A Daydreamer by Day, A Writer by Night

Reflection on My Top Kudos

2020-10-27T16:07:51Z

Although dwelling on AO3 statistics never does an author any good, it still is fun to observe it from a distance and ponder about what is popular from your stuff. I find my top kudos to be really interesting because only two of the five of them make any continuous sense. For some reason, three of my one-shots from fandoms I've wrote few stories for are in the top kudoed spots (two, three and four). Out of the 48 stories I have, some of which don't count since they're very short and have little kudos to begin with anyway, although 23 of them come from the same fandom, three sleeper hits skyrocketed above them all. They're surprising hits because even to this day years later they're STILL getting kudos regularly. Plenty of one-shots die after the initial post, but not these three which facinates me. What causes this in fandom? Who is telling people about these one-shots or are they easy to somehow find that so many people are still seeing them? I think it's the latter but it could be some of the former too. Who knows? There's too many variables to count here.

The reason why one and five aren't all that interesting in comparion is because they're predictable at face value. My number one is a long fic in my most written fandom, giving it amble time and opportunites to get to its current 457, especially since it still has a chapter and an epilogue yet to be posted, it still has even more time to grow and will continue to grow in the future long after I'm done with it since it's on the first page for both the highest kudos, highest hits and most words for this pairing—people are bound to find it regardless of what I do with it now. I haven't touched it in almost a year, but I still get a kudo now and then. It's slowed down considerably, but I doubt anything is going to bypass it anytime soon. If anything does at this point, it'll be that damn one-shot in second place at 358 kudos because I swear I get kudos at least once a week for that one, jeez. Likewise, five is from the same fandom and pairing as one, meaning as long as people read one they'll look at the other fics and eventually read five, keeping it steady as well. Since it was the first one-shot I wrote for this fandom it's had longer time to gain kudos above the other one-shots I've written for this fandom. Unless a new fic gains a lot of unexpected traction, the older stuff always triumphs above the newer stuff an author puts out. That's something to remember if you ever get discouraged by numbers.

Two, three and four don't even have anything in common. Two is a fluffy one-shot for a popular enough pairing that, yes, means it'll have legs but it should also become buried within the other stories, right? BUT it's also a fic of the lesser popular pairing in the fandom, so it has less chances of being moved down as much as the other popular ships. If it gained enough attention to speed itself up higher than average in kudos it could keep going, but I'm still convinced word of mouth is doing something here too and I'm just unaware of it. It's hard to garner what fics other fans talk about with each other since that stuff is private amongst friends. With three, it's diffierent. Three is a rare pair of a lesbian couple that was sparked from the newest season which caused some interest enough for people to write about them. My post was around that time which gave it an edge, but tbh here, there are way more intricate stories to peruse now than back then. It really shouldn't be gaining anything still and yet I see it crop up in my emails enough to be noticeable. Though, as a rare pair with around 100 stories (next to huge pairings with 1000s), it's likely this story will keep being read regardless because of its scarcity. Four, on the other hand, once again is a popular pairing but not the most popular. My story, unlike the others I just mentioned, is SO FAR away in kudos and hits in comparion (around page twenty). Perhaps being popular means people will go farther than average into top kudos and hits because it shouldn't be gaining any attention now. I guess I shouldn't underestimate peoples determination to find more fic they haven't read yet!

There are understandable reasons for why these fics would be here, but they still feel like outliers to me. I certainly didn't think they'd beat out my other stuff in the main fandom I wrote for which isn't too small to compete against these fics, but in fandoms you aren't as versed in they can surprise you. Though something to chew on is all three of these come from popular fandoms—some of my other fics won't ever have the chance of making it here because of how small they are. That's probably the real reason they feel like outliers since I tend to write for smaller or moderate fandoms—whenever I write in bigger fandoms I'm always perturbed and surprised by the response if it's bigger than expected. Honestly, I should have expected these turn of events even if I don't understand them—authors and readers almost never agree on what stories are their best, after all. Some fandoms will just run away with your story and you can only watch in mild bemusement lol.

comments

Osomatsu-san & Hetalia

2020-10-27T14:32:30Z

Osomatsu-san season 3 started several weeks ago and I've been keeping up with it each week. It's been very good so far, expected given that at this point they know the formula for their comedy and characters, but they've included an unexpected continued plot throughout the episodes about these two AI who have unsettling plans for the sextuplets that we don't understand yet. Considering how this show is usually skit based and episodic except for the end of each season, this was surprising and yet it's been working really well! I was definitely on edge when watching the recent episode because I thought something bad would happen, but the AI only managed to upset every one of the sextuplets friends and send three of the brothers into their coffins for it... which, trust me, isn't that big of a deal in this series. They'll be better next week... if things follow the usual pattern anyway.

Likewise, there was an ending skit that got me interested in a totally different way. It was a parody of magical girl anime, but with the twist that the magical girl was spiteful and jealous instead of kind and sweet, so giving her powers led down a strange path where she murdered the rivals for her senpai and scared the poor guy off. That isn't the point—the point is that all the characters were, as they usually are in these skits, alternate versions of the sextuplets, meaning the sibling playing the magical girl in this one was portrayed as being in love with the sibling playing the love interest. Not that this actually matters since it was an alternate universe where 5 of the 6 sextuplets were unrelated women, but if I know the fandom well—which I do—well, I wonder how they're taking that? lol. There are so many people in the fandom who can't handle the fact the series caters to fujoshi and loves to make jokes of that nature. They always get into such a tizzy when they're forced to remember that fact. They want us to go away, but if they want a show without this content and fandom sphere they'd be better off litterally anywhere else. Not to mention there are so many teenagers who don't seem to understand the show is for adults and therefore the show will make adult jokes they may find uncomfortable. If they just stayed in their corner and we stayed in ours, there wouldn't be so many absurb outrages, but as we all know fandom doesn't know how to pull that off. I decided to stay away from tumblr this week because of this just to be safe.

Lastly, there were rumours going around about Hetalia getting a new season and they turned out to be true. Exciting since I was actually wondering recently when a new one would come since it's been a long while, plus I've been dipping my toes into the fandom side of things for the last several months, so it's the perfect time for me! I've heard that the skits will be based on newer manga pages or something? A new manga is coming out around the same time as this so that would make sense, I guess. I know there are people in the fandom who really want new countries and, although that would be cool, I hope they don't ignore 'the main' ones too much this new season. I've never managed to connect with the side ones like the Nordics for example—I assume it's because they came in too late? Their dynamic has never interested me and I'm afraid that will be the case again with this season. Personally, I only own season 1 through 4 on DVD, so whenever I think about season 5 & 6 I start to draw a blank, so I should probably watch it at some point before season 7. I also kind of want to get the manga or read some of the web comic more because there is some real winners the anime never gets to. Also, as a side note, am I the only one who always gets surprised every time I'm reminded this series is made by a man? It's the type of series you'd expect a woman to make so it always trips me up. This guy's art is awesome though—tbh I think his stuff looks better than anything the anime has done.

I seemingly only get attached to comedies by the looks of things. I wonder why?

comments

Phooey

2020-10-13T15:37:33Z

Apparently, without my knowedge, some one-off comment I made months ago upset someone on here I was subscribed to and instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt and allowing me to apologize for my actions, the person just did the totally reasonable and mature thing to do and kicked me from their journal. They had been quiet about the comment until now so I assumed they were busy and didn't have time for it—it was a long comment, I talk too much—so I had long since forgotten about it anyway and had moved on. Some people I guess just aren't so good at that and prefer dredging things up unnecessarily. What a stupid thing to wake up to.

Now, see, it's not like I don't think it's in their right to pull a move like that. If you're uncomfortable by something it makes sense to find a way to avoid it, but there is such a thing as being too trigger happy and I think social media causes people to be overly defensive—just a tad. Now, I have no idea exactly what in the comment upset them and no idea how to avoid such a thing in the future. Communicating with people effectively helps them grow and learn from their mistakes, but I can't do that now because they didn't give me that right. It's upsetting. I don't care if you don't like me around, but how dare you make it impossible for me to understand what about my actions were wrong and needed to change. How dare you rob that from me—or for anyone else that this might have happened toward. I have no doubt this is a pattern and an unsightly one at that.

I'm sorry. I'm sure you were hurt and because of that you weren't thinking clearly. I'm just another name without a face so it's easy just to discard me because I'll be easily replaced by new names without faces. I guess that's what happens when you feel like you have enough viewers that you can just do something like that and not be bothered by it. It becomes the better option. I wish you would have allowed me to understand, but if I stumbled over a minefield of heartache that's not something that can be easily given. I can accept that even if I don't like it. Though the point is made that this grievance wouldn't have been spoken about in public if you had given me that chance. Now, I have no choice but to get my feelings out somewhere. I would have apologised quietly without a second thought if you had let me. You didn't. I wonder what has happened to you in the past to have made this your first response when one mistake is made by someone. If you've had your experiences underminded and belittled before, then I'm sorry to have accidentally contributed to that. Even if I don't understand exactly what I said, I'm sorry.

Even with that in mind... perhaps a middle aged woman in her forties should have some patience for a dumbass 22-year-old who doesn't know any better. Your actions make me look more mature than you, making you look like the child, and I'm sure that wasn't something you would have wanted but it's there all the same. Situations like this always seem to remind me that adults, no matter how old they are, never seem to be as experienced and as wise as they want you to believe. In a lot of ways, personal hardships can make you be as young as the day you first got them. What a disappointing prospect to know I won't be any different in the future.

comments

AO3 Fundraiser Flop and New Platform Fanexus

2020-10-12T22:00:28Z

This recent AO3 fundraiser was different and I'm not certain how I feel about it. On one hand, I understand the decision to make money less of an issue considering how much they had already saved up AND the desire to create more members, but it all felt a bit abrupt and disorganized, if that makes sense? Like, some people really didn't get the memo on what was going on and refrained from donating because they thought this wasn't the usual fundraiser—and in many ways it wasn't considering its different goal. They didn't even reach their goal of 5000 new members, they only got over 2500 which is honestly pretty sad. It kind of makes it obvious that not many people want in on what's going on with the orginization, but I was a member for an entire year and the only thing that happened was that election—and not a lot of members even took part in that—so there's not a lot of incentive to even bother. I can understand their intention, but framing it like 'oh, we'd like more members' probably caused less people to bother donating the money needed to be a member than if they kept with the usual 'we need money' schtick. Donating ten dollars for most people is a reasonable amount, unless you live in poorer countries or conditions, so they probably would have become members regardless of their desire to be so. When people are told directly that they'll become members, they just don't bother. I didn't put more money in to donate either, even though I knew my membership was probably expired by now. The drive ended so quickly that I didn't have any time to decide! I think they should have let it go on a bit longer considering how short on members they still were but whatever.

In other interesting news, how about that new platform Fanexus coming soon? From what I've looked into, it looks super promising for something that hasn't even made it into its beta stage yet. The tagging system is already blowing me away. Three seperate blogs that you can use all equally as though they're main blogs. Completely nsfw friendly and adamant against bullying within the community. Attempts at preventing art theft. Ways to keep adult content with adults only (and if teens are revealed to have lied about their age, they'll be banned, which means it'll at least prevent them from coming to adult spaces and shaming us for 'corrupting them' because then they'll show they aren't supposed to be here and lose their account lol). All sorts of other stuff that probably won't apply to me but are still good. It's obvious this place isn't going to be particularly compelling to antis, since it's far to inclusive to all types of fans, from the innocent to the obscene. Not that they won't show up there, but they won't be able to hold power there in the same way they've never been able to hold power on AO3 which has pissed them off for years now lol. Still, I have high hopes for this place, I can definitely see it becoming something important in fandom soon if it plays its cards correctly. It doesn't have the same obstacles I've seen plague other sites. These people look like they know what they're doing and I just feel something strong about this. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but this one looks like another Dreamwidth and AO3 to me in its execution—unlike the other sites which only seemed like they were tumblr clones, this one feels like it's trying to be something MORE but we'll see. It still has time to crash and burn.

comments

Trapped

2020-10-09T08:44:31Z

I haven't wrote on here in awhile because I just haven't got anything interesting to talk about? I had some mental health crisis's, plus I was lazy. I've just been questioning my entire existance and why we humans are the way we are and do the things we do. You know, the usual stuff that happens when you're trapped inside your home and go stir-crazy. Worse bit was that I wasn't leaving the house before the pandemic, so it's been worse for me than it probably should have. I've just recently realized there were a lot of lies I've been believing about myself, inevitabilities I've thought were bound to come true because I have no control over myself obviously, and it's going to take so long for me to rewire my brain and realize their falsehood. I've been traumintizing myself on loop for years. I've just never thought I was normal, a part of the rest of the crowd, and it's weird to finally ackowledge that because of that feeling I've tried to turn myself into an irredeemable villian for so long. I've avoided being like others and it's been a detriment to myself, sigh. I hope to one day be able to live my life without feeling this deep-seated feeling of guilt, shame and self-loathing.

I also get the sense—and have been feeling this way for a long time—that I don't know who I want to be as a human living in this world. I think that I've spent so much of my life looking at others from the sidelines and reading copious amounts of fiction that from my point of view, I can be anyone and do anything if I wanted to—and that's absolutely terrifying! I'm looking forward and there are a million and one potential options and they all sound like they could happen in equal measure because I don't have any true conviction toward any of them. It's like I've been overwhelmed by the mere prospect of existing and choosing for myself that I've done nothing for years and now have no idea what I should be at all! I've always said things like I should do this or I have to do this, but never have I truly been compelled to do something because I want to and it means that every single time I've tried to do something I've given up. I don't think anything I want to do, if there is anything I want to do, fits with what everyone expects me to do. I'm not a person who does anything well if I'm supposed to do it, leaving me stranded without any direction. If I don't truly want anything of value, if I think nothing before me holds value above anything else, how am I to move forward and accomplish anything at all?

I think since I had depression throughout my entire teenage years, that it's understandable I don't know what to do with myself now. I walked through a haze and woke up in adulthood completely confused and scared and conflilcted. I don't have the experiences or qualifications my peers would all have at this point because I avoided committing to them. In fact, all my peers would be close to finishing college or university right now, huh? Here I am completely lacking in education because I couldn't finish high school despite my best efforts. Some people can succeed without it, but most people can't. Most people need it. Could I be the lucky few who turns out okay or am I shooting myself in the foot? It's not like I'm looking forward to a job that even needs higher education... but I'm not looking forward to anything right now. I swear it's mostly the pressure of looking like a bumpkin fool for never graduating that keeps me questioning it. If I needed it, then I'd get it, but not a second earlier. I know, I know, I'm not looking ahead and thinking of the potential and the regrets I'll have in the future, but it's too blurry and unfocused to see anything anyway. I don't want to do things just because the world says I need them, I want to do them because I want to! And yet I don't know what I want and that's the whole problem in the first place. I'll stagnate till the end of my days at this point. I hope I'll find a step forward soon before it's too late.

Wow, I didn't actually expect to say all this. I guess I'll try again some other day to talk about the more miscellaneous and less heavy thoughts I had on my mind. Perhaps I always have more to say than I ever let on...

comments

The Umbrella Academy Season 2 Ramble

2020-08-21T23:56:34Z

I watched The Umbrella Acadamy season 2 awhile back and wanted to sort of jot down my thoughts about it, but never got around to it which means time will erode my memory of both the show and what I wanted to say lol. Still, I want to say something about it anyway, if only because it's rare for me to get through shows because of my short attention span. Spoilers if you haven't seen the show.

( Read more... )

comments

OTW Election

2020-08-14T15:03:51Z

Phew. Just voted in the OTW election. Now I don't have to worry about that anymore. I can breathe easy. With five candidates and three spots at least one of my top three will get in, still the biggest problem I faced voting was the fact that all five of them were highly qualified. I have no idea how I was expected to choose properly, so I'll admit I just threw up my hands and voted based on who I randomly thought was best at that moment. Oh well. Here's to waiting for the outcome now!

comments

Reading Books Soon

2020-08-06T13:22:22Z

I'm thinking of trying to start reading books, like for real this time. Mostly because I want more stories to quickly get lost in, but also because I need the experience since I'm planning to write a novel of my own. I don't think I have a right to enter the industry without getting a feel for the selection that's already out there. The only problem is I'm not exactly certain what books I'm looking to read. I'm not in the know for what's good or not, nor am I aware of what genres I'm into. I have a few I've selected and found that my library has, so I'm going to start off with them and see if I'm interested in what they have to offer. Hopefully, I can continue them in a relatively persistent manner because I know whenever I try to read a book, I only get through the first few chapters and never go back to it. As much as this is my ADHD, I'm also assuming it's lack of practice and not finding the right story. I think it might be harder to find what you like in profic than fanfic because there's a much, much wider selection to look through than your average fandom. Luckily I bothered to check if my library had what I wanted to read and they actually did because buying a book and then finding you didn't like it or aren't going to read it is such a drag.

Unfortunately, I can't put any holds on these books yet because my library hasn't opened despite a lot of other branches opening in other areas near me. It's not applicable for me to pick up any books anywhere else, so I have to be patient and wait. On the bright side, it's supposed to open sometime in late August so I don't have to wait long. I could in the meantime read the book that's been on my shelf for years with only two chapters read, but I'm not ready to get back to it yet. I want to give it another shot though because it wasn't that I didn't like it, I just didn't want to keep reading it because... I guess I had other stuff I could do instead? I think because it was a lesbian romance I was less inclined to bother with it since I can find gay romance a dime a dozen in fanfiction so I rather persue that. The books I've decided to try out aren't romances so that shouldn't be a problem this time. Hopefully.

This is what I've got planned:
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - The premise for this sounds very interesting, but I'll admit it caught my attention because it promises wlw romance as well. It looks like it has personality—the summary straight up says the main character Gideon is running away and one of the things she thinks is important to pack is her dirty magazines. That tickled me because I think it's rare for a story to allow a female character to have that personality trait—at least it's rare to me. Stories—and society in general—don't want to ackowledge women sexuality like that so I'm intrigued in what this author might do with her female characters on that observation alone. Also, as a sidenote on the author, Tamsyn is a lovely name.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells - I learned of this series from a journal I follow and was instantly intrigued. Better yet, this story is apparently less than 100 pages. I can't possibly fail at reading something that is that short. One problem is that I'm not certain yet how much I like sci-fi and that will determine how much I like this book. I do like robots though and robots that start struggling with emotions they shouldn't have, the premise sounds interesting too, so here's hoping for the best!
Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis - Another sci-fi but this one has a background. Lindsay Ellis, if you've never heard of her, does media essays and analysis on youtube and has been doing stuff similar to that for a long time. She's been to school on it so it's expected she knows what she's talking about, but if you're still unsure she was also a Hugo Award finalist for her videos on the Hobbit and was one of the people who lost to AO3's win, so she's kind of a big deal. When I found out she was publishing a book, something she'd been working on for about a decade, I was interested in reading it even though the subject matter, aliens, might not be my thing. I want to support her so I want to give the book a chance.
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue - This one is historical and takes place in Ireland in 1918 during the flu. Ironically, this one's one of those stories that was written before the covid situation occurred but just happened to come out during it. This story caught my attention again because it's got a wlw romance as a side plot in it, but I do think it'll be interesting to follow a nurse trying to deliver babies of mother's who all have the illness or are in bad situations. There's also a female doctor in here that was a real person, so that's cool, I guess.

All these books are written by women and three have a woman as their main character. Two of them have lgbt+ elements too (three if you count Murderbot as rep for nonbinary). I'm not interested in reading stories that I can't easily relate to, so I'm already cutting out books that are written by a man and/or has a straight romance as a noticeable feature and/or has a man/boy as the main character. If I'm going to read, I'm looking for stories I wouldn't find in mainstream media like TV or movies (although I don't watch much of that anyway) and caters directly to me, so if you feel like it and think you know something that might fit that criteria, I don't mind some suggestions. I'm also at least positive I'm into fantasy, especially if it has a kingdom setting as I'm a royalty history nerd. Settings throughout history might work as well. If there's gay romance I want it to be wlw. I'll probably branch out later down the line, but that's all I'm looking for right now.

comments

NaNoWriMo Success

2020-08-01T18:04:59Z

Well, the event is over and as you may already know I reached my first goal of 30k words after 19 days, so I decided to keep going for the rest of the month. My new goal was shooting for 40k but I didn't think I'd get any higher than that. My other goal was to force myself to write every day, which I'm happy to announce I did indeed do! All 31 days were completed and I couldn't help but cheer over it. I find it hard to persevere on projects or goals, so it certainly was a confidence boost making myself write on a consecutive schedule.

Even better, although I hadn't thought myself capable, I actually did it. On the very last day, after struggling to get myself to just push forward on writing despite being drained and while there were only several hours left and a startling 2k+ words to write, I managed to reach the 50k goal I thought was absolutely impossible. I'm still flabbergasted. I was almost certain that although I was approaching it I would flub up somewhere, that I wasn't ready for such a huge number. Now I can see with my own eyes that when I try I can do it just fine. Again, definitely a boost for my self-confidence, but I also want to thank all the bloody projects that I was doing at the time, making it easy for me to flit to each one whenever I started getting bored. I wouldn't have been able to do it without all my wips, lol. It was a good thing seasonofkink was happening right now. I wrote plenty for slashficlets as well. Just lots and lots of stuff to do and keep me busy!

This has motivated me to think about collecting how much I write each month. Sure, I'm thinking about slowing down soon and giving myself a break to pursue other stuff, but it's something I think is worth trying. Not to create any goal or anything, just to see how my typical work flow goes since I have no idea. I'll think about it.

I'll document these relevant stats just for quick observation.

Final Word Count: 50 087
Highest Amount of Words in a Day: 3 246
Lowest Amount of Words in a Day: 151
Average Amount of Words in a Day: 1 615

A humourous detail is that the lowest amount and the highest amount happened right after each other. It was like I wanted to compensate for the previous let down of only 100+ words and so I overdid it that day. Only one other day, after all, broke 3k since it's not even close to my medium. The other stats like my writing speed I can't document because I never recorded when I wrote and how long I wrote for so those stats are wrong and won't be counted. I didn't realize that was a thing until later and didn't want to start recording it. Maybe I'll do so next time just to see what it has to say. Otherwise, I'm content not knowing for now. Time to finally breathe! :P

comments

Crunchyroll's Underpaid Translators

2020-07-28T18:46:45Z

I just watched an interesting yet upsetting video on the conditions of pay for translators under Crunchyroll's—the anime streaming site—employment. To sum up, they're only paid $80 per episode—something that takes hours or even days to complete depending on what needs to be translated. They should be getting hundreds more, in fact, their competitors charge much higher in that range (though by the looks of things still less than desired). There's no way to survive off of this pay for obvious reasons.

How are they getting away with this? These translators are freelancers who love anime and the idea of being part of this industry. They see it as giving back to the community. Before official sites translation was something people did as a hobby to share the work with a greater audience. They, of course, weren't getting paid before. Because of this it causes these people to undervalue themselves and their work and so they don't argue $80 when they weren't getting any money before.

This isn't exactly surprising coming from a company that started off as an illegal streaming site who stole fansubs from other people and then put it behind a paywall. It's obvious that the same company with that type of morality would be willing to exploit workers low expectations and joy of being a part of anime. This was the pay they started giving translators years ago and they refuse to budge it despite how much better the company is doing in recent years. They don't even give translators enough time between getting the episode and posting it to actually translate which can cause some inconsitencies and problems with the translation because of rushing. It honestly sounds like a mess.

There's also a bunch of other crap surrounding this company I won't get into. Just... there's a reason why people choose to pirate anime instead of paying for Crunchyroll's service. There's a reason why people scoff at anti-pirate zealots who praise this company's very existence and try to guilt trip you for 'not doing enough for the anime industry' like these same pirates aren't buying merchandise and DVD/Blu-ray's and manga/light novels/video games/etc. of their favourite anime when they come out. There are many other ways to support this industry than lining the pockets of a botched streaming service lol.

Here's the video if you'd like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6K-FOK_MrY&ab_channel=TheCanipaEffect

Also found this transcript with a video that is older but talks about similar things: https://floatingintobliss.wordpress.com/2019/03/23/crunchyroll-we-need-to-talk/

comments

Minor Annoyance

2020-07-27T19:59:09Z

The power keeps going off in our home for whatever reason. We're assuming it's not just our house but the whole grid. It only goes out for a few seconds or a few minutes, thankfully, but every time it happens I'm forced to reset my clock with the time and date which is super annoying and tedious. I have to go through each number one by one... It doesn't take too long but doing it over and over again is eye roll worthy. It could definitely be worse—and I've had worse—but hopefully it quits happening soon. Not likely since the cause is probably all the air conditioners and fans people are using right now.

comments

Sunshine Challenge #7 - Violet

2020-07-25T18:12:43Z

It's odd, but despite the fact I saw the banner for this challenge was a rainbow, I was unaware we were following colours of the rainbow until Indigo was used and I was like, 'why that colour???'. It seemed less specific than the others and it took some thought to realize what was going on lol. Silly me!

Anyway, purple is usually the colour I choose after pink when contemplating what colours appeal to me most. It's just a very GOOD colour. It makes me happy. I think it's very aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

The first character that I thought of was Malik/Marik Ishtar from Yu-Gi-Oh!. He's got the classic absolutely gorgeous purple eyes and wears a lavender belly shirt as his default outfit. I consider purple to be a royal colour for some reason and his desire to defeat the Pharaoh to become the new one fits the colour scheme in that way. If anything else, purple looks good on him XD. I genuinely think he has a very appealing design.

The next character that I was reminded of is Yuri from Doki Doki Literature Club. She literally has purple hair and eyes, a purple clip in her hair. Can't get anymore purple than her. She's a quiet yet sweet girl who likes to immerse herself in literature, but has some mental health problems... that get exacerbated because of outside forces outside her control. I think that her colour scheme really makes her stand out in that anime-esque fashion. It's memorable. She looks quite beautiful!

Lastly, Amethyst from Steven Universe is obvisouly made out of purple light. She's an amethyst, after all. She's a fun character and adds a lot to the main cast. Not my favourite from the show, but I was always happy to see her in an episode.

comments

English, am I right?

2020-07-21T21:35:15Z

Just discovered something humourous and eye opening. This whole time I thought canon compliant was actually canon complaint. The words were just too similar, two letters only switched around, it was hard not to get the word mixed up! To think people were saying their fic was loyal to canon instead of against it this whole time... This changes some things lol.

comments

Playing the Wii Again

2020-07-20T21:56:56Z

After some consideration, I've decided to put my old Wii in my room since I now have a TV and PS4. There is literally no room for this setup, but I'm trying to make it work. Unfortunately, I have to plug everything and pull the TV out and place it on a wooden chair every time if I want to play. I'm definitely going to try to figure a way around this, but I'm very touchy about changing anything in my room so I don't know what I'll end up doing.

The Wii is a childhood console of mine. Technically, the Game Cube was my first console and the one I have fonder memories of, but it was gifted to my family and wasn't originally ours. The Wii was something my brother and I got for Christmas, so it's the first one I actually owned. I feel like the motion controls were more fun as a child—I really don't like them as an adult and plan to use a proper controller whenever I can. Too bad sometimes you just can't. If you asked me, the Game Cube is one of Nintendo's best consoles and it's a shame it didn't do too well in the console wars.

I discovered we actually have Mario Kart and Smash for Wii, something I totally forgot we had. Mostly because my brother got it from somebody else when we weren't playing it anymore. They're just not childhood games of mine—those would be the Game Cube versions again. The big game I had for this system was Super Mario Galaxy, something that is actually nostalgic to me, so I started playing a lot of it today. I'm thinking of playing Mario Kart and Smash in a bid to unlock stuff too. I played a little bit of Smash with my brother already and it was fun, but took some time to understand the controls. I mained Peach, of course. Ever since I was a child, if Peach was playable I would play her. I have this thing for pink which makes me immeditely gravitate to characters that are associated with the colour lol. Also, I just like her a ton—she deserves better than to be captured all the time.

I also have Kirby's Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country I could give a second try over. Both these games weren't that good to me as a child. I seemingly always got confused about the controls with Kirby and DK I was just bad at it. I think I might not be that interested in platformers? Still, those are main Nintendo games to give a try. Oh, I also have Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess but not Skyward Sword which I wish I had. I never get far in TP even though I'm pretty certain I like it. Maybe I'll give it ANOTHER second try. Harvest Moon: Animal Parade is on there too. I'm not particularly fascinated by it (I swear the only HM/Story of Seasons game I truly liked was my Game Boy one Friends of Mineral Town, though I'll admit being a lesbian makes the dating options annoying for me—either I play as a boy or ignore the mechanic entirely and that choice isn't fun). I also have a few Lego games I could play for nostalgia's sake. Definitely a lot to get to so I'll certainly not be bored. Especially since the Wii alllows you to play Game Cube games on there as well. It's a perfect double deal.

comments

NaNoWriMo Goal Reached!

2020-07-20T03:43:28Z

Guys... I did it!! My NaNoWriMo goal was met just a few minutes ago! It took 19 days and I didn't miss one! I'm actually surprised about that as I expected myself to give in and skip a day, especially since I was going so quick toward it. I was even beginning to worry because I hadn't written all day, but I managed to get writing around ten and got 900 words in before eleven thirty. A quick save!

I'm still hoping for that 21 days badge and I might try to hit 40k before the month is up. 50k makes me laugh. That's definitely not going to happen, at least not this year. I'm just happy I finished what I set out to do. I might even want to take a break and stop all together. I'll think about it.

I'm actually technically still writing. I just wanted to get the last bit updated before the time ended and then say something quick here. I'll be getting back to doing that now. Good night! :)

comments

Sunshine Challenge #5 - Blue

2020-07-20T01:48:58Z

Okay, I can't skip this one. My icon won't allow it.

Anyway, Osomatsu-san, a comedy anime I like a lot has an interesting premise. The characters are six indentical siblings and the creators needed an easy way to distinguish them from each other. So, of course, they chose colours. I could have easily mentioned this with the other colours—all but orange so far was used for the siblings—but I only think my favourite of the boys matter for a quick talk about it.

Karamatsu Matsuno. He's associated with the colour blue and is the second eldest of the sextuplets. Where do I even start with his character? He's absolutely ridiculous. A classic comedy relief. See, this guy is completely painful. He wears sparkly pants, leather jackets, sunglasses indoors—the whole works. The picture of him here makes him look innocent, but trust me, look up pictures of him and you'll cringe. When he talks it's in flowery, poetic phrasing and everyone visibly ignores him when he speaks because of it. Like the rest of his brothers, he's a NEET virgin who can barely talk to a girl or find the motivation to be productive, but he has the high ego of someone who does both regularly. He thinks he's a sauve romancer, a cool guy, a great brother and friend. He calls his so called fans Karamatsu Girls and Boys.

But, you know, he's also a huge sweetheart behind all the shitty behaviour. He's selfless and kind, always willing to lend a hand at the detriment of his own health and, because of this, he's kind of the bullied one of the siblings. The brothers tend to walk all over him and ask unnecessary favours of him, using him to their hearts content. Karamatsu doesn't know how to say no to others and deep down he's actually a timid guy—the cool character he puts on is sort of an act, one he genuinely believes but an act all the same. When he was in high school he even turned out to be a very socially anxious person and its implied he started acting big and bold, with dramatic flair and painful performances, simply as a way to gain confidence in himself. It can be seen as a defence mechanism.

( Read more... )

comments

Huzzah, a Fan!

2020-07-19T23:23:02Z

Yay! My mom decided to randomly buy me a better fan (not exactly random—she was buying one for our chicken coop (yes, we have chickens and yes, like any amature chicken farmer, we have too many and are swimming in pointless amounts of eggs) and decided to get one for me too 'so I wouldn't whine about the chickens getting one while I didn't'.

She's right. I would have whined about it XD. Who wouldn't?

It's small, but my room is too so it fits just right. I'm very happy about this and glad I didn't have to spurge on it myself. I wasn't going to buy myself a new fan unless mine combusted and could no longer be used lol. My bedsheet recently got a prominent tear in it and I've reluctantly thought about getting a new one, but there's a part of me that's like 'but it isn't so bad, it's still technically doing it's job, leave it alone'. I'm just very stingy with my money! I'm unemployed, give me a break!

...Didn't stop me from buying two new games for my Switch though. I have priorities and that's 'fun first, necessities second' apparently. Whoops.

comments

Writing Update #5

2020-07-17T00:28:52Z

The NaNoWriMo thing has been going swimmingly! I'm almost to my goal in record time. Over 80% of the way there. I'm thinking of raising the goal up to 40k instead just to keep the momentum going. Also, despite some almost misses, I've actually managed to write every day (even though one of them was only 100 words XD it looks pretty weird next to my 1k+ words I always turn out but at least it's something).

The season of kink card's been getting worked on. I'm in the midst of writing two seperate stories, but I'm coming to realize I'm not very good at keeping my stories to the minimal requirements with kink involved. The first story I wrote is now over 20k words and just about to be finished. The story I started working on today is 3k in and only NOW starting on the sex. What can I say? I enjoy some backstory and buildup before we get to the dirty bits. I'm impressed with anyone who gets there quickly. I find only established relationship stories work like that, but even then the plot might make it take awhile for me still lol.

Still working on those slashficlets works. I've made it all the way to 21! Impressive if I don't say so myself. Likewise, I'm still working on some long fics on the side.

I've been thinking about slowing down on my consumption of fiction and entertainment, slowing down on working on things too. I think I need a break from fiction because I don't seem to understand reality all that much anymore. Mental health issues and all that. Replacing every waking moment of my life with fiction has fucked something viscious with my head and I've finally ackowledged it for what it is. I probably have OCD or something because I have continuous thought patterns that make me ill. I feel like I'm crazy and sick, so yeah, probably should cut back on the romance and sex fiction, maybe actually start paying attention to platonic relationships to get my head back on track. Sigh.

comments

Hamilton Musical is Relevant Again

2020-07-12T17:18:06Z

The Hamilton musical came out on Disney Plus. I thought I could sneakily get a free trial to watch it because I'm not paying just to watch one movie, but uhhh, looks like they don't have something like that? Figures...

Either I'm not going to see this musical... or I'll just do what I do with all musicals and watch the bootleg lol.

I never had much interest in watching it before now because I'm not that interested in American history or the glorification of American history, but the music I've heard from this show is really good and the clips I've seen look fantastic. Also, I know it's said too much at this point, but it's just so nice to see so many POC doing something like this together. I really want to experience this reimagining now but I'll have to ruminate on how.

comments

I Hate The Heat

2020-07-11T14:53:38Z

The heat is killing me! I'm on my period (yesterday I had bad cramps which sucks 'cause I don't usually get the bad ones) and I genuinely thought I was dying last night (or at least going to be sick lol). My room is like a furnance with one fan that might as well not be there half the time and yet I refuse to leave. It's only marginally better in the living room anyway. I'm so jealous of my brother who has a portable air conditioner and, like, two fans in his room! His are new and my fan is even broken and can't be forced into a stuck position which means it's constantly moving... jeez, I do not ask for anything from anyone in my home lol. I'm constantly overlooked because I don't speak out.

To think people see Canada as the always cold country... it's bad here too guys, trust me. We keep getting weather in the 30s celsius range (which is 90 - 100 degrees fahrenheit for Americans). It's so annoying. At least it's gone down back to 20s (but with that darn humidity that makes it feel worse) and it looks like we'll be getting rain. I can't believe when I was younger summer used to be my favourite season—spring and fall are so much better in comparison when you grow up and summer vacation isn't as exciting anymore. Winter can also F off, it's too cold and I hate it then too.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't like extreme weather—moderate is where it is at!

comments

Miscellaneous Observations

2020-07-08T17:05:43Z

NaNoWriMo Progress

I reached over 10 000 words yesterday for my NaNoWriMo project which is definitely a great turnout! I think I'm starting to get a bit weary though because I'm not exactly the type that is consistent with my writing. I bounce around a lot, which is why I chose to write for multiple projects instead of one because it was likely I'd get tired super quick. I don't write everyday, I write multiple times a week, and my brain wants to push back at this new schedule. There's definitely a subtle pressure to keep going because of the badges. I mean, I wrote seven days in a row and got the badge for it, so it would be such a shame if I mess up and don't get the 21 days in a row badge. You know, that type of pressure that digs at your psyche. It's a great motivator but is hell on the self-esteem if I fail.

I'm writing way more than what the site says I should be, but it also seemingly can't decide when I'll be finished as the number changes every time. It's definitely in the teen to early 20s range, which makes sense because 10k every seven days would lead to the 21st because my goal is 30k. I'm lowkey hoping I keep this up enough to reach 40k because I'll get another badge that way. It's possible. 50k seems impossible though and I applaud anyone who writes fast enough to pull that off. My biggest writing flaw is that even though I have plenty of time on my hands, I'm still a slow writer. I always feel bad when I see I've done 1k words in like, two or three hours. In my defence I also edit as I go and really think my words through before typing them.

Anime Announcement

Another thing that happened yesterday was that I discovered one of my favourite anime, Osomatsu-san/Mr. Osomatsu, is getting a third season! What's most surprising is that it's planned to come out in October and they just annouced it now. I knew it would get a third season eventually since it's a very popular series in Japan, popular enough to get a movie in 2019 and have a few successful phone games, not to mention the abundance of neverending merchandise. What do you expect from a reimagine of a series from the father of comedy manga? Just I thought it would come out in 2021, especially after the virus throwing a wrench in things. Yeah, the second season game out in 2017, so there was definitely a big enough gap in between, but I thought the movie would also slow things down. They certainly waited to the last minute to tell anyone about this, but I'm hyped by the unexpected surprise during a year like this.

( Read more... )

comments

Sunshine Challenge #2 - Orange

2020-07-05T22:57:18Z

I was thinking that there was definitely something specific I would be able to talk about surrounding this colour, but it took me a long pause of nothing before it popped up. What character fits orange to a T because they wear it so often to stand out? Well, Naruto Uzumaki from Naruto does. Even people who don't watch or read the series can recognize him from how bright he is. He's practically a living sun, not just because of his disposition, but also that yellow hair, expressive blue eyes and, of course, orange jumpsuit.

I have a tendecy to gravitate toward characters who are like this, all sunny and optimistic and cheerful. Characters like him just make you feel good and happy when you're down, although I won't deny the fact that Naruto can get on other peoples nerves easily in his early days because he's twelve and annoying. I think the sixteen-year-old one after the time skip is more interesting and fun, as well as just not as annoying? He matures a lot in ways that I like, but hasn't become a boring adult yet with an average desk job who ignores his family like Kishimoto apparently thought was good progression for his character. Everything is hopeful and good and the reality of his future hasn't tarnished his character yet. He's just a good boy looking to change the world and become Hokage (leader of his villiage).

He's definitely my favourite from the show. The series just wouldn't be the same without him, he really makes it for me because he brings the energy the show needs to be entertaining and memorable. Even when you're not that interested in what's going on or arks are lasting too long, his presence makes everything more tolerable. He's completely irreplaceable. Which is why they replaced him with his son. 'Cause anyone can fill his shoes as long as they're loud and rambunctious enough /s. I'll stick to the early days with this character, the latter just makes me irritated and sad. ~~Besides, fanfic is WAY better at writing his character anyway.~~

In conclusion, I think Naruto fits the bill for what this colour represents. He can be the positive sunny side or the annoying eye bleach orange can get, depending how you see him. Orange can be an awesome feel good colour and that's what Naruto is to me.

comments

Sunshine Challenge #1 - Red

2020-07-02T23:23:10Z

Red... red... Colour prompts I've recently discovered are quite hard for me. It's like there's so many ways to interpret a colour, so many associations that my mind draws a blank instead. I was so blindsided by the news the prompts were all going to be colour based that I, uh, prompty unsubscribed to the community. Although I wasn't exactly planning to do any of the prompts anyway, I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed at such a simple yet difficult task a colour prompt would be. I suppose that's why they chose colours though—in this way it's impossible for any two posts to be the same, so I can easily commend them for that one.

But, see, so many people are doing it on my feed and it makes me feel left out XD. Reading other peoples posts have given me inspiration and a little more confidence. So, I resubscribed and I'm going to give it a try if I come up with something. Here we go!

Red is actually a colour I like quite a bit. I need red to make pink which is my favourite colour so it makes me think positively of this colour when I see it. The well-known meanings red has is so strong too—I would go as far as to argue it's the strongest colour on the colour wheel. It just exudes energy and passion. It can have bad vibes and good vibes. It really has it all when it comes down to it.

Love, lust, blood and anger are what I think of when I see this colour—such a conflicting amount of ideas indeed. I actually think of a specific character with this colour because he feels quite strongly (aka. he's a grumpy tsundere), is openly sexual and in hopeless love and desire for his best friend, and has a teeny tiny habbit for stabbing people. I've always assumed his favourite colour was red simply because I thought he'd love the sight of someone bleeding out so much he'd say it was XD. I mean, when making a comparison to dice in passing he once said he liked the word die and then emphasized the word, so I definitely have an in canon reason to believe this line of thinking. But, really, he just FEELS like the colour to me and so I say it's his favourite.

comments

Confusion Over Grammarly Scores

2020-06-30T22:06:14Z

Okay, I'm about done with this, so I'll say something about it. Who exactly is using Grammarly for me to always be in the top precentage of writers? Are they lying to me to make me feel good or something? Why am I always in the 90% range now? Certainly, there are many other writers doing the same things I am, right? What gives? Either I'm getting substantially better or people are writing substantially less.

For refrence, Grammarly sends you a weekly progress email every, well, week that showcases three catagories and how high you excelled than other Grammarly users: productivity (which I have at 99% at 322 829 words checked), mastery (which I have at 98% with 458 alerts), and vocabulary (which I have once again at 99% with 3 721 unique words). This isn't me trying to brag—I honestly not too long ago used to get abysmal scores in mastery (like 20% range), but amazing scores in the other two (around 70-80%), but that's kind of my problem? How did I get so much better than everyone all of a sudden in mastery? I knew my score was like that before because I wrote a lot of unique words which made the chance of messing up stronger, but now it's just the exact opposite and I don't exactly want to believe I've somehow gotten that better that quickly. It makes me wonder if less writing is going on during the pandemic. I mean, this change actually started happening around that time so it could be possible.

And yet, at the same time I can't help but expect MORE people to be writing. It's not like people have stopped working all together and with all the abundance of free time I would expect more stories being written too. More posts online. More emails. There's so many stuff that people could be using Grammarly for right now so I can't help but be weirded out by this sudden change. Like, obiviously, I'm writing more and that's probably affecting my scores as well, but that mastery one... I'm too confused and used to that low score to believe it.

Sorry, this has just been driving me mad and I had the last straw of it today. Thanks for powering through my unintended ego trip lol.

comments

The June Something Challenge [Final]

2020-06-27T23:42:08Z

Well, we're finally here. I'm surprised I managed to make it within the designated month. I thought I was going to miss and end up continuing into July, but thankfully that isn't the case. Yay!

What is something you consider headcanon that was never truly resolved in canon?

In Yu-Gi-Oh! Malik promises Bakura that if he fights his darker half he'll show him the secrets of the scars on his back which will help Bakura against defeating the Pharaoh. Unfortunately, Malik is never able to fulfill this agreement because they both fail and Malik's darker half takes over. By the time Malik gets his body back, Bakura is pretending not to exist again by hiding out in the millenium ring and Malik has turned over a new leaf and isn't evil anymore.

This isn't my original headcanon, but someone else brought it up once and I instantly agreed with it. Malik is shown wearing the ring before he hands it over to Yugi, then he reveals his back to the Pharaoh WHILE the Pharaoh is still wearing the ring and we are specifically shown that Bakura has read the words on Malik's back. The idea is that Malik was aware that Bakura was there and, not wanting to owe Bakura anything and also still feeling some connection to his old partner and their shared cause, willingly showed Bakura the markings as a final send off. It fits perfectly with the events that happen and sounds like something Malik would do, but also as a shipper of these two it makes me happy to think Malik would be charitable and respect their partnership and Bakura's revenge.

What is something you think fandom, as a whole, needs? Either literally, like a service, or figuritively, like a 'head slap'?

Fandom needs a social media site that caters to us instead of migrating all the time. We have places like dreamwidth and AO3, but nothing that works like tumblr or twitter yet. Also, a video sharing site would be nice. Archiving old music videos didn't happen and it's depressingly easy to lose them (at least that's what I've heard from fandom olds). Just places that perserve fandom and make fandom easier for all of us would probably be the best additions.

( Read more... )

comments