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Disclaimer: This is all Laurelgand and Moonsong's fault. If not for them I'd never be writing this stuff on this page. Blame them and especially Laurelgand for the corpse tea. version 33: Something lighter after the rather depressing mood of the last three layouts! Radical Edward the friendly hacker and Ein the dog from Cowboy Bebop cavort their way across the screen. Lyrics from Plasmagic by /\ucifer.
Love can do it We are gonna get magic, baby! Love is energy A dream is a secret rocket!
I don't know exactly what happens to me that makes me slide out of a fandom, but it happens. This Christmas break, I've really been giving thought to some of the old fandoms that I used to be in that I've suddenly realized that I'm not in anymore, and I've decided that I need to go back and see what I saw in those series in the first place.
The following few series/fandoms are ones that I've decided are worth it after all, and as a New Years' Resolution, I'm going to try and get back into the fandom as best as I can. I don't know how well it's going to work, since I've been away from these for a few years, but it's worth a shot, I think.
1. Star Wars. Star Wars was my first fandom and a powerful one. I wrote a ton of Star Wars fanfiction. Any series that I write a ton of fanfiction for, you know that I love, and Star Wars was one of them. The drama, the action, the battle scenes, the sheer brilliance of the reality that George Lucas invented simply blew me away, and it still does to this day. I used to be able to recite starfighter stats from memory.
I can't do that anymore, and I don't know if that's a sign that I've matured, or if it's just rather sad. ^^; I drifted away from Star Wars because of the changing nature of its fandom: as the older fans got older, the younger fans came in and started to claim what used to be sacred territory. Star Wars used to be a very professional fandom, meaning that most of the sites were large, recognized by LucasArts, and had been around for ages and ages even before I got on the internet in 1997. I suppose sites like theforce.net which have been around since then will continue to be around, but the fandom is just bigger than it used to be, with a lot less quality and too much quantity.
Nevertheless, I decided two nights ago that I was going to reenter the relatively unstable world of SW fandom. Why? Because of a fanfic. I was digging around on my hard drive and found my old old fanfiction The Sepan Civil War, started in 1996. It's almost 100 pages long, 14 chapters and counting, and unfinished. As I read through it, I was just floored at the amount of Star Wars stuff I used to know (in my starship stats days) and I realized how much I miss it. So I'm going back.
I'm not sure how much fan reaction I can expect for my Sepan Civil War fic. It used to be that the majority of fanfiction writers for SW were guys, but I was looking through several SW fanfiction archives and the number of female writers seems to be taking over. Not that it's a bad thing, but my Star Wars fanfics tend to get rather...technical (as in stats and space battle specifics) and I'm not sure if girls would want to sit through 14 chapters of that. Time will tell...
You can look at the Sepan Civil War fic here. Again, lots of space battles, rather technical in some places on the ship info. Read at your own risk. XD
2. Fushigi Yuugi. The first anime I ever fell in love with, and the subject of much debate lately between me and my dear MR.org tachi. Anyone who knew me during my first year of college wouldn't question the fact that I LOVED FY. I was obsessed with it. I thought there was nothing that could ever make me leave it.
The state of FY fandom was what drove me away, just like in SW fandom. I suppose it's a cyclic thing for all fandoms, but it still doesn't make me any less sad when I look at the state of FY fandom today. All the old sites are gone, all the old fans likewise, and there aren't just very many good FY resources out there anymore to get people good information like there was when I first got into FY.
In that vein of thought, I believe it's time that something got done about that. I don't know where all the old fans went, but I hope to pull some of them out of the woodwork. That's why I'm returning to the FY fandom; because I believe that a good series like FY deserves better than what it's getting.
3. Warcraft II. OK this isn't really a "fandom" and there's no "series," but it's a game I used to love and I found the CD today at my brother's computer and stuck it in my CD drive just cause. Sat there the entire afternoon playing it, from 2-6 PM and got through 5 and a half missions. I'm hooked again. If I'm not coding this break, that's what I'll be playing. XD
4. Myst/Riven. I redid my fanfic site's layout to a Myst one yesterday and decided that I need to play the games again. Don't know why the urge struck me.
All these series are ones that I used to love in high school or my early years of college. Maybe I'm regressing? Who knows, but I guess I just feel a need to return to the past. ^^ And hey, it's a new year, so why not?
With that, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is Aoiryuu.com day. ^_^
ger chased ein at 0450 hours
Yes, it is 5 AM on Christmas Morning, and I am still awake. No, I didn't hear Santa come down the chimney. If he didn't, he must have been really quiet. Or maybe my music was up too loud ^__^
FINALLY saw Lord of the Rings today, and it was AWESOME. Not exactly like the book, but I'd already heard about most of what they cut out...mostly the journey through the Shire. That part of FOTR is actually one of my favorite parts of the series -_- but I do understand why they cut it out. For most people, that part drags in the book, and I can imagine that it would drag even more in a movie that's already longer than most conventional movies. This did cause some continuity problems (Frodo meeting Merry and Pippin, the daggers), which I think that the scriptwriters did a good job of piecing together, but it still seems rather disjointed to me in places (ie cutting out Gandalf's appearance on Weathertop altogether), and too rushed.
I suppose the alternative is to drag most unwilling people through on a journey through the Shire, with Farmer Maggot and Tom Bombadil and Goldberry and Barrow Wight and all. Though I kinda like the Barrow Wight. XD
The character that annoyed me most was Arwen. As I expected. But she annoyed me for an entirely different reason than I thought she would: mainly, she replaced one of the coolest characters of FOTR. Peter Jackson cut out Glorfindel entirely to put Arwen in his role, which I think is completely unfair, becuase Glorfindel is, in my opinion, the coolest elf at Rivendell. *sigh* oh well. Not a big deal for most people, but I got rather attached to his character the first time I read the books (I was 9...it's been a long while XD). Arwen wasn't bad. I really didn't see the point of sticking the Aragorn/Arwen love story so blatantly into the script, but maybe they have a bigger role planned for her later? Though they better not cut out any of my other favorite characters. Eomer, Eowyn, Faramir...Quickbeam! Ugluk! Grishnakh! Gahn-Buri-Gahn! XD XD
The scenery of the movie was lovely, the CG was stunning (couldn't even tell it from the real thing it was so realistic) and the score rocked. The characters were done really well, also, especially Frodo and Boromir. I really didn't expect the beginning scene in which they chronicled the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and Isildur's taking of the Ring, but I thought that was excellently done. (though I still think that Elrond looks like Jareth from Labyrinth, aka David Bowie ^^;;) Overall, I give this movie an A+++. It was especially funny after we had watched it (I went with my family) and we were in the car with my mother, who is absolutely grounded in reality and doesn't understand fantasy stories at all, especially the names.
Mom: So...who was that guy at the beginning? With the ring?
It was actually pretty fun. My brother and I, who are both huge LOTR buffs, found ourselves going back and digging up the history of the creation of Middle-Earth and the Vala and the Maia, going way back to Feanor to satisfy my parents' questions. I used to have all those poems in LOTR memorized. I'll have to go back and refresh my memory...the only thing I can remember now is the One Ring prophesy, Gil-Galad poem, "The Road Goes Ever On and On" poem, and the first two stanzas of the "Earendil was a Mariner" poem. The "seek for the blade that was broken" poem is still mostly intact, though I've forgotten the second to last line.
I've probably bored half of you to death and am working on the other half...but the Lord of the Rings was the first fantasy series I ever fell in love with, and I'm still very much attached to it. As you can tell. ^____^
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!! *hugs tachi and everyone* I probably won't be on again today, but have a GREAT day!
ger chased ein at 0516 hours ger chased ein at 1214 hours
So today I was on IM for a grand total of about maybe 10 minutes. ^^;; It's been a busy day, as usual...mostly because I decided that it was time to get serious about finishing my Macross 7 site and spent most of the afternoon scanning guitar tabs from my Fire Bomber artbook. It took freaking forever because my scanner is a piece of shit, but man, it's worth it to see that nice new page up on the site entitled "Guitar Tabs." XD
Then my brother and I watched the first four episodes of Cowboy Bebop again and I got this insane multi-part fic idea in my head. ^^; Which I'll probably never write, but hey, you never know. I have a couple weeks before I have to go back to school. I might just pull it off. XD Watching it tonight just reminded me of how well-made of an anime CB is. It might not be one of the absolute best anime I've ever seen, but everything about it is well-crafted.
Tomorrow I probably won't be here at all, though I do plan on shredding Laurel's E&M fic to bits so I can give it to her for a Christmas present. ^______^ I'm so nice.
Melissa D's We'll Always Have Paris chapter 8 (D/Hr) fanfic has been posted at Schnoogle! Yay! And I just found out that there had been not one, but two chapters of Catalina's Sink to the Bottom with You FF7 fic put out since the last time I went to her site. Both of those are really great fics, though We'll Always Have Paris is more 'ship centered than Sink is. I enjoy some sappy stuff now and then. Just don't ask me to write it -_-
Oyasumi! Look for new layout sometime soon also. ^_^
ger chased ein at 0236 hours
This special production has been brought to you by the Midnight Revolution and
And now I am going to bed. XD
ger chased ein at 0140 hours
Finally back in Houston. The drive was pretty boring. Listened to my Transtic Nerve CD the whole way...look for a review of that on Shiroi soon.
THIS is for neesan. ^_^
QS, I'm here now. Where are YOU? *pokes*
ger chased ein at 1719 hours
Amusing story.
Or maybe not so amusing. Depends on your point of view. I went to the grocery store tonight at around 9 PM and got back to my apartment at around 9:30. My roommate had left about 5 minutes after I did to go to a party, and when I got home, with some coke and some other groceries, I found my key wouldn't turn in the lock.
OK, I thought. Great. So I called my roommate and it found out that neither of our keys would work. My roommate came home and tried his key...and while we were using the keyring as a lever, the key broke in half, with one half stuck in the lock and the other half...on the keyring.
Very not cool.
We called his stepdad, then the police, then the lock people, all to no avail. We were on the line with the lock people when Marla, our next door neighbor, arrived home. Well, what a stroke of luck for us. She happened to know the number for after hours maintenance and called it and got the maintenance guy to come.
Long story short, we had to get a new lock. The maintainence people are coming tomorrow morning (today?) to replace the lock and make new keys. Apparently, the pins in the lock were the wrong size, which was why it was getting jammed in the first place.
It was about 11 PM when I finally got back into my apartment, but here I am, alive and well. XD
MR.org-ers, the site is DONE. It looks like crap in Netscape, but the CSS and fixed background HTML tags that I used for it don't work in anything but MSIE, and it looks too cool in that browser for me to downgrade it to a Netscape acceptable version. Sooo...Laurel and anyone else who only has Netscape, sorry. ^^;;; *hides* It's still viewable, just will look weird.
Laurel, how was the last day of school? Sorry I missed you on IM. I was umm...being locked out of my apartment. XD
Neesan...hope to hear from you. Was the party ok?
Yume, no problem. Sitting out this round is perfectly fine. I'll be posting my part of the RR this weekend then.
Mearl, have a good trip!!!
I'm going back to Houston tomorrow. Might be online tomorrow night, might not be. If not, I'll see you guys on Saturday. I'll be coding all weekend...AD.net and Macross site next up for maintenance.
ger chased ein at 0448 hours
I am SO DAMN PROUD of this. It took me 4 hours to do in Photoshop and is probably the most meticulous work of art I've ever completed in my life. And I'm quite pleased with the results.
Go look! NOW! *flaps arms wildly and dies*
ger chased ein at 2040 hours
...on speaking Mandarin, from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Interview from Time Magazine:
TIME: What was the verdict on your Mandarin?
CHOW: It's awful. The first day I had to do 28 takes simply because of the language problem. That's never happened before in my life. It put me under a lot of pressure. There was a lot of dialogue in this film, more than I've ever had to speak before. It was like speaking Shakespeare.
*Gerald snickers and falls over*
Which is WHY, ladies and gentlemen, my Mandarin days are over! From now on I think I'll just stick to speaking Cantonese. XD
ger chased ein at 2001 hours
I decided that the layout was making me depressed so I changed it. XD It's very...purple. Ed and Ein aren't my favorite characters from Cowboy Bebop, but they're fun, and I wanted something fun. It was either them or Ishtar from Macross II, and Ishtar is much more angsty. So here they are.
Finished my Chinese final today at about 11 and went and mailed presents, deposited checks, dropped off film, and bought a Christmas present for my dad. Almost done Christmas shopping! *dies* I mailed most everyone's presents in mr.org today and they SHOULD get there in time for the holidays...or maybe a day or two late ^^;;
I'm going to spend the rest of this week before I have to go home working on websites. First on priority list is the layout and logo of mr.org and then my macross site, AsrunDream.net, and then various other cleaning house things if I have time. Also up is SnK, which I'm going to at least get started before I work on any more sites. This layout took me 3 hours to do. ><;;;;;
...But I like it, so it's ok!
I'm refraining from listening to the evil Gackt song in hopes that I can slowly recover. XD though I'll probably go through withdrawal in a day or two.
QS, we got some VERY VERY nice feedback today at the email addy...it's the answer to your feedback whining prayers. XD I was absolutely floored though. Probably the best one we've gotten yet.
Minna, I'll be on tonight! I hope. If I get this monster idea that I have for SnK down.
ger chased ein at 1707 hours
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Ed and Ein [Cowboy Bebop]
Name |:| Gerald Tarrant
Rebirth.
INTO THE SUN
it's time to go
tsukiageru rhythm osaekirezu ni
if you feel the pumping rhythm
sabaku wo yuke kimi wa kagayaku
gingo into the desert you're shining
get the freedom
taiyou made ato mou sukoshi sa
just a little farther to reach the sun
kimi wa honou ai wa moumoku
you are a flame love is blindness
karamitsuku noise
the noise twisting around us
into the sun kieru made
until you disappear
ima umarekawaru
now we are reborn
doko made mo tsukinukete
keep piercing on forever
it's time to go
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