subdee

I've found a sleeping schedule that isn't conducive to working, socializing, or losing weight, but I like it because it makes me feel like I have more time than I really do, and because it's the first one I've managed to keep three days in a row all semester. Basically I go to sleep around 7pm and wake up at 3am, when I do the homework I went to sleep to avoid doing the night before.

sesame_seed tagged me for this.

( Write 10 statements intended to 10 different people. Never tell which one is to who (but if you guess correctly, I'll tell you). )

Everyone is saying their ten are EASY to guess, and none of them have been! They're easier from the inside, maybe. Tagging: worldserpent (ha HA!), kenbu, rondaview, pally_pally, tarigwaemir, and tokyofish. Exactly half the people who were tagged are on the list, btw.

And while I'm at it one more meme:
Go to your Calendar and find the first entry for each month of 2005. Post the first line or so of it in your journal, and that's your 'Year In Review'.

( Year in Review )

Pretty accurate.

Great essays that appeared on my flist, to which my only response was "Wow, I really agree with that, so much that I have absolutely nothing to say in response":
worldserpent: Contract vs Status in fiction writing
kiraseldon: Noir, homosociality and why I think the Japanese like yaoi so much
and
Part 3 of telophase's series on what makes professional shojo work. (In this case it's not so much that I feel there's no space for comments, as that I don't know enough about design to make them.)

In other essay-ish news (that is old enough to not really be news anymore), the comments thread here about plagarism in published manga has a comment linking to more interesting examples of it, like Battle Vixens vs Tengo Tenge, stock photography abuses in Slam Dunk, Nana, and Soujourn (American comic, I have that issue actually), and D.Gray-man copping from Trigun etc. I'm pointing this out mainly because I've never liked D.Gray-man. (Other series that're fairly popular, but that I just don't see the appeal of: Gintama, Wild Adapter.)

Because I haven't written anything recently, and because I've really enjoyed reading fic notes like these and the ones locked on petronia's journal, I'm going to spend the next hour before I have to leave for class writing a couple lines for each of my old fics, in order. I have a bad tendency towards retroactively assigning my own motivations, but I'll try not to do that here.

( Quick commentary )

No! It can’t be! …but it is. All 112 episodes of Yu Yu Hakusho, direct-download. (The English version. But it’s a good dub, so that’s okay.) I decided to start with the last episode and work my way backwards, but here’s the strange thing:

Episode 109 downloads: 314
Episode 110 downloads: 391
Episode 111 downloads: 364
Episode 112 downloads: 410

I can understand 112 having a greater number of hits, because I know that other people like to start with the end too ahaha, but why the up-and-down? Episodes 110 and 111 are both boring Yusuke slugfests. For a few minutes I flashed back to DBZ. (There is a brief naked-floaty Yusuke moment in 110. I refuse to believe that this is the reason.)

Joined reading_genji because I’ve been meaning to get back to that. (I'd stopped because I was surprised by the end of my copy -- 1955 reprint of the 1925 edition, I think I mentioned. It’s paperback-novel-sized, and on the front cover does not say "The Tale of Genji: Book 1 of 20," but just "The Tale of Genji" as if that were all there is to the story. If I’d thought about it a little more I would have realized that this could not possibly be all of it, no matter how concise the translation.)

New journal layout, winter colors in honor of Thanksgiving's freak snowstorm and those radio stations playing nothing but holiday music from now until the 25th. Also, GIP! It's my holiday season default icon, "sad rose in snow."

More important than the seasonal stuff is the nifty nested tags box on the sidebar (from this tutorial). Now I can not only tag entries, but categorize tags! Organization yeah!...of course all the tag box really does is drive home how completely disorganized my journal entries are, but anyway.

I'm choosing classes for next semester tonight. Following parental advice there will be no physics or math classes at all, just art and history and maybe english. This is my vacation semester. If I still can't pull myself together, well.

From here on out is mediablogging XD. Still haven't seen the new Pride and Prejudice movie (someday!).

( RENT the movie )

I hadn't realized that RENT's refrain -- no day but today -- is something they teach at AIDS support groups. That makes so much sense! Also, movie soundtrack (mp3-quality), for those who are interested.

( The Ice Harvest )

...you know, I still don't know whether this was a good movie. I liked it at the time. It's unexpected, anyway.

Some bookblogging because it would a shame to be organized now, XD.

( Kindred, Octavia E. Butler )
( Pride and Prejudice )

Television!

( Rome, up to episode 6 )

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
ADV Films is having an anime sale from now until December 4th. $6.00 DVDs! I'm getting Princess Tutu vol 1, Orphen vols 2-5, and Five Star Stories (movie). Watch out for the shipping, it isn't calculated until just before you confirm the order.

It's too bad tarigwaemir is on livejournal sabbatical right now, because she would totally flip over this Hikaru no Go / Ender's Game crossover by flonnebonne (recced by issen4). OMG GENIUS. Here is some background so that you can read the fic without having read Ender's Game, because it is worth reading just for the reversal of roles between Shindou and Touya:

( cut for lennnnngth )

(Unrelated, but those of you who are chronic slashers: have you ever been reading something you know wasn't intended as slash, and seen possibilities, and wished you hadn't seen them? Like, "I know I used to be able to read things like this without drawing conclusions or seeing subtext and I WANT TO GO BACK TO THAT TIME"? When you're reading the lives of Saint Declan and Saint Ailbhe, for example. (blasphemy!)

If you answered yes then you know how I feel about class conflict. I swear I see it everywhere, and it's driving me crazy. )

My favorite character of any series is always the main character, and my favorite pairing is always the main pairing if there is one, and yesterday when I finished Hana Yori Dango (manga) instead of my midterm essay (*helpless sob*) I relized why. It's because if I don't like them, I don't read the series.

It's that simple! I don't like the main characters, I walk! Hana Yori Dango makes the first exception (I will blame this on extreme stress and work-avoidance, otherwise I probably would not have finished it) -- I did like Domyoji by the end, but only at the end, ie volume 34 (of 36) by which point he had become a different person.

( Spoilers and me taking things too seriously )

My number one beef with shoujo manga is the idea that total dependence is a good thing(*). Numbers two and three are that the heroine always ends up with the first guy she shares a panel with and that all love interests must be childhood friends, even when one of them doesn't realize it. Hana Yori Dango sidsteps these two very neatly.

I feel like I'm writing both too much and not enough about this manga, which I *did* like no matter what it sounds like. But here's something that happened while I was reading: volumes 32 and 33 were missing, which meant there was a sudden jump from Domyoji in the hospital to a totally different Domyoji and Tsukukushi happily out on a date. I blinked, blinked some more, thought about it for a little while and concluded that this was what had happened in the missing two volumes:

( Cut for length )

(*)Exceptions: Kodomo no Omocha (that's not why Sana likes him), Kare Kano (that's not why Miyazawa likes him plus Arima hides it really well), Please Save My Earth (...LOVE THIS SERIES. Hey memlu and falxumbra, if you are really anxious to read it there is a full-series bittorent here. And then after you've read the scans you should BUY THE OFFICIAL TRANSLATION, because it's one of those rare ones that gets all of the jokes and all of the references, and has notes about the meanings of flowers at the end.)