In honor of today's XKCD and because I'm feeling malevolent as a result of work this week, let me find some of my favorite tropes pages.

Dark is Not Evil
Nintendo Hard
Let's Get Dangerous
Crystal Dragon Jesus
Personality Powers
Ravens and Crows
Psychopomps

And of course:

Crowning Moment of Awesome

You're welcome.

No Halloween costume I could ever conceive of can ever beat this.

orz. I really do apologize, but I just reapped Yunalesca on a whim. I did ... not really have the muse for her and I really am, very, very sorry. ;;

friend remove yevonschild plz.

I apologize, I kept her going for as long as possible, but the voice has left and she really didn't talk so much anyway.

Maybe if Colfer does more with her that will embellish her canon, I'll take her back up, but as for now..

Please remove Minerva from your f-lists.

so, friend remove corkscrewcurls

Send any and all news or story recommendations to ff.press@gmail.com or leave them in the comments of the most recent issue. Before sharing any links to fanwork, please make sure you have read our listing policies carefully; all fanwork must meet these policies to be listed. For older links, please check the archive.

Activities
yuna_awards: Visible Text/Provided Images - icon challenge
ffxiii_awards: Upside Down - icon challenge
yesterdaylaughs: Genesis Awards accepting Final Fantasy X fics
ff_awards: Hot Stuff - icon challenge

Fanfiction
Final Fantasy VII Compilation
( Unspecified FFVII Canon )

Final Fantasy X/X-2
auronlu: Love Her and Despair (30) (Auron, Isaaru, Maroda, Rikku, Elma) (PG)

Final Fantasy XII Compilation
Original Game
ellnyx: hello again, stranger (balthier, basch, fran) (NC-17)

Icons
Final Fantasy X/X-2
auronlu: 18 icons

Final Fantasy XII Compilation
Original Game
kanorin: 2 icons

Various
zxavir: 9 icons (FFXIII:OGC, Versus XIII)

Miscellaneous
chibirisuchan: Final Fantasy VII Sackboys (FFVII:OGC)

GUYS. AWESOME NEWS. MY DAD HAS ORDERED ME A NEW LAPTOP CHARGER (AND A SHINY NEW SOUND CARD.) This means I will FINALLY be able to resume my more regular tagging hours! (And also I'll have sound so you can actually link me to videos!)

Things are gonna be the same as they've been for the past... god knows how long until the stuff actually comes in, but once they do, I'll finally be back in full force and will very likely apply for a new muse I've picked up recently in dressing rooms! :DDDD

yeah so maybe I just did lettering and panelling for 11 hours straight so what

☢ THE SELF-INSERT MEME
(Hint: This is a link, you are supposed to click on it and suggest a self-insertion fandom for me, then add your name to the meme post so others can do the same for you)

It's a classic on ff.net: "normal" girl with a name suspiciously close to that of the thirteen-year-old author lives her oh-so-mundane life until she trips and falls and wakes up in KONOHA or HOLLOW BASTION or HOGWARTS where the main characters of the show just happen to be walking by. The newly-displaced girl will be TOTALLY SURPRISED, but gee, you think the ~*~*swirling vortex of doom*~*~ would have been adequate foreshadowing.

Ever wonder what series you would land in if you were faced with a ~*~*swirling vortex of doom*~*~? Lucky for you, this is your chance to find out and write secret self-insert fic again--don't lie, we've all done it and liked it. ♥

❶ Post your username.
➋ Reply to others with which fandom's universe they would fit best in--ELABORATE AS NECESSARY!
➌ Pimp this meme out.
➍ PROFIT!!1!


Adding the explanation along with it since I know there are people on my FL who don't get how these things work otherwise. (Check out some of the other bad self-insert fics people have written, some of them are pretty hilarious. I liked the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi one someone did with some girl named Jamie. KOIZUMI IS TRAPPED IN AN INFINITE LOVE LOOP)

As I said already, I didn't take many Art Fair at the Square pics today because really, there were a lot which caught my interest, but I figured I would show the ones I did take.

( A few lame pictures from today that are nonetheless cool. Yes, that is logically consistent. )

And if that wasn't your cup of tea, carnality reminded me of the existence of The Gun Show Comic.

( This is fantastic but technically NSFW. )

Soooo I commissioned Isaia (she of Avatar fandom fame) to do a rough sketch of my boys, and she made it amazing (AMAL'S FACE :D) but what's extra cool is, she already had some fan art of them lying around, and sent that to me as well.

Genderbent (she and jankit seem to be in agreement)
and
Wee boys
...and the main reason I made this post is, I swear to god the instant I looked at this I heard TJ say quite proudly, "You're from India? That's cool. My mom says the devil put me in her belly."
kid you mastered uncomfortably halting a conversation before you even hit puberty, that is TALENT

Shovelled compost and planted fall squash and pepper seeds last night; shovelled mulch this morning.

Doing layout and panelling on ch. 8 and ch. 17 until this evening.

How's your weekend?

The Rueloon Tournament is now open!

Unfortunately we were two people short, so instead of putting the stray two fighters on one team and having them skip ahead, I signed up Maito Gai (my other character) for one team, and the other team is being assigned an NPC canon character (mod approved). Said NPC is Maru, one of the better human characters from Darc's canon, so he'll definitely be putting up a good fight! I'll be in charge of him as well.

As I said before, winners are decided by OOC discussion. Besides the fights involving Gai and Maru, I will not be interfering with any decisions unless the deadline of midnight on Tuesday (EST) is reached without conclusion. You can discuss the fights in the match threads or however else you feel comfortable - e-mail, instant messenger, whatever. :) Role-playing the fights are fine too. I will be posting here to let everyone know when round 2 will begin.

If there's anything you wish to contact me about, again, the fastest way is by e-mail: rock[DOT]hatake[AT]gmail[DOT]com. A general Rueloon info post is up on Darc's journal and linked to in the main tournament post. (Speaking of which, the "Rueloon Tournament" tag isn't working. :P)

And with that, mingle in Rueloon, enjoy the scenery and the colourful crowds and just have fun!

So last night there was some college party soiree bit happening, so Rachel and Shauntee brought Jared and I, who also dragged Julia along.

It was pretty fun. played some apples to apples, etc. Mike was there! BUT FJKDL;SAFJDLAS; He didn't recognize meeee ;_______;

I was so sad. I moped for 10 mintues, then I realized, hey, instead of mourning your loss, make him interested in you again. So I went over and made him remember me! It made my night ok again.

Played some rock band, karaoke, and oh, there was this cutie named Wes who was infatuated with Julia. so adorkable. Also, I went swimming, and I tripped over some risen up patio bit and my toenail is pretty much falling off ^^;;;

Tani, I'm really sorry about Mokuba dying. I hope you're doing ok.

I think I'm not going to worry about ever writing Faultline.

It was more a handful of characters I wanted to write about than anything- that's why I got nowhere with it for Script Frenzy. In the background there were vague ideas of genetically engineered humans, a corporation wanting to use those to bad ends, and the heroes getting mixed up in it somehow, but a coherent plot never formed. What exactly were Aileen, Riddle and their group railing against that got them involved in it? Why do the villains give a shit about them, enough to have Makoto infiltrate the group? Where could I actually justify a mecha for Aileen to hijack? What the heck are the villains trying to accomplish anyway?

But the four main characters (and funny thing, Riddle wasn't originally supposed to be an MC) stood out. They'll probably find their way into a story of mine somewhere once I get writing again. Kiyo, the reserved, accidental hero; Makoto, the cold, sexy, white-haired-pretty-boy traitor (and I hadn't even heard of the Evil Albino stereotype when I thought of him) who was originally going to be an android; Aileen, the bold, brash adventurous pilot who dyes her hair blue so people won't think of her as a dumb blonde; and Riddle the playful hacker who makes lousy jokes.

I probably used semicolons totally wrong there. Oh well.

Making Kiyo Japanese just out of anime fangirlism was probably the kind of thing people would call me an asshole for. But he'll stay that way if/when he shows up elsewhere. Makoto, despite his name, I never thought of in terms of ethnicity. Possibly his originally-being-an-android had something to do with it.


I do still kind of want to do something with Zan'tora someday, maybe change its name, give it a steampunk flavor (I can't picture it in the modern day) instead of generic medieval fantasy. I even have a very basic plotline there as well as a few standout characters. It's the worldbuilding that bogs me down.
I wonder if I should be moving on with that without Ari and Kwoiffei's okay though. It was originally all three of ours', when we tried to make an RP out of it.

If I can get my muse back in time to get some characters and a basic plot together, I may use that Internet Idea I mentioned a few posts ago as a NaNoWriMo. See if I can get past 5,000 words this time- although it'd be hard to hit 50,000 words in such a format without a dumpload of padding. The very concept kind of calls for me not to stick to a single plotline anyway. Half story, half character study? Who knows. Can't study characters I don't have yet.

... Or maybe the Faultline four could *be* the characters. They're supposed to be adults, why am I thinking of high school now?

Because jagan_glare made me do it: pretty self-explanatory. Come up with a drinking game for your characters, or for DDD in general. Then share it with the rest of us, so that lulz may be had.

Yeah. I seriously had an adventure today. I got a phone call a bit before two from my cousin Phylicia, who lives up in Vermont. She and her friend had come down to Massachusetts to go to Six Flags and somewhere around Chicopee, their car broke down. So after some internal debating and calling work to tell them I might be late, I got my brother to get some directions to the gas station they were at off of google and off we went. I mean, I couldn't just leave her there. My mom was at school, my dad was at work, our aunts and uncles are either out of state or farther east, and since my grandmother has Alzheimers, my grandfather can't exactly take her out with him in the event she wanders off or something and she can't be left home alone either. Besides, I'd feel like a total piece of shit if I abandoned family like that.

It went smoothly enough at first until we got closer to the Granby/Chickopee/Springfield area. We got lost and turned around several times until we stopped at some convenience store. The clerk wasn't much help but some guy with a tan and a really baggy shirt managed to point us in the right direction. We soon found it, as well as my cousin and her friend. So from there we tried to find our way to I-91 and got a little lost in the process, but after stopping for directions twice, we found it. Then once we got off, they decided they were going to wait for the friend's dad to pick them up at the Holyoke Mall. So then we got lost looking for that and stopped once more in Springdale (I think) and got directions, only to almost get lost on the way there courtesy of a wrong turn, but we found it by continuing a little down the road. So after we let them out at the mall, they gave us the simple instructions to get back home. Luckily, we managed not to get lost on the way back to Route 2. However, at this point I was already late for work and I still had to drop off my brother at his friend's house. So I did that before turning around for work, ending up there about an hour late. I had a decent shift, luckily it was slow, so I didn't have too much fitting room work. At 9:20 the store was decently clean so me and my coworker got to head off early. So I spent that time to go fill up my recently drained tank and drop off my coworker at home.

I finally got home at 10, and its amazing that eating a slim jim while you pump gas will remind you of how hungry you are, if you failed to eat anything from when your brother wakes you up at 12:30 in the afternoon to that point in time. >_>;;; So I had dinner when I got home.

EDIT: Now including this handy map I color-coded to illustrate where I've been. Green is the start point (2pm), red is the 'end point' (6:30pm), purple is the route there, blue is the one going back, and orange is my return trip home.

On the upside, friend's and family night is tomorrow so I've got a couple things on hold and totally looking forward to shopping while I work. :3 Also making note, if I have some extra money, I need at least one new shirt for work.

And for some random entertainment, a video I found whilst hunting around youtube:

I'm still very confused by the whole RaceFail '09 thing, but what I can gather is disheartening.

So... if I write only white straight female characters, I'm racist (along with presumably misandrist and homophobic) but at least know wtf I'm talking about. If I try to write anything else, even if I'm consciously avoiding negative stereotypes I'm Doing It Wrong and offending readers of that character's ethnicity/gender/orientation, or I'm commiting cultural appropriation (still not totally clear on what that entails,) and either way that apparently makes me a racist (and/or misandrist or homophobic or anti-furry or what have you) asshole. o.O

idk. And I know that's behind the times but it was mentioned in a fandom_wank thing I was reading so I was finally trying to find out wtf went on a few months ago.

pretzelcoatl, think you could explain better than all this tl;dr and wank does?


I haven't really thought about my characters' race, gender, etcetera in these kinds of terms. Although I do tend to make more female characters. They do tend to be white... I guess because being surrounded by white and Hispanic (is that still the PC term? hah since when did I care about being PC) people for the most part has me used to the majority of people being that. idk. Does that make me a bad person? A bad writer?


Edit: I wasn't trying to make myself look stupid, I swear.

Send any and all news or story recommendations to ff.press@gmail.com or leave them in the comments of the most recent issue. Before sharing any links to fanwork, please make sure you have read our listing policies carefully; all fanwork must meet these policies to be listed. For older links, please check the archive.

News
ffnews: Four Warriors of Light Trailer and a Face Lift.


Fanfiction
Final Fantasy V
kunenk: In Touch (Farris,Lenna) (G)

Final Fantasy VII Compilation

( Unspecified FFVII Canon )

Final Fantasy VIII
edenbound: Thin Red Line (Quistis,Selphie,Seifer,Zell,Squall,Irvine) (PG)


Icons
Final Fantasy VII Compilation

( Unspecified FFVII Canon )

Various
   19 icons by warangel88 (FFVII,VIII)

Vids
sekiharatae: Cloud/Tifa AMV.

Searches and Offers
setharael: Looking for a Sephiroth/Angeal/Genesis/Zack fic:The White Room.