Not to be a stalker or anything, but.

BCC is putting on a production of play based on The Grapes of Wrath. The kid playing Al Joad is a gentleman named Benjamin Medeiros.

Benjamin Medeiros has done Histugaya cosplay.

And you thought you'd never see the day Bleach and John Steinbeck collided headlong into one another! (Outside of me, I mean. If you want Grapes of Wrath quotes that I associate with UlquiHime, I'd be much applied to supply you with some.)

That is all.

EDIT: That is not all!

Dear caerial,

How am I supposed to write my paper now? XP Mephastophilis already looks like this, but now Lucifer looks like this, and Crowley now reminds me of him? You don't recognize this stunning man in the bowler hat? Watch Firely, damn it. XP

How, I say! XP

I know I promised Armstrong, but this is kind of a drive-by. He is coming!

I love getting random fanfiction.net review in my inbox; I really do. But I don't know. Doesn't it bother you when someone tells you they think your story is "remarkable"...

...Because your writing style is a lot like theirs?

Of course, I'd hope everyone enjoys reading the style in which they write; if not, that would make self-editing quite tedious. But when you say things like that in a review, it makes the person you're reviewing really wish you hadn't read their fic. :F

For naruto_meme's Halloween Meme:
Haze (PG-13; Itachi, Shisui, and some other people)

Itachi doesn't move. He's lying prone on the table, arms splayed out like those of a corpse, but he does not move. That is the first thing they tell you--don't.

So Itachi doesn't. Because this is ANBU, and it does not matter who you are.

a/n: Reading this fic makes me physically ill. Bleh. :S

For naruto_meme's Kink Meme:
shizune/tsunade, drunken early morning sex.

And it was like coming home again. Coming home to an empty house and waiting for Nawaki to walk through the door.

konan/random amegakure woman, back kisses.

Konan has her share of scars. The girl's hands touch the ones that cannot be seen. She's bringing them to the surface whether she knows it or not.

madara/pain, diminutive pet names.

The pipes screech as they are twisted from their places. Fine, wet dust floats into Pain's face from the building as it groans, fissures with every grind. Amegakure doubles over. The pipes split and weep storm water, dousing the streets and everyone in them. Madara tears the city apart from the inside out, and the drainage pipes and brick facades, cobbles and loose iron sewer-grates all scream for mercy.

Pain does not.

For bringthehappy:
Amalie (PG-13; Sakura/Yamato).

Yamato plants a forest for her, lets it reach to the sky. The trees are as tall and as strong as they would be in fifty, one hundred years. A village that is destroyed in a day cannot be rebuilt in as little time, but Yamato thinks they might have an edge.

Not a Fandom Secret, but it should be one, because it's as lame as a lot of those are. Also? The fact that I've seen three Old Kingdom (Sabriel and Lirael) related secrets in three weeks makes me oddly happy. Really, though, I read it for the SPN.

edit: Hm. It occurs to me that the graphic is wrong. I only watched half of season 4.

p.s. If she really leaves, I'm going to flip a bitch. I know there's at least two of you who really hate her, but I really love her. In all honesty, she's probably my second favorite character (after Wilson). Just thinking about it, I really love her. Second season, especially. /; I think if she left, I'd cry.

Havelock Ellis:

It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.

Lesson for today: keep going. Life is seriously depressing, though. I wish someone could tell me how to get to where I want to go. But I suppose that would defeat the purpose entirely. Doesn't keep me from wishing.

Re: quote--And believe me, he would know. :F

From betterinorange:

1) Create a graphic (200 x 200 max size) to represent your personal "candy". It should have your username on it, but otherwise can feature whatever you want. Make it something special since it's self-representative.

2) Make a post with the subject "trick or treat?". Put your "candy" somewhere in it, and be sure to repost these instructions.

3) Then, go around other people's LJs and reply to them with either "trick" or "treat". If you reply with "trick", they will give you an LJ dare that you have to perform before taking their candy. If you're too wimpy for that, simply say "treat" and take their candy.

4) List all your collected candies in your original "trick or treat?" post to show off your collection, being sure not to direct-link!




Like two peas in a pod. NaruSasu and. Er. Cadaver laquer of some sort. Courtesy of Six Feet Under, of course. I'm sure it tastes peachy. XP

I figure if I'm going to be randomly post-whoring this week, I might as well waste time making little icons, too. XP (Lamely, that square actually did take like fifteen minutes!)

I was looking for my Neurobiology professor's PodCasts, because I know she records them during lecture (and I really needed to know whether radiation poisoning during neural development causes neurons to over- or undershoot their targets during cell migration--do you know how unfruitful Internet searches are on that?). I've decided that PodCasts are a bit creepy, just because it felt like my professor was in my bedroom with me, O_o;;

But I realized something.

Holy shit, free education? Some other professors have PodCasts, too. Not the majority, by far, but there's a sizeable selection. And it occurred to me that this would be a great way to figure out what classes you wanted to take from which professor. And to actually steal a free public education from the California school system. You can listen to the lectures for all kinds of classes without having to (a) actually take them and (b) actually sneak in!

This is, in all likelihood, incredibly lame and mundane. But I've been trying to figure out that whole radiation poisoning/neural migration thing all day so the discovery is magical.

So, flist. I have a coupon for 40% off on item at Borders.Com.

What would you buy?

Preferably something I can't get on Amazon Marketplace for less. And under $30.

Possibilities so far:
--The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer (Benson)
--Six Feet Under: TV to Die For (DON'T SPEAK. DON'T. XF)
--One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)
--The Electrical Field (Kerri Sakamoto)
--Kawaii Bento Boxes (...What? I'm hungry. It's cute.)
--Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America (Linda Furiya)
--Disappearing Moon Cafe (Sky Lee)
--The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
--English-Russian Russian-English Dictionary (Katzner)

Goddamn Borders. All of these are cheaper on Amazon, except the bento one. That and the Ru/Eng dictionary.

At the beginning of September I did a "first lines" book meme. This was oddly successful--and I say that only because if someone asked me to identify a book by its first sentence, chances are I wouldn't be able to, unless it was Beloved, by Toni Morrison. ("124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children." Haha, ippoditty.)

In any case, I said I'd do a book rec meme of the books that weren't recognized.

"These things I know are true: My name is Luling Young. The names of my husbands were Pan Kai King and Edwin Young, both of them dead and our secrets gone with them."

THE BONESETTER'S DAUGHTER, by Amy Tan

This was the first book I'd ever read of Amy Tan's that I genuinely loved. People talk about Joy Luck Club all the time, and while it is quite nice, The Bonesetter's Daughter is better. And possibly her second best, though I also enjoyed The Kitchen God's Wife. (IMHO her best is The Opposite of Fate, her personal memoir; but I think I may just have a thing for memoirs.)

I don't know what I can say about the book itself, except that you should read it. To be perfectly honest, I haven't read it in five years, though it is one of the few books that I actually own. Classically Amy Tan, the story centers around a Chinese American woman working as a ghostwriter, and her mother, who fled to America after the Japanese occupation of China. Unlike The Joy Luck Club, the mother, LuLing, does not narrate her own chapters, as she is gradually slipping into dementia and her memories are scattered. Her story is instead told through the translation of her own written narrative (which is interesting, because the daughter writes only the stories of others).

Imagine what it would be like to have your mother's life laid bare for you, only to find that it is too late. Imagine knowing what story your mother left for you, knowing that it would be.

--

"Her first memory of pain was an image of her mother. Pei was three or four the first time, and the same thing that had happened then was happening now."

WOMEN OF THE SILK, by Gail Tsukiyama

Another book that deals with the Japanese occupation of China. Women of the Silk and Gail Tsukiyama's sequel, The Language of Threads. If you read the first, you have to read the second. It's Just That Way.

Women of the Silk is home to one of the few characters in fiction I wish could have lived. Most of my favorite characters die, but more often than not, I don't mind that they are gone. They are, after all, fiction, and alive again if you just turn back the pages. But one of the women in this book dies, and truth be told, I still miss her. The Language of Threads is similar in that another woman dies, just as I began to love her, and I will never forget the imagery.

The novel begins in rural China with a young girl named Pei, who is sent to work in a silk factory. Quiet and wide-eyed, Pei watches life unfold in a foreign place.

These two novels are more about lives lived (and lost) than anything else; by the time The Language of Threads comes to a close, Pei is a woman grown, herding a willful young lady through World War II-era Hong Kong. I will always think of Pei as the eight-year old girl who walked into page one, so it's always a shock when I finish The Language of Threads and realize that she's not that scared little girl any more.

Lots of people find this book facile, romanticized, and melodramatic. I loved it. It's also been five years since I read this one, but there's an astounding number of scenes I remember quite vividly.

Which gives the impression that I haven't read anything in the past five years, doesn't it.

This is partially true.

But jeez, who recs The Grapes of Wrath? Either you've already read it or you likely never will! Just between you and me, though... If you think you've read it, because you read it for school, you haven't. Don't make me go fangirl on you! :FFF


/rambly post of ramblyness. Bottom line: Read books. I should, too.

"I disagree; it's not that bigger brains makes smarter people; it's about how much of your brain you use."

All other things aside, FOR THE EVER-LOVING GOD, DID YOU EVEN READ THE ARTICLE? What on earth made you think that he was implying this? or that the article was? CAThat (like an asshat, only worse, because they're taking CAT) went on to commenting brusquely on something else, but I can't remember what it was.

Good grief. I cannot stand this bullshit--half the people taking CAT, in addition to CAT itself.

Some day I will actually make a coherent post about School and Life and quite possibly even Fandom; that day is not today.

I would like to mention, however, that I'd really like to step into a vacuum for a few seconds, for the experience of it.

No, not a Hoover. A vacuum vacuum.

Wouldn't that be fascinating?

20 October 2009. Itachi, ANBU. Horror. For naruto_meme

( Itachi doesn't move. He's lying prone on the table, arms splayed out like those of a corpse, but he does not move. That is the first thing they tell you--don't. Because this is ANBU, and it does not matter who you are. )

I maintain a blog dedicated purely to Six Feet Under (separate from this journal because I know it would get REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING if I kept going on about some television series no one has watched and/or doesn't care to watch).

Generally when I look at my hit stats, people find my site by searching things like "ruth bitch six feet under" or "six feet under who is the high class prostitute." Ruth is occasionally a bitch and Melissa is indeed a fantastic prostitute, but uh. The blog itself tends to center around my favorite character, Federico Diaz, and his family, rather than those two lovely ladies.

TODAY. SOMEONE ACTUALLY FOUND IT BY SEARCHING "rico six feet under." Seeing as the damned thing is titled rico6fu, I think its existence has finally been validated. (And wow, I should update it. It's been a month; my (non-existent) readers will think I've moved on to fangirling Castiel 24/7 or something. XP

EDIT: What is this? I really want to watch it, whatever it is.

♥ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEI ♥

Recently, a friend of mine wrote the following in one of her posts:

Someone on my f-list recently made a detailed post [...] It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks because so-and-so is there for me." And then...one day they're not.

I have a person who I talk to about Things.

I do, too. And I cannot imagine my life without you. These past few years (three, or four? It feels like far longer than time can tell), this present moment, the ever-reaching future. I can't, and I won't, because I'm never going to let you go.

This is a random Journler entry from 17 May 2009:

I think... if I were to look into a mirror and see someone other than myself, for me that person would be her. Not because we are extremely similar in any salient respect, but at some ethereal, emotional level, there's a familiarity and understanding there that I'd be hard-pressed to find in anyone else.

...Of course, this may well be because I sold her my soul, and she is slowly feeding off of it. After all, I am only her concubine/whore. :P

I love you. ♥ and I'll be your whore for life!

♥ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMBER ♥

There is possibly a package waiting for you at home. I hope. I'm not sure how close you are to Atlanta, but Mei received hers without a hitch so hopefully yours will arrive, as well. The package comes with its own disclaimer, er. BUT KNOW THAT MY ETERNAL LOVE FOR YOU EXCEEDS THE LIMITS OF UCSD'S MAIL CAPABILITIES (and my ability to choose suitable gifts).

Have a royally fabulous day! I hear tell it's midterms week, so hopefully those all go well and are mostly, if not completely, out of the way by today.

For class the other day, I read an article focusing primarily on the berdache, feminism, and critical gender studies as a whole, which made me think of you. :P

This, folks, is why you don't water things down in school. Robert Nye's Beowulf: A New Retelling.

I just finished [Seamus Heaney's translation of] Beowulf for my Brit Lit class, and came out of it wondering where in hell my memories of the poem had come from. We read Nye's version, see, in the seventh grade, and I remembered three things: 1) Beowulf plunging his sword into the top of a hill and having the sun glint off it [HI THERE, JESUS], 2) Unferth wetting himself and then being murdered by Grendel's mother, and 3) something about bees.

...Well. So far as I can tell, Beowulf never left his sword to rust in some random hill. Unferth didn't die, and Nye obviously raped his character (all what, twelve lines of it?). And THERE ARE NO BEES.

Excerpt from one of the Amazon reviews:

In Nye's version, Beowulf is a part-time beekeeper, and he kills the dragon by having a bag of bees fly down its throat and sting it to death from the inside (I'm not making this up). There is no battle. Beowulf is never injured. Beowulf then simply dies on the mountain for no apparent reason other than his age.

I bought this book to read to my kids, but there is no way I will ever read it to them.

NO BEES! I know it's really not that big of a deal (I personally am quite fond of re-tellings--the million versions of King Arthur, for instance--or the Fullmetal Alchemist canon, even) but wtf, there are no bees.

The one thing I remembered about Beowulf, and it was a lie! Next thing you know, it'll turn out Hamlet didn't actually die, either, and he's presently an international spy for Denmark.

Edit: I really love Neil Gaiman's blog; perhaps more than his actual writing. XD It's almost as good as listening to him speak in person. It's worth mentioning, also, that Neil Gaiman is a part-time bee farmer (or bee hobbyist, rather), UNLIKE BEOWULF.

That is all.



Apologies for not commenting recently; I plan to in the future, I really do.

So, I've arrived in San Diego (Southern California). Rather busy doing college and orientation-related things, though my suitemates are nice (if not really my 'type' in the sense that all y'all are, XP). Every time I log onto my computer I feel like an anti-social hobo, so I've been mostly avoiding it even during my sparse free hours. A more comprehensive entry may or may not come. I desperately want to put down on paper my thoughts on Interstate 5.

Troubling news first, though.

A few weeks ago, a little dog wandered into our house. She was perfect beyond description. I'm not really an animal person in the least (and I do mean this; I like aquariums, though), but I love this dog. I tried not to get too attached, though, because she wasn't ours. We took her to the animal shelter the next day, though if she weren't claimed within the week we would be allowed to claim her ourselves and adopt.

The week passed; we adopted her. We couldn't take her home then (last Saturday), because she still needed to be processed and fixed. I left for university, and two days later (yesterday) the dog came home. She was ours, and she was still perfect.

So perfect, in fact, that the neighbor two houses down from us saw my sister walking her and claimed it was his dog.

This guy had his car repossessed in the dead of night a week ago. He never went to look for her, and he definitely hadn't cared for her, because her fur was a matted mess (and if that happened after she was lost, it meant she was wandering for even longer). And yet, he thinks he wants her back.

And he can take her, if he pays the shelter fines and reimburses my mother the adoption money.

She's our dog, and she is too perfect for him.

My sister (the one who took her out for a walk) celebrates her birthday on Monday. My little brother's birthday is today. There is something wrong with the world if they are going to be celebrating that by handing of our dog to that man.



EDIT: UNRELATED, but fuck me. I give up. FML!

A FUNERAL is not a great investment; it is a sad moment in a family's history. It is not a hedge against inflation; it is an effort to make sense of our mortality. It has less to do with actual profits and more to do with actual losses. It is not an exercise in salesmanship; it is an exercise in humanity.

Bodies in Motion and at Rest, Thomas Lynch

I'm about to finish my second watch-through of Six Feet Under--with my mother, this time, and instead of my father. She's much more outwardly callous than he, and more prone to drive things away with laughter and snide commentary. Meanwhile, I'm just going to cry and cry, because that's how much this story means to me. The wicked thing about inevitability is that knowing what happens doesn't make it any easier.

And--it's going to be weird, because um. She's going to be doing her thing, while I prove yet again that I am all too attached to fiction. But then I think, what's the point? What the hell is the point, if you're not going to really turn yourself over? Skip a step and just go out and do something real, if you're not going to suspend reality for an hour and make the trip mean something to you.

And honestly? It really doesn't help that Claire leaves in the end, and I am leaving on Tuesday. I don't leave forever (and neither does she), but it's like... it's never going to be quite like this ever again. It's like Nate said: "You can't take a picture of this. It's already gone."

(--Or maybe I'm just sad because my Show is ending. Again. :F)

On the upside, there's new rain outside and it smells absolutely fucking amazing.

From redbrunja: Pick five of your favorite shows, in no particular order, before you read the below questions, then answer them!

1. Six Feet Under
2. House, MD
3. Fullmetal Alchemst
4. Firefly
5. Law and Order

( Read more... )

I lovelovelovelove Six Feet Under. Oh my god.