baby, be my mafia boss, I'll be your right-hand man

News/Announcements:
kkm_itest: Week 115 Results.

Discussions/Questions/Miscellany:
Question about Soushu.

so it looks like I shut up on twitter only to blibber about comic books all over livejournal instead. this is not success.
4 minutes ago from web

Things, misc.:

♦ This was a terrible decision and yet I do not regret is half as much as I should. I WILL BE VOTING CHEWBACCA/SOLO IN 2012 AND THAT IS THAT.

♦ The past two days I've been (re-)reading everything related to Young Avengers I can get my hands on. It is a sickness. (she says, checking her torrent every other minute.) So basically I am in love with teen superheroes failing and being dumb and hilarious and amazing and heartbreaking? I am seeing patterns emerge! Hello there, Blue Beetle and Runaways.

♦ t_lyrical has somehow managed to be reading the Young Avengers/Runaways crossovers at the same time that I was rereading the main YA series. There is a hivemind, and it is us.

♦ I am only avoiding going on at great length about Young Avengers here because I already did so on Twitter and elsewhere on LiveJournal. Nobody needs to see that three times, okay.

♦ I have been watching Jeeves & Wooster the past half-week or so! Uproariously funny, very clever, full of Stephen Fry being generally excellent, and yet the noblemen keep giving me second-hand embarrassment. They are all so stupid it becomes hard to watch!

♦ More TV show business: I have reserved the first set of Beast Wars DVDs from the library! They should come in tomorrow. My taste in '90s cartoons is deplorable, and yet: my childhood! Optimus Primate. yes i know that's not his name shut up

♦ Bumped into a rabbi from my high school in Canadian Tire yesterday. It was mildly surreal.

♦ This week in Ariella Mind Theatre: Why are you in I&D? You can't draw! Even if you practice every day for the rest of the summer you will never catch up to where you should be! How the hell did you get accepted to the program? You can't write as well as you think you can, you never finish anything, you such at worldbuilding, you will never finish the Marv story so just give up now. Seriously what were you thinking, trying to make a living from something creative? You're consistently mediocre in every medium!
I am not even on my period, I do not know what the deal is with my brain this week. Not looking for sympathy, just -- a place to vent. Eugh.

♦ So uh yeah teslaaaa is entirely my fault. WHAT HAVE I DONE, CREATED A MONSTER, O GOD, ARIELLA YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON, etc. And yet this, too, I do not regret.

♦ The joke of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies wears thin all too quickly. And yet I read the entire thing? Again proving myself to have not a lick of good taste or sense. My sister is forcing me to read the original Austen novel, as I never before read it all the way through. And yet now I want to read Brontë books! Dangit, Kate Beaton.

♦ It seems some few people I know are sad or stressed lately! HOW DO I FIX THIS. I don't know. I guess if it would cheer you up I am open for writing requests? Original? Fan? IDEK. Ask and I shall try to enhappy you.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Title: Shades of Grey
Pairing: implied Zack/Cloud
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: disturbing content, adult content
Summary: It was like Nibelheim all over again.
Previous Parts: I and II and III

( Shades of Grey )

Does anyone I know have BoF, the korean Hana Yori Dango, on disk or something? :D

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Some of us got into a photoshoot at the press. As in the printed one. They had a nice studio. I got more goodies for Luna made.

( Previews and technically spoilery if you never even read the book or know the story or whatever. Well, SORTA spoilery. But mostly just cam whoring, real studio pics whenever we get it. )

ADJSLFGKhl;ghj why is the Cigarette Smoking Man in this episode? I recognized him by his voice.

Supernatural, stop kidnapping actors from all of my tv shows and using them for your vile plots D:

ETA: AHAHAHAHAHAdjskldg reaper + don't fear the reaper = o supernatural, I love you forever and ever and ever.

( cut for advertisement )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

• thelana: I'm just experimenting - f/f fanfiction through the eyes of a fence-sitter - I've been mulling about femflash and the dynamics behind it. And it really made me realize what m/m slashers take for granted. -
  
  (tags: femslash gender shipping)


• thefourthvine: Major Fannish Events - For various reasons, right now I'm thinking about Major Fannish Events I Wish I Could Have Seen. Now, when I say that, I don't mean the actual events, most of which are available on DVD or at least on some fourth-generation cell phone recording somewhere, but the fannish reaction to those events. -
  
  (tags: fandom)


• arysteia: Contains no spoilers. Does contain traces of nuts. - My heart is broken because you killed my favourite character/I'm over the moon because my OTP got married (delete as applicable) is a spoiler if said character/couple is sadface/grinning in the icon right next door. -
  
  (tags: spoilers)

JEEBUS DOES ZACH CONDON HAVE A LOT OF FANGIRLS OR WHAT

Metropolis was packed out like I'd never seen, even the balcony was standing room only. Cut Copy was a bona fide rave-up, but one can dance to Cut Copy whereas Beirut's riddim inspires gentle hip-swinging at best. XD; Yet the atmosphere was comparable i.e. apeshit bananas. Or maybe I just got stuck with the girls shrieking "WE LOVE YOU ZACH ♥♥♥" after every song. I had had six glasses of wine at H's party beforehand, though (enough that I dozed off and didn't really catch the tail end of The Dodos' opening set), and there are worse ways to attend gigs than happy-drunk with a crowd that is super digging it.

The thing with Beirut that is simultaneously endearing and frustrating is that they technically overreach, which becomes glaringly apparent when presented in the context of a two-week international jazz festival that also encompasses Afripop, reggae, blues rock, dub electronica and whatnot. I listen to them in this framework anyway, meaning for instance that I have every track memorized but have no idea nor care what the words are to most of the songs. It works fine on record, but live I find I mentally expect them to go into a five-minute instrumental jam with brass solos after the second chorus, and instead they just stop. D: Like, at the 3:30 mark Zach Condon waves a hand, everyone cuts off dead in the middle of the note. The set was all of 75 minutes including the two encores, but they got through a lot of songs this way. Made me wish I were seeing them in five years' time. XD; They also didn't have any strings with them, which maybe had something to do with it. In any case the most interesting part for me was seeing if they would do the Holland songs live (they did), and if so, how (by playing the synth parts on accordion and keyboard - LOL undramatic I know).

Anyway this is wrongheaded because early Beirut subsists on ~*feeling*~. It's that particular strand of saudade that cuts across genres and for that matter disciplines - Proust is a kissing cousin - but is rare because by the time artists have the sk1ll0rz to get the inchoate melancholia of extreme youth across to an audience, they're too old to feel it (if indeed they ever felt it - I doubt all artists do). So there's a one-, maybe two-album window... Patrick Wolf had it with the first two, lost it with the third. Blur only had it with Modern Life Is Rubbish (not, interestingly, with Leisure). This is why I kind of think it's wrongheaded to make Burial's nostalgia all about the historical context, because it isn't really. If it weren't that he'd be nostalgic about something else, that's the kind of dude he is.

Back to gig - best moment: literal LOL during the first encore when blond dude raised his trumpet and the distinctive fanfare of "Se Telefonando" rang out over the crowd. What are the chances.** Explains why Zach Condon spent the previous five minutes going ":D?" at each of his band in turn (all of whom responded with massive sweatdrop-face but were CLEARLY OVERRULED). In figure skating parlance, one of those jumps you land in practice but not, perhaps, in competition. Also no one else in the crowd knew the song anyway, fff whatevs indie kidz.


** Okay fine, pretty high considering that they'd already covered "La Javanaise" at this point. A+ lulz Condon, take a page from La Wainwright and let's have us some Piaf next round.

Icons
[1-37] Loveless (Ritsuka heavy)

Teasers:
 

The rest are here @ promisedxlies 

SKYE AND I ARE GOING TO JAPAN.

\o/

We'll be representing Singapore in two weeks' time. Still can't quite believe it, but have confirmed what we're doing.


Came out of hiatus because it's about time I thanked a whole lot of people. I know the WCS rules say you're not supposed to have more than two people in the team, but WE CANNOT DO IT ALONE. ABSOLUTELY NOT. <3

(I'm a bit concerned I'm going to end up forgetting someone, and I'm really sorry if I do. D: PLEASE POKE ME IN THE HEAD IF I FORGET YOU.)

Ariki, Hiyuki, Kie, Daniel, Dan, Nevar, Rika, Jing, Kula, Mel, Kai, Togusa, Mark, Evy, Inu, Gerald
KAly, Rinne, Minh, Will, Emily, Aymie, Tangle, Tsubaki, Catty
And everyone who cheered us on, supported us, freaked out with us (and maybe more than us XD), THANK YOU TO YOU ALL.

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

The competition was extremely tough this year. There were some really experienced cosplayers and everyone was giving it their best.

Strangely, Skye and I were pretty nonchalant about winning, as compared to getting to the second round. But for me, we just needed to be able to showcase what everyone has been working on. (: We got that opportunity, and things went well. I was tearing up after our second performance, because well. It's about a lot of people. And we're very grateful that you're on this crazy journey with us. <3


P.S. - MOST OF ALL, I WANT TO THANK SKYE. WITHOUT HER, THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. I LOVE YOU TO THE EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEME YOU EPIC PERSON YOU. YOUR AWESOME AND PATIENCE IS BEYOND MY COMPREHENSION.

PHAGOCYTOSIS OM NOM NOM NOM~ <3

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

So, True Blood. I was all excited for it since we didn't get an ep last week, and... blah. I am so bored with this stupid Marianne character and how her SUPER EVIL POWERS make everyone in town have wild hot sex with each other in public and eat dirt. I mean... COME ON. CAN WE PLEASE GET A MOVE ON WITH THIS STORY? If there even is one, jeez. I used to love Tara, I used to love Sam, I used to love Sam/Tara, I used to love the townspeople, and... now I just want them all off my screen. Ugh. Even Jason was more interesting this week than the town, and Jason's storyline is pretty effing boring (except, of course, when he gets naked). Lafayette was awesome as always, and he freaking cracked me up like crazy in his last scene. Eric is the epitome of awesome and every freaking scene should contain this man because good lord does he make everything 10 times more interesting than they would be without him. Seriously, the show should just entirely be him and Bill arguing with each other and insinuating gay vampiric love happenings while Lafayette dances around them and Jason streaks by every now and then with his lovely body on display, and Jessica can come in and pester Bill about something and then stomp out saying that he's so unfair, and then Sookie can come in and have crazy hot love vibes with Eric while Bill fumes and pushes her out of the room while she's all like, "BILL! I can decide for myself when to leave a room, thank you very much," and Jessica would be off dazzling some poor schlub while Bill is busy fuming over Sookie, and Eric will just watch it all with a smirk on his face (while he pines for his lost love Godric. Seriously, there's something going on there, and Bill knows it). THIS would be a winning show. Or, you know, kill Marianne and make the townspeople charming again. Anyway, I am still so, so in love with Jessica. She is the greatest thing to ever happen to this show. And Eric and Sookie's amusement over how she frustrates Bill is the GREATEST.

In Plain Sight. It made me cry. It made me laugh. It made me roll my eyes. All good stuff. Seriously cannot wait to see Marshall's reaction to the development that came out of this episode. Something stupid that I did: I went to the USA boards just to see what the chatter was, and, ugh, everyone is still so anti-Mary/Marshall that it kills me. Like, they are actually saying stuff like, "I don't see it. Marshall doesn't have feelings for Mary, that's a load of crap. I don't care what the actor said. Marshall doesn't like her like that." UM, YES HE DOES, YOU MORON. THIS IS CANON, FOR PETE'S SAKE! Jeez, apparently the show has to have him actually say the words to get it across to these stubborn douches instead of just Marshall not-so-subtly-but-apparently-too-subtly-for-these-morons dropping hints. Like, say, Marshall's only reason for wanting leave his position with the Marshal service being that it's too hard for him to be around Mary because he loves her and she doesn't love him. And that was in episode 1x04. I forget what he actually said, but I thought it was pretty obviously implied that he was saying, "I love you, but you're not ready to hear that, and you probably never will be, and it's too hard for me to be around you and want you so badly when you'll never want me in the same way or even appreciate all that I do for you, so I'm leaving." But then all she did was tell him that she didn't want him to leave, so he stayed. It was as simple as that. He's at her mercy, and it kills him inside, but it's also the most glorious feeling in the world for him. He knows it's not healthy, he knows it's torture, but being around her is a sweet torture that he can't get enough of. THIS WAS ALL LAID OUT FROM THE BEGINNING, YOU DOUCHES. And then there was episode 1x09 where the guy figured out that Marshall had a thing for Mary, and he says that line about male/female partners usually end up screwing each other or killing each other, or both. HELLO, NOT-SO-SUBTLE SUBTEXT. And then, in season 2, (A Frond in Need, I think?), we get Marshall's little speech about how he knows what it's like to want a relationship with someone so bad that you end up pushing them away because you try too hard, and it's obvious he was talking about Mary, especially when he said the thing about his dog running away and just trusting it to come back to him when it was ready, and that's basically his philosophy with Mary (which... yeah, Mary would so shoot him for comparing her to a dog, but it's how he deals with his feelings for her). So, yes, he is very much in love with Mary and has been from the beginning (I am so not loony for seeing it before almost anyone else did). Add to that, in every single interview Fred Weller talks about Marshall pining for Mary. Add to that, Marshall's original character bio said that he was hoping to be more than partners and friends some day. IT IS CANON. DEAL WITH IT, USA MESSAGEBOARD POSTERS. Good god, why do people have such an aversion to best friends falling in love ON A TV SHOW? THAT IS ENTIRELY FOCUSED AROUND THEIR RELATIONSHIP? If it's not filled to the brim with manufactured sexual tension then people automatically go, "Oh, they should just stay friends. I don't see anything there." And I say that about the relationships that are entirely based on sexual attraction. I don't watch TV relationships for the sex, I want emotional development, I want a slow-burn romance that takes years to build so that the pay-off is extra delicious. I want substance. I want characters knowing each other so completely that they don't even need to say anything to understand each other. I don't want a crappy, pointless marriage between Mary and Raph, especially when all signs point to, "GOOD LORD, THESE PEOPLE ARE SO WRONG FOR EACH OTHER." I just can't believe all the people on that messageboard talking about how good Mary and Raph are together. ARE THEY EVEN WATCHING THE SAME SHOW? RAPH IS AN AFTER-THOUGHT FOR MARY. SOMETIMES AN AFTER-AFTER-AFTER-THOUGHT. And Raph almost slept with her sister. Yeah, that's the makings of a super stable marriage right there. Mmmhmm. *huff* Anyway, the show has made it pretty clear that Raph is a short-term thing. If they make him anything else then the writers have seriously lost their minds. Especially since Raph is only sporadically in the show, and when he is, Mary is usually ignoring him. Psh. If Mary/Marshall turns into Daniel/Betty 2.0, I will be so very shattered.

Torchwood. My flist exploded with all kinds of reactions to the mini-series, and... I must say, you all tempted me into giving this show another try. I rewatched the pilot and I actually enjoyed it this time around. I remember abhorring it the first time I watched it (which... was probably 2 or 3 years ago), so I never gave the show another glance. But then series 2 happened and everyone kept saying that it was so much better than the first series, and I had vowed to give it another try eventually, but... I just never did. And now, after having developed a taste for crack-filled shows, I found the first two eps of season 1 of Torchwood to be absolutely delightful and I have NO IDEA why I was so turned off by it the first time. I remember thinking that the acting was horrible, the effects were ridiculous, and the plot was weak. And... yeah, that's all true for the most part, but now I like it. I blame True Blood and Robin Hood for this phenomenon. And Merlin, though I think the acting and overall plot of Merlin are pretty damn good (but there are quite a few moments where I laugh inappropriately). So, I'm probably going to be eating up Torchwood like crazy this week, and hopefully I'll be caught up for when the mini-series premieres on BBC America (although, that's my vacation week, so not sure if I'll manage to catch it or not). Shipping-wise, it's too early to tell what will grab my heart, but, if I'm not mistaken, the two main shipping factions are Jack/Gwen and Jack/Ianto, right? Since Jack/Gwen have that mentor/student thing happening, I'm fairly certain I'll end up shipping them, but uh, after episode 2, I'm kind of fond of Gwen/Owen...

ETA: Okay, scratch all that, I'm definitely shipping Jack/Gwen. But I'm kind of in love with Gwen/Rhys too because Rhys is too darn sweet. But Jack and Gwen keep having moments that I can't resist. Oh man.

In other news, I still look like somebody punched me in the eye. Now I'm wondering if it's actually a stye or something else entirely, because my last stye stopped being this puffy after one day of washing it with Head and Shoulders. I've been washing this puppy for three days and it just keeps getting worse, and it itches like the devil. Perhaps it was a mosquito bite after all. But it sure looks like a stye. I don't know.

Later I will probably post a meme round-up. Just thought I'd warn you beforehand. Because obviously memes are serious business.

The gits managed to stand [and stay still, though that's not too hard for them] for an estimated two hours, which is pretty impressive - particularly since the superghetto set-up was threatening to fall onto them and I think I ran them through 5 points of exposure, 6 white balance settings and three cont/sharp/sat settings [I guess that's why it took two hours, ahahaha].

Anyway, Yanagi's head is appley and edible-like.



Obviously I can never leave a good thing alone [wait for full effect].

In part 2 of what porn Jordi has right now, I managed to scan in what was one of the most eye opening doujinshis for me. Sure its not the most out there, but its Oofuri. It has Mihashi wimpering like a little girl and me wanting to go lol rape. It's all about friendship!
Okay I lie, however it's a very lol doujinshi. Just has Haruna (who by the way has so little to do with Mihashi except the rivalry, which is hot enough to turn into potential rape) being an asshole as well, he does horrible things to Mihashi. Abe's no stellar white knight either.

Title: Rengoku
Circle: ErotIs (Narita Kou)
Pairing: Haruna x Mihashi
Rating: R18, Rape, PWP
Pages: 26
Language: Japanese
Scanner: me! (Jordi)
Note: Mihashi wakes up, after accidentally fainting during team practice. However upon waking up he finds himself chained and at the mercy of Haruna, who has had his eyes on Mihashi for some time.
This claims to hold Abe/Mihashi however I find it barely a qualifier for it. Not to mention this doujinshi is hands down one of the biggest PWP rape fantasies of poor Mihashi.
I edited this in a higher quality than my past Persona one so hopefully this will be good.

Download
Direct Download


In other news I sat down and watched Ristorante Paradiso. I'm hooked. Older men in glasses. Not to mention the main guy is so innocent and sweet I want to rape him. I mean - I want to watch how the relationship goes.

Shit.

I think I have a thing for old men.

Soushu.... i've been tried to find it in my Japanese Kanji Dictionary but I have no sense about this word.

Could anyone tell me please?

Title: Distraction, 8/?
Author: htbthomas
Fandom: Spectacular Spider-Man animated series
Characters: Peter/Gwen, MJ, Flash, Liz, Captain Stacy
Rating: PG
Word Count: Part 8: 2,446 words
Beta: mark_clark
Summary: Peter still hasn’t talked to Gwen about that fateful kiss - he keeps getting distracted. Between his personal life and his spider-life, can he make it work?

Author’s Note: Set at the beginning of season 2, using episode 2.03 as a jumping off point. Not terribly spoilery, if you haven’t seen the first three episodes of season 2.

Previously: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7

~o~o~o~o~o~

( “Kravinoff?” Peter asked with concern. He couldn’t imagine a reason Dr. Warren would be keeping a file on Kraven. Perhaps he’d acquired a DNA sample to study...? )

I've been on a quest to achieve all of the titles for the characters in Tales of the Abyss, and I'm having something of a problem. I read on GameFAQs that to get the cooking title for a given character, you have to master all of the recipes and talk to the man outside the restaurant in the Keterburg Hotel.

In accordance with that, I grabbed all the recipes (there are only twenty, correct?) and started cooking. That's when it hit me: how do you know when you've mastered a recipe? I'd heard that you have mastered it when you have your own ingredients added in, but some of the recipes seemed to have added ingredients without my ever cooking them. Also, some of the recipes that DON'T have the extra ingredients aren't gaining any after cooking them several times.

So my question to the community is: How do you know you've mastered a recipe so you can get the cooking titles?