I'm back from Alaska. I'd like to say that for a state that "never gets above 65!" uh. It was 90 degrees in Talkeetna all day. And all Alaskan day at that. I have pictures and reflections and whatnot, to come later. Megan (ipodditty) and I were very sad flying back from Anchorage, because we realized we actually had to go back to work. July has proclaimed itself Busy Fucking Month (thank youuu, Girl Scouting! :F). Oh, and I found out at the library in Juneau that my library, lol, did not acknowledge that I turned in Catfish and Mandalas and Gold and Azure: 1000 Years of Russian Architecture, and I now owe them heaps of money for books I turned in before I left--so guess which are my two least favorite books in the world? I'll have to go talk to them tomorrow before GSing. On the upside? Aside from the wtf weather, Alaska really was wonderful. Fun, eye-opening, inspiring, fun, more fun, more (incredibly retarded) fun. And UCSD behaved for once and validated both my AP test scores (I GOT A 5 IN CALCULUS. And English Lit, and European History) and my retarded transcript. Eff you, Fremont Unified. Helpful as ever at the district office, I see.

I need to travel more. Like, a lot more. I need money to travel more. But still, it's nice to be home. I flipped through my flist a bit just now, and my god do I miss all of you! More than I thought, and more than you'd believe. But wow. I MISS YOU. More thorough reading of your recent goings-on to come.

Alaska is beautiful; its Internet sucks (7kb/sec). Though apparently, Mei, cell reception is supposed to be great where I am now! Sarah Palin stepped down as governor the day before our train passed through Wasilla. It's been hotter here ever since we left the coast than it is back home in California.

Actualy, Denali reminded me a lot of California, and I couldn't quite place why, until I figured out that there was a forest fire northwest of us a ways. OH. IT'S ON FIRE. That's why it reminds me of California! XP

Love you all, longer letter later, etc.

It's currently 10:27pm Alaskan Daylight Time (11:7pm PST); the sun sets in about two hours, and will rise in around six. :D

See y'all later!

Going on vacation. Will be back 8 July. In the meantime, some icons! Posted mainly to convince even one person that this series might be worth watching; I'm feeling powerful lonely, here! :P Edit: Completely illegal streaming can be found here. I recommend the Tudou links. You can also buy the episodes from iTunes if you're significantly less cheap than I am. (But hey, I bought the box set, so...)

1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20

From "Season One Overview" and Episodes 2x01, 2x02. Screencapped using VLC, lol. Somewhat edited in Photoshop CS2. You can credit if you want, but I don't particularly care.

Personally, I'm kind of thrilled with #16 and #17, because David always has the most ridiculous expressions on his face. What's he so happy about? Caskets. A wall for advertising caskets. Oh yes.

In the past week and a half, I've probably watched more movies than I have in the preceding six months combined. So I figured I might as well make all that time at least somewhat worthwhile and write up some mini!reviews. Spoilers are minimal and unimportant; most of these films debuted in the US in 2006.

Rocknrolla (R; drama/mindfuck): 6.5/10
Large-scale art/music/land/monetary exchanges become a web of interlocking scams and mysteries, with revenge as the primary motive. Great music, overall fairly enjoyable trip, though admittedly I have fairly little recollection of the movie itself. The Russian mobsters were hilarious (and indestructable).

Hot Fuzz (R; comedy/crime): 8/10
Devoted British police officer is transferred from the seedy streets of London to backwater Sandford Village. Odd village vagaries, cultish obsession, and Japanese Peace Lilies ensue. Very funny, oddly touching, great dialogue/satiric visuals. Starring Simon Pegg.

Star Trek (PG-13; action/scifi): 7/10
Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty seize the day for his one. They were awesome and adorkable. Kirk (aside from Chris Pine's grating voice) and Spock were okay until I rewatched some of the original series (the episode with the world based on Chicago gangs of the 1920s) and realized how sorely lacking they really were. But the person I really missed was DeForest Kelly, as Dr. McCoy.

Plot and visuals were okay. Aside from the infinitely endearing qualities of Chekov/Sulu/Scotty, the movie left me with the exact same feeling as did Iron Man: unimpressed.

UP (G; animated): 9/10

( In which Pixar perfects what Ratatouille failed to do, among other things. )

Pulp Fiction (R; mindfuck) 5.5/10
What was this movie about? Relatively entertaining, though I honestly can't say I remember anything.

Lethal Weapon (R; comedy/action/crime): 4/10
I think I may have been asleep for most of this--I actually think I enjoyed the latter half of Lethal Weapon 4 (my only prior experience with Lethal Weapon) more than this. Cop with family is paired with "on the edge" cop with dead wife. They mesh.

Harsh Times (R; drama/crime): 4/10
An ex-soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress (Christian Bale) and an out-of-work webdesigner (Freddy Rodriguez) hit the L.A. streets against their better judgement, perusing the clubs, selling guns and weed, and fucking with the local gang scene. A reckless Christian Bale lives dangerously close to the edge after being rejected by the LAPD, dragging his best friend (Freddy Rodriguez) between a life of thrills (where death is constantly imminent) and a life with his (newly mellowed and responsible) wife.

( This is why I can't have nice things. )

Bottle Shock (PG-13; history): 5/10
Up and coming California vintners compete against the French wines the world scene holds so dear. So unspeakably average it's actually amazing how average it is. Starring Chris Pine, Alan Rickman, Freddy Rodriguez.

Grindhouse (R; horror/zombies): 2/10
A chemical explosion at a covert military base leads to the creation of a plague of carnivorous zombies across backwater Texas. When zombies attack, the world will be saved, and inherited by, prostitutes and go-go girls. Low budget, horrid acting, asinine plot and dialogue. Received a 2 purely because one of the go-go girls, Cherry Darling, was actually pretty cool.

Bobby (R; history): 5/10
The lives and trials of several employees and guests at the Ambassador Hotel, the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated--a young couple marrying to keep the groom out of Vietnam, an aging singer/star and her doormat of a husband, the underprivileged black/Hispanic kitchen staff, the hotel manager and his affair with one of the switchboard ladies; two members of the Kennedy campaign staff and their first-time adventures with acid. Everything about this movie is fairly average, though the confusion and volume of sound/action leading up to Kennedy's assassination is particularly well done. Starring Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Shia LeBeouf, Freddy Rodriguez.

Poseidon (PG-13; action/disaster): 4/10
After being felled by a rouge wave, an unwitting group of passengers attempts to survive the aftermath. Generic character ensemble, relatively unimpressive action, in spite of the sparkly special effects.

( Also, most racist movie ever! )

Good job, Hollywood.

So wow, I'm the most terrible person in the world. For the past 72 hours, I've completely scorned everything--Gold Award, books, the Internet, etc.--except Six Feet Under. And other movies starring Freddy Rodriguez. I've not managed to actually watch an overabundance of SFU, because we're watching with my father, but certainly my mind has been consumed by it nonetheless. More specifically, Federico and his story arcs--to such and extent that I actually feel a bit bad, because uh. The main characters and their stories should probably be taking center stage--at the very least when they are doing Important Things and Federico is uh, not.

Oh, and obsessing over him makes me feel like a total pedophile. WHICH MAKES ZERO SENSE, considering Federico is in his late 20s (and married, and has two children [see icon--Rico and Child]), and the actor was in his early 30s. But it feels like pedophilia all the same! Because he's so small and adorable and--

I get pretty much the same feeling I get when I'm obsessing over Hitsugaya, or pre-massacre!Itachi, or Elicia/Roy, or mini!Orochimaru. (Yeaaah, pedo for Oro. Does it get worse than that?)

Bear with me here; I'm sure to return to my normally scheduled Narutotarded/Bleachness self once I :FF get over myself. Probably once I stop feeling like a demented five-year-old and can form a coherent post on why Six Feet Under is brilliant. kuchren, I desperately need to catch you on AIM soon so you can tell me all about Alex Pettyfur and I can flail at you. *_*

In the meantime, results from what already seems a world away (I graduated on 19 June):

Honors Physics: 92!
AP Calculus: 92
Literature, Justice, and Society: 99
Economics: 99
AP European History: 99
AP English Literature: 103
(Japanese 4: A [and who knows what percentage that's supposed to be])

Three words: FUCK YOU, physics.

I win.

P.S. This icon is so adorable. See, THINKING that proves to me I've gone completely off the deep end, here. Ah, lackaday.

Tonight, my friends, I do believe I have unraveled the true meaning of OTP.

If you skulk around this journal often enough, you'll know that I often have five million separate One True Pairings, which somewhat negates the importance of that 'One' bit. And often, my various OTPs split each other up. For instance, I ship InoSaku, SakuSai, and SakuSasu. (Apparently, Sakura gets around so long as she's not banging Akatsuki...) Or--while my Bleach OTP is Orihime/Ulquiorra, I really only like it if it's based on undertones of IchiHime and ends up actually being IshiHime, in the end.

And most of these pairings are based on concepts or interactions or emotions that I find intriguing, or invite exploration. Which is kind of the point of shipping things, right? Yeah, I'll give myself that. And yet, this 'True' bit... still troubling. Just because I find someone interesting doesn't make them my soul mate, after all.

But there's one pairing that, above anything else I have ever shipped, makes me explosively happy just seeing them together. Watching them be happy. One pairing that is so singularly beautiful, I can't even think of a reason I like them so much--it's simply a pure emotional response. There's nothing inherently special or great about their marriage, really; two normal people working okay jobs, dealing with normal problems like tight money and buying a new house, raising two normal kids. And yet? Watching them stand in the middle of that house, imagining their two kids living in it, and figuring out if their okay jobs are going to be able to pay for it is the most profoundly joyous thing in the world.

Of course, reading Internet spoilers has given me a heads-up that this gets royally fucked over in the fourth season (and yes, I can see the seeds of that already, and I'm only on 2x02), so I can only imagine how shitty watching all that fall apart is going to make me feel. Because "beauty in the breakdown" these two are not, unlike so many of my favorite pairings, and individual characters.

♥ Federico/Vanessa = OT-fucking-P ♥ (Six Feet Under)

I would include a screencap, but there aren't any. No fics, either, which may in fact be a blessing--one I'm in no hurry to destroy.

I love Six Feet Under, in general, but each time I see Federico or F/V scenes, I immediately want to watch them over again. Hoo boy.

Edit: Oh, and did I mention that they're such minor characters, for the entire first season Federico has about nine minutes of screen time, and Vanessa has around two? WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF.

Linkin Park's "New Divide" is 100% Itachi and Sasuke, for the Itachi vs. Sasuke arc.

Normally, I'm wary of attributing Linkin Park's music to anything, because for literally every fandom I have EVER BEEN IN, Linkin Park has always fit things astoundingly well (and my thinking here is that since it stands for everything, in actuality it must stand for nothing). But my god!

Sasuke POV:

I remembered black skies, the lightning all around me
I remembered each flash
as time began to blur.
Like a startling sign
that fate had finally found me.

And your voice was all I heard
that I get what I deserve.

( So give me reason to prove me wrong. )

I will eat my shoe if some of those lines are not perfect transliterations of the manga panels from that arc.

On one hand, there is nothing so different between your senior year of high school, your freshman year of college. Nothing so special about graduating, if you're going to college, have always intended to go to college. The ceremony, really, is for those who have finished school, and will cross the gradient from student to employee, not student to student. For the rest, it's just another summer before just another year of school; nothing distinguishes this point from any other in life's continuum.

And yet, this is still an ending, this is still the end of something. There will never be another point in life that is exactly like this one--the structure of the world, the people with whom you've shared this space.

The same is true, of course, of any moment, any day. But it is moments like these that truly drive home how sacred a moment can be, how precious the normal, boring-as-all-hell days and small talk between friends can be. Because these friendships will never be the same ever again.

( The End of Something (and not the one by Ernest Hemingway...) )


( Miss Holly )
( Elisa )
( Cindy )
( Samantha )

---

Four years ago, I would not have written this. I would have thought, to write these moments cheapens their meaning. To share them makes them somehow less mine. Maybe that it exists today only means that I've improved my capacity to write meaningful things (unlikely, leastwise to such an extent that this would require on its own) and gotten better at sharing. But I'd like to think that it means I've grown up a little.

To Internet friends: Well, this doesn't really concern you at all, does it? XP I doubt my regional/educational location changes our interations whatsoever; they are (perhaps blessedly--how much change can a person take at once? :P) not a part of that 'something.' I would say you're free to skip this but uh. You're free to skip everything, really, so that seems a bit redundant.

Still loving Naruto (451 was actually pretty awesome, sans the bit with Danzou which was just Dumb) and Bleach (Loved the bits of Soi Fon Hitsugaya er, the verbal mention of Hitsugaya why am I so pathetic? D: and EEE KYOURAKU) and Itachi (with renewed vitality! thank you, Megan. *__*). Will check flist soon, I hope, though my god, every time I scan it, the task appears more and more daunting. XD

OKAY Well, this is about to be a complete fucking disaster. How disappointing, considering all the hours of my life that went into this.

Goddamn it.

I'm otherwise occupied the next couple weeks, so I didn't do anything for Itachi's brithday, but hey. (In my defense, I'm six months behind on real person birthdays, so this post at all is kind of amazing. XD) I feel I should post some commemoration, even if it's lame compared to everyone else's...


Oekaki from 10 Rankai makes everything better, though. Emi to the rescue! XD

"さっき泣いた烏がも笑う。 It meant, 'The crow that was crying a few minutes ago is already laughing now.' My mother didn't have to scold my brother and me for crying or encourage us to be stoic, because she could usually make us laugh.

"...This was my mother's gift. Crows are smart and stubborn. They are tough birds that survive and wheel around in the sky on their big wings. My mother wanted us to imagine ourselves flying around, making a racket, and laughing-crying-singing. In Japanese, the word for crying, naku, also means "birds making noise," although the two verbs are written with different pictorial characters. In conversation, the two words sound exactly the same: a flock of blackbirds rise up to the sky, leaving us with the clamor of their singing and crying."

Kyoko Mori, Polite Lies

EDIT: betterinorange linked me this lovely mini-doujin off Tegaki, which is omg like the coolest thing ever. *_* Haven't read read it yet, but it's neat! [Itachi+Madara, massacre-centric. SFW]

Sometime in the far future, I'm sure there will be a reason 4:30am is a good time of day. >.< That day is not today.

From redbrunja:

KRXQ Sacramento Radio Hosts Encourage Violence Against Transgender Children.

I try to stay out of political/social topics, but I cried reading this. The idea of it is just. so wrong. Some of my best friends in the world are socially very conservative, and uncomfortable with homo- and transexuality. And really? It's completely within their rights; it's not like it makes them a worse person. The big difference here is that they are not advocating hate crimes. They are not asserting that they would beat their little boy with a shoe if he wanted to try on a dress. When words turn to verbal abuse, and then to violence--in no one's conscience should that be permissible. That this was directed primarily at children? makes it that much worse.

'Mommy, I'm a girl trapped in a boy's body,'" he simpered, mimicking an effeminate little boy. "I want to wear a dwess."

My brother is eight years old. When he was about four, there was a period in time where he demanded to be called Susan, and went around wearing a dress and a bonnet; nightgowns when he went to bed. He eventually grew out of that, and is probably not transgender, in actuality; he will never have to personally face the complete hatred these radio hosts have demonstrated, or the violence that they advocate. But every time I think of this article? I think of him.

Caught in a meme by betterinorange:

Rules—
01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LiveJournal.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!



Silhouette ensemble from Bleach; chosen because this weekend I was on the inexplicable epic Bleach high from hell Bleach, and a sudden unquenchable desire to listen to nothing but classical music, and I'd moved all of my other wallpapers to my external harddrive. That, and it's shiny and pretty and I love the abstract art around the tree. The problem with this layout? I cannot, for the life of me, figure out who these people are supposed to be. That, my friends, is silhouette!fail. I mean, a few are flamingly obvious, but who the hell is this freakish hooded figure in the bottom right corner?! And if that's not a hood, then what is it? BUT MAN. BLEACH. GUH. <33

Never mind that it occurred to me, while I was wallpaper shopping, that I actually did skip that entire arc between the Arrancar Invasion (Xiaolong Qufang) and Rukia's encounter with Aaroniero!Kaien. See, the great thing about Bleach? If there's something you deem unworthy of your time, you don't have to read it. And you miss absolutely nothing. This, of course, raises questions as to the quality of the series' PACING, but you can't deny arc skippability is a definite plus!

I attended the Nakayoshi Club scholarship dinner tonight. Dinner was nice; it was at a Chinese restaurant, thus proving it authentically Japanese. XD The lady sitting next to me and my sister was very friendly, in that strange way I've only ever found in old Japanese ladies--I know more about her now than I could ever have cared to (for instance, that she studied pharmacology in Japan, and as a high school student broke her wrist by slamming into her partner during a tennis match), but at the same time, I feel richer for it. And in spite of her eccentricities, she was quite nice. She invited me back to their dinner next year. XD Eiko san, I will probably never forget you.

( To persevere through any ordeal, knowing that incontestably, rewards await you at the end, is only exchange. To swallow your frustrations, silence your fury, and wait for a day that may never come—that is faith. That is strength. That is gaman. )

The other thing I will never forget is the scholarship on the whole. It's not an astounding amount of money ($700), but it was very intimate, in a way that other scholarships probably aren't. I cannot read--out loud or otherwise--the seventh and eighth paragraphs without crying. XD This is the first time I've ever written something that felt real to me. And while I don't know if it will mean quite as much to anyone else, I know that it did for the Nakayoshi Club. I've never had anyone thank me for writing something. Tonight, an entire room did so.

Tonight, I read this essay aloud to a room full of old Japanese men and women--and their sons and daughters, grandchildren. My own were among them.

(And true to form, they stayed silent.)

Why the hell won't Adobe ImageReady save my file as a GIF? What is the point of having made a completely awesome animated icon for myself if it will not save in a sane file format?

Because you know what, ImageReady? PNG defeats the purpose of its being animated, and SWF and MOV are just stupid. I want my icon, damn you. And seeing as the only thing in the WORLD you're good for is image mapping (which I haven't done in 5+ years) and making animnated GIFs, your days may be numbered.

And if it is because I tweened my frames, ImageReady, you are fucking ridiculous. Everyone else can tween their frames and still save as a GIF.

No Love,
kalliel

chiaroscuro
Inuyasha drabble

Genre: pre-series, horror, gen
Characters: Onigumo, Kaede, Kikyou
Rating: G (K)
Word Count: roughly 200
Notes: Editing, re-reading, or thinking while writing is for the weak! :F For ippoddity's Alphabet Meme Challenge, "O is for Opaque," for Naraku (Inuyasha). Not 'Naraku,' per se, but close enough? Having not read any canon/fic for this series in...four years, I don't remember Naraku. But I will always remember Onigumo.

---

Black.

White on black.

Kaede chan is such a little girl, and these are the colors her eyes see. Onigumo tilts his head, feels black skin cracking under white bandages, and sees those eyes burn fire around him. Such a little girl. A little stupid girl.

Pious Kikyou quells the (only half-imagined) flames with a cool touch and a wet cloth; sits beside him in the rushes, listens to his wheezing stories, half memory and half lie. (All fantasy.) She loves him as she loves everything, because her world is one void of gradations, layers, transparencies.

She sees these things (her eyes, sharp indigo; Onigumo's favorite), dismisses them. She is a healer, a priestess, and a certain selective blindness is something she must accept if she is going to succeed at all.

Kaede chan is not and will never be full miko; not the way dear sister Kikyou is. But she too has inherited a world without gradation--Kikyou is very white, and Onigumo is very black, and to see them together all but admits that grey exists. And if grey exists, then so too does gradation, and translucence. Facades, veneers, uncertainties.

This cannot pass. So black, white on black, it will always be, 'til the day Onigumo lives and Kikyou dies and everything burns to cinders.

end.
28 May 2009

From redbrunja & hieronymousb:
Give me a character/pairing from any fandom I participate in and I'll give you one (or more) fanon that I don't agree with.

[Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach, Fire Emblem, House MD, anything else you know I'm involved with/have been involved with]

Edit: You know those days weeks months where you're just kind of scrutinizing fandom, thinking, why the hell is this even worth it? And just really not feeling the love/the drive? Golly, these things are solved quickly when you engage random strangers in a community setting and talk ships. I tend not to comment on big chuunin posts like that, or engage in most things. But damn, it's fun and inspiring and now I want to write fic liek whoa.

I mean. I'm not talking about my ships, exactly, because I have no interest in recruiting people, or debating with people re: their validity that and my ships are miiiiine, in my little fandom world, in my lonely corner, but listening to other people talk about their ships is so exhilirating. Oh, shut up--you know it's true!

Wtf, self.

So either it was allergy backlash or food poisoning (from Sat/Sun, not your house, Samantha!) or I have the lowest tolerance for caffeine on the planet (had a cup of coffee and a Pepsi, which is essentially all the caffeine I've had in the last year), but starting at 4:22pm yesterday, I had to ( TMI? I dunno. :/ )

Edit: Went home after calc presentation. Will be doing English presentation at a later date; why mst was online at 4:30am so I could discuss this with her is beyond me.

You know what's more sad than going to fanfiction.net and finding that all of the fics about your favorite character on the site are blasphemous/horrifying/just plain odd in ways only ff.net can be?

Going there and finding that there is absolutely no fan fiction for your favorite character.

And knowing that since you've only seen three episodes (albeit you saw the pilot twice), and your favorite character is fairly minor, you're hardly equipped to rectify this.

lol major life dilemma

cradles, eddies (and silently flows the river)
Naruto fan fiction

Genre: gen, character study, angst, pre-series
Characters: Itachi, Mikoto
Rating: G (K)
Word Count: around 1100
Notes: Some (very) disjointed Itachi!thoughts. For naruto_contest's Week #44, "children."

( You are five years old when I put two things into your hands: your brother's life, and the weapon you will use to take mine from me. )

Every single time I write for naruto_contest, I write Itachi!fic. I need to be shot. :F Constructive criticism is, as always, loved and respected.