Download Here @ kiochan

Y'know, I realize this is somewhat nit-picky, and since I'm not a mod in the game I can't do much more than facepalm and actively avoid this player and her characters, since the mods kind of let this sort of stuff slide (too often, but that's another rant on quality and their lack of standards despite claiming to possess them). Basically, if the characters aren't completely setting-breaking, they'll just handwave it in and pretend the square peg fits in the round hole while the rest of us players cringe in anticipation of more fail.

Anyway.

( Wraaagharble. )

Kim Possible, So The Drama. Pretty good episode relative to the series. Pretty fun song at the end there for the newly acknowledged relationship between Kim and Ron, long term best friends falling in love, 'Could It Be'. Good song. I totally understand why you would want to use it for your own favourite couple. Nothing unusual about enjoying that particular pairing, either; two people who get along with each other and work very closely together as of the end of the series.

But, when one does choose to use a romantic song in a fanvid: taking note of the lyrics might be a good idea. That particular song is about two best friends since preschool getting together:

I know we've been friends forever
But now I think I'm feeling something totally new
And after all this time
It's kinda funny you were always near

Whereas this pairing have known each other for around six months, and spent at least half of that time in a state of cold war. (Not to say there is no chance for the 'ship, again. She reminds him of his younger sister but they do care about each other.) There are other pairings available in that canon that involve people who have actually been friends for a long time. (Conrad has been canonically crushing on Ai from the very first episode whilst being a good friend! Not this Johnny-come-lately Ai/Bastien ship. But everyone ships what they ship.) There are other romantic songs that would reflect this pairing you like!

Using songs for fan creations is great--make sure the lyrics suit the pairing?

So, this has been bugging me for a while and now I actually have a few minutes to write this rant.

While I realise it's not an imparative and, no, I don't think reviewers owe me this, I think it would be nice if my reviewers, or anyone else's, think the characterisation is 'off' or they just 'aren't sold on the characterisation', 'don't buy it' etc,that they elaborate on this.

I try hard to keep characters IC. There's a lot of ideas I have I don't write because they're purely my head canon and when I post a fic I've put a large amount of effort into writing and revising it.

So it annoys me quite a lot if I get a comment that there's something wrong with my characterisation of someone without any statement of what exactly this 'wrong' is. I realise not everyone can pinpoint it exactly, but I'm pretty sure everyone who has such a gripe has at least some idea of what they saw as problematic.

I don't mind concrit. I can deal with it and in some cases I find it really helpful. And I'm willing to improve on elements of my writing if I find the criticism valid.

Which brings me to my next point. Because I told this to one person who said they weren't 'sold on the characterisation' (not even stating of which character, which would have been helpful since it was a pairing fic) and I asked them to please elaborate at least a little on what the problem was. I never got a reply.

Maybe it's just me, but for a while that really bugged me and actually made me question my writing for about two weeks. Though I've been over that specific fic many times now and that, together with the many good comments on my characterisation made me confident that there's nothing wrong with it.

Uh...

tl;dr: If you think there's something wrong with a characterisation and it's not blatantly, glaringly obvious what it is, please do at least try to specify the problem if you choose to comment on it.

ETA: Very long sentence didn't make sense.

Kicking off my 12 days of cookies with these lovelies!
More at my blog HERE

( Read more... )

This rant has been building a while, and was inspired by things - small things - that I ran across in different fandoms and communities, and finally I put it all together for once.

There are occasional fandoms which incorporate Israeli or Jewish characters, and I have sometimes encountered people expanding on canon and deciding to use Hebrew names specifically for certain tribes or peoples mentioned in canon but never really developed, or writers in Hebrew canons.
A serious problem lies with the naming of the characters.

The thing is, if you're writing about an Israeli OC, or using Hebrew names of any sort, you have to be really, really careful because there are no names that come without a whole lot of cultural context. The name depends a lot on the person's family's background, where they live, what part of society they come from, to the point where you can actually tell a lot about a person just by their name. This also applies to Jewish OCs in general.
(example: a girl called Dorel Ashkenazi probably comes from an African - possibly Moroccan - descent, definitely brown-skinned, from a reasonably obervant religious family)

But in any canon that's happening in a parallel universe... uh, it doesn't really work. You can't just use a baby-naming site, or look at popular name lists. Because anybody with Israeli cultural background will be WTFing all over the place over the names chosen. Also, every name has a pretty clear meaning, which you have to take into account (gah wtf, Castiel, wtf, that makes no sense at all). Even Israelis writing fic have fallen into this problem, with names that don't fit in canon at all.

Honestly, I don't even know what I would suggest. I'm tickled pink on the rare occasions I see somebody expanding canon to utilize anything I'm familiar with, but this naming business is really messed up, and I don't even know how to recommend fixing it, which is why I never comment.
And this rant is probably confused and all over the place 'cause I'm not sure how to even phrase this so it makes sense. Just, if any of you are writing Israeli / Jewish / Hebrew-named characters, please try to find somebody to talk to so they can help you make the names work.

Hi, probably this will be a silly question, but I hope you don´t mind helping me...

I am quite new to lush products, I have been using them for 2 months now in my daily care for hair and body (I have a review on some products if you are interested at vegan_snake I don´t want to spam you here...).

I have the big size of mask of magnaminty. I LOVE this product. The expiration date is the middle of December and I have gone only through half of the pot.. I use it once or twice a week, so I calculate that it will take me to half or end of January to finish it.

Do you think I really should stop using it when the expiration date comes or is it ok to use it for a month / month and a half more?? What does actually happen to lush products when they become "old"? could they give me allergy or something?? I have very sensitive (atopic) combination skin.

Thanks a lot for your help :)

Okay, so, epithets. People have different feelings on them. Some people will condemn you if you ever dare to use anything besides the character's names. Other people don't mind epithets at all. I myself believe that they can have their place.

However, Count Cain/Godchild author, when every single sentence in your fic refers to the "young butler" and the "young lord" without ever using their names, it looks stupid. We know that Riff is a butler and that Cain is nobility. You don't need to remind us every single sentence.

Why did you do that? You weren't trying to conceal who they were. Maybe you were going for some stylistic thing, but I assure you, it failed.

"As always, DO NOT fave/alert list either myself or my works without leaving some sort of comment."

... this in your summary does not make me want to read/fave/alert list/comment on your fic. Period.

Especially if it was a meme.

Hey, everyone!

Another early treat...the Chapter 65 raw is up at Raw Paradise:

http://www.raw-paradise.com

Direct link is http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y6KVMY7A.

There is drama. Be warned.

( Spoilery summary )

ARGH! Thanks MORONS, now everyone knows pranks are being played and will be on their guard. If you're lucky, MAYBE the teachers won't find out.

Screw this. Count me out.


(OOC: She's lying. She's still going to do what she planned, but she's going solo after reading the message announcing the pranks. It's a thief pride thing.)

1. Cheat on your stats, giving yourself a chunk more than you should have. (For reference: he gave himself approximately four times as much as he should have had and then thought no one would notice.)
2. Enter a battle, assuming no one will notice this.
3. Get caught. Dur.
4. Get docked the stats you didn't have plus that much more off what you should for being a cheater, which has been done pretty consistently to anyone who gets caught cheating in that manner for about three years on the site now.
5. Whine about it publicly and say you're quitting, then threaten to spam the site with porn every day until we ban your IP. Conveniently leave out that the fact you think the administration is 'irritating' you and that we're 'attacking [your] credibility' because we caught you cheating your stats.
6. Get permabanned. Because duh.

Hello~! So since Bakuman can always use more fanart, I'm posting in place of pluots who is too chicken to post all her Bakuman fanart...even though she has posted here before.

Preview:
( (MashiroxTakagixEijixHiramaru) )

i got some great things at salvation army today and thought i'd post them here!! there are also some older things that i love.

WARNING: i'm really awful at posing/being where the camera is aiming. so yeah.

also, i just moved back home from school, so clothes and books are everywhere... please forgive me!



( 6 outfits )

Captain William Laurence is a very nice man, and I can certainly see where a fourteen-year-old Emily Roland might have a crush on him. Heck, if I was a fourteen-year-old Emily Roland, I'd have a crush on him. He's awesome and adorable, all uptight and kind and blushy and with a ridiculously strong sense of honor.

However, I find it highly unlikely he will ever sleep with her, what with him being a good twenty years older, and also having had sex with her mother.

Jesus Christ onna Greyling.

This is what Shampoo works out in:



Isn't that better than a short skirt? 8Da;;;;;; *giggles*

I recently completed an informal essay comparing and contrasting elements of Death Note with elements of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

This is a piece that has been a year and a half in the making, or rather a year or so in the considering and a few weeks in the making. I did this purely for my own interest; I am not a student now but my English major instincts were tickling.

I have been a huge fan of Shakespeare's Macbeth since High School. After becoming a fan of Death Note I started noticing a lot of similarities between the two pieces and many of the contrasts seemed to be almost parallel. A few weeks ago I started writing this and it came together pretty quickly.

This is my perspective on how the two can be compared. I welcome other points of view if delivered in a constructive manner.

The Rabble’s Curse: Ambition and Supernatural Charms in “Macbeth” and “Death Note”

Civil feedback and discussion welcome.

A lot of sources that talk about INTJs and relationships tend to see our traits as antithetical to happy, healthy long-term relationships. While this site does do a bit to ameliorate that, I think it'd be more interesting to hear from INTJs about what we bring to a relationship.

After all, it's easy to overlook us when there are NFs who romance you and SPs who excite you and SJs who make you feel secure. So how about it? When it comes to love and romance, what do you do that's different from what you've observed in other types?

From my POV:

• Being that we're such rare types ourselves (especially female INTJs), we don't expect our SOs to be just like us.
• Our autonomous nature makes it easier to see our SOs as individuals and simply the roles society expects them to play in our lives. What may strike others as being weird or cuckoo we simply accept as part of our SOs being themselves.
• A strong sense of self gives us the ability to establish healthy boundaries. We're not making up rules as we go along. We know ourselves well enough to know what we can and can't live with.
• Since relating to people doesn't always come easily or naturally to us, we expect to have to work at a relationship. We don't go in assuming it's all going to work out just because we share a mutual attraction with someone.
• We think. It's a lot easier to communicate when people aren't emoting all over the place.
• We get more interesting the more you get to know us.
• When we do something romantic, it won't be flowers and chocolate and sappy poetry. It'll be something only we could do and only for the person we do it for.

Of course, there's more, so what do you think we have to offer as romantic partners?

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33382870&ref=sc_1

Because peacock feathers aren't just so birds can show off, but your feet can too. And at only $400!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35867826&ref=cat1_gallery_19
Frankensweater. Even the creator knows it's a monster.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35561862&ref=cat1_gallery_16
Between the sequins and the GIANT gold earrings, I'm not sure my sight will recover.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=35124113
...nope, it's gone for good.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=35873155
"Caution: Some products may contain small parts; this can pose a choking hazard. Do not leave small children unattended while wearing product." So, a child needs to be supervised for wearing a 30 dollar tutu skirt?

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35873030&ref=cat1_gallery_14
...I think I may pass on potatoes for a while.