popular character. This is because we just don't see what his life was like or how he feels about things. On Christmas he could have SAID something like, "I've never gotten presents before, and your mom made me a whole SWEATER?! I'm gonna cry," because it didn't come across at all. We never understood how much the Dursleys hated Harry and magic because it seemed more like they were trying to protect him FROM it. They were more scared of it than scandalized. They treated him badly, but then took him to the zoo of their own free will? It was just a lot of mixed signals that didn't add up to much. So you didn't get much there. Scenes like the Christmas scene or the scene with the Mirror could have really added depth to Harry's character, but instead they just served as vehicles to explain or advance an action scene. The mirror was important only because of its later scene at the end; Christmas seemed like it was only in the plot so he'd get the invisibility cloak. Sigh. So as Mike said, in the movie, Harry was something of a little tool.
• *** A small thing, again: the twins had like 10 lines between them! And on top of that, isn't it immoral for Percy to be cuter than they are? (Not that Percy even had a NAME, barely...) One character who was great: Ron! :D Ron rocked and even though he LOOKED more like Ron to me at the end when his hair was all messy, he was consistently Ron-like throughout. (Though why'd they cut that half a sentance where Dumbledore's like, "You, who've never had a family, see them around you; Ron, who's always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself alone and successful."? That sucks, because then Ron looked like a shallow idiot instead of a boy with an understandable desire to succeed.)
• *** Have I mentioned James Potter? >_> Lupin and Sirius will no doubt be even worse. I've decided to just ignore the movie "canon" and continue to draw fanart the way *I* see the characters. (Unless the movie versions are better, like Lee Jordan.)
• *** Lastly, i'd just like to criticize the pacing again. Plot or character-related stuff got glossed over hurriedly, and action scenes got really drawn out, to the point where the movie seemed to drag sometimes near the end. I don't love HP because of the action scenes -- it's the characters and to some extent the plot, and I don't appreciate having to watch 20 minutes of un-commentated Quidditch that seemingly had no rules, and no minutes of Harry having personality. Also, you got no impression that Quidditch was important; it seemed like there was one game and they never mentioned it again. Instead of that, why not have lots of short scenes where Harry's going out early to practice, coming back victorious from a match, etc? Spread the quidditch out instead of having a big half-hour lump of it in the middle. and show Harry actively looking for the Snitch instead of apparently sitting around doing nothing; he's the hero, right? Also, where the hell were the blodgers? I get the impression from the books that they're everywhere and very annoyingly persistent, but you only see one the whole game, and you never see any chasers or beaters, really. Also, the fact that the whole school hated Harry, Ron, and Hermione for losing the 150 points seemed important to me, but it was dropped entirely. Rar. And many people, when delivering lines which were supposed to inform the viewer of something or move the plot, made it horribly obvious. Hagrid: "That's between Professor Dumbledore and NICHOLAS FLAMEL." Or other such lines. They sounded unnatural,like one of those conversations where you try really hard to "casually" drop something into a conversation. I mean, yes, it is a kids' movie, but kids aren't THAT stupid... bleh.

Okay, that's the end of my complaining; I know that people are going to leap forward to defend aganist the bad points I have, and will only agree with the good points, but that was the honest feeling I had for the movie. I went with one person who'd read the books and one person who hadn't, so my outlook on it is reflected in that. When I have to stop and explain what's going on every 15 minutes to the person who hasn't read the books, and all three of us can't help but MST the movie the whole way through, you know it's not the best movie ever made. I'm not saying I didn't like it -- I feel it was totally worth the $4.50 I paid to see it, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again at all. But as an honest critique, I think it could have been so much better. The script needed tightening and more specificity, and the whole movie needed a better director. Curse the day Columbus got to make the movie instead of Spielburg, who handles child angst, sappiness, love, and so on really well (if cheesily). Anyway, that's my review of the HP movie, and this is getting long, so I'll wrap it up.

Review in short: They should rename the movie "Harry Potter: the Movie For Those Who've Read the Book." The movie was pretty, but other than Ron, it was hard to get attached to the plot or the characters. If you've read the book, go see the movie, enough people and scenes were really good to make it definitly worth seeing at least once. If you haven't, I still reccommend it, but go with someone who's read the books or read the books first, or some things just won't make sense.

Later. "Yer a wizard, Harry!" -- hagrid