Prepare to be amazed
Mood:  lazy
Topic: randomnity
William Shatner as you've never seen him before

I Can Has Cheezburger
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: Green Day
Topic: randomnity

You know how I'm always saying that I didn't have a chance to update the website/read your fic/return your e-mail/etc etc because I was "busy" cleaning house, taking care of kids, paying attention to husband/preparing Sunday School lesson/being sick/etc etc etc?

Bald-faced lies, all of it. The truth is that I spend every waking hour (and many hours when I should be sleeping) looking at funny pictures of cats with amusingly misspelled captions.

 I'm so ashamed.

Not really

What's on my MP3 player
Mood:  silly
Topic: music

Bought a SanDisk Sansa Express a few weeks ago. Nifty little thing; I use it like an iPod Shuffle - load random songs onto it, it's like having my own private radio station with no commercials, no DJ yak, and no songs I don't like. Love it. Ten songs on it right now, in no particular order (except alphabetically:)

2003, Nina Gordon 

The Adventure, Angels and Airwaves

AM Radio, Everclear

Ball and Chain, Social Distortion

Blue Orchid, White Stripes

Californication, Red Hot Chili Peppers

Call Me When You're Sober, Evanescence

City of Blinding Light, U2

Clocks, Coldplay

Closedown, The Cure

 Next time I do this, I'll list songs from D to F

 

 

The Fantasy Novelist's Exam
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Yahoo Launchcast Radio, Alternative Rock channel
Topic: writing

This is awesome. Here's my answers for my current story on Worlds Apart:

Read More...

Direct-Linking is a Very Bad Thing. Don't Do It.
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Pictures of You (really long album version) - the Cure
Topic: Nephrite Naru Treasury

Yesterday morning I was reviewing my Angelfire traffic statistics and discovered that EIGHT fanarts from my gallery were being direct linked from several blogs. It was a Russian blog site, which doesn't really mean anything except that maybe the offenders can't read enough English to understand all the DO NOT DIRECT-LINK warnings all over the site. But still, it's basic web courtesy, don't direct-link to stuff on other people's sites. Plus there's the matter of using people's original fanart without permission. It was enough images, and big enough images, and enough people viewing them to cause a huge spike in my bandwidth usage. I don't know how much bandwidth I get before going over the limit and access to the site gets shut down until the start of the next 24-hour allotment, but this probably came close.

So I had to change the file names on the images that were being linked, and change the links on the index pages, and make a "wall of shame" of the offending blogs, and title warning banners with the direct-linked file names and upload them. Time-consuming and tedious, when I could have been working on fanfics. Or, whatever, cleaning my house or something.

So, for the theft of bandwidth, art, and time, these people got my worst, clashing neon, large banners saying "This image and this bandwidth are being stolen from www.angelfire.com/anime2/nephandnaru." If my traffic report from yesterday after the time I made the changes is any indication, the problem seems to be resolved - I found one more instance of the images being called up by those sites, then it stopped. Hopefully once they saw my warning banner, the person/s who were direct-linking learned the error of their ways and took down the links. Hopefully. We'll see.

Oh, and while I didn't actually see the direct-linked images, many or most of the posts on these blog threads were locked, "friends-only." Maybe they thought they wouldn't get caught if they locked their posts and I couldn't see them. But the file-request reports from the Angelfire servers don't lie, and they don't care about locked blog entries. If someone's direct-linking, I'll find out, no matter what they try to do to hide it.

If it continues to be a problem, I'll have to move the galleries to my free Angelfire space, which is locked against remote-loading. You know those little "this image hosted by Anglefire" banners? That's what you get when you try to remote-load from a free Angelfire site. I hate to do it because of the ads, but I have to protect my bandwidth, which I'm paying for, and also I feel an obligation to do my part to protect my fanart contributors from theft of their art.

It especially ticks me off because the only reason people can remote-load from my site in the first place is because I'm paying every month for the premium service. So they're catching a free ride on my $8.95 a month. What if I decided to quit paying the monthly subscription? (Not that I could; the site's too big now for the amount of free storage you get.) But then they'd HAVE to do it the right way, which is save the image to their own computer or online storage space. If nothing else, there's always Photobucket.

whew
Topic: Nephrite Naru Treasury

No updates in so long because I had a lot of stuff going on. Assorted family and church events, lots of stuff to plan and prepare for. My husband converted to my religion last year, and this past Saturday (the 11th) we sealed our 23-year marriage in a religious ceremony, something I'd been hoping would happen for a very long time. Not a social event, thank goodness (though my parents did their best) but still required a lot of planning and preparation. And paperwork. This required an out-of-town trip, and then on Thursday the 16th we packed up again and hauled Jesse off to college, 100 miles from here. Again, much planning, preparation, and paperwork. Phew. But now everything's settling down, kid #1 is living away at college now and kid #2 is off to junior high. So now that everything is settling into our new normality, I can start getting caught up on my writing and websites and scrapbooking. Oh, and the housework too

I've got a chapter each of Enemy's Choice and Starfire all written, just need a little editing and they're ready to go, and half of the next chapter of each written. Other projects have been taking shape in my head, but right now I'm so pooped out, physically, mentally, and emotionally, that I was feeling like all the stories have gone away. They'll come back once I start writing again. I hope.

Good N/N Fanfiction
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Revolution Earth, B-52s (on my computer)
Topic: fanfiction

I spent a lot of time a month or so ago Googling all the various permutations of Nephrite/Nephlite etc. and Naru/Molly, mainly to see how my site comes up in the search results (first when you search "Nephrite Naru"), but also to see what else is out there. I was especially hoping to find some more goodies for my site. I struck gold with the Nephlite/Molly Club at deviantArt.com, and with the nifty picture by Lord Zox I found on his old AOL members site. But in the fanfiction department, other than the beautiful "Reflections: Osaka Naru" by R. TenEyck, there was nothing. Nothing good, that is. I came to the conclusion that there is no good Nephrite-Naru fanfiction that isn't already hosted or linked to on my site.

Now, some people who've been around in the fandom for a while might say, "But what about Wildflowers?" And indeed, what about Wildflowers? I've managed to read a large chunk of it, and even though I thought it was now gone from the Web, it resurfaced during my searches.

The key words here are "good" and "Nephrite-Naru," and I'm afraid Wildflowers is disqualified on both counts. While there are moments of breathtaking, virtuosic beauty in the writing, these are outweighed by the complete lack of such qualities as good characterizations, good plotting, and making the slightest bit of sense. Most of the time while I was trying to read this thing I didn't have the slightest idea what was going on, and when I did it made me want to chuck my computer through the window. Not a good sign.

In the N/N department, lip service is given to Nephrite and Naru, but the story is really about Nephrite's affair with Prince Endymion. Same thing with Usagi/Serenity and Mamoru/Endymion. Given a token role, but basically dismissed in favor of Endymion and Nephrite. Which just isn't right. You don't take THE central romance of Sailor Moon and split it up like that. I don't care what you do to the other characters, Usagi/Mamoru are untouchable. But in Wildflowers, Naru and Serenity basically are to be Nephrite and Endymion's respective consolation prizes when they're in Heaven and can't be together any more.

So it goes like this: Endymion is the Prince and Nephrite is his guardian angel/lover.

Still with me? Good. Endymion is the son of Naru, who has black hair at this point in the proceedings, and Zoisite. *urge to throw computer quickly suppressed* Zoisite is an abusive, wife-beating, wife-raping monster (the author really REALLY hates Zoisite; personally, I have my doubts about whether Zoisite has the, er, physical capability to rape a female). Naru eventually rebels and embarks on an affair with Nephrite, her son's guardian angel/lover. (Sleeping with the guy that your son is sleeping with seems kind of icky to me.) At this point her hair turns red to show that she has become a wanton and wicked woman. (We all know about those wicked redheads, don't we, heh heh heh [/sarcasm])

Naru and Nephrite have a son, who is a demon because of Nephrite's status as a Fallen Angel. A large part of the story involves looking for him, even into the present day, for reasons I never understood. Then it also turns out that Nephrite can turn into a woman at will (which really steams Usagi - she was okay with Mamoru sleeping with a guy, but not with another woman because there's no way she can compete with another woman). Anyway, Nephrite turns into a woman and gets pregnant by Endymion/Mamoru. Then when he turns back into a man he's still pregnant. (I don't care what else happens, Nephrite should never EVER  be pregnant. )

This was when I finally realized I didn't know what the bleepity-bleep was going on and I didn't think I wanted to know. So the upshot of all this is that I don't qualify Wildflowers as "good Nephrite-Naru fanfiction."

I'm not saying that people shouldn't read Wildflowers, though. If you really want to, then by all means go Google it and read away. (But when you end up throwing your computer out the window, don't say I didn't warn you.) But if you really want to read something very long that involves the Shitennou, I would tell you to do yourself a favor and read The Crystal Weaver Saga. Excellent writing, excellent plotting, excellent and respectful characterizations - even of the characters that aren't necessarily the author's favorites. E. Liddell strikes me as a Kunzite-Zoisite fan, but her writing of Nephrite and Molly's relationship is filled with understanding, respect, and emotion.

At one point, before a battle, Nephrite is questioning the profoundly life-changing decision that Molly had made in order to be with him, and here is Molly's reply: "Nephrite, knowing you... I could never have gone back to being what I was. Having someone die in your arms... changes you. Even if I'd never remembered it outside of a dream, I still wouldn't have been that same carefree girl. I wanted you back in my life. You showed me... Oh, I can't explain. Something wonderful. Something terrible. Something... You lifted me out of the world I knew and showed me the inside of a dream. And if it was a bit like a nightmare from time to time, well, real life isn't always all that wonderful either. " (Crystal Weaver Saga, Wars of Light and Shadow II: All Darkness Met, Chapter 10)

I couldn't say it any better myself.

And the excitement just keeps coming...
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: anime
Wow, mood swings. I just looked at my weekly e-mail from Animenation, and they have both of the Fushigi Yuugi TV DVD box sets on sale for over $60 off! I've seen the first season and loved it, have never seen the second season. I've wanted these forever, so I went ahead and ordered them! Plus I got an extra 10% discount code from my RentAnime membership.  I don't even want to look at my credit card statement when it comes, because it'll also have the birthday and Father's Day gifts I bought for Nathan, and all the scrapbook paper I bought (curse those 50%-off coupons!!), in addition to the $230 worth of anime I just ordered.  But oh man, I've wanted those for so long and now I can get the two sets for $120 off! (Plus I do still have the VHS boxed set I bought from Sherrie a long time ago; they should give me a little money for it at Bookman's, since it's a complete boxed set.)

Holy Crappyoli
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: randomnity

I just put a bunch of laundry from the washer into the dryer, and there in the bottom of the washing machine was a dead scorpion.  Not just any scorpion, but one of the little, tan, EXTREMELY POISONOUS* bark scorpions. It was all dead and drowned and limp and everything, but still... yeesh!!! heart attack time. The really creepy thing is, it had been hiding in the kids' laundry! and I was just handling that laundry  I used the fork we use to stir the coals in the grill to lift it up and drop it into our official Nasty Bug Catching Cup, but still, just touching it with a three-foot-long piece of wood and metal gave me the creeps. Icky icky icky. It's still sitting there in the cup in the bottom of the washing machine, waiting for me to work up the intestinal fortitude to dump it outside or flush it down the toilet. But first I had to come do some blog therapy. Gack, that was nasty.

Okay, I've got to go dump it now because I've got two more loads of laundry to do today.

*Usually not deadly to healthy children and adults; my parents live in the scorpion capital of Arizona and have each been stung several times. Extremely EXTREMELY painful for a few days. But if you're very young or very old or have a compromised immune system, it can kill you.

Sheesh...
Mood:  down
Now Playing: The Adventure - Angels and Airwaves (on my computer)
Topic: Nephrite Naru Treasury

Feeling kind of tired and depressed. Had that kind of weird stomach-bug - cold thingie I had a month or so ago. Bad stomach cramps, headache, chills and shakes for a few days, followed by a sore throat and sniffly nose for a few days, and massive, draining fatigue the whole time. Starting to feel better, but still very tired. I'm also kind of depressed that no one hardly ever reads the fics on my site. So today in lieu of actually *writing* anything I fiddled with the fic descriptions on the library pages. Have to admit, the old ones were pretty non-compelling. haven't uploaded them yet; trying to decide if I'll wait until I do an update or just go ahead and upload the changed pages tonight. I also stuck a little bit of HTML on the gallery index pages to make the images open in a seperate window, so my StatCounter log doesn't get all filled up with each individual view of the gallery pages when someone goes through and looks at every single piece of fanart on the site.

 Speaking of fanart, I do want to update soon because Tanzanite sent me a FABULOUS drawing that I'm anxious to post. I hate to dump my 2-chapters-ahead rule, but maybe I'd better if I'm going to update anytime soon. I know what comes next in everything I'm working on, I've plotted it out word-for-word in my head, it's just a matter of actually writing it down. Also lots of thoughts about fanfiction I want to write about here, but my brain pretty much feels like jello right now.

I will go write one sentence in each fic I'm working on, then I'll feel like I've accomplished something.