kiraya

Things I like about Heaven's Feel, in no particular order: ( Read more...Collapse )

Things I dislike about Heaven's Feel, in even less order: ( Read more...Collapse )

Well that sure was a thing.

Dicking around in Photoshop. This'd probably work better as a Tumblr photoset 'cause they're actually kind of big, but welp.

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When it comes down to it, my biggest problem with Return to the Spring (out of many) is that Shirou damages himself so badly that he forgets the most basic things, and then we're supposed to believe that, in a canon where it's said outright that the soul is the vessel of one's memories and experiences, an incomplete form of the sorcery having to do with the materialization of souls preserves him and restores him to 100% mental health??

I just can't buy it. Perfect restoration of his soul by an imperfect application of a sorcery designed to do something related but quite different is bunk. Erasing someone's mental issues that way is basically just handwaving them away (because let's face it, before all that he wasn't actually "getting better"; he just clumsily switched his ideal from "save everyone" to "save Sakura" and while holding close loved ones is good and all, unlike popular fandom opinion, this is really not a fucking improvement OR him becoming appreciably more selfish -- and if anything his switch isn't even that successful, since he's still majorly focused on saving Ilya and even to a lesser degree Rin).

That guy you see in that epilogue may walk and talk and at least on the surface act like Emiya Shirou, but it's not him. It's the scraps of the stubborn, self-destructive, idealistic idiot Emiya Shirou we came to know over the course of three routes shaped into a smoothed-over something vaguely resembling a well-adjusted person flavored like who he used to be. It's telling that the gap between the Grail War's end and the epilogue is biggest in this route out of all of them -- two whole years, which were surely long and arduous as Rin and Sakura basically had to rebuild him from the ground up.

And that's fucking tragic, imo.

Wow, it's been almost a year since I've updated. Um, let's see, what's been going on...

- That full-time position at the main branch that I mentioned applying for? Got it! April 1st was my start date, and shortly thereafter I took over both test proctoring and periodicals as my big duties. (I've picked up going over donations in the meantime, discarding the crappy/outdated things people bring in -- it's commoner than you might think). It's also my job to help with weeding, but we've had such a high turnover rate with pages that nobody's put together any new carts for me to work on over the last several months. As far as the periodicals thing goes, I completely weeded everything (which hadn't been done in about 3 years), double-checked our union list to make sure holdings were correct, reorganized storage, and revamped our display area by getting new labels from the art department and scrubbing all the years' worth of adhesive gook from the shelves one by one when, after asking B&G about help with that at my boss's suggestion, it became obvious I wasn't even a footnote on the priority list. Right now I'm working on end-of-year weeding. I'm always moving around when I'm off desk duty, which is great. (Still working on that YA series list because it's my baby -- er, by now one of my three babies, I suppose.) I miss the people at Dunkin more than I miss the hours. I really should stop in there and say hi a little more often.

- bard_linn got her own place, yay! Once I get the rest of my college/grad school loans paid off (five down, three to go!) I'll be moving in with her. My daily commute will be significantly longer, but it'll be nice to get out of the house. I'm 27 now (yikes), and though in this economy almost everyone I know my age is still living with their parents, well... being on one's own definitely has something to be said for it.

- On the gaming front: have been playing around in both D&D 4e and the Dresden Files system with college friends. Both are a lot of fun. I've also gotten sucked back into Fate/stay night, having now played through it twice (once to play, once to transcribe the scenes). Now playing Fate/hollow ataraxia and loving it for all the cute fluffy stuff and the fact that it feels so far like it's happened after some indeterminate Fatelike route with something resembling a harem/undecided relationship ending.

- More on the Fate franchise: I've got a lot of Feelings about Fate/stay night which are extremely unpopular fandom opinions, apparently, and this fandom is one of those super Doylist authorial-intent-worshipping dudebro-y ones so it's like throwing myself to the sharks half the time when I post anything on Tumblr (which is where I've been spending most of my online time lately). So yeah, expect some Fate rants here in the near future -- mostly about Stay Night, with the possibility of some about Zero (WHY SO SAUSAGEFEST, and also why does Type-Moon fandom loev grimdarque) and Hollow Ataraxia (why still only half-translated eight years after the fact, man :/). Also CARNIVAL PHANTASM IS FUCKING ADORABLE but still doesn't interest me in any of TM's other franchises, oops. Also the UBW movie doesn't count as a true adaptation because it's basically "let's just take the bare bones of the plot so we have an excuse to animate sweet fight scenes." Also if they don't do a stateside release of the PS Vita remake of Realta Nua I'm gonna do something drastic.

To sum up my feelings on Fate: AHH RIN IS MY FAVORITE AND SHE'S CUTE WITH SHIROU (OTP, FUCK YOU "LOW-KEY ROMANCE" HATERS) AND SABER (OT3, SUNNY DAY IS THE BEST END FIGHT ME) AND SAKURA (GOD THESE SISTERS guilty ship whoops) AND ARCHER (so many alternate-selves feelings) AND I WANT A RIN HAREM END EVEN THOUGH SHE'S NOT THE PROTAG and HF is poorly written and doesn't mesh with the rest of the VN, which could really be a much more cohesive whole considering it's supposed to be three alternate timelines during the same two weeks yet plays sequentially??? but oh god don't get me started

- Other fandom stuff: I'm pretty burnt out on Code Geass, so I'm not updating the kinkmeme masterlist as frequently as I used to, oops especially since 90% of the prompts are SuzaLulu and I'm just tired of it. Also, Homestuck fandom, why so batshit?? I mean I've been in big fandoms before but I have never seen this degree of savagery, wow. (Though I'm sure part of it is a) still ongoing canon and b) heavy authorial involvement with the fandom.) I've been getting a lot more disillusioned about quality writing in canons, actually, which is probably part of why I'm spending more time on nonfiction than fiction lately (hit me up on Goodreads if you want, eyo). Though the most recent Dresden book was much better than Ghost Story and I was really happy to actually be surprised by a plot twist for the first time in a long while. Also oh got AO3 has such a better interface than FFN I'm posting all my fic there from now on (hahahahaha implying I actually write shit anymore, that FSN oneshot last year was an accident I swear).

Also I've noticed myself less interested in slash lately and more interested in femslash and het? I don't know if it's 'cause I'm just more into fandoms with complex female characters playing large roles recently or because I'm shallow

- Figurines are my new hobby because curse you Fate and your bishoujo -_- Ugh, so expensive but so gorgeous.

- I haven't been as careful about writing down my dreams as I was for a long time. I'll spare y'all the backlog.

- My slumps have been less common. Not really sure why, but can't complain.

I was supposed to get a package on December 30th, but since nobody was home to sign for it I had to pick it up today.

( Guess who!Collapse )

A twofer, because whoops I am forgetful.

Day One: Ten things you want to do some day.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight qualities you think are awesome in other people.
Day Four: Seven (semi)interesting things you've pondered or thought about recently.
Day Five: Six things you are glad you did.
Day Six: Five books/movies/tv series/etc that you'd recommend
Day Seven: Four silly quirks
Day Eight: Three pet peeves
Day Nine: Two things for which you're proud of yourself.
Day Ten: One secret plan.

( Day TwoCollapse )

( Day ThreeCollapse )

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a happy new year! 2011 went by so fast I can hardly believe it. (I'm still working on that ficmeme for you guys, really, I promise.)

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Work is dull and sameface lately; been off a lot from DD which is p. good I guess. Will's party was like 2 weeks ago; it was nice to see everyone ♥

I need to get Skyrim. Will probably go for the PC version because I spent all my Christmas money on that Emperor Lelouch figure I preordered; overseas shipping is expensive, man, and the dollar-to-yen conversion rate isn't what it used to be. Lately though I've mostly been playing Wind Waker, which I got for Christmas since our copy apparently got tossed with the GameCube when it died and I'd been having a real hankering to play it.

Since I'm a thief, a 10 days meme:

Day One: Ten things you want to do some day.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight qualities you think are awesome in other people.
Day Four: Seven (semi)interesting things you've pondered or thought about recently.
Day Five: Six things you are glad you did.
Day Six: Five books/movies/tv series/etc that you'd recommend
Day Seven: Four silly quirks
Day Eight: Three pet peeves
Day Nine: Two things for which you're proud of yourself.
Day Ten: One secret plan.

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> Forgo updating about life and stuff to post a writing meme your lazy ass can actually manage.

Ok, you do that.

Give me a character or ship and I will write one sentence of ten genres for them. The genres are:

1. Angst
2. AU
3. Crack!fic Plot
4. Crossover
5. First Time
6. Fluff
7. Humor
8. Hurt/Comfort
9. Smut
10. UST

Fandoms I'll write for: Homestuck, Code Geass, Tokyo Babylon/X, Final Fantasy VII, Shadow Hearts, Final Fantasy X, Yugioh, Naruto.

EDIT: YES I AM STILL WORKING ON THESE REALLY. I'M SORRY T_T

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At work I've been focused on updating and maintaining a list of young adult series. Ideally I'd love to expand it to childrens' and adult series as well, and make it available on our library's (old and poorly designed, but supposedly getting a makeover at the end of the year) website. I'd love to be able to do something like this, but even a list without catalog links and search capabilities, such as this, would be great -- much better than the Word document files of the few lists we have on our site.

The thing is, though, I don't have much experience programming and maintaining this sort of database (didn't get to take such classes in library school due to scheduling conflicts, dammit). Our tech department consists of three people who were kind of shoehorned into the job because they happened to know what they were doing (and while one of them's fond of me and the other's neutral, the third is short-tempered and screamed at me on the phone once for a stupid mistake I made, and I've striven to avoid her ever since), all paraprofessionals, not librarians. Furthermore, the minute I ended up with a full-time librarian position, most likely as a branch manager rather than a nonmanager librarian at one of the big branches, I wouldn't have enough time to devote any of it to such things.

It's frustrating. :/ But for now I guess I'll read up on PHP and MySQL and see if I can't get enough of a sense of this stuff to do it myself.

I've been hanging around mspanonmeme a lot lately, and the corresponding Pesterchum memo is good at keeping me up far past my bedtime (ilu anyway, though, guys). I love this fandom, even with its insane antislash wank masquerading as SJ.

I was trying to get through a full Homestuck reread before the EoA5 flash dropped (not that it was likely considering I still hadn't even hit Hivebent by 12:30 last night), but uh judging from all the hysterics on the meme and the fact that MSPA is down, I slept right through it, welp. And I haven't even trotted over to check out Tumblr yet, hoo boy.

ffffffff this basically means I can't do half the dicking around on the internet I normally do on my lazymorning days for fear of spoilers. At least, not until this interminable MegaUpload download of the file finishes. FINALLY. /watches it

................................................................AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH A;LDSFJK;ADKLSFDMSZC,/XSDC';LDKSAJGFLDSJFK;LADMSF;

It, uh, it may be a while before/if I post coherent thoughts on this. S-so many feelings. /watches again

ETA: So I lied. ( SPOILERS AHOY, obviouslyCollapse )

On a tangentially related note, as if crashing MSPA and then Newgrounds wasn't bad enough, I think everyone trying to download the new album at once is going to crash the Bandcamp site too. Whoops.

Either that or it's just MY INTERNET IS BEING REALLY SHITTY TODAY, AUGH.

The Oxford English Dictionary's word of the day is "hikikomori."

fml

So, uh, I started reading Homestuck just to see what all the fuss on fandomsecrets was about.

And now I'm kinda addicted. I even love characters I'd stay far, far the hell away from in real life -- like Vriska and Karkat and Terezi. Gamzee just bugs me (though I must admit I lol'd at his reaction to ICP, considering his juggalo thing), Equius and Eridan are hilarious for different reasons, Nepeta is like me my sophomore year of high school (haha ow), Feferi's a total sweetheart, Tavros is kind of adorable in a pathetic sort of way, and fffff why do I ship Kanaya and Vriska so hard after two throwaway bits of conversation that make it clear it was one-sided at best (oh, because this third bit with Kanaya being a badass in that three-way confrontation and then proceeding to casually put on her bloodstained lipstick definitely engendered flushed feelings in Vriska for the first time, and have I mentioned troll romance is fascinating?). Dave is the kind of insufferable hipster douchebag I would loathe IRL, but I adore him (mostly for trolling the trolls), John and Jade are geekily adorable, and Rose is fun but kinda creepy (though not as much as Vriska or Terezi or Gamzee, and can I just say holy crap I really feel for Karkat when-- well let's just say spoiler spoiler spoiler. H0nK.). I don't even know where I am in the story, though I'm not caught up -- Dave and Aradia and the troll chats jumping around in the timeline make things somewhat confusing -- but my head is packed with this stuff.

And what's not full of that is full of X/1999-Code Geass crossover, for which I blame bard_linn and shirogiku.

Guyyyys I have to do some major Final Fantasy VII ficwork before Geassfic and this isn't helping my productivity. :/

Why would anyone want to whitewash this lovely lady into this? (Extra credit if you come up with an answer that completely lacks racist undertones. Good luck with that.)

Behold Bioware Neglected Their Main Demographic: The Straight Male Gamer, a long-winded, self-important ramble by a Dragon Age player. The game's lead writer, provides and eloquent rebuttal. As for my own two cents...
1) lol
2) Your misogyny is showing.
3) Your homophobia is showing.
4) Your privilege is showing (bravo for calling him out on that, Mr. Gaider).
5) Your racism is showing -- calling the dark-skinned human female romance option "exotic" and appealing only to a subset of male gamers (never mind lesbians, because we don't play games)? Yeah. Problematic in the extreme.
5) You don't have to pursue the game's gay relationships if you don't want to. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to sleep with your male party members.
6) Why should Bioware alienate large portions of the market? Just looking at the first game shows how big the female fanbase for this franchise is -- or did you somehow miss all the Alistair fangirls out there with their thinly-veiled self-insert Alistair/female Cousland fics?
6) If we institute a "no homo" option for jerks like you, can we institute a "no hetero" one too? Fair's fair, after all. :P

I have half-written an essay post with comments on the decision a few weeks ago by HarperCollins to limit library circulation of ebooks lent through Overdrive to 26 checkouts. However, it's morphing into a huge, disjointed rumination on copyright and licensing and what it means that physical copies are losing their privileged position (complete with reference to Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, which determined library photocopying to be fair use, and possibly elements from Adrian John's Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates, which I'm currently reading). I should probably cut out the rumination, because it's the kind of thing one could write whole books on. For it to really be polished I'd have to do some research and get some more sources... which would, since this is just for me and not for a class, probably boil down to a lot of reading and citation hopping and nothing resembling a solid paper. (How many of you would actually be interested in reading that sort of thing, anyway?)

Had a strange dream about not!Roman Rome and a little expensive farmer's market a few weeks ago. And then playing secretary for a town official while working a branch and getting all offended because THIS IS NOT WHAT LIBRARIANS ARE FOR, DAMMIT.

Another strange dream, in which I was Suzaku dreaming: Instead of the SAZ, there was some other large and important event at which Euphie was to meet her Doom. I was stuck in a Groundhog Day-style repetition of the event, so I would prevent it the first time it happened and it would just happen later on under different circumstances before the rewinding again. I kept getting more and more stressed and paranoid as I tried to prevent every occurrence, and it was reflecting badly on us.

I don't quite know the resolution of that cycle, because next I knew I was in an outdoor wooden booth answering questions for people at a different event. I was so tired, but welcomed the Final Fantasy VI questions of a boy with strange eyes. Some time later, we happened to be on the same flight to... somewhere. While most of the passengers were sleeping, he crept up next to me and started whispering in my ear about tragedy and the difficulty of life and how he could make things so much less painful if I would only give up all my love. I thought about it for a moment, then closed my eyes with a sigh, nodded, and let him sink his teeth into my throat.

Been playing a lot of Fate/stay night. Rin is still my favorite.

I have a lot of Kallen in my head right now. A bunny about her being interviewed about Zero and the Black Rebellion for some anniversary thereafter is hopping around in there. Like most of my one-shots, I'll probably write a few sentences, get stuck, and then never revisit it again.

Antonin Scalia's an idiot. Scroll down and read the part about the 14th Amendment.

Isn't that precious?

I had a weird freakin' dream last night where I was working at the library on a particularly busy day. Some child started giving me a nasty attitude about how it was taking me a while to find something, and I got angrier and angrier until I had to excuse myself and storm off. Asked by coworkers what was wrong when I was leaving, I muttered something about the kid being a bitch.

Well the shit kind of hit the fan then, as she heard and so her parents heard and my supervisors were super disappointed, in an "all we do for you and this is how you repay us?" kind of way (which is a weird thing to dream about because just last night they were praising me for my flexibility and helpfulness about going where I was needed, which was circulation [which apparently the director hadn't wanted to make me do since it's been a long and circuitous road to librarianship for me, but hey, I know circ and the ref desk was slow with me as an extra person on while circ was busy and two people short, so why not go where I'm needed?] at a different library from the one I'd been originally scheduled to do reference at [as that one closed due to the snow]).

ANYWAY. I was so crushed with disappointment and shame that after I assisted two very elderly patrons in the most considerate way I've ever given customer service I decided to walk home. In the snow (though it was only a few inches as opposed to a few feet, like we got) along the interstate (which is nowhere near the library, especially not the section I dreamed about).

Along the way I stumbled into some sort of pageant along the median about the history of Christianity. The players were largely believers, but for some reason they drafted me to be Henry VIII. So we slogged along, portraying the faith's difficult times while singing "Эй, ухнем!". They steadily climbed a hill to be closer to God, and I move past them out of line to an enormous mound of mud, which collapsed under me as I reached its summit.

The next day I found out the event has ended up on Metafail (my dreamworld's equivalent of Failblog; it's shown up before), except it has me tripping up the whole line of people, which I don't remember doing at all. I contacted some friends to "wtf" about it, and that's when I woke up.

I hope Sol Invictus treated you all well (heh), and that you all have a happy and healthy New Year. ♥

At around 1 am on the Winter Solstice, I woke up and was unable to move or feel anything. I heard a voice down the hall, calling "Mommy! Daddy!" in that strained sort of "I just threw up all over my covers" way, then a fit of coughing. After several minutes, as I began to regain feeling, I heard talking from the kitchen in perfectly normal tones of voice, as if no one else had heard what I had or were completely unconcerned about it. The next day I ask my family: Mom and Dad were asleep in bed, and my sisters were downstairs watching television in the sunroom, on the far end of the house. They'd gone to grab snacks around that time, which was why I heard them in the kitchen, but I can't hear the TV from that far away.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ME, FLIST? Was it a paranormal experience or was I hallucinating? I somehow rationalized all of it in my sleep-deprived and slightly dehydrated mind at the time, but upon further reflection I'm a little creeped out.

I've been feeling incredibly run down lately -- exhausted, really, and it's starting to chip at my (formidable, if I may say so myself) immune system. Just gotta push through till New Year's, and then, since I don't have to worry about making DD 25 hours a week for their insurance, I'm taking off the first week of January to rest up. (I'll still be working at the library, since personal/vacation time resets at the beginning of the year and I only have 8 hours of sick time, but 20 hours a week as opposed to 45 should make a big difference.)

Well, right off the bat I'm absolutely going to have to agree with wolviepris on Marie Digby's cover of Umbrella (originally by Rihanna).

I'm also gonna have to put Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt (originally by NIN). Sorry, Reznor, I know it's your song but guh, the Man in Black gives me chills with this.

Also maybe it's sacrilege, but I like Joe Cocker's cover of With A Little Help From My Friends better than the Beatles' version.

I'll also volunteer just about any Bob Dylan song by just about anybody, because while the man may be a great songwriter he really can't sing for shit. Although I have a soft spot for Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.

Oh -- please permit me to take a moment here to note that in my ever so humble opinion, any cover of an '80s song is pretty much guaranteed to be better (Seether's cover of of "Careless Whisper" being a notable exception) than the original because they just sound less... synthy. I can't really come up with a good word for it, so have some examples.

Orgy's cover of Blue Monday (original by New Order).

Placebo's cover of Running Up That Hill (original by Kate Bush).

...Someday I'll post a real post again. Really.

So. Uh.

I broke a window today. Ahahaha.

My right hand's a bit scratched up, but I'm fine other than that. At least my bed wasn't under it, so it's not like there's glass all over it or anything...

Woohoo! I got bard_linn's birthday present for a good price. :D

Anyway. I go in to work at the library today (apparently they were confused and thought I did the Personnel Office stuff today instead of next week when I get my prints done), and the head librarian says she wants to talk to me for a minute, and just points me to the staff bulletin board.

Where they just posted a library associate position over the weekend.

Now, the job I just got is a library assistant position. Essentially I'm a circulation monkey -- checking books in, checking books out, handling fines and people complaining about them, opening accounts for people. The library associate, on the other hand, actually works with the librarians and in reference -- basically does librarian-type stuff without requiring the MLS. (And it pays a nice cushy $7/hour more than the job I just got, which would be a 150% increase on my current page's pay.)

If she pointed it out to me, she wants me to go for it, right? But wouldn't doing that right after landing this position be kind of... I don't know, a huge social faux pas? But it pays better and it's closer to what I went to school for... and she herself does all the interviewing for hiring anyway...

Any advice, you guys?