Kay

libekory's observations on Tsubasa spoilers from Celes onward:

"So, wait. Why did Fai do what he wanted? It seems like Fei Wong promised to help him, ruined his life, and then just walked away and later someone else helped him. It's like -- I promise you a pie. And I ask for a favor in return. But then I step on your foot and don't give you a pie. Why do you still do me the favor?!"

"What did CLAMP say, did they just reach a point where they were like -- we need another character, but we're out of character designs. Quick! Let's make another Syaoran! Or maybe they had a bet going with someone that they couldn't make every new character Syaoran."

"Is Sakura also Syaoran?"

...I'm reading about the recession again, and I'm terrified.

The whole world is caught in this terrible downward spiral that, according to everyone, will not end for at least a year even by the most optimistic standards. People losing jobs, money getting more scarce, deflation settling in, fewer and fewer opportunities, and economists crying that it's only going to get worse -- much, much worse.

It just makes you feel powerless -- completely powerless. There's nothing I can do to stop this. There's nothing any of us can do. There's not even anything Barack Obama can do.

I'm never going to get a job. And my unemployment is running out and I don't think I can get another extension. I've been thinking about getting training for a safer career, like nursing, but I can't afford it. But at least I now have a way to make money on the side working from home (but will it last, what if I get laid off from that too) and soon my lease will be up and I'll be able to mooch off my roommate's family so I won't have a monthly rent drain (but is that really okay, it's so far away from where I'm job-hunting). So that's good, right?

...Is June here yet? I want to bury myself in The Sims 3.

Until then, guess I'll try to write this dream I had into a novel. Maybe novels still make money.

Why do people have to be so quick to knock other people's warmfuzzies?

Pictures like this and this keep coming out -- pictures where Kallen and Gino are interacting in a way that makes my dorky little fangirl heart happy, the same way that their positions in this picture do. Did they have to have that significant camaraderie moment before the final battle? No. Do they need to snark at each other, or stand angled into each other like a couple? Does Gino have to be playing with her hair? No.

This pairing has the power to make me flail in stupid fangirl ways that I'm not used to. Usually my ships are logical, and I approach them logically. "Oh, look at this, Suzaku is hanging all over Lelouch in this picture. Awesome. Lelouch's tiny happy smile and his blush are so adorable."

But something about Gino/Kallen makes me go "OH MY GOD GINO AND KALLEN ARE STANDING NEXT TO EACH OTHER" and "OMFG GINO AND KALLEN ARE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER SDFKS:GKJL" and "HE'S PLAYING WITH HER HAIR OMG EVERYONE HE'S PLAYING WITH HER HAIR!!!1"

So I keep getting these slightly shippy pictures and being happy about them, but then I keep looking at the comments, and stupid people say things like, "Well this officially sinks Gino/Kallen lolol" and I'm like. What's your problem? Why do you need to say that? Is this tiny inoffensive unpopular pairing really grinding your gears? Could it be because you're in desperate denial that Kallen could ever move on and like a man who actually does like her, as opposed to Lelouch?

Gino/Kallen doesn't even interfere with Lelouch/Kallen. Spoiler alert: Lelouch dies. Kallen's eighteen. Stop ruining the next seventy years of her life!

And stop making icons like this one. Hey, it's funny how the same picture that sinks my pairing is a pairing picture for you, provided you Photoshop Kallen to be anywhere near Lelouch and then change the expression on her face! I'm sure he looks that happy because he's thinking of her.

jfslkfjgh another indefinite D. Gray-man hiatus. Hoshino really wants us to suffer. ...or is really suffering but I'd rather she just hates us.

In other news, since we're advertising again, more spam, image-free since I like my flist, and sorry for anyone who gets spammed:

THE GREETING Welcome, criminal. This is the artificial intelligence "Sentience". You have been selected for the Marina Asylum program after a review of exhaustive criteria. Your selection is a direct result of crimes that you have committed in the past or will commit in the future. For the betterment of all species, it is necessary to remove persons of your type from the timeline. THE ARRIVAL You've been captured by Sentience, the prison AI, which might have gotten just a tiny bit oversensitive as years of operation began to take their toll. Genocide? That's terrible. Robbery? That could lead to murder. Selfishness? That could lead to cruelty which could lead to ignorance which could lead to criminal negligence. Maybe you belong here. Maybe you don't. Maybe there are extenuating circumstances. Maybe you haven't even committed these crimes yet. But you're here now. And Sentience's programming doesn't acknowledge the possibility of mistakes. THE GAME marinasylum · marina_ooc · marinamod premise · locale · rules · f.a.q. taken · reserve/drop · apply mod contact · ask sentience · invites

We're eager for a Knives (Trigun), CLAMP casts, FMA cast minus Fletcher, CG cast minus current and C.C., and Bleach cast minus Ichigo and Orihime. But any manga, anime, book, TV, comic, whatever fandom is good.

Reading an article on how you can easily get 75% discounts on eyeglasses if you buy online instead of buying from the optometrist's. Someone points out that they'll never be able to do it because they need to try on and see glasses before picking one that looks good on them, and another person says, "So when you go to the optometrist to get your prescription, shop around a little, try on some pairs, and find one you like. Then note what brand and take a picture and find it online!"

Someone says,

As a retailer in a totally different industry, I cringe when I see "try it in the store then buy online". In most industries retailers have to pay for their displays, they pay for the electricity to light the shop and make the climate comfortable, they pay employees to keep it clean and answer your questions. Don't take those things for free from the retailer then buy elsewhere -- that's basically stealing.

This is the stupidest argument I've ever seen, ever, both in the context of eyeglasses and out of it. It supposes that if I leave the store immediately, they won't have to pay for those things. I guess whenever someone isn't in the store, they shut off all the lights, turn off the climate control, and send all the employees home.

Suck it up, bitch. That is overhead that you have to forfeit in order to run a business. It isn't like you put out a massage table and gave me a massage while I waited to see the eye doctor, and then I walked out before my appointment came up. The lights being on is just something you're going to have to accept as a loss. That money is gone forever, whether or not I buy something from your store. I am not responsible for that expenditure.

I'm stealing light. dslkfjslfj. That light is on even if I never walk in.

God, what a moron.

Besides which, if you're crying because stores selling eyeglasses aren't getting the sales, maybe a 1000% markup is a little much?

Irrational irritant of the day, I saw an article today bemoaning how most people don't eat the recommended 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. The article asserts that people eat foods with Omega-3 and probiotics and then think they're eating healthily, while fruits and veggies are on the decline.

Hey, you know what? Maybe it's not because people are deluded into thinking they're eating healthy food. Maybe it's related to the fact that I can pay around ten fucking dollars for six apples at the supermarket. If fruit weren't priced like a luxury, I would buy more than twice that.

I looove fruits and vegetables. I would eat carrots and apples and clementines and grapes and tomatoes and cucumber and sugar-snap peas and fresh string beans all day. You'd have to convince me to stop eating it long enough to get some damn protein. My peers are eating ramen for dinner while I consume two servings of broccoli like every night, unless I'm having corn, or a salad. But it's not sustainable because I live on a damn budget and I can't afford 4-5 servings of fruits and veggies a day.

Make it cheaper, then talk to me.

One of today's secrets.

If Ciel were even slightly older, I'd want to watch Kuroshitsuji for this. The secret just makes it sound really hot. But it just seems like a waste of perfectly good kink. ;;

/shallow?

So yesterday, the best OOC thread ever happened. Warning: Kinda NSFW, Suzaku is "loose", Lelouch has at least one pervert sister, Tsuna is way demanding for a nice kid, and it's all Ichigo's fault.

This is 160 comments of why everyone should join this game. I laughed for like two hours. orz

Need to advertise again, it's been a month, need to close the activity check/HMD (which I think was a resounding success~ it generated a lot of positive energy and I feel like it's a forum where people can offer crit if they want).

Still vaguely baffled because someone anon commented on my ad in RP!S to say that they'd warn people against playing in a game with me if they could. I'm pretty sure it was a case of mistaken identity, because I have never, ever been involved in RP drama, except for as a mediator, and I've only ever been told that I'm a good player and an accessible mod.

It irritated me for only like an hour -- I am not human and only feel emotions just for around that long before they fade away -- but I just gotta remind everyone: People, if you have a problem, you have to say something, or the person you have a problem with will never improve, and you will end up behaving like an anon douche like that guy.

Tales of:
Okay, now I'm intrigued. The new Tales of the Abyss manga is going to be essentially Jade's life, and it may be written by (or at least with approval from) "Takumi Miyajima, the main writer of [the] game and others in the "Tales of" franchise."

Now, I really had a problem with the Peony sidestory manga. I had a problem with it because it made Peony look like a dick and actively contradicted some things in canon, plus in the end it didn't seem like the same Peony/Nephry relationship I understood to be canon. The same applied to some of the other sidestory manga, even the ones I liked. (Anise and Asch's were neat.)

But if this is written by the game's writer -- then I'm holding my breath a little. This is the man who made me love Jade, and Peony, and Dist in the first place, and I would be really happy to see him writing them in their childhood in Keterburg, a time period that's so very deeply charged and puts the entire game into motion, and afterwards, during the big blank of time when Jade obsessed over replicas, and how Peony talked him out of his crazy.

So, a tentative "do want".


Bleach:
Holy shit the new chapter of Bleach. (Er, warning, spoilers for the new chapter ahead) It gives Ichigo/Orihime almost too much power. Even this wild, even this barely-in-control, even this animalistic, he's driven to protect her. Would he have done it for another friend? Maybe. But the fact that he fucking stabs Ishida this chapter reeeeally makes me doubt it. In hazymonstervision, to cop a term, he only recognizes Orihime. Ishida doesn't make a dent in his awareness, but he still knows her and wants to protect her. If Ishida had been begging him to get back up, would he have stabbed Orihime? I can't help thinking no.

And it's a train wreck. Ichigo has already stabbed Ishida, god forbid the others should come up now and get skewered with them. Orihime is already deeply horrified by what her wanting Ichigo to protect her has done. This Love Will Kill Our Friends.

Aaaand I love it. ♥

Stiiiiill crossing my fingers for Orihime's revelations in his chapter to mean she's going to take real action now, including fixing Ishida (she can do it, she fixed those Arrancar girls when they were pretty damn dead) and make Ichigo snap out of it and maybe driving the plot back to the Hougyoku.

Someone made a stupid shipper secret yesterday re: Gino/Suzaku in Code Geass. In short, "I convince myself the series actually ended with Suzaku ditching Nunnally and running off with Gino to be happy forever after BECAUSE HE DESERVES IT."

kay_willow: Aside from the completely unfounded assumption that Suzaku would be happy spending the rest of his life with Gino,
kay_willow: We have here not only a complete failure to get "it" and everything associated with "it", but a complete misunderstanding of Suzaku.
libekory: The very idea of abandoning Nunnally. XD Yeah, that'll make him REALLY hapy.
kay_willow: He's in love with Gino but Lelouch's dying moments forbade him from being happy. He WOULD be happy flipping Nunnally off and driving into the sunset with Gino.

libekory: That secret was like, I SPIT ON CANON AND ALSO SUZAKU AND EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM SO THAT HE CAN BE 'HAPPY' WITH THE BOYFRIEND I PRETEND HE HAS

libekory: It's just really, really pathetic to try and take Nunnally away from Suzaku.
libekory: They're not married. They're not even dating. I accuse the fangirl of knowing, deep down, that his devotion to Nunnally is a symptom of his devotion to Lelouch, and so denying it vehemently on that score
kay_willow: She says it like Nunnally is part of the Evil Conspiracy To Keep Suzaku From Being Happy, when in fact if "Zero" ever brought home a boyfriend, I'm sure Nunnally would be all :Ds and ♥s -- although, lol, yes, it completely is.
libekory: But that acknowledged: how crazy do you have to be, how sad must your perspective on the series and Suzaku and GINO be, that you think he needs to abandon everyone in order to date Gino? Really, Gino couldn't come hang out with Nunnally?

libekory: Nunnally is not in your way. Suzaku is in your way. Suzaku is the one who wouldn't want to take off the mask.
libekory: And I know it's sad, but I don't think awesome sex with Gino is all it would take to change his mind.
libekory: "Gasp! I never realized I could GET LAID if I stopped pretending to be dead!"

And now, a brief tangent to my thoughts on the pairing.

Here's the big thing: I don't have any problem with this ship. I see where you're coming from. If you ship this, I do not think you're a complete idiot, unless of course you talk like this person.

( Allow me to introduce some canon into the discussion, despite our willing disregard of canon. )

...On the bright side, I'm now motivated to continue my essay about how Suzaku is not unhappy after the end of the series!

I attempted to cheat and steal a paid version of a certain multimedia program, and it turned out to be loaded with viruses. My evening has been awesome. I guess cheaters really don't win. :(

So I've been in safe mode backing up for like four hours, and on attempting to restart, I discover that my computer does not start outside of safe mode. It can't go online in safe mode either, I have to start it in Safe Mode With Network Drivers.

Posted hiatuses at Marina and WL, the former being especially a shame since Lelouch needs to make a post and Sentience did just post lfkdjlg. Yeah. I'm debating between System Restore (because, fuck, easy is better) and downgrading to a less stupid version of Windows (because Vista is annoying me with all its administrator privilege BS).



Edit: Man, it seems like it uninstalled Windows Defender Checkpoint. That sounds bad!

I might be calling it too soon, but:

Now: The last pages of The Lust 3 (lol spoiler alert)
Then: Ichigo fighting the Vizards

I'm just saying that Ichigo's random two feet of hair might not be totally random. ( Cut for spoilers & theory. )

I've been really frustrated with Pidgin because it crashes so often, for no damn reason. And by often I mean typically twice or more every night, just randomly, while I'm in the middle of typing and not doing anything impressive, or when I'm not even into the window, I'll just tab back and find that at some point Pidgin died and a few seconds later it crashes.

I'd love to switch to Digsby, but Digsby

first you gotta

support fucking AIM chat

I am never, ever, ever going to use Digsby until I can enter an AIM chat there. But when I can, I will throw Pidgin in the trash.

WASHINGTON — Taking another step into the abortion debate, the Obama administration Friday will move to rescind a controversial rule that allows health-care workers to deny abortion counseling or other family-planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs, according to administration officials.

The rollback of the "conscience rule" comes just two months after the Bush administration announced it last year in one of its final policy initiatives.


YES YES YES FUCK YEAH, that is my president, bitches


Uh, yeah, I haven't been doing much other than failing at life recently. And making a new RP. Multifandom. Look forward to it? I'll post about it soon, orz.

Watching Bridezillas, and apparently, there's an episode where they did a gay marriage with a male bridezilla: just as much of a perfectionist, manipulative, controlling relentless bitch, plus more ridiculous sounding when he goes into fake drama whore tears. (Plus a het marriage where the guy was the bridezilla, but she better be ready for the inevitable, because that man is gaaaay.)

libekory, who is polishing up her already awesome Suzaku voice, observes that Suzaku is sort of bemused and wincing alternately by all of it, because if Lelouch were getting married...

Bridezilla, y/y? He'd have to have a suitably grand, immense wedding. He'd nitpick the tailoring and the catering to death, and then three weeks before the wedding fire everyone involved in a ferocious tantrum and sacrifice sleep to do it all personally. (Suzaku can help with egg-beating, but only that.) All the bridesmaids would have breakdowns because they all not-so-secretly wanted to be the groom, damnit. He has a father + 107 step-mothers + Anya + god only knows how many brothers and sisters to not invite, but they can crash the wedding in a gigantic upset that turns into KMF combat. (His mother started a fine history of crashing KMFs into formal events.)


Also, yeah, like two dozen new Code Geass icons, most of them our deuteragonists, plus some C.C. getting in everyone's personal space, plus some Cornelia, plus some Mao. Also, a Magikarp.

Hey, for the record, I'd like for all the people I know in Buffalo to not take a plane to the face. Okay? Okay.

You know you're in a recession if...

The goddamn post office considers stopping Tuesday mail delivery to ease their budget problems.

Wow.

Finally did some writing, even if it wasn't relevant writing (e.g. Another Side chapter). But right now in this sort of slump, any progress is good progress. I'm at around episode 9 of Code Geass right now. Lelouch is so gay It's fun, although I can't take it terribly seriously. First of all, half of it is ridiculous. And second of all, 90% of the official art turns me off. (Either it's T&A exploitation, gheiboy exploitation, or gheigirl T&A exploitation.)


Name a character from any of my fandoms, and I'll tell you every pairing I've ever written them in, read them in, or even just thought about.

Ganked from okroginator. Ask anything you think I might know about, lawl.

Ichigo has psychic powers when it comes to Orihime in danger (he probably heard the fabric tear, but technically, this isn't the first time; the nightmare about her, the night Ulquiorra took her...) and was practically foaming at the mouth trying to get to her. And -- he wasn't interested in hearing Ulquiorra psychologically deconstruct her. I am so adoring.

Also, wtf four Arrancar versus [Orihime and] Ichigo? Ishida, you better get here soon, bitch.

I keep worrying so much about RP. I'm losing my drive for it while at the same time I want even more of it. Like, I can't finish a thread with Fran or Bookman at aspnetwork, I'm not even looking at the big open log at AT even though both Cissnei and Allen were supposed to go, but I want to app more people. I want to play Aerith somewhere! And Orihime!

But then I keep worrying. I enjoy the idea of playing a KH!Aerith in a game with Zack (and Poison Ivy), so Wasteland. But the Zack player is everywhere, so I worry if I can't keep up, she'd get left behind and he wouldn't keep at it; if he isn't going to keep after her (and he should, *sobs over the last fifteen minutes of crisis core*) then maybe I should instead app a properly FF!Aerith, even though it'd be less fun. But the last time I tugged on the mun's sleeve to talk to him about it, he never responded to my IM...

Then I want to be Orihime, despite the fact that there's no Bleach cast at WL, because she's so fun and has so many beautiful icons. And then I think, really? Allen, Peony, Orihime, Aerith? I'm just going to be that girl who plays a million shades of nice, humanitarian people? Maybe I should play a villain. Someone who's just bad. Or even someone who's just tsundere like Asch or something. (Maybe if the Dist player gets in and that person who reserved Luke ever apps.) I feel pretty bad about having only protagonists. XD I mean, I go, "I'd like to play Yuri or Flynn or Estelle or," and then I'm like oh god more good moral types.

I could app Orihime at AT, but I'm hardly paying attention to AT right now -- logging tests my distracted inspirationless groove, even though I really need to get them in there -- and the only Bleach cast there are shinigami and villains, which is in my opinion more awkward than having no cast at all.

What villains do I like and could work with in a setting like Wasteland? Not really Aizen or Marluxia, although I don't want to play the latter anymore anyway: it's hard to play them "powerless", out of control. Maybe Mithos. Mithos could be fun...

And then of course there's the fact that I have zero writing mojo. Whyyyyy.