cry havoc

Hello, fandom, my old friend. Been so long I've almost forgotten how crazy you are. Almost. It's okay, don't call me, I won't call you.

ANYWAY. So. Noragami. One of the first anime in like forever to really capture me, which tl;dr means: why the hell have I not seen in-depth, sparkling, thought-provoking commentary from either of the Emilys? -- branchandroot and annotated_em, that is. Or even starlady who is not an Emily, but does begin with a vowel, so that's close enough. ONE OF YOU. Satisfy my need for analysis! Or I shall be pushed to poke ivoryandhorn or phoebe_zeitgeist to carry the weight. Which I might do anyway, because analysis.

SOMEONE. AVAIL ME. My former fandom status as a near-BNF compels you!

Also, I just got home after enjoying two glasses of some really nice reisling, the name of which I totally meant to get and did not. In case you couldn't tell from the random name-dropping. Where is my next episode of Noragami? Or my next scanlated chapter? I'm retired from scanlating, so I'm able to say again that scanlators are toooooo slow. Damn it.

Should reisling be capitalized? Inquiring minds want to know. Leik yesterday.

I actually had to explain tl;dr to my sister this evening (while texting). Either I'm hipper than I realize, or my sister is seriously out of touch. I'm guessing the latter. Very eye-rolling, so sigh.

Also also, I realized while talking to my other sister that I AM the disruption at work. Go me! Doing prototypes and shit that will cause nothing but trouble for other departments, and this is WHY I was hired. This is awesome. I'm causing trouble and I'm getting PRAISE for it.

I'm considering changing my tag from "analysis is my chocolate cake" to "analysis is my greek beignet" because holy fuck you people, this shit is awesome. I am addicted to greek beignets. I shouldn't be, but I am.

I just realized that 'reisling' is another exception to the i-before-e rule. Which reminds me of the time I got sent to the principal's office because I demanded to know why 'science' broke the rule of 'i before e except after e'. Yes, newsflash, I have always been a troublemaker.

There was some other also to add, but I forget now. Where's my extensive analysis on Noragami already?

A completely tongue-in-cheek (or shark-tooth-in-kneecap, as case may be) representation of the past twenty-four hours' realization that coming out from under the bed was A BAD IDEA. (You know I love you guys... right? You do know that, right? Right?)

A visual representation of my brain right now:



( It starts with a story. IT ALWAYS STARTS WITH A STORY. )

That is my brain, on fandom.

in case it's not obvious, this post is a JOKE, and mostly on me: because some fandoms days you're the shark, and some fandoms days you're the chum.

Over the past two or three weeks, there've been an awful lot of people subscribing suddenly. *shifty eyes* I'm not entirely certain who to blame who to thank. Instead, if you don't mind, please use this thread to introduce yourself.

poll results for readers' choices:
story/narrative analysis 93.1%
snark and rants 82.8%
fandom meta: 86.2%
fiction critiques 79.3%

I know someone on my flist posted a review of a bunch of different writing tools, both PC and Mac, but now I can't recall who or where. Could the esteemed person who did so, please speak up? I'd like to be able to forward a few folks your way, to get that information for themselves. It looked pretty handy, but since I've got Scrivener now, I only kinda noted the info and moved along... naturally, since I only seem to do that when it's info I'll find useful later. (Go figure, eh.)

So, who was the brilliant person who posted the variety review?

Went through the stack of books by my bed, and those that had been by my desk (until being moved into the second library while I laid the floor and had to practically hang half the house from the ceiling in the meantime) -- and after months of going to bed with the last sight before sleep being a stack of books I just couldn't ever seem to find the energy interest time to read, I decided it was time to get over the guilt and find them new homes.

( But before that: looking for folks who loved any of these books just so much, enough to tell me what I might have been missing (or a better mindset to work myself into) when reading... )

1. Reply that you wish to take part, and I will pick four of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee!

recession picked these four:



( Icon the first... )



( Icon the second... )



( Icon the third... )



( Ahhhhh, this one has its own entire LEGEND. )

As long as we're on Old Stories Week -- and given some of the possibly* accurate criticisms coming down the ff.net pipe -- what the hell, I went back and reread the first twenty or so chapters of Drums. I don't think I've done that since I revised, back in Jan 2004.

O, M, G, the pain.

Not because I think the story's truly atrocious in a plotline sense (overall), but because the craftsmanship is just so... and, damn it, the characterizations, too. There are good points -- and where those counteract fanon, it may have been enough to offset the bad points of slipping into fanon -- but some things just make me cringe.

[*I say 'possibly' because when the critique-review arrived, I couldn't actually remember enough details to know whether the crit was based on story flaws or were opinion. That's a good chunk of why I went back and finally, after all this time, reread.]

Ah, well, though I don't think I'd ever revise -- I wouldn't do that to any of the long-suffering archivists who had to code the 2003 edition, then the 2004 semi-revision -- there's a part of me that wishes I could, just as a matter of principle. Because I know I can write better than that, now, that is. What I wrote then was pretty complex and not too bad for someone who'd never written something that long and involved before, but compared to now?

Did I mention the cringing?

If you're one of the folks who've not read, and don't want spoilers, then skip this. If you have read and hated it, maybe you'll find I agree -- lo these years later -- with your complaints. Or if you didn't read because you knew beforehand you'd hate it, then maybe you'll enjoy me staring critique in the face. Who knows.

( Anyway, there be spoilers here, if such matters to you; otherwise, here be major segues into characterization analysis, too. )...and that's probably more than enough of that.

One last thing (and should I be posting this on gw_analysis, instead?) -- I just realized. With the exception of Relena, all the other 'mirror' female characters at some point or another strike out at their male counterparts. Doesn't Sally pull a gun on Wufei at some point? Hrm, I thought she did... but I know Hilde has Duo at gunpoint and backs off when he talks about his genuine reasons for assuming his role; Cathy strikes Trowa outright to snap him out of his suicidal intentions; Dorothy does her best to gut Quatre. They're not all at the same point, either, in their relationships -- Hilde's met Duo once or twice by then, and then has to apprehend him as a felon, while Cathy's been a sort of big sister to Trowa for half of the series by then, and Dorothy had only just met Quatre in person. But for each, I find it curious that they're antagonistical towards their counterpart-pilot -- and Relena is the flipside, in that it's Heero who's constantly pulling a gun on her, instead.

Hrmmm. Damn it, why does this storyline always pull me back in?

Heero: You done yet?
Duo: Shut up.
Heero: Gave up on finding it, hunh.
Duo: Shut up!
Heero: That's because you suck.
Duo: Your mom didn't seem to mind.
Heero: O.O
Duo: ...
Heero: *smug* I am so telling everyone you said that.

.