The Digital Pensieve

Naruto Stamps, anyone?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:37:51 GMT

Stamps
I have three sheets of Naruto stamps, and they are 800 yen each (80 yen x 10 stamps). One is reserved for toki_usagi, who pre-ordered them a while back. If anyone else would like Naruto stamps, please let me know--it'll be 800 yen plus postage (postage is free if you're already my penpal and I owe you a letter or a Christmas card). I will take Paypal in yen only please. ^_^ Comment or e-mail.

ETA: Does anyone think there will be interest if I buy up a bunch for whichever Naruto fans want these?

droop

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:15:02 GMT

NANA fic no good (OOC), back to the drawing board. It's been too long since any exposure to NANA canon for me, which is the root of them problem, so I think I shall have to re-watch the anime, or re-read the manga. I haven't quite decided which. On the one hand, I can start/stop the manga any time and not have to do it in chunks of half-hour episodes. On the other hand, I love NANA's music, and I sure wouldn't mind a re-watch of that...

NANA betas?

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:22:42 GMT

Looking for anyone in the NANA fandom who's willing to do a character beta for 500 words Nana and Hachi. Is there anyone on the f-list who reads NANA and wouldn't mind checking my characterization? (love_of_anime, as this is a fulfillment of your request, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disqualify you... ^_^)

Happy Birthday, Tezuka Kunimitsu

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:40:33 GMT

Happy Birthday, Tezuka. ♥ I hope you had a good one.

sighs

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:41:01 GMT

I've just left two queries on posts made in hikarunogo asking why comments have been screened on what are obviously meta discussion posts. We shall see what the responses are. I'm all for meta and discussion, and even if the posts don't really make much sense to me, I don't see a reason to delete them or ban the poster, but I've received complaints from two people now, and I want to be fair.

The mod stick, it is heavy. *sigh*

Fall Anime is Out!

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:37:10 GMT

The fall anime lineup is out, and I am looking at:

Armed Librarians: Book of Bantorra - intriguing premise. One episode to check it out.
Miracle Train: Oeudo-sen e Youkoso - *laughing* Sheer premise (boys named after trains on the Chuo line) gives this one _one_ episode to hook me.
Yumeiro Patissiere - Food anime always gets one shot from me. ^_^
Sasameki Koto - looks like a non-hentai lesbian anime, and therefore worth a shot.
Darker than Black: Gemini of the Falling Star - I'll give this one a shot, since I liked the first DTB...
Blue Literature - teaser picture looked interesting, but I have no idea what this one's going to be like. Trying one episode.
Sanjushi - Three Musketeers, apparently. Worth a shot? *not sure*
Kiddy Girl-and - ... horrible title (and what?) but who knows, might be worth a shot. The original Kiddy Grade was all right.
Winter Sonata - Ohoho, time to see what has all those women bawling.
Sangoku Engi - Romance of the Three Kingdoms--let's hope THIS TIME it's done right (*remembering the horror that was Sangoku Kotetsushi*)

Considering the time crush, though, what will probably happen is that I will just sit on this list until everyone else has watched it, and then go with whatever people recommend... ^_^;;;;;;

Writing Progress

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 04:45:07 GMT

80% of this request has been written in longhand. O_o Guys. I wrote. O_o I wrote. *still in shock* Edit: First draft complete! Editing will commence... tomorrow in a hotel room, I think. *tired* Long road trip ahead.

Skip Beat (up to 145)

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:32:39 GMT

Skip Beat manga (up to 145)
OMG. SQUEEEEEEEEE!

Vote For Your Favorite Layout

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:56:35 GMT

[This post was made for the benefit of the hikarunogo community, but please feel free to vote/participate/spread the word!]

Dear all,

The layout contest for hikarunogo is over, and there are two beautiful entries! As promised, I open the voting to the entire community. Contest voting is open to all; please spread the word so that more people will vote! Voting ends September 14, and I'll put up the winner when I get back to Tokyo. ^_^

View Poll: Hikaru no Go Layout Design Contest

[ETA: I fail so hard--both entries are called "Entry One" because I fail at HTML, but just vote based on what's under the link--that still works! *sheepish* Sorry guys.]

Remember, this poll closes on September 14--make sure you vote! ♥

Arifureta Kiseki

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:47:44 GMT

*dies laughing* Oh man, that grandmother--she really meddles like nothing else! Lesson learned--if living with others, lock important things in drawers (and make sure the key is not anywhere they can find it).

Call For Moderators?

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:04:29 GMT

hng_deathmatch is looking for volunteers to be the next moderators! Check out this post (it's locked to members of the comm--just join the comm to read the post and/or comment on it).

Blind Go

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:32:50 GMT

The blind_go cliche list is up. And you know what? I feel like every single one of my HnG fics has just been labeled "cliche", even Hotel Starlight ("go as foreplay"). T_T

T_T *weep* Excuse me, I'm just going to be in my corner over here.

BOSS

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:31:06 GMT

*squeal of joy* Episode 10 of Boss (~~final~~ [edit: penultimate] episode) delivered a plot twist that actually made me SQUEE! ♥ And comedy! *rofls at Hatagiri's interrogation session* ♥ OH YES YES YES! (Took them long enough...)

DONE. AWESOME. YAY!

Boss

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:37:25 GMT

Boss rocks. *grin* I love it. Finished the series VERY quickly--well, I'll finish it by the end of tonight, since I'm already on episode 10.

ETA: I love how Osawa eats all these peanut M&Ms. ♥ A woman after my own heart! ♥

Mei-chan no Shitsuji

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:01:16 GMT

Other points of interest: I still can't figure out Shinobu! *groans* That white butler is the strangest (and surprisingly, most interesting) character in the show! Even though I still can't figure him out, and his weird smile gives me the chills (creepy dude).

ETA: FINISHED. Well, that was surprisingly fun. ♥ Yes, Shinobu was obvious (oh, come on, like he wasn't), and yes, the ending was pretty obvious (of course), but it was still fun! ^_^

Mei-chan no Shitsuji

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:46:03 GMT

I've been wondering this for a long time now... you guys remember the four Sole girls who keep popping up and poking theiir nose into everyone's business? Well, I've been watching and watching, but I finally have to ask: where the heck are their butlers?

Mei-chan no Shitsuji

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:42:53 GMT

Proof that Ai is shallow: She's watching Mei-chan no Shitsuji avidly because the main character's butler looks like Matsumoto Jun, only cuter. Good lord. *facepalms*

Arifureta Kiseki

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:49:14 GMT

Wow. Episode 1 was a shocker. Episodes 2-4 are painful. Episode 5... one-two-punches you. O_o Phew. I don't know if I can watch more of this in one go. It's slow-paced, but that's deceptive. The sucker punches hit you out of nowhere. I'm beginning to remember why I stopped watching dramas in the first place. They make me feel too much.

Tomorrow, then.

Dennou Coil

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:53:14 GMT

Dennou Coil
Up to episode 17 now. Probably going to finish episode 18 by the end. Honestly? This series is getting scarier. O_o Wow. How do children watch this? I'm scared.

Coming To A Realisation

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:33:28 GMT

You know what I just realized? The only series I'm still following fansubs on are: Chi's New Address, Major, Black Jack TV (old series, but not completely subbed), and Black Jack 21 (newer series, but only subbed to episode 19).

I'm not following anything else. O_o (Nope, I'm not following Shin Prince of Tennis.)

As you can see from my anime list, I do have older series I'm waiting to start, and there are some series on my to-watch list I just haven't gotten around to yet. But... wow. I guess I'm really stepping out of fandom.

Now if only my writing quality would improve on an inverse proportional scale to my proximity to fandom. The deathfic was the worst thing I've ever written, and if I saw that on a comm I wouldn't bother reading it (if I had, I would have mentally consigned the author to the "meh" list).

*facepalms* All this reading is not helping one whit.

Or maybe, the reading is helping... just not where fanfiction is concerned.

protesting

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:56:10 GMT

*protests* I say, Heat 2 of hng_deathmatch really is unsporting (in a way). Both of them wrote unfinished stories (never mind that Mickey's says /end). ARGH, I HATE CLIFFHANGERS. Heat 1 was interesting, though--never thought I'd see an OST submitted!

If you haven't voted for hng_deathmatch, better do so SOON!

ETA: First fic in a long time, and guess what it is? ~~I swear I didn't set out to write deathfic.~~

Hikaru no Go fandom updates

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:31:04 GMT

*dead of laughter* HnG can certainly rally like no other fandom I know. Where else can one see "cliches" as the theme for blind_go so soon after our debut on Fandom Wank? *giggling so hard* Oh, yes, btw, sign-ups for the 8th round of blind_go are open. ~~Ask me if I'm signing up on August 8 and I'll decide based on how I feel that day.~~ [Edit: Ack, no, I'll be in Denver and I don't want to spend my vacation writing. Next time.]

Also--hng_deathmatch has gone straight into semifinals. O_o I'm no longer a participant, but I hope people VOTE anyway! ♥

Testing The Waters

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:09:43 GMT

Just testing the fandom waters here, but...

If there were a repository of long fics (in e-book formats), would anyone be interested? As in, if someone hosted a fic archive (to support/supplement fanfic hosted at various places, in pieces/parts), would readers find it useful?

Explanation:
I'm currently thinking about starting up a fanfic repository. I don't want to compete with the fic archives already out there! What I'm thinking is this: not everyone enjoys reading while sitting at their computer. I, personally, have been looking for as many ways as possible to read as many things as possible in e-book format.

Then it hit me: there was a comm started recently on LJ (I can't remember the comm's name anymore, unfortunately) where some people complained that they had to reformat the fics they wanted to read, so that they could save them on their e-Readers/iPods/other and read on their commute or during other breaks in their routine when access to a computer (or the Internet) was not available.

My suggestion:

Authors who post longfic (10k? 20k? 50k? 100k?) and give their permission will get their fics converted to e-book format, either by myself (a slow and agonizing process) or by lovely volunteers (much preferred; of course the contributions would be acknowledged).
The fics are uploaded to webhosting; I have two domain names I would prefer not to have associated with fandom, but Dreamhost allows you to get a free domain name when you open an account with them, so that's cool.
Authors are free to link to the fics or to a page listing the fics. My idea at the moment is that there would be individual pages sorted by author--collabs will be handled by linking from the authors involved.
Ideally this would be run by volunteers, but I don't mind keeping it going myself (test run for something I want to do individually later on). I also don't mind terribly paying for the server space, and I can't see how this could hurt bandwidth too much (most _novels_ rarely go over a few MB, and those usually involve lots of art inside).

Is there any interest in this sort of thing?

Please feel free to spread the word--I would love as much input as possible. ♥

ETA: ramble_corner brought fanfic_ebooks to my attention! I shall have to think about what to do with this, since I don't want to re-invent the wheel. An anime-fandoms-only archive? An archive for e-zines and anthologies (think imaginarybeasts and bb_shousetsu? Original-only for anyone who wants to? Argh. *will chew on this more*

HNG Deathmatch

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:41:24 GMT

If you happened to read the poem, Last Man Standing, in Heat 8 of the first round of hng_deathmatch... yes, I am [yellow]. ^_^ I didn't think the voting would be that close--losing by one vote makes the loss very much easier to bear, as does the thought that my opponent's fic made me laugh. ^_^

Anyway. Since I have lost (by one vote, which should not actually make me happy, but I am just so relieved that the vote was so close and that I actually managed to give my opponent a run for her money with 48 words; also, I am so swamped I can't write anything useful for the second round anyway), the poem is now re-posted to apples_for_me! Also, just because I'm no longer in the running, does not mean I will stop reminding people to vote. ^_^

I haven't posted fic in so long, I've forgotten my own fic posting format. Oh, for shame. T_T

Rare Step Back Into Fandom Politics

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:15:45 GMT

Re: this post.

Plagiarism is a serious accusation. When two excellent writers converge on the same source material (where the take-away is decidedly small; no offence to the originals), what are the chances the same threads will be woven into two different stories? I was reading lundi before the Calvino fic appeared, and I remember her burbling and squealing with glee and quoting from the Calvino book, "If on a winter's night a traveller". I also remember seeing a Hikago fic appear, not too long after said Calvino stage. In fact, the fic was recced on goldenagefic for being a beautiful fic based on beautiful canon. ~~In the case of the Calvino, I say nay, no plagiarism.~~ [Edit: In light of these posts by petronia and tongari, I stand corrected on this count.]

In the case of the bookshop fic, that accusation feels to me to be rather spurious and a case of grasping at straws. Cliches are not the same as copying, and I've seen that particular interaction (AkiHika back and forth on the rivals thing) so many times in HnG fandom I don't even bother to read AkiHika anymore. Aja's done a line-by-line comparison somewhere, and I'm sorry, but even with the line-by-line, I just don't see it. [ETA: While I have retracted the "no plagiarism" comment on the Hero-based fic, I stand by my assessment of bookshop's claim.]

Story ideas are not the same as plagiarism, or the multitudes of "Sai Returns" fics would all be copycats of each other. In fact, all the Le Ping-comes-to-Japan stories could be said to be inspired by chaineddove and myself (our collab, Crossing Boundaries), or all the Youngha/Yashiro fics ripping off chaineddove and doumeki or whoever first wrote about it. The more I read the accusations, the more I feel like there simply aren't grounds for this sort of sweeping accusation.

Unfortunately, it seems the accusers have made up their minds, and so whether or not there was plagiarism, the verdict seems to have been decided on.

A pity.

ETA: In the interests of fairness, linking to tongari's post on the matter.
ETA2: aishuu posts her take, and since it dovetails so well with what I'd have said if I'd had the time (been distracted, Doug just left for seven weeks in Denver, and I am counting the days until I can join him) I'm linking to it here.
Also, ah, Fandom Wank. We all knew this would get there.

The Digital Pensieve

Naruto Stamps, anyone?

*droop*

NANA betas?

Happy Birthday, Tezuka Kunimitsu

*sighs*

Fall Anime is Out!

Writing Progress

Skip Beat (up to 145)

Vote For Your Favorite Layout

Arifureta Kiseki

Call For Moderators?

Blind Go

BOSS

Boss

Mei-chan no Shitsuji

Mei-chan no Shitsuji

Mei-chan no Shitsuji

Arifureta Kiseki

Dennou Coil

Coming To A Realisation

*protesting*

Hikaru no Go fandom updates

Testing The Waters

HNG Deathmatch

Rare Step Back Into Fandom Politics

droop

sighs

protesting