You know those "G" shirts that Massu and Tegoshi and... half of the people wear at some point during Summary backstage? (If I had it on my computer right now I'd screencap, but I don't. Anyway, ( I figured out what they mean!! )

The medical clusterfuck that is my family's situation this year continues to worsen, to the point that I feel I'm living in some Chekhovian comedy. NO ONE ELSE IS ALLOWED TO BE HOSPITALIZED THIS YEAR, FAMILY. I DECLARE IT.

On a happier note, let's talk Christmas! I'm not promising to send cards out this year for Christmas, because I'm always horrible with that promise anyway, and I'll be across the globe so it seems a silly promise to make. HOWEVER. I'm hoping to come back with a wide array of omiyage (we're talking the postcard and shop photo variety here), so if you want some Japanland goodies, leave your address. Comments are screened.

For "yesterday": Dial the Gate.

For today: Tewahedo Triptych.

Go play!

Two words of unclaimed prompt for certain people out there: Dante's Cove. Doubledogdare any of you. ;)

Hey guys,

Anyone have good recommendations for carpet cleaning services in the CBD that is afforableish? Bonus if they specialise in apartments with pets.

Thanks!

Hope some of you are enjoying the hot weather. I most certainly am not :(

Guys, I'm totally about to go see Rufus Wainwright in about 2.5 hours. HOW EXCITED DO YOU THINK I AM?

Also, just realized I haven't eaten anything except Nutella today. >.>

DRAWME!

I am a very good artist who wants to draw all of you


sexually

ETA: SOON WALLPAPERING MY USER INFO FFFFFFFF SO GORGEOUS YOU GUYS

Shokojo Seira
Episode 4, no subs yet
Rating: ??



( bedtime stories )

"Follow the Man" is so addicting for reasons that are completely and totally unknown to me. ( cont. )

Happy November, everyone. ♥ It's been good to me so far, and I hope it's been good to you.

we're working under time.

Today I am 26.

may be found in the comments to serrico's post on TPTB/fan interactions in Heroes, Castle, and SPN. I ,a href="http://serrico.livejournal.com/604910.html?thread=3257326#t3257326">wrote</a>:

---

Verra interesting. I don't know much about Castle, so I hope to see people here explicate --

but one of the correlations I notice is that "Heroes", from the get-go, had a bigger presence in FanBoyLand than in FanGirlLand, whereas SPN is the other way around. (observe: "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" is the *opposite* of Buffy's premise; "Heroes" assumes you do not identify with the cheerleader, she is not the agent of interest.)

Now, one of the differences between the FanBoyLand and FanGirlLand is, not a strict dichotomy but one of emphasis or tone: FBL interest is more likely to be on teasing out the world-building, wanting to know more about how the show/world is put together; FGL interest is more about teasing out the people-building, wanting to know more about the characters. Of course these overlap.

The question is, does Heroes' core male fandom prefer their style of interaction? Do they like the marketing-focused approach, which as you point out doesn't help the narrative and may actively distract from it?

How much of SPN's willingness to engage in back-and-forth with FGL comes from Sera Gamble, Fangirl on the Inside?

And what's going on with Castle? Are TPTB part of/aiming at FGL or FBL? Are they willing to accept a female-dominated demographic, if that's what they get? Tell me more!

---

Discuss at her post, plz.

News
- wneleh posted Media references to fanfic.


Art
Marvel
- rrrrizhaja drew 63'd Remy. (Rated,G )


DC
- johanirae drew Silence in the Office, Please . (Rated R) NSFW Jim/Bruce
- platypusbang drew Blowjob. (Rated R)NSFW Joker/Redhood.

Other.
- daikontime drew Lick Me . (Rated PG-13) Watchmen - Dan/Ror. The rest of the OP's art is here.


Fic
Marvel
- old_blueeyes wrote "Arctic Waters". (Rated , PG) Captain America/Agent 13
- mattiemogan wrote "Estrangement". (Rated ,R ) Logan, Remy, Storm, Rogue


DC
- noelia_g wrote "Both Sides Now". (Rated ,PG-13 )Bruce/Jim part 3
- aiyokusama wrote " A Better Choice (AU)". (Rated ,PG-13 )Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick
- dreykar wrote "Good Luck With Your Future Chapter 14". (Rated ,R ) Batman/Joker (Nolan verse)
- paisleydays wrote "The End Game". (Rated ,R )Nolanverse, Joker/Batman/OC
- changing_leads wrote "Agent of Chaos". (Rated ,R )Batman/Joker (Nolanverse)
- heatherhouse wrote "Voyeurism at its Worst". (Rated ,PG ) Batman/Joker
- vespertila wrote "Dance With Jack Ketch 3/3 ". (Rated ,PG )Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown, Nabiah (Cassandra Cain), El Murciélago (Bruce Wayne), Nighthawk (Dick Grayson), Robin (Tim Drake).



Other

- sequentialcrack recommends "Seven Days in Jack The Engineer's Head ". (Rated , R )The Authority
- sequentialcrack recommends "Love Is Blind, and Lovers Can't See". (Rated ,PG 13 ) Y: The Last Man

Drabbles and Ficlets
Marvel
- treehouse_kid wrote " Sunshine". (Rated ,PG ) Pyro and Iceman
- jtav wrote "Divided". (Rated , PG-13 )Bucky/Natasha
- muccamukk wrote "Ten Ficlets About Jessica Jones". (Rated ,PG )


DC
- angel_gidget wrote "Rule of Thumb". (Rated ,PG )Tim/Tam
- gentle_john wrote "This Am Not ". (Rated , G)

Fanvids and Fanmixes
- writingdestiny posted "Bigger Than Me". (Bruce Wayne/Tony Stark)


Challenges/Contests
- sequentialcrack has crossover recs day on Monday. Keep an eye out.
- cap_ironman has reminder for yultide fic exchange. Due date for prompts on Wednesday, 11th November, 2009..


Graphics
- katshakespeare posted icons of smallville and batgirl.
- katagaria posted Assorted Marvel Icons.
- t0ra_chan posted assorted x-men evolution icons.
- wolverina01 posted Wolverine Wallpapers.


If your post wasn't linked in today's comicstore_news, it may be because your header lacked information necessary for us to compile it. For fanfiction, we need a title, rating and either a pairing or character/s. For art, we require a rating and character/s. Check our user info for the kind of header we require.

Please leave a comment on this post with anything you'd like us to check out. To contact us regarding general comicstore_news questions or concerns or with information, please email comicstorenews@gmail.com.

I think it's been three weeks since I last posted my progress, supposed to be weekly so I should get back into this.

36 tasks done (doesn't seem enough for 3 weeks!)

7 personal (3 household, 3 errands, 1 TV (UK Queer as Folk S1 and 2)
25 TPP (4 ASif, 10 General, 4 R/SB, 1 BoE, 2 novellas, 2 Sprawl, 2 Horn)
1 A4
3 Craft

13 sent to Did Not Finish

(Oh and started new job, and sat Job Interview for Application 2. Reading for Aurealis Awards and Last Short Story also not on this list.)

Wax's favorite aunt visited for coffee (by which I mean Darjeeling brewed with leaves in a pot, which is the only time we don't use teabags, but obviously, we are a tea-household only and don't serve coffee, although we keep some around for morningfine; she has to make her own, though, we don't even know how). She brought a wedding present with her, two gorgeous pieces of sky-blue pottery. She bought them because she's seen pictures of Wax's blue crackle-glaze teacup on Facebook, but they accidentally are our main kitchen/dining color, and they are beautiful, really and truly beautiful. They are so beautiful they could easily have come from my mom's house!

Obviously, I'd prefer to have photographed them in natural light, but believe it or not, this was taken around noon in full light from the knee-to-6-feet-high livingroom-wide window: if I wanted to wait for the sun to come out again, I'd be waiting till probably March.

Original post on Dreamwidth at http://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/2761244.html. Comment there or read comments.

I haven't felt like blogging in a while. Thanks to those who checked in, I'm alive and ok. And doing a lot of things, as usual. Thank you for your concern! I have some big thoughts bubbling away and that's taking up a lot of my brain space. Hopefully things will return to regular programming soon.

While I very rarely picspam music videos, that's not the "something new" for picspammy. Janelle Monae is a new discovery; I found her short film/music video only days ago, thanks to a comment at yuletide. The song is wonderful, and the video hints as a fascinating world that I'd love to learn more about.

The video is YouTube quality, and I don't have much luck capping music videos under the best of circumstances. The video is included at the end of the picspam; I'd encourage you to watch it.

( I imagined many moons in the sky lighting the way to freedom )

KKM is frustrating me, which is so not good, because the show isn't deep, or complex. It's a fluffy comedy fantasy adventure with cute characters, where nothing of really big substance ever happens. Which is what I expected, at least, it's what I thought I expected. But I think somewhere along the way my expectations and the canon started to diverge and now I'm annoyed, not all the time, but enough that I think I'll stop for a bit.

It's just, although the series is light, and fluffy, it touches on things which, when you really think about it, are dark and complicated, but it never goes there, and that frustrates me. And some of the things which as comedic, or a funny, I don't find it funny. ( Read more... )

Anyway. Boring thoughts are boring. But it's all getting way too annoying and frustrating for me, and the show should be fun. I think I'm interrogating the text from the wrong perspective.

I've been thinking about this whole "interactive storytelling" thing TV's trying these days, and the difference, for some shows, between what it says on the label and what's actually in the can. ( Behind the cut-tag: Heroes, Castle, and Supernatural, discussed in a context that's only tangentially related to Marshall McLuhan. (NO WAIT DON'T--okay, I probably shouldn't have mentioned him, I see that now.) No spoilers for unaired episodes. )

*~*~*

It has been...many years since last I wrote an essay.

I have been staring at this thing for hours.

I hope it makes at least a little bit of sense to somebody, somewhere. Somehow.

It's bedtime.

*faceplant*

Ladies on the twitters asked me to upload a clip of me singing karaoke at PMX
but I have something uh better

3AM ACOUSTIC HALLELUJAH CHORUS FFFF

ALSO I HAVE A PLURK
IT IS HERE I have 4 friends yesss

My Girl
Episode 5, RAW
Rating:




( understanding )

I got a $2.20/hr before tax pay rise. I have never earned so much in a week before. Think I may be lower middle class, now. XD

My wife likes the second ones better because they're shiny, and the extra eyelets are clever, and Adam Lambert might wear them someday. Whereas I prefer the first ones' styling, though I would never wear steel toes for everyday - too heavy and, let's face it, I'm a 45-kg-soaking-wet weakling! But Getta Grip has a slightly different styling from ordinary Docs (I think it's a vintage style, though the site didn't mention which year it was from I don't think), and I definitely prefer it to the modern shape.

Original post on Dreamwidth at http://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/2760970.html. Comment there or read comments.

To describe work today would involve someone losing their appetite spectacularly so will refrain except to mention that after my pants dried from walking in pounding rain to the bus and thence to work, I had about ten minutes to appreciate it before there was an emergency shower, elderly British professors expanding my vocabulary considerably, and, yep, wet pants.

Failing chocolate, booze or someone teleporting me their cat, I would like a cookie. Or hot milk, that would be awesome.

Then I got home and checked the mail and found the results of the cholesterol test, in which Dr B said, and this is a quote, Wow, your lipids are really high! and actually SENT THE SCRIP so I could get on god damn Lipitor without delay.

Amazingly, and I feel this proves my love for Amy, I did not throw anything at her when she sat there reading the highlights out loud and sniggering obnoxiously. Brat.

HIATUS. My schedule this week is full of rape and more rape and I really won't have the attention span to pay attention to more than the Network this week, save for a CFUW game later in the week~. Assume Zack formed a party and took everyone into the woods to level grind. :|a

Well, everyone save for L, who's going home. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO PLAYED WITH HIM especially my amazing castmates ♥ There'll be a drop post after I return for anyone who wants a last thread with him. ♥

puzzle: Les Tres Riches Heures: November

We thought we had a fairly serious behavioral problem this morning when we found two suspicious wet spots on the arm of one of the overstuffed microfiber chairs in the living room. And evidence pointed to the youngest member of the family, namely one Sora, as none of the rest of us had a habit of marking the furniture. Although the spots were oddly odor-free, which was a mystery to ponder upon.

And then later this afternoon, myrialux heard a strange rasping noise, cautiously looked around, and discovered the nefarious evil-doer in the act ... Sora was indeed the culprit and he was caught red-handed!

Or, rather, red-tongued, as it turns out he was producing the wet spots by licking the chair, rather than anything more unsavory. Questions as to why he was licking the chair produced nothing but strong demands to be put down, as being held in someone's arms was far beyond the dignity of such a magnificent feline who had urgent business elsewhere chasing dust motes.

Crossposted to my Dreamwidth account at http://telophase.dreamwidth.org/1624840.html. You can comment here or there.

So, I've been struggling with downsizing. First things first, I have too much shit. Most of the shit is stuff people gave me, but far more than anything else, I have an asston of books as well as a bunch of DVDs. If you want to know where my disposable (and some non-disposable >.>) income went, the answer is: books. Aside from necessary life objects, stuff related to social engagements (food, movie tickets, gifts, etc.), school stuff (tuition, textbooks, supplies), and my Netflix and MegaUpload accounts, I only buy books and the occasional DVD (usually only ones $5 or less--exception: any Harry Potter DVD).

I love books more than anything else in the world, pretty much. I have an addiction, to be honest. I haven't read most of the books I have and yet I keep acquiring more and get lots of books at the library now that I've actually run out of space for new books.

Yeah, you read that right. I have no space for new books. Why? Because I have three large bookcases full of books in a bedroom the size of a prison cell. This might be taking things a little too far.

I mostly buy books used for pretty cheap (many good books in good condition for $0.50USD to $1USD at Half-Price Books, my favorite store in the whole entire world. Yeah, I'm even applying for a job there. It will be the death of me.

I also get some books bargain-priced on Amazon, on the occasion I'm lucky enough to catch the sale. I do preorder some books by authors I love and have no problem with that. I'm going to continue doing that because there are some authors that I like to support and some books I absolutely cannot wait for, such as anything related to The Hunger Games.

Many people, mostly people who hate rewatching movies or TV shows or rereading books, ask me why I buy books and if I'm ever going to reread them. And the answer is yes, I reread books a lot! Often, I reread the entire books, but more often than that, I just several specific parts of books that I loved.

I think, for books I've previously read, I'm going to ask myself if I'm going to reread it and if so, how often? Maybe once? Is it worth keeping it or should I just go to the library if I want to reread it?

For many, many, MANY books there is no question: Yes, I love that book to death, keep it.

For others, the answer is: Eh, I might. For the books I haven't read, I do plan on keeping them until I've read or attempted to read them at least once. After that, I'll decide how to categorize them. I read about 40-80 books each year so this won't be a HUGE problem if I focus on reading books I actually own instead of ones from the library. ;)

What am I going to do with these books? I may take them to Half-Price Books to sell them, I may send them to friends who I think would like them, I may even give some away here! Who knows!

And yeah, this is crossposted to my blog--sorry to those of you who see this twice. :P

Merlin, 'The Witchfinder': my favourite part was ( Arthur/Merlin. *GASP* )

The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn’t do anything else but write. He doesn’t have to write, and if he doesn’t feel like it, he shouldn’t try. He can look out of the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Write or nothing. It’s the same principle as keeping order in a school. If you make the pupils behave, they will learn something just to keep from being bored. I find it works. Two very simple rules, A. you don’t have to write. B. you can’t do anything else. The rest comes of itself.

Guys, if I applied this advice to school work, I WOULD HAVE SO MUCH LESS STRESS. No lie.

Concepts that are fun to run with are fun to run with.

Quick status-y update kinda thing. I'd called hiatus about a week and a half ago due to exams, and with those now over I'm pretty much back. Now, I wouldn't have bothered posting this to CFO like so if not for a new development--I've gotten a call from my old workplace, asking me to come in and help them with a limited project for the next four weeks or so. This coming week is my fall break so that shouldn't be a problem then, but I start new classes the next week after that and will be getting used to a new schedule.

Long story short--my activity level for the foreseeable future is likely to be fair to middling at best, although my weekends should remain relatively open. To those kind enough to've commented to my earlier Preemptive Relationship Meme, I can but plead for your indulgence--I'm gonna do what I can to abide by that, regardless.

Serious Poll: With Halloween over, I bow to the perception eminently popular in the retail community that Christmas is right around the corner to ask, "Do your characters believe in Santa Claus?"

So You Have Me for Yuletide

( Poor you. D: )

So there have been lots of links floating around in the wake of Publisher's Weekly releasing their list of the Top 10 Books of 2009, in which no women apparently wrote anything remotely worthy of being on the list. It seems. I've been following the responses to that - Tansy wrote a great one as did Lizzie Skurnick and The Mumpsimus.

I was just reading threemonkeys's post about what he was reading, and this really struck me:

Thinking of awards as a result of reading a bunch of short story collections. It would be hard to count how many awards all the stories in these four collections have won but it would be a very large number. In one case the collection as a whole won a World Fantasy award too. The collections were The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians by Bradley Denton, Things will Never be the Same by Howard Waldrop, A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti and The Fantasy Writer's Assistant by Jeffrey Ford. You might think one of those collections doesn't quite fit with the others. Don't think that, they belong together. But here is the thing. All these collections come from small scale publishers. All those awards and all the quality and all that enjoyable reading and the big guys aren't interested. I don't blame the big publishers - they are driven by what sells and short story collections don't sell in great numbers. I blame all those people who proudly say "oh I don't read short stories". People are entitled to taste preference, but I don't get the attitude that seems to go with it so often that short stories are somehow lesser things. Where did that come from.

I didn't do the Biancotti book for sales. I produced the collection because I thought it was a book worth doing. It struck me that not only do women seem to be conspicuously absent from awards lists (though that is not true for Biancotti), or year's bests (also not true locally for Biancotti) but they also seem, at least in Australia, to be much less likely to be collected in single author collections (and yet?). Or collected a lot later in their writing careers, once they have "proved" themselves (ah). I wanted to change this somehow and it seemed to me that the best way to do that was to put my money where my mouth was, to believe in female writers and start producing their collections, which was one of the reasons for this book.

The thing though was the sales on A Book of Endings have been really strong and the book is holding its own financially. It's not a book I will regret doing on any grounds - working with Biancotti was a fantastic chance to work with someone so brilliant and driven, and I learned a lot in the process and grew as a publisher and editor. The book has sold well, and it's only been out just over two months. It has also received the most attention and publicity of all the TPP books, including Horn. I'm proud of this book. And I'm proud of it standing out there as an example of the kind of books that I want to produce at Twelfth Planet Press.

Many people told me that single author collections don't sell. Many other people told me that readers had been long waiting for a Biancotti collection. It's hard to know what is really true until you test things out. The thing that strikes me though is that ... critical acclaim, and literary criticism and awards and best of lists seem so out of step with sales figures. A book can be considered to be "the best of the year", but ... if it doesn't really sell, and readers don't embrace it, what does that mean? (This question still stumps me, I have thought about it a lot and don't really know yet.) You can't argue against a phenomenon like Harry Potter or Twilight, books that got people who don't normally read to read. Were they good books? Were they *quality*? Were they not good because men didn't like to read them? If only young girls bought and read them, is it suddenly unimportant? Even if they bought them in extreme, beyond comprehension, numbers?

It strikes me as so odd to constantly go round and round having the same simple conversation - that just because you cannot relate to material and thus it doesn't capture *your* imagination, it is somehow a lesser book/story, yet if the book/story you think is great doesn't capture my imagination and I cannot relate to it, then there is something wrong with *me* and not the book. It seems so obvious to me that different readers, with different life contexts, would appreciate different books to each other. And that it is not only ridiculous, but pompous, ignorant and selfinvolved, narrow minded and unintellectual, that for a book to be considered "best/good quality/worthy" it must have the perspective, gaze and appeal to/for and of a white male audience.

I feel embarrassed now for the people who compile homogeneous lists and present them to the world. It's kind of like wandering onto a packed train with your fly down or a bit of toilet paper attached to the heel of your shoe. Everyone else is trying not to catch your eye and is cringing just a little inside. But the more these lists kind of keep happening, the more I think, "wow, you don't represent or even consider me, and what I am looking for in a reading experience". And I devalue the worth of the recommendation and I move on.

And the big question, do single author collections sell? I think the right ones do. Are they worth doing? I think the right ones are.

Wow, there's some serious ablism in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Suits the characters, though.

ANYWAY have a meme.

Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
• I'll respond by asking you four questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

From micaturtle:

1. Raphael the Manwhore? What does THAT mean? ... *blinka*
2. If you could date ANY fictional character, who would it be and why?
3. Last I heard, you had reproduced! How is your child(s)? (Or am I completely batshit in my memory/recall)
4. Are you planning on coming to Comic Con in 2010? Also, do you ever attend any other conventions?

( The answers )

This movie is pretty damn good. Lana Turner was pretty hot back in the day.

this just isn't my year.