insaneneko

Moby Dick Big Read: I'm actually tempted to listen to this…I would've never picked up the book, but this project is rather cool.

Call Me Maybe for Choir and Orchestra: I like this song, I like covers, I love the precise enunciation of the singers, I just like the existence of this video. XD;

I want to see Ookami Kodomo Yuki to Ame, a new movie by the same director who did "Summer Wars" and "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time." Wolf children!!

A bunch of people play some 6-person starship game called ARTEMIS wearing random Star Trek uniforms, being snarky and kinda incompetent. It's super awesome.

Fun interview of the creators of South Park on Fresh Air. They are smart, funny people. XD;

Star Trek The Exhibition in San Jose, CA until April 11. Replica of the TOS bridge! We took a picture of everyone falling over except one person falling over in the other direction. I went over on a weekend trip and thoroughly enjoyed it. Also awesome is Winchester Mystery House, a house that was constantly under construction until the owner died. The tour is over an hour and lots of fun. That house is nuts!

My computer! I got it back! The hard drive wasn't wrecked! *hugs it tightly*

Somehow I missed reading Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit by lazulisong, a fabulous gen Star Trek reboot fic mostly about Kirk and his Vulcan mentor, but also very nice bonding with McCoy and others. Angst, sweetness, Vulcan not-blackmail! In any case, I discovered this fic and devoured it after reading a fabulous snippet in that world the other day. I'm glad I didn't miss the snippet as well since the author is on my damned f-list. :P

I'm enjoying the Brightness Burns series about Mirror!Kirk/Mirror!McCoy by graceandfire. Having overdosed on the evil semes in BL, I find Mirror!Kirk adorable instead of a bastard. McCoy is a nice mix of resigned realist and orneriness. Their relationship is complex and fun as hell to read.

I really need to go search for more fics...I've just been too lazy.

Yay! A fairly new chapter of the FF7 fic "Green Dreams"!

It Takes a Village by chaletian, new Star Trek, vignettes about life about a starship for a new CMO.

Everyday I Miss You has written yet another amusing Naruto fic called "Blacklist" (http://rabilunar.blog46.fc2.com/blog-entry-449.html). It takes the bastard Naruto from the long badfic she just isn't updating (;_;) and sticks him into a silly story. It is Sakura POV, she is horrified when she finds out how Naruto subdued Sasuke enough for treatment after bringing him back to Konoha with all limbs broken. When the casts are taken off Sasuke tries to go after Naruto for taking advantage of the fact that he couldn't move to fuck him repeatedly...

1. Back from vacation! It was awesome and fun, and not too cold. It was a journey of food and drink--consuming it, talking about it, shopping for it.

2. Speaking of food, I recommend The Loving Hut in San Francisco at the corner of Vallejo and Stockton. Tasty and not too expensive Chinese vegan food! Best review ever at yelp:

totally thought this was some Boba Tea/Prostitution ring before I finally checked it out.

Great serving size for the price compared to similar places, I think.  

Funny aftertaste, though?  This might be because I'm not vegan, but I've been scoping out restaurants to take vegan girl person to, so.    

The cakes and ice creams are oh so lovely sweet good right, though.  And adorable aprons.



MOST IMPORTANT PART:  SUPREME MASTER TELEVISION.  I could watch this damn channel for hours, holy crap, talking elephant.

I do not agree with the funny aftertaste comment, but he is right about Supreme Master Television. It is addictive and awesome. Missed the talking elephant, as well as the desserts. :(

I thought it was a soapland or something, as well. Or that it should be.

3. I want more than one day in San Francisco, even if they are days full of rain and cold. I thought i'd like it and I was right! Wonderful city! Amazing in glorious bright sunniness with temps running in the 70s in November. XD

4. I just bought 8 bottles of wine and don't know how I'm going to fit them all into the refrigerator. I hate that the climate here means all wine should be stored in some kind of climate-controlled environment. Lacking AC, I only have the frig. :( I got two bottles of two Bordeaux's (how does one pluralize "Bordeaux?"), two bottles of a Spanish tempranillo (I love tempranillos), a German Riesling (that I fear may be too sweet for me, but oh well--it's "GREAT WITH TURKEY!"), and a grenache. I don't think I've drunk a grenache before, but the festive label and low price (and wine shop rec) was too much for me not to buy it. XD

5. Pretty fanart of fandoms I know nothing about--Reborn! and Tales of..., among others. Nice coloring and sharp features.

6. A request for sci-fi/fantasy BL via worldserpent got me thinking about sci-fi BL. First thing that came to mind was two novel series I never read but that seem to have a decent following in English, Sanzen Sekai no Karasu o Koroshi and that one illustrated by Mamiya Oki with the Moon dude with the funky eyes who always wears a visor. Sadly, I am drawing a blank right now and I can't browse my collection since they are still packed up in boxes.

7. wednesday_10_10 reviews/summarizes a BL novel, called Koushounin wa Utagawanai by Eda Yuuri and illustrated by Nara Chiharu. She posts all the pics! I sort of want to read it now but am afraid I won't like it (I haven't liked everything Eda-sensei has written, and this one sounds like one I could potentially really like or get really annoyed at).

8. Breaking the News by treeflamingo is a short, sweet, and hilarious gen Ouran fic. "Impending doom" YES.

9. Each raw chapter of Totally Captivated makes me want to magically know Korean just a little more than the previous one. The previous one was pure romance so it wasn't too bad, but this one seemed complex (and amusing at times). *sighs* Also, only six volumes? It's almost over!

10. I am on friends?skip=400. I give up already. I can't catch up. ;_;

ETA: 11. How could I forget the all-important #11?!? Saw the new trailer for Star Trek and was...disturbed. Is this really Star Trek? Now I understand the parodies that have cropped up, such as 90210 or Smallville (I personally like the Smallville one). I'll still go to see it, but I can't help but feel weirded out.

I stumbled on the FAQ for "the official archive of the paris/torres collective, which reads more as a simple primer of fanfiction and writing it. I was surprised to find that The Romulan Way by Diane Duane was considered a Mary Sue story by, well, anybody. If it is one, I suppose there are very good Mary Sues out there. But then, Diane Duane is a really good writer. :P Also, Peter David started out as a fanfic writer? Cool. (I own a lot of ST:TOS novels, many of which are very good, or at least extremely entertaining to read.)

But what came to mind reading the advice was how some of it desperately needed to be applied to BL novels.

Cardinal Rule #1: If your characters have to act out of character for your plot to work, then your plot DOES NOT WORK.

BL needs to follow this, desperately. The FAQ is talking about OOC from canon, but in a good number of BL novels they betray the characterization set up in the novels themselves to move the plot. If I can accept the characters enough to keep reading, no matter how much of a pansy or an idiot or such a complete and utter jerk that I can't fathom why anyone would want to be around them let alone be in love with them they may be, I don't want them to suddenly do something OOC so that some stupid plot point (usually the pivotal one) can happen. Also, miraculous and sudden reformations of not so steller characters do not ring true, especially if it seems like it happened just to get a happy ending. -_-

Tip # 1. Angst does not always equal good drama. Do not kill/maim/torture a character just for effect. Writing a tearjerker just because you want to manipulate the emotions of your readers is not a sign of depth or skill. Keeping the scale and intensity of your stories closer to reality than Opera, means that the genuine emotion you provoke in the reader will be all the more powerful for being attained through subtlety and skill rather than cheap theatrics. Readers identify more with a realistic protagonist's plight than they will the Nibelungen.

YES YES YES and YES. I am an angst whore, but I can only get into the angst if the characters seem vaguely like "real people" and not just paper cut-outs acting out the great tragic horror that are the string of "moe points" the author is trying to hit. I am amused at the angst of paper cut-outs, not moved.

Tip #13. Don't rush to finish a story just to have it out by a certain date, or to be the "first" to have a particular type of story out. Give your story the time and attention it needs.

Tips like this and others that talk about finishing stories up before publishing, etc...how I wish professional authors could follow them. I hate reading an ending that is so obviously just a wrap up to finish things up rather than a real conclusion. I know they are under deadline and have to produce, and that the entire industry is a book mill, but still...A girl can wish, right?

I admit it, I ended up reading more SGA fanfics. But that came to a screeching halt when I read the crossover Where Did All the Physics Go? by Amireal, because it was crossed over with one of my ultimate loves, Star Trek! OMG it was so hilarious, and the Enterprise crew was pretty IC and I loved the disbelieving reactions of the SGA side who have fallen into an alternate universe where the characters they know so well from the TV show are real...

And it made me remember one of the few Star Trek fanfics I ever read, which luckily I was able to find online again: The Trust of a Bonding by K.V. Wylie. It's a McCoy/Vulcan slash fic that is a NOVEL (95,000+ words) and reads more like one of the official novels (of which I've read many). I love the Kirk/Spock/McCoy (non-slash) interactions (the banter, the teasing, just...the dialogue in general), McCoy's portrayal (he's my fav character), the technobabble (research! lots of words I technical words I don't know and probably aren't real! breakthroughs!), and especially the meeting of Vulcan and human and the strange things that can come from that. That last bit kind of reminded me of Spock's World by Diane Duane, a novel I happen to love (mostly for the current timeline portion rather than the Vulcan past parts). The slash part is so organically part of the story, and not like IN YOUR FACE but a powerful undercurrent and so ungraphic and yet so damn intense. *_* I imagine K/S slash might feature similar themes, but as I'll never ever read K/S (sorry, my passionate hate for Kirk has calmed down considerably from my youth, but I won't bother reading anything with him as part of a slash pairing...oh, except I did like that one Kirk/Chekov sort-of-AU one...but never mind, other than that one story, no Kirk for me >_<) this fic really delved into the Vulcan vs. human, the bond and its emphasis on mental closeness vs. physical, etc. There was even action (of the non-sex kind ^^) and a diplomatic crisis! Seriously, this fic is LOVE.

So I need to go reread it again....At least this is more fulfilling than rereading a WIP that promises to not be finished for years and years and years (if ever).