ChibiRisu-chan
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "ChibiRisu-chan" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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09:41 pm
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There are times I would not believe my life if I was not living it myself
Finding oneself locked into one's own guest bedroom is not an event one prepares for.
House is from 1933. All the doors are original. None of them closed when I bought the place. I've replaced all the latches with same-period inserts and the original door hardware is still there. For 3 years this was no problem.
Tonight? Tonight I closed myself into the guest bedroom because it's also the office and the tea room, and the cat is not allowed into the tea room because he's convinced that somewhere there is catnip if he can only destroy enough to get at it. So leaving the door open is not an option.
Putter putter putter, tinker tinker tinker, done with project, go to turn door knob... and it turns and turns and turns and turns and I'm pretty sure it's gone all the way around and hey look at that it HAS gone all the way around and there has been a complete failure to engage the latch. And it goes around again. Oh fun. Now what?
Two windows. One goes out on top of the evillest thorniest (and best-smelling) rose bush ever. The other goes out on top of the giant thorny juniper bush. Did I mention I'm only wearing my pajamas? And that I don't know if my neighbors with my spare key are home from work? And that my parents live in another city? And that if I climb out the window, there is not a darn thing I can do to get back into my house because my purse is in the living room since, strangely enough, I was not anticipating needing my house key while going from room to room INSIDE my house?
And all the tools are in my bedroom and my basement and my garage. I have tools all over the place. I think I even have some in the kitchen. The guest bedroom? No tools. I could get the doorknob fixed with a flat head screwdriver. No screwdrivers in here. Folded over tea bag edges are not sturdy enough. (Yes I know this by empirical experimentation.) The wire hook on a hanging folder is too squiggly to twist correctly. (Also empirical experimentation.) No coat hangers for attempts at lock picking from inside to see if I can get at the latch. Headphone jacks do not substitute for coat hangers. What else have I got in here?
...well, it's the tea room. I have a teaspoon.
I broke out of my guest room with a TEASPOON.
I have since:
Breathed a huge sigh of relief that I didn't need to jump out the window in my pajamas into a thornbush and hobble across the cobblestone street barefoot and half-naked to the neighbors' house,
taken apart and repaired the lock, and
made damn sure that I have a flat-head screwdriver in there now.
...I should probably make sure I have a flat-head screwdriver in all the rest of the rooms, come to think of it.
I swear I wouldn't believe my life if I wasn't living through it.
Tags: wtf mate
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09:46 pm
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I may have created a monster
...no wait, I know I have created a monster.
Sackiroth Asylum on IJ
I'm going to take random Sackiroth pictures (and SackFair pictures, and eventually SackCloud and SackAngeal and SackWhoeverTheHeckElse pictures once I get 'em done) and post 'em to the community with Ever So Helpful Commentary(TM). (See also Sackiroth's introductory speech. Also my cat's stupendous level of unimpressedness with Sackiroth's attempts at cat intimidation.)
Once Sackiroth gets to Jou, she says she'll take pictures of him around Japan and post those too! <3
Tags: ff7, sackiroth!, wtf mate
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05:37 pm
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Oh, Japan... ^__^
Was in Chicago this weekend for May convention planning. To me, this meant a rare opportunity to shop in the refrigerated section of the Japanese grocery store -- it's not all that often when the outside temperature is above freezing so as not to damage things like fresh shiso leaves, but also cool enough that things can survive the 5 hour round trip without going bad! So I stocked up. :3
For the uninitiated, let me introduce you to some Japanese food staples. (The common themes will become readily apparent, I suspect...)
Tatsukuri: Take small dried fish (large enough that you can still see the eyes looking at you). Make them into peanut brittle, only without the peanuts and with extra bonus soy sauce and anchovies.
Chirimen-jako: Take even smaller dried fish (generally too small to notice the eyes). Make them into sticky caramel sauce with fish wriggles in, with extra bonus soy sauce.
Sakura-denbu: Take dried fish of some sort that will end up essentially unrecognizable (no eyes this time!) Make them into cotton candy.
Kamaboko, narutomaki, and others: Take fish. Puree and cook it into something the approximate texture of a dried-out glue stick. Decorate it with festive pink and white stripes just for extra wtfery.
Tsukudani: Take something (it really doesn't matter what it used to be, because you won't be able to tell by the time it's done). Boil it into jelly with the assistance of a gallon of soy sauce.
Shibazuke: Take an eggplant and maybe some cucumber and shiso too. Pickle it and add blazing magenta food coloring.
Jyuuzen-nasu: Take an eggplant. Pickle it and add daaark navy blue food coloring.
Aojiso: Take some cucumber and some shiso (perilla) leaves - the green kind, not the red kind. Pickle them and add some really freaky dark-blue-green dye just to make totally sure nobody mistakes this for the blazing magenta version.
:3 Yeah this is pretty tongue in cheek, but the creepy part is I am not actually kidding with any of these. You can occasionally find Japanese pickles without buckets of food dyes added, but they're pretty rare, and I tend to pounce on anything that's been dyed with red cabbage juice just because it hasn't been dyed with stuff that starts with chemical identification numbers. XD I was bummed to discover they didn't have any shoyu-goma in stock (soy-sauce-roasted sesame seeds - think dry roasted peanuts only out of sesame). Maybe they needed more space for psychedelic colored pickles...
Tags: wtf mate
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12:03 pm
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Well, I guess I've arrived? Musings on the sources of fanon / how weird it is to realize you are one
I just read a story that had a piece of FF7:AC fanon being used as though it were canon.
What was really funny, though, was that it was a piece of fanon I'd made up. For a series that's only got three posts in it so far. I'm half flattered (people think it's plausible enough to take!) and half embarrassed (it's fanon that's GOT actual canon in its place that I just didn't use, which is a bit more awkward to try to explain than fanon that's making up for a gap in canon).
It's happened to me before -- I made up the 'four days in Wutai' story as part of the explaining-Sephiroth's-uniform fic I wrote for Ciceqi, and someone else took that and made references to it as though it were canon rather than mine.
It's just a little odd to see things that you totally invented because you didn't have background to work with being turned around and relied on as authoritative by other fanfic writers? Especially since they didn't know that what they were picking up wasn't canon.
For the record?
'Four days in Wutai,' the photographer, the PR lady, the raincoat, and everything else in here is fanon I made up. Except the character names, of course.
Likewise, the 'Strength, Wisdom, and Vessel' division is fanon I made up for the 25-streetsigns fics. Their canon divisions are that Kadaj is Sephiroth's cruelty, Loz is his strength (I kept that part because it was just too perfect), and Yazoo is his beauty/his allure. I think that distinction came out of the Ultimania guide.
I've got to admit I made it up because I thought Yazoo needed SOMETHING to make him distinct and to give him a personality, because 'beauty and allure' is pretty much surface and doesn't really give a writer a personality to get hooks into. Which with his, what, two or three lines of dialogue in the whole movie? Yeah, I kinda had to make it up in order to *give* him a headspace to get into... ^^;;;
But I wouldn't want people to go around thinking it was canon, when it's just something I'd structurally needed to make that series work. I feel badly about using something counter-canon and having it get taken for authoritative...
ETA: All smoothed out -- writer & I have chatted this one over! There are a lot of parallels between the motorcycle-ride/comic-blackmailing-Seph/OT4 picnic/Aeris-as-pie-baker sequence in this fic, when I wrote that series of events for Ciceqi in the Terrorist Activities fic she was kind enough to make part of her Mascotverse. But the writer says that it wasn't intentional and will give a reference, so I'm cool with that.
Anyway. Gotta get back to work. Just thought I should mention it, because it's really, really bizarre being taken for canon when you haven't even had the chance to play the game itself...
Tags: ffvii, fic advice, fics, wtf mate
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09:33 pm
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Advice?
Any Miss Manners students out there?
'Cause I need to figure out how to say "Mail me your pants" to a married man, without it sounding even MORE wrong than the already-considerable wrongness of the cosplay costume I am going to be making for him based on said pants... ^____^
Have spent entire vacation week either working or sewing. Fic coming next year some time... @_@
Current Mood:  amused
Tags: wtf mate
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07:27 pm
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THE CRAAAACK IT BUUUUUURNS
Crack vision for the year:
Final Fantasy Powerpuff Style.
Aeris as Blossom.
Tifa as Buttercup.
Cloud in Drag as Bubbles.
The silver-haired triplets as the Rowdy Ruff Boys.
Et cetera. Et cetera. Et frippin' cetera.
Why?
For the excuse to have HOJO JOJO.
(is shot and dies)
...ijou.
Tags: ffvii, wtf mate
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09:34 pm
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Advice for fic writers 101: Look up your character's name FIRST.
I was clicking around the Pit of Voles and my brain came to a screeching halt at a FF.net summary. Yes, even more than usual.
...I didn't even read the fic; the summary itself was enough to strip all the gears in my head.
The writer in question invented an OC, and slapped a Japanese name on her (despite the fact that nobody has an actual Japanese-language first name in FFVII, not even Yuffie, but that wasn't the brain-stopper; I'm used to seeing that level of lack of attention to detail all the time).
No, the show-stopper was that the fic writer apparently picked Japanese sounds at random and came up with something that sounded like it could be a name.
...Only she basically named her love-interest OC 'stinking cheap whore.'
Kusami - 臭み - means "stench."
Yasune - 安値 - means "cheap to buy."
I didn't even read the fic; I probably should have, but I just had to go "uh... do you know what you just did?" even more urgently. And I don't think I COULD read a fic involving Sephiroth-romantic-love-interest-OC named "cheap stinking whore." I just couldn't make my brain not make that association with those sounds.
...It's like asking someone to read a fic with a character named Sunny Bluebell who's supposed to be an emo cutting goth. The image presented by the name's connotations so completely overrides whatever's presented in the story that it's mental whiplash.
So I'm passing along this tidbit of fanfiction writing advice, for the collections of Asuka and anybody else who's assembling "fanfiction 101 tips" for newbies:
DON'T just pick sounds and use them for names. And DON'T just pick names out of a baby name book. Especially in an Asian language. Because when you end up writing the characters in romaji, you're going to end up with something that probably sounds like half a dozen other words that may well be more common than the reading you thought you were using. LOOK UP THE NAME ITSELF in a DICTIONARY, not just a baby name book. Half the writers of those things never did their research anyway.
It really helps to know some basic conjugations while you're at it, but even if you don't know any conjugations, several online dictionaries would have given you these readings from this pronunciation.
Please, aspiring fic-writer-wannabes, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE look things up. Those of us who actually speak the other languages you're targeting will thank you.
Current Mood:  ...gobsmacked
Tags: fic advice, wtf mate
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08:51 pm
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My word is "Tentacles." TRAUMA.
Ganked meme from Edenfalling, and came up with:
...AUUUUGH. (dies of embarrassment) I can't believe that it came up with "Tentacles" for me, and that I was the first person it came up with tentacles for! Surely awful_bliss would have first dibs on that...
why couldn't I have had ...well, just about ANY other noun except 'tentacles'...
this will probably be hilarious later, right now I'm stuck between humor, incredulity, and omgzwoe...
Tags: wtf mate
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11:35 pm
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Never say never... (A Shoggoth on the Chimney pt. 1)
Tentacles.
Yeah.
Totally Ciceqi and Dogmatix's fault. I disavow as much responsibility as I can manage while staring in horror at my fingertips and wondering where all that came from.
Shamelessly warping the title from the Cthulhu musical:
Title: A Shoggoth on the Chimney
Author: Oh my God I have to admit to this don't I...
Series: Final Fantasy VII, Cloud, Zack, Sephiroth, AND Aeris, because hey, when you're being over the top, let's really go for it...
Warnings: R-rated. Tentacles. Sephiroth failing to be as melodramatic as he desperately wanted to be. Tentacles. Aeris in an I-just-cleaned-that-you-slime-freak rage. Did I mention tentacles? Fluff. With tentacles. Yes, there are fluffy tentacles. Also, Cloud and his wheelbarrow. And some more tentacles.
( Part one of the Creeping Horror that Ate My Brain. Finally occurred to me to post the second half first so things'll show up in the right order on the page, too... )
Tags: fan-fanworks, ffvii, fics, wtf mate
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11:33 pm
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A Shoggoth on the Chimney, part 2
Continued from over here...
( And there's more )
Tags: fan-fanworks, ffvii, fics, wtf mate
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11:26 pm
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brief update on the Creeping Horror that Is Devouring My Brain
you know that never say never thing?
yeah.
I swore I was never going to write tentacles, and it was going to take a lot of armtwisting to get me to read them.
Enter the twisting.
And now in my head there is TENTACLED CHIBICRACK happening.
Sephiroth keeps trying to turn into the Angsty Brooding Hero On A Clifftop Against the Cruel Lashing Storm(TM)... except it's a lot harder to be impressive-looking, even with that snappy black trenchcoat, when you're three feet shorter and dragging your hems behind you as you crawl around grouching.
Aeris is fascinated. Aeris is dangerous when fascinated.
And Zack? Zack just HAD to go and see exactly how literal he could make the phrase "barcrawling."
::headdesk headdesk headdesk::
( Sample dialogue snippet from each of them )
...never say never, that's all I can say...
::goes to fall over and sleep some more::
Current Mood:  RICE & CELERY WITH TENTACLE!
Current Music: Sephiroth's "Love me Tender" (GOD I wish I was kidding!)
Tags: fan-fanworks, wtf mate
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12:48 pm
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...fanfic hell...
yes, I live in a very special place in fanfic hell. The sort with a corner that is both freely acknowledged as crackitty mccracken and determined to be the best crackitty mccracken it can manage to be thank you v. much.
So I am now under assignment to actually write the Triplets as Sailor Starlights And More that is ALL LAZULISONG'S FAULT so how did I end up stuck with it and how did they know I'm too damn stubborn to admit defeat before I begin?
So I'm GOING to write it, and in order to do so, I need some equivalent of Sailor Moon Cliff Notes.
Because I so haven't got time to watch however many hundred episodes of it there are, and my main exposure to it would be from occasional clips on Cartoon Network and general fandom lore. I know approximately the main five, by English names, and think I can guess at three of them's Japanese names. I know Ogata Megumi voiced Sailor Uranus even though I've never seen a sub because I am a pathetic Ogata Megumi fangirl that way.
I know there are three Sailor Starlights who are boys who turn into girls in black leather bondage gear and I think I know two of their names and one of them has an attack called Star Gentle Uterus that is full of so much crack even I couldn't have come up with that one.
I need to know enough to come up with the RIGHT character assignments among the three triplets and generally speaking anyone else who ends up in a too-short miniskirt and/or with fairy wings attached.
So... who's got Sailor Moon Cliff Notes for me so I can cheat on my fanfic-hell test?
::back to work on ACTUAL work now that it's three minutes to the end of lunch hour ^^;; ::
ETA #1: Meeep! I got home from work, made dinner, sat down for a "short" nap, and woke up three hours later! Don't know if I'm going to get anything finished tonight or not, and tomorrow's claimed...
#2: Meeep jr: Wow, in three different comments about who's supposed to map to which triplet, I may be mistaken but I think I've gotten three different castings on "how it really HAS to be." Hope I don't tick anybody off, but I've got to pick one of 'em eventually... must do some research this weekend since I doubt I'm going to get ten more done by Thursday... anyhow, thank you for the links! (If anyone has any more infolinks they'd also be appreciated... I just don't think I'm going to have anywhere near enough time to watch a season of Sailor Moon... @_@)
Tags: wtf mate
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12:03 pm
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brain hurts
I've just read fic that makes my brain hurt. And if it makes MY brain hurt, that's kind of scary.
The author's logic apparently went like this:
Sephiroth and Cloud are obviously made for each other but they can't do anything because they're both ew BOYS so I know, I'll make Cloud a girl and oh yeah also Sailor Moon, and then it'll all be good! **hearts and sparkles**
I've seen some odd ways to get around yaoi aversion, but I think this takes the cake.
I wish I was kidding about Cloud being Sailor Moon under an alias. She doesn't call him/her Sailor Moon, but she's got long blonde hair that gets part tied up in buns on either side of her head and she wears a white princess dress and a tiara (while romping in the mud with kids no less) and she's bubbly and outgoing and feminine and... and...
whimper.
I have no business being squicked by nearly anything, considering my writing history, but... but... I write FANFIC. I write fanfic because I like the characters for who they are. Iruka is still Iruka, still throws explosive temper tantrums and worries about Naruto and anyone else in range and he has a solid sense of who he is. I didn't turn Iruka into, say, someone from Azumanga Daioh, or Fruits Basket, or anything else.
I guess my advice to wannabe fanfic writers everywhere would be: If you want to write a Final Fantasy/Sailor Moon crossover, just write a Final Fantasy/Sailor Moon crossover. Please don't do bloody violence to fundamental canon personality facts just because you're in denial about whether or not you're considering writing about what would be a homosexual pair if you hadn't turned him into Sailor Moon...?
whimpers more...
Tags: fic advice, wtf mate
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05:24 pm
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I have committed horrible sins against humanity
And it involves Limp Bizkit. I must be stopped for the good of mankind. I have never even heard Limp Bizkit outside an AMV. ...Speaking of which.
If half of this weren't from a doujinshi, it would make THE MOST HEINOUSLY WRONG AMV EVER. But as it is, all I can do is inflict GIF-based trauma and brain scrambling.
And, tragically, it's about four and a half times too big to use as an LJ icon either. ;_;
Oh well. On with the inflicting of PAIIIIIIN!
(ahem. Mwahahaha. ha. ha...)
((sweatdrop) yes, I AM both running a fever and on drugs, why do you ask? ^^;;;)
Current Mood: bonkers!
Tags: ffvii, wtf mate
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12:13 am
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KILL MAIM DESTROY
My latest review:
Asa ReMe
abgelus_dieing@yahoo.com
2005-11-18
ch 2, anon. Dude, do you understand or even know what the word update means? The means adding a new chapter to the story you've writing and not yet finished, so why don't you do just that, hmm? I would really like to know what happens next.
.........There are no words for how pissed off I am right now.
Fuck it, I'm going to sleep, and I'm saying screw FF.net for a full month beyond whenever I finish a next chapter on anything because I am SO GODDAMN SICK of these idiots with their entitlement issues and the idea that fanfiction is some kind of right rather than something I do when time allows because it DAMN WELL DOES NOT PAY MY BILLS.
Thanks for pushing me right over the edge, you ungrateful son of a bitch. Even the death threats didn't get me this pissed off.
Current Mood:  so damn far beyond furious...
Tags: fic advice, side effects, wtf mate
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09:06 pm
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Embarrassing moments...
Had one of those forehead-smacking moments this evening.
See, I'm nearly blind without my glasses.
( and it gets embarrassing from there )
This is one of those things that makes for a great stand-up comedy routine when it's someone else's life, and is just kind of humiliating when it's your own...
I really need a "d'oh!" icon. ^^;; (slinks off to scribble more)
Current Mood: d'oh!
Tags: wtf mate
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08:19 pm
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Typical...
According to the latest meme I'm an outcast even among the outcasts. ^^;;;
( in a test measuring 'nerd,' 'geek', or 'dork,' how did I end up scoring 'other' yet again? )
Current Mood:  "outcast genius?"
Tags: wtf mate
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12:54 pm
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craaaaackity crack crack...
Because the Snow White color scheme and "who's the most psychotic of them all?" grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go...
Roll over Walt Disney
Current Mood: craaaaaack!
Tags: other naruto fics, wtf mate
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11:56 am
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OMGWTF BBQ with slaw: Culture shock and a side of mayo
The difference between some of Daytona's annual festivals
Possibly the only location on earth where the words "London Symphony Orchestra" and "coleslaw wrestling" are used in the same paragraph.
Now, despite W's attempts to destroy any sense of national pride or any ability to hold my head up in an international crowd instead of throwing myself on the floor and trying to apologize desperately for our country's collective idiocy, short-sightedness, demonstrably unfounded aggression, hostility and incitement to further terror and bloodshed rather than peacemaking in nearly every major conflict zone in the world, and general complete and total lack of understanding of how civilized behavior around one's neighbors is intended to work...
...despite all that, I'm glad to discover there are still occasions in which I can stand there and laugh and go "I love America."
We need to export the entire DC area to a small island in the middle of nowhere where they can't do any more damage, mind, but there's something I still love about the idea of Harley-Davidson riders hosting London Symphony Orchestra musicians at their houses and then showing up in black leather on their hogs to go to the concert...
Current Mood: amused
Tags: wtf mate
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05:05 pm
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-_______- as fandom underwhelms me yet again...
80-90% of the reviews I get are reasonably sympathetic and understanding of the explanation "I have a life, my computer melted itself down a couple months ago and I lost a big chunk of material then, FF.net has blockaded me for three stories they took down, and these chapters are 30 pages long and take several hundred revisions over the course of their writing."
And then there's the very few that somehow manage to hurt a lot more than the supportive ones help, despite being statistically outnumbered.
I've already mentioned that I don't like death threats.
I've just discovered I also don't like being sworn at.
By an apparently near illiterate reviewer, granted, but the profanity was one of the few things she managed to spell correctly. (I presume it's a she anyway; I only know of one reader who's identified himself as male... anyway...)
-______- <- my general expression at the moment.
There's a reason I write under more than one alias and don't pass around my actual email information; I'm being reminded of it right about now, but it still sucks every time someone smacks you in the face with it again.
Just out of curiosity, is there any planet on which calling an author "hey you bitch" is supposed to encourage the author to want to have anything more to do with the fandom in question? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but...
Current Mood:  depressed
Tags: wtf mate
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