Well, things have certainly been up in the air here. Broken links all over the place, pervasive not-updated-ness... but this time I have an excuse! A good one even! I was dropped rather unexpectedly by my webhost. -_- So I've obviously got a new one now, but I'm still ironing out all the kinks. Soon all links should be updated and all pages should be updated as well. Wish me luck. On the plush front, I finshed what I consider my first high quality plush. It's Ayame from Fruits Basket. He stands at about 7 1/2 inches tall, and stands on his own because of the cardboard inserts in his feet. He is completely made of suededcloth (doesuede), and his face is painted on peices of fabric that I glued on. I came up with his pattern all on my own and am very proud of him. He has a feather boa as well, but i couldn't figure out how to have him wear it and scan him without it completely obscuring him.

Okay... Once again...it's been a while since I've written. Is anyone surprised? (Hime shouts out "NO!") Also, I give up on the shoujocon report. The fact that I don't want to write it is keeping me from updating this blog at all. Is anyone surprised? (Hime shouts out NO! again) Anyway...on to other subjects. Adventures in Plushie making. On the last day of Shoujocon I attended a workshop on plushie making. It was really fun, even if it didn't go so well for the character I was trying to immortalize in felt. I was trying to make a SD plush of Hatsuharu from Fruits Basket. But he turned out looking like a mutant alien version of himself. In retrospect, he doesn't look so bad. (He still doesn't look like Haru though) He's grown on me. At the time though it upset me. I wanted to create good plush! So I decided to start from scratch and make my own pattern, one a little less super deformed. My second attempt was Shigure from Fruits Basket. He actually turned out pretty well, even if he is, still after all this time, naked. I finally found a Yukata pattern I think I can follow (I'm instruction impared), so I should see about making him clothes. After making Shigure I was energized and somewhat addicted. I scouted around and found what seems to be "the" site for plush-makers (Ufocatcher.com in their custom plush links and on their EZboard custom plush forum). After scouting around and realizing how many different types of plush there were I decided to try some others. I decided to try out making keychain plush first. My first subject was Kyou from Fruits Basket. (anyone seeing a trend? Is anyone surprised?) I started off with his basic body and then made him clothes afterwards. I thought it turned out pretty decent. I wasn't really happy with the way his head turned out though, and I didn't like the look of having the stitches on the outside. So I decided to try again, this time with Hatori from Fruits Basket. His body turned out just fine, but I still haven't gotten around to making him clothes. Poor Hatori, his picture is the only one that really doesn't do him justice. His keychain looks much better in person. I really should make the poor doctor some clothes. At least a labcoat. Anyway...I thought I was doing pretty well in felt, so I thought about toddling off to Joann Fabrics and picking up some of the more expensive, yet softer fabrics and trying a "real" plush. I was talked out of it by the nice lady at Joanns though. They didn't have the grand flannel, (Which I keep trying to pronounce like the kingdom in Escaflowne, Grand Flan-el!) or any of the other "backup" fabrics also suggested off of the sites on UFOcatcher.com. Since I didn't really know what I was doing she suggested I pick up some muslin at .89 cents a yard, rather than the robe velour or grand flannel (flan-el) they had which was 7.99 a yard (and not even the right color). I agreed. Might as well make mistakes out of the cheap stuff. Only problem is that the muslin frays like the dickens. Anyway, I've been practicing heads and body designs and I think I'm *really* ready to move on to the "real" stuff now. I stopped sewing for a bit, but I got bit by the bug again when I found some orange fleece fabric that was a perfect match for Kyou's fur color when he's a cat. On sale even! So I made a "Baka Neko Pillow". Isn't it cute?

It's very huggable. Actually what's picured above is the pincusion size version I made when I was experimenting with the pattern. I also have one the size of a regular bed pillow that I made and it looks almost exactly the same (but is too big to scan). I "Airbrushed" the eyes on with a fabric blow-pen. It's perfect for cat naps. (And actually, if you turn him upside down, he makes a great neck support pillow). I've also bought some white fabric so I can make a Tooru-onigiri pillow, and as soon as I find some light grey (they only had dark grey) I'll make a Yuki-nezumi pillow too. I also have some Yellow...maybe I'll make a Momiji-rabbit! I was also thinking of trying a Babbit from Kodocha, because I think that would be adorable and huggable too. Sigh....so many things I want to make! I also found a good deal on suedecloth, and I bought some colors that I could make a variety of plushes out of. Now all I need is the time! If I get good enough at this...maybe I'll start selling them.

I'm trying out posting in little chunks about long subjects (like my partial post below) perhaps if I get it out in chunks it will come out more often. Lets see ^_^

-_-; I'm never going to keep up on this thing, I should just accept that, or do something to change it. Anyway, I never did give the rest of my Shoujocon report. I bet Hime thinks I'm never going to finish it. ^^; Now that it's been awhile I'll probably leave stuff out. Sat. 7 am Wake up and realize that I can sleep another hour 'till my inking workshop I signed up for at 9. Sat. 10 am Wake up and realize that I've slept through the inking workshop, but I still have 2 hours 'till the AMV panel I wanted to go to. Apparently, I close my eyes again. Sat. 12: 45 Wake up and realize that I've slept through most of the AMV panel and even if I fly, I'll get there just in time to watch people leave the room. ;_; I realize I've just missed one of the two "must-do's" I had on my list. (The other was veiw the AMV contest, well I did that at least.) Sigh. That was the one big disappointment of my Shoujocon trip. Made even worse by the fact I find out later on AMV.org that the panel was really good and everyone got to meet up ;_; and trade CDs.

Well it's been a while hasn't it? I have to write in this thing more often. -_-; Anyway...last weekend I went to my first con! I went to shoujocon after being cajoled and convinced by Himechan (aka Asane, aka Shinuhana I can't keep up with all her nicks.) I had a blast ^_^ Heres the rundown of what happend: Friday 10 am Fly out to Newark Airport with absolutely no trouble or hitches. I'd been afraid that I'd be stopped because I had a DDR pad in my baggage and I was wearing my hairsticks. I thought either the mass of circuits in my bag or the pointy sticks in my hair would at least raise an eyebrow. But, nope, no problems. I got in about 11:30 and had to wait for an hour before I can take the shuttle out to the hotel and because I didn't reserve in advance it was going to cost me $40 instead of $20. OUCH! Oh well, live and learn. I finally get to the hotel sometime past 1. I took a moment to register and then went to the hotel front desk. They tell me that I'm in room 1004 and that my roommates are already checked in. Go up to 1004...key doesn't work. Go back down and I find out that oops! they told me the wrong room. Actually I'm in 1040 (or was it 1044?) I spend the rest of the weekend trying to put the key in the wrong door. (Only when I was by myself.) Once I get in the room I finally get to meet Himechan (aka Asane, Aka Shinuhana) and her friends Chris and Omar. Luckily Himechan and I do not hate each other on sight ^_^ This is good because we end up spending most of the weekend together on and off. We all look over our con scedule and decide that it must have been written by dyslexic monkeys. Omar treats us to an operatic rendition of a song from Macross 7 and the promise of more makes Chris and I decide to explore the con a bit. Himechan and I plan to meet up for the screentoning workshop we signed up for. Chris and I find where the video rooms are and then split up. I got lost (as usual for me) and had to ask a nice staff person to show me where the dealers and workshop rooms where. I was very impressed with the con staff, everyone I spoke to was polite and helpful. I found where the screentoning was going to be and then went and wandered the dealer's room for a bit. Lots of fruits basket stuff and other goodies to drool over. I marked a few things I wanted to shop for later and then went to the screentoning workshop. It was a good panel run by someone from Umbrella Studios. The panel focused on screentoning with the computer and I took a ton of notes. I actually knew all the steps she took to make the final screentoned image, but had never thought to combine them that way. Now I just have to draw something work screentoning so I can try it out. I also discovered that Photoshop 7 is very very cool and I really want it. After the screentoning we split up again and I hit the video rooms. I was a little dissapointed with the video rooms, I'd practically seen most of the anime shown. I managed to miss the few I hadn't seen so far. I watched a bit of Fancy LaLa and was reminded why I like that show, it's so bizarre. I watched some Magical Emi too and I really wish I could find more of that fansubbed. Its a cute old school magical girl show. I wanted to see the Rose of Versalies live action movie but I got stuck in the room for the fan parody "This is Otakudom". Very funny stuff! I got a copy of it to show people here. Unfortunately most of them aren't otaku enough to get most of the jokes ;_; I didn't get to see the end of it at that time though because I forced my way out to get to the Opening ceremonies where the music videos were going to be shown for the first time. Karoke was still going when I got to the room (which was FREEZING!) and I had to wait a bit for the music videos to start. I didn't have much of an ear, so I wasn't impressed by many of the singers at Shoujocon. The one I was impressed by was a girl dressed in a Vampire Princess Miyu costume who'd managed to loose her music and sang acapella. After that the music videos started. Here's the videos shown and my impressions of them: Video #1. Mercury Editor: Kirk Rende Footage: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Song: "Blue" performed by Kirk Rende This was a video done to an orginal rendition of Eiffel's Blue remixed and performed (?) by Kirk Rende. It featured a lot of movement, often having multiple clips of Sailor Mercury moving around the screen. He also found someway to save and export a Dplayer 3D model of Sailor Mercury dancing which was met with a lot of amusement by the audience. I thought it was pretty neat, and defintely original. Video #2. Bed Of Roses Editor: Jennifer Grzankowski Footage: Final Fantasy IX Song: "Bed Of Roses" by Bon Jovi This video didn't make much of an impression on me. I don't play FF IX, and I don't like Bon Jovi. The video seemed to be competently edited but it just didn't have the kind of "oomph" needed to attract my attention. Video #3. Future Girls Editor: Josh Harmon Footage: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Song: "Future Girls" by Smile.dk I liked this video a lot. There was a lot of really good timing. About halfway through there was a pause and a beat that was perfectly timed against Sailor Moon opening her eyes and raising her head. It was a perfect moment, the kind you wish you could create for every video. The song almost seemed made for Sailor Moon and putting the two together was really a good idea. Video #4. My Name Is Arima Editor: Hyo Moon Footage: Kareshi Kanojyo no Jijyo Song: "Luka" by Suzanne Vega This video made a lot of sense. It fit the character of Arima and his family situation really well. But...I just didn't like this video. It was edited well, quality was high, good matching of anime and song...but I just didn't like it and I can't figure out why. Video #5. Paranoia Rebirth Editor: Meridith Cantoni (MeriC) Footage: Ayashi no Ceres Song: "A Place For My Head" by Linkin Park I liked this video, which really speaks to it's quality. I don't like Ayashi no Ceres, and I don't like the song. But the video was edited with enought panache and pacing that it sucked me in. It was voted third place. Video #6. Where I Want To Be Editor: Steve Pope Footage: Magic Knight Rayearth Song: "Breathing" by Lifehouse Nice sedate video featuring the relationship between Fuu and Ferio. I honestly don't remember it much ^^; Video #7. Believer Editor: ME! Footage: Fruits Basket Song: "I'm A Believer" by Smash Mouth Let me just say, it was the coolest thing ever to see my video being watched and enjoyed by a crowd. I didn't get nervous about it being shown until I saw the "Believer" title up on the screen. I got unnervous and really happy when 2 seconds into the video there was a collective "aaaaaw" when the still of Kyou-kitty was shown ^_^ People laughed at all the right times and seemed to really have fun with it. I thought people seemed to be responding to it really well but I thought i may have been blowing it out of proportion because it was my video. But people really did like it, it got voted second place! ^_______^ Video #8. Toy Soldiers Editor: Farrell Lecorps Footage: Gundam Wing Song: "Toy Soldiers" by Markita Well, I'm not a Gundam Wing fan and I was a bit distracted by the wave of euphoria from the reaction to my video. The song seemed to match the anime well and I can tell there was a lot of effort put into this video. It was made entirely of footage off of cartoon network, but I don't think that should be counted against it. Video #9. ...To Hell, or Wherever! Editor: Skye Souter Footage: Hana Yori Dango Song: "With You" by Linkin Park What a bizarre choice of music for this anime. I love to see people stretch a concept...but man I hated this song. I loved the fact that someone entered a HYD video. But I really didn't like this video much at all. The hard music seemed so inappropriate for the anime, despite the fact that the lyrics seemd to match with Doumiyoji. From my own experience I know they had to really fight to make this video, there is a disticnt lack of high quality footage to use. I respect it for that reason alone. Video #10. Utena In A Cocoon of Love Editor: Daniel McCarthy (Fungie½) Footage: Shoujo Kakumei Utena for the Sega Saturn Song: "Cocoon" by Björk LOL, I loved this video. If there was ever an anime made for matching with Björk music, Utena is it. This video had footage from the sega saturn game, so it's even more surreal because there are several moments that don't happen in the series. There was heavy use of Chuchu and other bizarre moments. I really want to see this video again. Video #11. Yui's Choice Editor: Sarah Figat Footage: Fushigi Yuugi Song: "Crawling In The Dark" by Hoobastank I feel so sorry for this video. It had massive problems, and had to be played twice before you could see anything at all. Sadly, I don't remember much beyond its technical troubles, the video itself made absolutely no impact on me. Video #12. Suichi's Question Editor: Cynthia Delker (Anneke) Footage: Various Song: "What's This" by Danny Elfman OMFG! this has to be one of the cleverest, comedically well timed peice of video crack I've ever seen! Footage quality varied, but who cares?! This video detailed Shuuichi's descent into the shonen ai/yaoi world via clips of shonen ai (or shonen ai suggestive) and yaoi anime bits to a song from Nightmare Before Christmas. There were so many funny moments, visual puns that I just fell in love. I really, really want to get a hold of this video! This was the last video shown, and it appropriately received first place by a landslide vote. That concluded the music video panel and I had to escape the refrigerator like confines of the event room. I met up with Himechan again and we went to a fanfic panel, which was interesting but made me feel old. It was monopolized by a couple of very passionate individuals who debated things that didn't matter very much. We went to the gaming room after that to check out the DDR contest. WOW those people can move fast. I played a little ParaPara and discovered that I'm just as bad at that as I am DDR. Omar and Himechan were a lot of fun to watch though. Omar really got into it, he even tried to play it with his feet instead of his hands! Next we decided to hit the con suite because they are having midnight chocolate. Since I was running on a just a couple of granola bars for the whole day I appreciated the sugar boost. Flying high on sugar in the suite was a diabolically cute little girl in a CCS costume. She was practically bouncing off the walls. She informed us that her hotel room was only 2 doors down and that she could just walk on over any time she wanted. The consuite staff looked so thrilled by her presence. After that we went to check out the dance. I warned Himechan and Omar that my dancing frightend small children, but after being assured that there were none in the vicinity I actually consented to dance. We had a really good time. Omar taught us the concept of dacing by controlled falling, which seemed to work pretty well. (At least we weren't dancing any worse then those around us.) There werent a lot of people there so there was a lot of empty space that just begged for cartwheels. So I did a few and so did Himechan and Omar. Himechan got it down pretty quickly, really kicking her legs up into the air. ^_^ It's says something that I was so hyper it didn't even bother me that at least once my shirt went up to my chin. We tried lots of dancing styles, I liked Himechan's martial arts style, and we danced the Time Warp at one point. I mainly stuck to my lazy white girl style which consisted of me bopping my arms almost on beat and rocking back and forth a bit. I also tried to stay out of Omar and Himechan's way as much as possible as they had way more energy than I. There was a very open girl who had glowsticks in inappropriate places. There were several discarded glowsticks around, I tried to attatch one to my hair, but it kept slipping out. Omar managed to get one in his and swung it around for a bit. ^_^ Overall, we were all acting like loons and having a grand time of it. It ended up with a hawaiian song sung by Brak that Omar and I danced the Hula to. Then the lights came up and we had to leave. By that time we were all sweaty and icky, and retired to the room to shower and sleep. It was about 3 am and the day seemed to have passed in a blur! Wow, this is long. I think I'll save sat and sunday for another post.

I'm so tired. Night before last I worked closing shift at store (got home at 1:20 am), opened store at 9 am, got home at 6 pm. Then, after an emergency call came it at 9 pm and closed the store (got home at 1 am) now I have to open tomorrow (at 9 am). And I have a sneaking suspicion that my closer is not going to show up, leaving me to close the store, and then open it again on sunday. I really, really hope that doesn't happen. To top it off, I don't have a day of until Thursday! THURSDAY. That sucks.

Manga Heaven. I am in Manga Heaven. I went shopping today to pick up my monthly comics and to look around mediaplay since I'd accumulated about $20 in replay giftcertificates. To my joy I discovered that they had in stock Paradise Kiss vol. 1, Peach Girl 4, and finally got a restock on Sorcerer Hunters 6 (the next volume I needed). So I happily snapped them up, then wandered over to Waldenbooks and in a haze of manga euphoria ordered the rest of Tokyopop's "right-to-left" manga line. Since I'd bought most of them already the only volumes I'm waiting on are Kare Kano 1, Kodocha 1, Love Hina 1, and GTO 2. So I thought I'd give you all a run down on the various Tokyopop "right-to-left" manga titles. Those are the titles that have unflipped artwork, orginal sound effects, and in other words presented in an extremely similar way to the way they were presented originally in Japan. Very cool, yes? Even cooler, there are a lot of titles, so I'm going to try to restrict myself to just a couple of lines about each. 01. Chobits One of manga-supergroup CLAMP's most recent works. It's so cute, but chased with just enough ecchi-ness to prevent sugar shock. It's a story about a boy and his human-shaped personal computer (persocom) that he retrieved from the garbage. Named Chi, since thats all she says at first, Hideki slowly adapts to teaching her the ins and outs of daily life while he tries both to find out about where she came from AND get into college. 02.Cowboy Bebop Mmph. The manga based on the hit anime series. Like most anime-to-manga adaptions it just lacks the oomph of the original media. The artwork is decent, but the stories are a bit bland and currently episodic. There doesn't seem to be plot that connects them so far. I'll be picking up the next volume to see if something develops but right now it's pretty blah. 03. Dragon Knights Gahhh! I'm so confused. What the heck is going on? I actually double checked the front cover to make sure I had the first volume and hadn't picked up the second by mistake. From what I can tell there are three guys (dragon knights) who are traveling somewhere (to where the dragon king is) carrying some evil guys head with them. Why they have the head, I don't know. Who the guy is or why he had to be decapitated, I don't know. Why the heck other people want the head, or want to kill/attack them, I don't know. All I know is they get into a lot of trouble, one guy likes to fight demons, one likes treasure and the other wants to get home as quick as possible. I might actually enjoy this if I could figure out WHAT the heck was going on. 04. GTO GTO stands for "Great Teacher Onizuka". Onizuka is a former gang-kid who decides on a whim to become a high school teacher, all the better to be around pretty young high school girls. He suprises everyone, including himself, by actually getting into the role. Utilizing the skills he learned on the street he whips is class of deliquents and bullies into shape one at a time. It's a really fun manga, and one of my current favorites of the line. I can't wait for GTO 2! 05. Initial D I watched the anime, but couldn't get past the ugly cg cars. I'd be watching the show and going..."ooh this is getting exciting--er...damn those cars are ugly. I hate cell-shading. If they're going to do CG cars they could at least put a better imagemap on them. I could do better and I SUCK at modleing...oh wait..what happened?" I found the manga a bit more engaging, but I'm still not sure of the art style. It also has something of a slow start, a lot of guys gabbing about cars but very little actual racing. It was just starting to pick up as the volume ended. I'll pick up the next one, I think it's a title that could grow on me. 06. Marmalade Boy Gawd, I hated the anime. I've said it before and I'll say it again, watching Marmalade Boy just makes me watch to Bitch-slap the entire cast. They're all so whiney and self-involved. I almost didn't pick up the manga because my distaste was so strong. But I took a peek at the manga in the store and the artwork was so cute and lively (so much better than the anime) that I couldn't resist. I seem to be taking the waffling of the main character a bit better in manga form. Perhaps I'll give the next volume a shot too, if for no other reason than because the artwork is so cute. 07. MARS Angst. Angst....and more angst. Yum. The main character is the kind that I usually hate, Kira's painfully shy and won't speak up on her own behalf. She does practically nothing to protect herself. She doesn't even talk to other people at the start of the manga! All she does is draw and paint. Enter in the male lead, Rei, a rougish motorcycle punk who lives on his own. He races his so close to the edge he scares everyone but himself. He doesn't seem to care if he lives or dies. After a chance meeting the two slowly come together learning about themselves and each other. Kira surprises herself and Rei with her own quiet strength. I really liked this manga. But if it starts off this angsty, I'm afraid of how much worse it's going to get. There is such a thing as too much angst. 08. Paradise Kiss This manga looks soooo cooooool. Most of the characters live on the bleeding edge of fashion design. It's by the creator of "Neighborhood Story" and is actually a spin off of sorts to that story. (One of the side characters is the little sister of Minako the main character of that story) Its about a girl who struggling to get past her exams when she's pulled into modeling for the offbeat "Paradise Kiss" student fashion label from the local art school. The main character is a bit of a quiet spaz who often thinks about things too much. Throw her in with a blue-eyed, blue haired charismatic bi fashion honors student named George, a 6 foot tall Transvestive named Isabella (I agree, she gets entirely too little airtime), Miwako the uber cute girl who likes to give people strange nicknames like "Caroline", and her punk boyfriend Arashi. Besides looking entirely too cool for words, the story is actually engaging too. All the characters are one of a kind and I want to see more of them all. 09. Planet Ladder Whoah. Mind Trip. And btw, the summary they give on the back...they don't even GET to that part in the first volume. Kaguya has her world turned on it's ear when her father (not her real father actually, she was adopted as a child) is arrested for embezzling and having connections to the mob. Then her world, the only world she's known since she was found wandering in burned tattered clothes as a child, is wrenched away from her in a battle where she and a corner of her room are transported to another world. Stuck with only a silent automaton copy of a boy she's dreamed about for years she's forced to try to just get by. This manga is so weird, but it's peaked my interest enough to want to read more. 10. Real Bout High School Eh...I was so not impressed. The artwork seems really rough to me, and the story is boring. Apparently they didn't feel they required a plot. They kept introducing characters and not taking them anywhere. I could have stood it if there where at least some super cool fight scenes...but they really weren't well drawn enough to get my attention. I'll probably peek at the next volume in the store, since the anime storyline seems radically different from the manga and I'm curious to see if it's going to make an appearence. 11. Skull Man "I am...Skull Man." *snerk*giggle* I'm SURE that wasn't the reaction they were going for. This manga was first conceived around the time Batman was (back in the 30's) and some of it's old-schoolness definetly shines through. It reminded me of old golden age Batman in a lot of ways. It's uber violent without getting gruesome about it, and its got some really neat monster designs. The creator of this manga was also the creator of "Masked Rider" (which later became a live action series of the same name). In fact, this was actually meant to *be* that series, but the editors required so many changes that he just made a new series instead. I wouldn't recommend this to most people but I'll be checking out the next volume just for its sheer old-schoolness. Mmm...this was fun. Maybe I'll talk about the non-right to left tokyopop titles next time...

These quiz thingie's are fun: As a date I'm: Guys like you because you don't come across as high maintenance or complicated. You seem like a girl they can relate to and actually relax with. Who needs fancy restaurants and limousines when you have pizza and late night TV? My outlook is: Good, bad.. hey, life's got it's ups and downs! Like I said, interesting. I wonder how you make them? Discoveries seems to be my most popular fanfiction. It's the one people ask me about the most. (Yes, I know random switch of subject. There's a reason this site is called "Random Fandom") I think that people might not be entierly happy with all directions that I may take the story in. I've had a plan for the direction of the story since the beginning and very little has changed from what I originally planned. (Other than the length. I can't believe I thought this was going to be 5 parts.) The face of the fandom has changed quite a bit. Oh well. I hope that when the story finally comes to its close that people enjoy it even if the don't like everything I've done with it. If the don't...well I still had a really fun time writing it and thats why I was doing it after all. Another random switch. I finally sat down and watched the first couple of eps of Chobits. As usual I like the manga better, but the anime is cute too (and both are a bit ecchi). I like how when Hideki talks to himself in public mother's tell their children to stay away from him. I don't think the animation design really captured the free-ness and cuteness of the character designs from the manga. And I really hate the solid white-and-brite-color alternating bar effect they have when Hideki goes off into la-la land. They've re-arranged events from the manga and I don't understand why, though it doesn't matter much. Speaking of manga...in a not so random switch, I've gotten most of Tokyopop's new left-to-right manga line and I thought I'd give a quick rundown on what I thought of them. Mmm....but maybe I'll save that for the next post.

It seems recently a lot of people are having crisises of fandom. I wonder why people take this all so seriously. After reading Felidae_h's posts and the responses on the Furuba fanfic blog and the innumerable rants against newbie dbz/linkin park AMV creators on the animemusicvideos.org forums I really find myself confused. Why do people care so much when people do something they like badly? The AMV creators rail daily about the awful linkinball Z music videos that clog the database. But is it so hard just not to download or watch them? The fact that creator xyz is making a horrible video doesn't mean that I have to watch it. Nor does it affect the music videos I make in any discernable way. The same goes for fanfiction. There have been a ton of bad Fruits Basket fanfics recently posted to FF.net. I mean really bad. There has been a lot of talk and complaint about it. I really just dont get it. If the story is bad, I don't have to read it. No one is holding a gun to my head. I can happily ignore it and go on with my enjoyment of the series. It also doesn't effect my writing one way or another. Sometimes I feel strange because everyone else seems to be so offended by the newbies and wannabies. Does that mean that I don't like amv's or fruits basket as much as they? If I'm not wrought up about it, does that mean I'm not as emotionly involved as the others? I often feel detatched and confused at the emotions and actions of others. I guess it comes down to the fact that I'm selfish. The things I make, when all is said and done, I make for myself. I write, create music videos, bead, draw, whatever, for my own enjoyment. When it's not fun anymore, I don't do it anymore. Its the creation process that engages me, less then the final product. I guess I just won't ever get how other people's half-assed efforts is supposed to make that less fun... Mmm...bleh...I don't even know what I'm trying to say anymore. This reads like a rant against the people complaining about stuff in their fandom. It's not meant to be. *They* don't bother me anymore than the wannabies and newbies do. I just don't understand them. It's like the sub/dub wars. I just don't get it.

I think I should make some sort of resolution to write in this at least once a week. I'll probably end up writing it in once or twice a month, but if I at least make a point to TRY to write here on a schedule something will come of it. Maybe. LOL, the pressure's on. Mona knows I have a blog now and will be asking for more Furuba fics. (oh wait, she already did!) She's a good motivator though. Knowing someone is waiting really makes me want to write more. It's a nice feeling knowing that people are reading and (hopefully) enjoying what I write. I'm stuck right now on the latest chapter of "A Mystery". I keep wanting to skip ahead, but I've got to lay out the plot more. When I come up with a story I don't have it all solidly in my head, I have "scenes" that come to me almost complete but the rest is all really up in the air. I take those scenes and then figure out how to link them up into a cohesive story. The "linking it up" part is the hard part, I get so excited when I get to one of the scenes I envisioned earlier. Those just fly off the fingertips, so easy, so effortless. I always want to skip over and just write that. But if I do that, then I never go back and write the story inbetween. People really respond to those bits though...whenever I get to those parts I always get the most comments on them. I hope my stories seem cohesive though. I really spend a lot of effort on the "inbetwen bits" to make them seem as well thought out and planned as the scenes that I start out with. I do wish I could come up with a good idea for a non-Yuki/Tooru/Kyou centric fic. I'd love to write about some of the other Juuninshi, or Hana-chan and Uo-chan...heck I think some stories about Tooru's parents would be pretty nifty. But I just can't think of any. Oh well, maybe when I've finished the ones I've been writing so far something will come to me.

Just added this blog and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I'll probably use this space for some of the thoughts I have about the manga and anime industry. I'll also probably talk about books I'm reading, comics I'm reading, movies and tv shows I've watched since no one 'round these parts wants to hear about it anymore. All the talk on the FruityGroup mailing list has caused me to have mythology and folk tales on the brain. Maybe I'll just start telling stories. There are so many cool fairy tales out there. I wish I could come up with a way to make The Six Swans, The White Snake, or The Six Soldier of Fortune into a comic the way Takaya Natsuki-sensei's has the Zodiac in Fruits Basket. Sigh...