Emotions taste like honey.

2003-09-03T00:06:00.000-07:00

Blog = abandoned. Stop e-mailing me. Post, please show up.

2003-02-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

Weird thing. Last post never showed up. Well, that explains a bit. ...posting now in the hopes that it'll trigger something and that old post from november will show up. (And, yeah, I've abandoned this blog at this point. Why are people still here?)

2003-01-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

........

2002-11-13T21:21:00.000-08:00

2002-11-13T21:20:00.000-08:00

Whoa.

Did someone just link this blog or something? Because in the past couple of weeks, I've been getting a ton of e-mails/IMs about the fantasy commune thing. Some of which seemed to have missed the point entirely.

I'm afraid I sounded too nice when I talked to a lot of you (I'm saying 'you' here because a few of you IM-ed me without leaving e-mail addresses, giving me no way to get into contact with you, but I'm going to assume you read this at least occasionally). I like hearing new ideas, and I like talking them over and thinking about them. That doesn't mean I like all of them, it doesn't mean I'll accept all of them, and it doesn't mean they'll all work. Now, here's where I sound like a bitch.

To clarify.

1. I said in the post below that this was a mix of three things: an artist's commune, a SCA-type village, and a village based off of fantasy worlds. A lot of people seem to have picked up on the first and entirely missed the other two. This is not just an artist's commune for people who like fantasy or happen to write/draw mostly fantasy-related material. If you like having electricity in every room, the place I describe below is not the place for you. We've been considering how much of the modern world we want to allow into this commune, and the general opinion seems to be 'not a whole heck of a lot.'

2. The general opinion that I mentioned above? That's not the people who've just contacted me in the past few weeks online, that's the people I've been working on with this since the beginning. The founding members, if you will. How do you get to be a founding member? Simple. You live with me. Or you're the soul-sib of someone who lives with me. Or you're the crazy SCA-dian/fantasy-loving friend of me or my family or our soul-sibs. That's it. I'm sorry, but random people I've just met over the internet canNOT get as involved in this as we are, no matter how much you'd like to. I love hearing your ideas, I love knowing that there are people who are interested, but you aren't part of the core group.

3. This isn't going to happen for a while yet, so don't go moving out of your apartments yet, folks. The people working on this? We're in college, or younger. We plan to have lives which involve travelling and/or jobs in the city before we settle down. This is a long-term plan, folks, not something that's going to happen soon.

4. This idea is constantly, constantly changing. Don't go commiting to it. That post below? That was me rambling in my blog. If I seriously wanted to start attracting future members, I would have made a website for it and started advertising it, not just babbled about it in an online journal. Hearing that people are interested is great. But I don't expect you to, nor should you, make any serious commitment to it at this point, because at this point you have no idea whether it's going to end up being what I described in the post below, or something entirely different. To give you an idea? At this point, the elves in our group (which is the majority, and I'm one of 'em) are considering just making a Rivendell-based inn in the mountains somewhere, while the SCA-types eventually build a SCA village around us. Or not, maybe it'll just be an inn. Or maybe it'll get very popular and will evolve into something like the group I described below, but the artist's commune thing is becoming less and less a part of it. That's where the plan is at the moment; next month it could be something entirely different, and we could all be living in trees for all I know (I'd like that, actually).

If I have just dashed your hopes and dreams, my apologies. If you are simply looking to live with a random group of artists, as most of you seemed to be, I suggest you look for one of the many already-established artist's communes.

For the people reading this who couldn't care less about my crazy idea--I don't update this thing anymore, haven't you noticed? Livejournal.

2002-08-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

Blogging 'cause livejournal seems to be down.

I think I'm more insane than most.

Insane in the 'obsessed' sense, not insane at the 'I bark at strangers I meet on the streets' sense.

A disclaimer first. I have this strange idea. I believe that fantasy novels, movies, etc., are in fact meant to inspire us, not just entertain us. And by 'inspire', I don't mean just to write more stories or draw pictures--although that's lovely, and gets more people inspired, nothing actually happens, except that people are entertained. Which is great. But I believe that there are more important things than entertainment. Based on the paychecks for modern careers, that's not a view held by many, but hey. I've never been one to go with the majority. Here's my wacky idea: when we see things we like in a fantasy novel, rather than saying 'gee, I wish the world was like that,' I say, 'now, how can I make my world like that?' End disclaimer.

My sisters and I are real big on ElfQuest. The wolfriders in particular. You know, we've got that whole tribe mentality thing going to begin with, and the woods and all. And we, being the wacky elf girls we are, figured, hey, wouldn't it be great to get a tribe together and just live like that? All the time?

Now, our original plan was to find a small, unoccupied island and lay claim to it. You know, like that whole Principality of Sealand thing, only not a floating fortress. Something with lots of trees, preferably. Unfortunately, most of the currently unoccupied islands seem to be mostly volcanic rock. Not really a lot of trees there, you know?

Plan B. Purchase some land right here in the USA (being as we're already citizens and all. New Zealand and Ireland were considered). It was also decided that it could be a place for travelers to stop at, free of charge as long as they cleaned up after themselves and told a story or helped out or the like--mostly travelers on their way to ren faires and the like, we're figuring, just 'cause of the way the place was designed.

Somewhere along the way, it kind of... morphed. Through several different stages: an artist's commune, a ren village (as in ren faire, only, you know, constant...), a village based off various fantasy novels (Rivendell, Solace, and K'treva Vale came to mind. In fact, I'm still referring to this place as 'Rivendell', just to have something to call it. It's a good name).

Currently, it seems to be a combo of all the above.

This is my project now--being as I seem to be the one of us who plans things all the time anyway, and I've come up with most of the changes since 'let's find an island.' ...come to think of it, I was the one who came up with the island idea, too.

Anyway. A lot of this is based off of pieces of fantasy novels and the like--but this is NOT some big fandom thing. We'd love to see fans of the various books come join us, but we want this to be a constant, thriving thing in the real world, a way of improving the real world, rather than making escapism into a way of life.

We're figuring to implement this sometime after we graduate college. Not immediately after; we'll want a few years to do our own things. Meanwhile, we're planning. And recruiting, hopefully--we'll need a lot of people to make this work. Anybody want to join up?

At the moment, the basic structure seems to be a combination of an artist's commune and a retreat. There are those who actually live there, full time, and those who are staying there temporarily.

We'll have a dormitory-style building for the visitors--small rooms, main lounge area. You're given a room free of charge, just make sure to clean up after yourself when you leave. We don't have maids here, you know. Clean up any junk if you're only there for a few days; if you're there for a few years and have painted the walls and installed your own furniture, take your furniture with you (unless you want us to lay claim to it, which we will) and re-paint the walls back to their original color, patch up any holes you've made and so on. For those who actually live in Rivendell, full time, we'll have several individual houses, sized to fit various numbers of occupants. We're rather shaky on the actual layout of these houses at the moment. (Personally, I really, really want to try for the whole Mercedes Lackey's Tayledras ekele, Dragonlance's Solace, Tolkien's Lothlorien feel... with houses in trees, rope bridges between and ladders down, a sort of pulley to raise/lower furniture and the like... however, I do not know a great deal about construction, and this would require very large, very sturdy trees. I doubt any one house built in this style would be able to hold more than two people... But this is something I really want to do, so I'm going to look into it). The current plan is, we describe the houses WE want to live in, and so do all the other founding members (not all of whom have been chosen yet. Recruiting! Yay!). Then we figure out how much it'll cost us to build them/have them built (and whether it is in fact physically possible). Make adjustments if necessary, try again. I want to get some people in construction on the commune so we don't have to do outside contracting for everything. So, we build these style houses, and a few that will be empty for any new people to move in. When it becomes necessary to build more houses to contain everyone, we repeat the process--those who are unsatisfied with their current houses describe what they want, etc.

There's housing; now food. We'll have one main lunchroom which will serve meals at regular hours, and a pantry which is open at all hours. I am really, REALLY hoping that we find a chef to be a permanent resident, or at least someone who knows a little about running a kitchen. If we DON'T find a chef--or enough staff to prepare the meals under the chef's direction, for that matter--cooking will be one of the rotating chores performed by everyone (visitor and resident alike, with a few exceptions; I'll get to that later). Serving the meals and cleaning up afterward will definitely be part of the rotating chores. Unlike the lunchroom, the pantry will have no staff; it's available to everyone so you can grab a snack at midnight, or prepare your own meal if you don't like what's being served in the lunchroom that day. We encourage everyone to eat in the lunchroom for main meals as often as possible--this IS supposed to be a community, you know, talking to and knowing and being friendly with your neighbors--but we'll get over it if you decide to eat in your own room, or wherever. ~_^

Chores. These will be on a rotating schedule--everyone will do a bit of everything, but tell us what you're best at; if you're more likely to blow up the kitchen than make toast, you will NOT be spending a lot of time as kitchen staff. Chores include serving meals, cleaning up after meals, cleaning the 'common' buildings/rooms (those that owned by any one person), going into the nearest town to buy and sell for the community, and working in the gardens. Other chores to be added as necessary. Those who have taken on other jobs in the community will be exempt from chores, to greater or lesser degrees--for example, if anyone volunteers to be the full-time cook, or librarian, or a teacher.

On that 'teacher' note--we do want a second generation to grow up in Rivendell, but whether they're homeschooled there or sent into the nearest town for classes is up to the parents. But we DO plan to hold regular classes/workshops, if possible. The nature of this community implies we'll gather a lot of people with unusual skills, and we want those to be shared. Fencing, martial arts, painting techniques, costuming techniques, how to play the harp, how to juggle, fluency in Quenya... anything you can think of. If you think you want to teach a workshop, just volunteer, and we'll see how many people are interested. You won't be required to do as many chores during the time you teach.

I mentioned a librarian, too. Well, there IS a reason I'm still calling this place Rivendell, you know. Like Tolkien's Rivendell, we want the community to be a place of learning as well as art and friendship. Hence the workshops, and hence the library. This will probably start out small, composed mostly of donations from members of the community, but we want to increase it as much as possible. Anyone volunteering to act as librarian will, of course, have their chores decreased accordingly--no chores, if it's full-time. If no one volunteers, then helping out in the library will become one of the rotating chores on the schedule.

We're figuring on having a fairly large section of Rivendell dedicated to gardens (vegetable, herb, and otherwise), this being a main source of income for the community. We'll have a produce stand--currently unsure as to whether this will be based in the nearest town, or in front of the community itself--and sell flowers as well. Anything else the residents create can be sold here as well (like a craft fair).

Anything that the community can't create on its own will have to be bought. We will need a certain amount of money to keep this community running. We're really, really hoping to get donations from visitors, but we're not going to rely on that. So. Permanent residents are generally expected to have some sort of job. We don't care if it's a steady job or not. This is partially intended to be a home for artists. Writers, get your writing published; photographers, open up a gallery. A certain percentage (undetermined at the moment; we are still working out a lot of the details!) of your income will go towards keeping the community running. It's just the same as if you were living alone--a certain percentage of your income would go toward paying the mortgage and buying food. It'll be exactly the same way here. Any permanent resident without any sort of a job will take on more chores accordingly, and generally make themselves useful. A full-time cook or librarian would be in this category--rather like, in exchange for their services they recieve room and board; they're not expected to have another full-time job outside of the community as well. The money for the community will be used to pay for the land we're living on, build new houses when necessary, and pay for any supplies we need. It will be handled by... hmm. Not really a name, yet. Let's call it the tribal elders. At the moment, that means the founding members; basically, the members of the community who've lived there the longest.

It's expected that the 'tribal elders' will act as mediators and make the majority of any major final decisions, if necessary; mostly, the commune will all work together, but the elders have seniority and will settle any disputes that involve the community.

...mmm. I'm getting sleepy; it's taken a while to write this all out.

I'm still considering whether or not we should get our own generator or not; need to check into that. I want our use of electricity to be fairly limited. There might be a rule against keeping computers in private rooms. This is a community, we want to promote community here, that means being around other people. People tend to get sucked into computers, for some reason. I want to discourage electronics as a major form of entertainment. We want to have storytelling and the like; people being around people. So, we'll have computers available in the library, and... a sort of writing center. Still haven't decided whether this will be one large room with many computers in it, or several small (dormitory style again?) rooms with a computer in each room. If it's one main room, it'll have to be quiet so writers don't get distracted--but that doesn't always work. From personal experience, I like to write with music, and I can't wear headphones; I'm deaf in one ear, and headphones have the most irritating habit of switching which side they play on. In the individual-compartment style writing center, we'd let writers do whatever they wanted to get inspired; play music, bring a pillow, put pictures up on the walls, whatever. If necessary, we could even let writers keep whatever stuff they need to get inspired there, in cabinets in the front room. These computers will have internet access, of course, and anyone who wants to use a computer for any reason is welcome to do so in either the writing center or the library, whether or not they're doing writing or research. My feelings on TV are similar to computers; we'll probably have several lounge-type areas where TVs are set up, rather than encouraging people to bring them into their own rooms.

What else, what else... oh, right, I want to create a hot springs, if possible. ^.^ Tayledras-inspired. And I want to hold a mid-winter festival and a mid-summer festival, with songs and stories and games and feasting and dancing--more so than usual, I mean. Because stories and dancing should be the usual. I want us to do a lot of things just for fun, because this is an artist's commune/ren village/fantasy-novel-based retreat type place; what's the point if we're going to be practical all the time? I expect to see people walking around in garb and playing lutes in the garden and speaking Sindarin and painting murals on the walls and wearing faerie wings and pointed ears and doing whatever it is that they want to do, because this is just that sort of place! That's why we're making it! I want fantasy fanatics, starving artists, otherkin, nature enthusiasts, SCA-dians, roleplayers... all the unusual people who've looked at a place like Tolkien's Rivendell or Mercedes Lackey's k'treva Vale and thought, 'man, I want to live THERE!'

Ahem. Back to the practical side of things for one last moment... location. We're thinking Vermont, right now, although I'd rather it be somewhere warmer in winter. Still, Vermont is great; much trees and mountains. If possible, I want to have a few different locations; feel free to suggest one! The primary location, though, must, must, MUST have many, many trees! We want to be a village in the middle of a forest. Because... that just feels right. And being the crazy people we are, we do what just feels right.

Now. To get back to the original point of this.

This community won't exist for a while yet, but we're working on it, and it WILL exist in some shape or form, even if we don't come up with the numbers to make it the way I described. It'll probably start out as whatever crazy fantasy-loving artist-type people we gather during our college years, living together in a big house. The major project I described will take years--decades, more likely, if that--to create. But I WILL do my best to make it real. And it was inspired by people like Wendy and Richard Pini, Mercedes Lackey, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, and all the other fantastic authors and otherwise creative people out there. Because I think, if they went to all the trouble of creating these worlds that we love so much, the least we can do is bring a little of their worlds here, in our world. No one else seems to take things like that so seriously. I think I'm crazier than most.

I like this kind of crazy. Crazy people can change the world. And doesn't everyone want to change the world?

2002-08-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

CAGE: Will return eventually. I promise. I've got a few pages done and not scanned yet, and pictures for the gallery, and so on, but life has been WAY too hectic lately. I'll probably go back to semi-regular updates once I've settled in at my dorm (I'm moving in on Saturday. I've got THREE roommates, one from New Jersey, one from Spain, and one from Hong Kong, which makes me the local girl. I am going to FAIL my duties as tour guide. And, you know, my duties as a semi-sociable human being, too...).

Fics: Also suffered the Great Creative Block. Not writer's block. Creative Block. I couldn't do anything. It was awful. But since I last posted here there's been an update to A Moment's Peace and... um... something else... Starfall, I think. I don't remember. Go check ff.net. Link's over there on the side, in case you haven't noticed yet.

Vids: I've done one about Subaru, Sei-chan and Hokuto (TB and X), called Haunted, to the Poe song by the same name. It may or may not be at Yaoi-con, being as the vid's on the computer at the lakehouse and I'm at my mother's house and I'll be going to the lakehouse tomorrow but... when's the deadline again? And yes. The Angelfire page is down. I'm aware of this. This means, no matter what videos I make, there won't be any updates to the page, except to announce a vid going up on Kazaa. I am currently working on two fun YYH vids and one Escaflowne movie vid. The only problem is, I can't get ONE of the three video editing programs on my new computer to work. And that's the one I'm taking to college with me. So, not likely to be real productive on the video-editing thing for a while.

Pics: I have a gazillion random doodles, and none of them are going up on Elfwood yet. 'Cause I don't want to deal with the old computer, and the lakehouse computer isn't hooked up to the scanner yet, and my image editing software on the new computer sucks anyway (actually, it's very advanced. That's why I hate it).

2002-07-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. There's a reason for this. Number one, I've gotten a livejournal. Woo! Ability to use strange avatars and leave comments! Not that anyone's actually commmenting in mine, and I haven't made an avatar yet, but whatever. Anyway, I'm using that one for my random rambling and quiz-taking, since it's easier to update (you don't have to log into the webpage. Coolness). But I'm keeping this one for updates on the creative front, when my fics or pics or CAGE or music videos get updated.

So why nothing in a month? 'Cause I haven't updated any of these in a month. I'm sorry folks, I'm just in a major creative slump here. I am drawing, and even writing a little, but it's nothing worth putting online, not yet. I think most of my creative energies are being sucked up by my cosplay. ...that's a lie. I'm just in a slump. Actually, I have a theory on why, and I ranted about in in my lj a while ago, so I won't repeat myself.

Hey, if there's any CAGE fan reading this... I know I haven't updated the comic in ages, but if you spot me at Shoujocon or Otakon (I'm the college freshman-aged girl in the Subaru or Souma costume at Shoujocon, or the Touya, Trowa, or Tamahome costume at Otakon, walking around with a group of 3 younger girls), I'll draw you a picture of whichever one of my characters you want, okay? Despite the art slump. *is secure in the knowledge that no one will read this/recognize her anyway.*

2002-06-25T19:58:00.000-07:00

"I don't have any problems with humans. I have problems with idiots, most of the idiots I know are human because most of the people I know are human. I try not to confuse the two."

Squeal, glomp, huggle, insert-more-happy-sounding-words-here. Someone who GETS it! Yes! ^_^

Well, I'm back, obviously. Back as in I-have-internet-connection. And, amazingly enough, a scanner. Woo! What I don't have on me is my password into Keen, which I keep on forgetting to change to something memorizable. *bashes head into desk*

I'll update CAGE... sometime. Really. I promise.

I've got another fic idea. I don't feel like working on any of the old ones, and haven't for a while, but I've got an idea for an angsty 1x2x1 songfic. Leaving the lyrics out, though, because I think typing them in would just get in the way in this case. Here's my problem, though. I generally write stories all in one sitting, and then immediately send them out to someone who'll read them. This means mailing lists, creative writing classes, ff.net... something. But I'm not on any GW mls, and ff.net is down. So, in typical Kiti fashion, I find myself putting the fic off, even though I have nothing better to do at the moment and I really do want to write. Damnit. Bad Kiti. Bad, bad Kiti. Do something productive, damnit!

I have done absolutely nothing of any real productivity in the past three days. Don't get me wrong, the past few weeks were absolutely full of activity and I needed a break. But this is unusual for me. And I'm not really motivated to go do something (self-motivation not exactly my strongpoint. Inspiration, yes. Inclination to get off my lazy butt and make the ideas into something solid, no). I need deadlines. Damnit.

Something I do have a deadline for, though--Otakon and Shoujocon. Cosplays. Woo. Yep, my little group will be back at Otakon this year, and hitting Shoujocon for the first time. No one remembers us from Otakon, I'm sure, except maybe that wonderful YYH group--hi! *waves* If you're in the New England area you might remember us, though. We're the psychos that actually cosplayed at those last two tiny conventions. What was up with BAAF? >.< We're the group with the little kid who everyone says is cute. She may have bitten you if you said that to her face. Yeah, that group.

Oh, and we always love running into people cosplaying the same series (or even characters) we are. So, if anyone cares, here's the much-revised list of our cosplays for this summer:

RG Veda--No, you haven't heard of it. Don't bother trying to figure it out.
Random Clamp Characters--I'm Subaru! TB version! I love that outfit! =^.^=
YYH--Jin, Touya, and other semi-minor characters from that tournament
FY--THTC, with plushie versions of our characters. ^.^
GW--yes, a million other people will be doing this too. No, we don't care.

...*thinking* Four of the five are crossplays for me... And I wanted to start doing more female outfits... ;_; Ah, well. Subaru's outfit is wicked cool, so it's all okay.

I'm debating throwing together one of Kurai's more normal-looking outfits, too. Seeing as I actually have her hairstyle (hair mostly short, but with one long ponytail). But I probably won't, unless some AS cosplayers e-mail me looking for a Kurai. Which is not likely, seeing as I'm not exactly active in online cosplaying circles. Whatever. Maybe next year. Or something. The next con after these is Yaoi-con, which I am definitely going to--if I can find someone to room with. *crosses fingers* There's actually an anime club around here that I've been trying to get in touch with for ages. I met the girl who runs it, she's a complete yaoi freak, and by all acounts most of the club is, too. *smirk* It seems that I might actually be in town for this week's meeting, maybe I'll see if I can stop by and find some new victi--I mean, friends. ^.^

In other words... I have recently become addicted to neopets.com. *hangs head in shame* You see what free time does to me? Someone demand a fic, damnit!

2002-06-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

Gonna be away from the comp for a while. Should get back sometime Friday. Which--since I can't get to the scanner right now--this week's CAGE update will be on Friday at the earliest. >.< Sorry, but I just haven't been at home long enough to update anything!

You know, I've been home for one full day since vacation started. One. The heck? Most of the places I've been at the rest of the time have at least had internet access, though. Well, this place will too, but I probably won't be able to use it.

Here. Entertain yourselves while I'm gone. Reminds me of these guys, but without the sex and drugs. Well... less sex and drugs, anyway.

2002-06-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

Woo! Pow-pow, SMIRK, Yuusuke-saMA! *swoons*

Heh. Watched the... um... third-from-last episode of YYH today. Heh-heh. *smirks and flips a V-sign* I'm in a... yeah. Mood. Not my fault if I'm incoherent.

See, this is what I love about YYH. I love it as much as I love FY, I think, except that YYH is Xeen's series, but we all watch it, 'cause, well, it's YYH. Duh. But, with FY, when we're into it, we just sit perfectly still on the couch and don't move throuout the episode, 'cause that's how into it we are. Don't move, don't distract. In YYH, I'm moving with every punch, and when Youmi went woosh-twirl-twirl-slam I was like "Huh?!" the same as everyone else in the stadium, (else? I was in the stadium? ...sure, okay, yeah! Yeah, I was! Heh...) with the eyebrows in a V and the jaw hanging open. Same look Yuusuke had. And he was Yuusuke-SAMA in this episode, people! Most of the time he's just Yuusuke-the-guy-I-love-and-want-to-go-have-a-couple-beers-with but this time he was Yuusuke-son-of-Raizen-Lord-of-the-Makai-get-out-of-the-way-before-he-kicks-your-ever-lovin'-ASS, people! Hoo! Well, for the first half, then there was Raizen-sama *swoon!* and Keiko and "You have MY blood, you're NOT gonna lose!" and then he was back to let's-kick-some-butt-and-then-go-party!-or-heck-the-butt-kicking-IS-the-party-we-have-enough-fun-doing-it!-Yuusuke. *squeal* And then, smirk! Yuusuke smirk! Youmi smirk! Pow-pow, pow-pow! Awww... *swoons* So sweet!

^_^

It occured to me, while watching, that most people do NOT have these kinds of reactions to fighting shows. If you're not a YYH fan, you'd probably assume that Youmi's woosh-twirl-twirl-SPLAT thing was a GOOD. "He's the bad guy, right? Yuusuke won, right?" Whereas I screamed, during the commercial break, "What the heck is Youmi DOING?!" And, when fighting resumed, jumped up and went "WOO!" at the top of my lungs, 'cause, it's a Yuusuke-fight, damnit! And, and, and... Raizen-sama! *swoon* ^_^

Apparently, based on Xeen's not-so-subtle hints, Kurama will do something cool in the next episode. Yay. Kurama's my favorite bishounen in YYH. What, you couldn't tell? He is! Kurama's my favorite bishounen, Raizen-sama is my lord who I am devoted to beyond all belief, and Yuusuke is my... guy... who I want to spar with and party with and hang out with and... stuff... and stuff and junk and stuff... yeah. But I tend to enjoy Yuusuke fights more than Kurama fights just 'cause, um... they're actual fights? Kurama's fights are like chess tournaments and stuff. Still enjoyable, but on a mental level more than a... whatever level I like Yuusuke-fights on. I really do love Kurama, though. It's just that I'm more vocal about Yuusuke and Raizen-sama. Especially Yuusuke lately, since he's now the heir to my lord's kingdom and all.

YYH! Woo! Meaning-in-fighting! That cannot possibly be explained to a non-YYH fan! Woo!

I keep forgetting why I watch this show. Then I watch an episode. And this happens. ^_^

Oh, and, father's day today. Yay. Gave him a chair. Went to a restaurant and he didn't have to pay. Woo. Happy father's day, all!

Pow-pow, smirk! *swoon*

2002-06-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

Still bored.

Went driving. Didn't really go anywhere. Considered going to that party, but didn't, on account of I Hate People. Came back. Caught the second half of an old Barbara Streisand movie. And I don't watch Barbara Streisand movies. Am I spelling her name right? Was told that I pick up the accents of people I'm watching on TV. WTF? E-mailed the people I should have e-mailed two weeks ago. Decided not to update CAGE; no one's going to check until Monday, anyway. Page will be up Monday.

Still not tired. Still have a headache. Still bored.

Evidently, Mina Lightstar named a character in one of her fics after Xenia. ...help me out here, I haven't read all her fics. Anyone noticed a Xenia? Or similar sounding name?

You can only read so many fics before they start sounding the same. I'm not even in the mood to read ALHR right now... Hate being bored. It's probably wanderlust. I usually get bored when I've got wanderlust. I haven't left the state since...

...

...Okay, I can't remember, which means it's been too long. Of course, I can't remember what I had for breakfast, either. Did I eat breakfast today...? I left the state on some vacation, anyway... and I saw Escaflowne in the next state over, but the border's so close it might as well be the same state... I should wander. Except I kind of have to work this week. This bites.

Bored enough to debate playing the Sims. Grr.

2002-06-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

Waaaah.... I'm so bored... @_@ Hate this...

Mmmm, what to do, what to do... The computer screen's giving me a headache. I hate it when that happens. Did you know that too much coffee can give you a migraine if you're not used to it? (Wish someone had told me that in advance...) And apparently I say 'migraine' weird, because everyone thinks I'm saying 'my grain' and gets all confused. Weird. It should be obvious what I mean by context, shouldn't it? I should be writing e-mails to... um... *counting* ...three different people right now, and I should probably work on some fics too, but... bleagh. Computers and thinking don't really mix right now. (So why am I blogging? 'Cause there's no thought involved, of course!) I could upload the next CAGE page (there wasn't an update this week! I'm sorry!). I finally found my sketchbook again, so I can get back to work on CAGE! But now that I can work on it, I'm in another art slump (doesn't it always happen that way? >.< ).

And I'm not tired, either (normally I go to sleep when I'm bored). Wah...

Migraines bite, you know that?

I watched TV for a little while. Gargoyles was on! I remember that show! It had Macbeth in it. And Puck. Except he was human in this episode. And Xanatos! I like Xanatos, he's rich and self-centered (not in an annoying way, just like he doesn't even think about it, he's so used to it) and plays with funky science experiments and is seen as evil but doesn't actually consider himself of terms of good and evil and... stuff. Yeah. I like that type. (Cough cough Lex cough cough.) And he saved Owen. It made me squeal like a happy fangirl. It's so much fun when the I-am-not-evil-I'm-just-not-good-either types go around saving people. I like Puck better than Owen, though.

Argh, migraine BAD. I've discovered that dark quiet corners are Good Things. But the 'quiet' part is kind of hard to find... I got invited to a party today. But I don't think I'll go. Even though I'm bored. It's a party thrown by someone who doesn't suck as much as most people do, though... but there is that whole I-hate-people thing. Even the ones that don't suck quite so much.

You know, I made an odd discovery recently. I say 'I hate people' so much, I just assumed everyone realized that meant I hate people. But no. Apparently they thought I meant 'I hate people who aren't me, and aren't my family, and aren't my friends, and don't work with me, and... you know. Those people. Out there. Somewhere. That I'll never have to talk to for more than a minute at a time.' This is wrong. When I say 'I hate people,' I mean everybody. Including you, reading this, right now. I hate you. I hate me too. I hate that people exist. It's a very stupid thing to do. Unfortunately, I'm not suicidal. I just think that sentient existence sucks in general.

Did I depress you? Sorry! It's really not something I consider depressing anymore, I just think that way... Um. I think I should shut up now. Except then I'd be bored again... but I already am... but at least my fingers are moving right now, that's something to do. Wahh, boredom sucks!

2002-05-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

Okay. I haven't updated CAGE. Just realized that. Not my fault. Have a guest page. Supposedly. Have seen it. Looks good. Haven't received the file yet. Will go up soon. Promise. Go read some Smallville slash. Now.

2002-05-28T21:10:00.000-07:00

Distracting self from annoying Charles Dickens writing assignment by reading random Smallville smut and dear. Fucking. Gods. Why'd I stop reading this fandom again? Bad Kiti. Bad, bad Kiti.

Jenn. Should be. Bottled. And Wendi. And Te, of course, wonderful wonderful Te, but right now I'm focusing on the Jenn 'cause I just read Fetish and whooooooooo. Good fic. Very, very good fic, and coherent thought very far away, so, yeah, writing assignment going on hold for a while now, and hooooooo. I want to make another SV music video. Aside from that Clark/Lana/Whitney and the Lex-Lionel thing. CLex. Requests? Anybody? I'm thinking something to Garbage. Or The Start, there's a song by The Start I've been thinking about using. Wish these writers would start making requests, though, even though I've learned that taking requests is a BAD IDEA, but I should make an exception for SV writers, 'cause they're just so GOOOD, and they deserve... something. Yes. I should send feedback. That would be a good thing to do. Yes. Mmm. Remember what I was saying about the coherent thought and the not happening?

Damn. Okay, successfully managed to put off that writing assignment for an hour or so...

2002-05-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

Smallville.

Yes. Dear gods, yes.

Buffy.

The entire season has now been redeemed.

And nothing more really needs to be said about that. But me being me, I'll say it anyway. Look out, spoilers below, although if you haven't seen the finale for either show by this time I shall have to whap you repeatedly about the head with a nice heavy stick with a nail in it.

Buffy? Giles is BACK. And more importantly, he LAUGHED about the season's oddities. As far as I'm concerned, this is Joss's way of saying, yeah, I know everything went screwy. Don't worry, Daddy's back, I'll make it all better. And I loved Willow, because I just love getting into the heads of fucked up characters, and this was Willow at her most fucked up. She's making the same mistake so many other people have made. She thinks power makes all the problems go away. It doesn't. It just brings different problems. Power does not matter in any way that counts, and this was completely driven home by the fact that it was Xander--the one and only completely powerless character on the show--who finally stopped her.

Next season? Spike with a soul. I am oh so very worried about this. I'm a fan of the Big Bad, personally. Now, I liked William in that one episode we got to see him, but I do NOT want to see Spike turn back into William. William was a wuss. Spike is not. I suppose he can maybe be a little remorseful about the killing, and I'm wincing as I write that, but if they attempt to turn my Spike into a wuss I will have to hurt people. He doesn't have to turn into William necessarily. Look at pre-Darla-Angel and Angel-with-soul; we're talking major changes, here. So this could be interesting. If Joss starts paying attention again, that is. More importantly, Willow had better have some SERIOUS consequences next season. If all is forgiven, I will go quite insane. Willow was not under any sort of mind control, she was not under any kind of spell, this was just her own sheer lust for power and revenge. And okay, yeah, addiction, but it's an addiction to POWER which is significantly different from an addiction to any sort of drug. See the power mini-rant above.

And Smallville. Dear gods, Smallville. Damn. I didn't think they could write like this. How could they DO that? And they expect me to just wait four MONTHS? C'mon! Even Farscape doesn't have THAT huge of a cliffhanger between seasons, and they're only between seasons for a month at a time! This is cruel! Our main character just ran into a tornado, people! Not high winds, not a storm, but the actual FUNNEL of a TORNADO. And okay, yeah, invulnerable and all, but that doesn't mean he's going to miraculously be able to BREATHE in there. Wait, does Superman need to breathe? I seem to remember random movie posters of him flying around in outer space... Damn, I wish I'd payed more attention to those movies. Hmm. Well, regardless, I am fairly sure that Clark Kent DOES still need to breathe, and I am most definitely sure that Lana Lang does. And we all know she's not dying, but DAMNIT! That's a cliffhanger nonetheless!

More importantly. Clark left Chloe at the dance to go save Lana. Admittedly, she was in desperate need of saving. But. *whaps Clark repeatedly about the head with a big heavy stick with a green glowing nail in it*

Whitney. Just when they got me to like him. I'm fully into Whitney/Lana now, tearing up in a few scenes here, and I'm not used to het shipping. Hmm. And he ASKED CLARK TO PROTECT HER. Arthur to Lancelot. Damn, I loved that scene.

Jonathan running into a tornado. You grew up in Kansas, pal. You know better than this. Let the reporter go. It's not like Lex isn't going to kill the guy anyway. (Speaking of which, the LuthorCorp website is fun lately. Reading the e-mails between Lex and Roger is amusing. Downloaded the clip of Porsche-into-Clark and watched it and paused it where Lex pauses it; yes, I am pathetically easily amused. Loved Gabe's e-mail--love the involvement of history in this show in general, actually, and who was it that pointed out the Lionel/HenryVIII, Lex/Elizabeth comparison? Genius.)

And Lex. Wow. With the blood over half the face (which is a weird kink with me anyway, but I'm loving the symbolism too) and the thunder and when Lionel swings open the doors and Lex tearing up the room and "You're not my enemy, you're my son!" as if Lex's behavior is a shock and "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!" and holy crap Julius Ceaser, prophetic much? And the window shattering and will he save him or not? Personally, I'm hoping for yes, because otherwise, wow, slipping too far too quick, and besides which, it'd deprive hundreds of minions of their long awaited chance to deliver several much-needed very thorough ass-kickings.

But other people have gone over that scene more times than I can count, and far more eloquently than I could ever state. I have just one more thing to say about this episode:

Clark wore a tuxedo, stood beside Lex, and said "I do."

2002-05-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

To clear up any confusion, I am not pissed at the person who made that CB vid. I'm just pissed off that we came up with the same idea. It's the circumstances, not the person, you get it?

...although I AM annoyed at said person for finishing the video with the words "I am so sick of this song."

Anyway. While we're on the subject of music videos... ever been to http://www.bonibaru.com/? I'd never been there till I got an e-mail from the webmistress--she liked my Slashville video. Feedback, yay! So I checked out her site. She had a nice detailed review of my video on her blog. Detailed review, yay! And then I checked out HER music videos. (And fic recs. And went into a happy place for a while. If you watch Buffy/Angel/Smallville/all of the above, seriously, check out this page.) And they were good. I don't see a lot of good non-amv fanvids out there, but hers are good. Particularly Hey Pretty and The Different--but then, good songs, so I'm biased. But, good. (Which made me feel even better about getting a nice detailed review from her. Have I mentioned that I'm a feedback-whore? 'Cause I am.)

On a side note, I've discovered that it's nearly impossible to eliminate all conversation scenes from non-amv fanvids (there has GOT to be a shorter name for these). In anime, the scene tends to cut to the person being spoken too, shows us their expression--in live action shows, the cameraman almost ALWAYS focuses on the person doing the talking. Annoying as all hell when trying to put a video together. I've settled for just eliminating most of the talking, and trying to make sure the mouth movements seem to flow with the music, lip synching as much as possible. Throwing in some subtitles might help, too.

Cancelled that Fatherly Love video for Lionel, or at least put in on hold. I'm working on another Lex POV vid now. Dark, but more in an almost masochistic way than an Evil!Lex way. Really not an attitude I see in him during the show, at least not much. I think I've seen it in a fic or two. It's working surprisingly well. Should be able to upload it soon.

That reminds me... I really ought to update that side bar.

2002-05-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

Pissed Off!Kiti.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Someone made a Cowboy Bebop video. To Nickelback's "How you remind me." Like I was working on, you know? And it's their first video. I figured, okay, well, if it's crap, and random action, I'll just go ahead and finish mine anyway... But they did it well. Not great, not outstanding, but well. And even worse? It's about the Spike/Julia/Vicious thing. Which is what mine is about. Fuck, fuck, fuck... And since there IS a limited number of scenes of these guys to work with, well... My scenes are in a different order, but it might as well be the same video. Fuck.

Not much point in finishing it now. Fuck. I really wanted to do a Bebop vid too, and that was my only one I had planned... fuck, fuck fuck.

2002-05-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

Oooh. Nifty.

Snippets from poems I liked

About this page:
"Emotions taste like a single thing
for deleting those people who wanted
to why. is THIS there? are the
world to channel four. Somehow, the just
a demon, and miss
the song came on..."
"If I have no reaction one within..."
"for some sort of Gold"
"still wanted to the
things to why.
is the best plan right"
"May very well
you still get a name ... Kiti Katt"
"walking home Three Can
go to
play on her get rid of the
best
plan right words to fight "
"I always knew
the entire human race."
"but never find just confused and
suffering and run program
again...to go. to
simply fade take
everything with absolutely nowhere to tell"
"what going to end war, a tendency
not only will excercise I in
the internet, or go to
go."

About some of my fics (divided by series, guess which is which. ~_^):

"I
might have even
if I could never
saw what I have tried
were a trace of life, the things
only thing that
I was a
taste of me"
"and then I was me, programmed so close
to go to do "
"he muttered something vaguely
resembling
a whisper, a
hero, I was
we talked. Kissed. "
"Now. He was beyond that.
a Fire"
"Just
a reason why, should you just
tell yourself the shape of what
harm is a simple
dream?"
"Just another mindless robots slept. Inhuman bastard!
think I still almost believed you"

"sorry I... I like the arm wrapped around me"
"he
stood there for
the floor, shattering into
pieces. not
really sure he
caught sight of us."
"we can talk
down the meaning of
things"

"I deal of true
friends. "

"I do dream, of the distance, I
seen that
gentleness. in your head. "
"just as I fell
asleep in the Farplane?
if I sure but you
You started sharing your pain "
"So strong, She will
be able
to smile like
me."
"I sure people they should
be seen
by ruins."
"I think about.
it, too. All not really there"
"in a second I think everyone
else thought I was a river of
pyreflies lighting it too."

2002-05-10T22:49:00.000-07:00

I am 27% evil.
Take the test :: koolplace.com

Not evil AGAIN! SEE? TAKE THAT, CRAZY PEOPLE WHAT THINK I'M EVIL! YEAH! I'M GOING TO HEAVEN! ...or I would be, if I wasn't pagan and all that, but... you know... NOT EVIL! BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

...wait, does this mean I have to stop with the evil laughter?

2002-05-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

Whoa.

Staind-SV-Lionel.

Completely wasn't expecting that.

Been wanting to use that song for something, but then I was reading this interview, a part about Lionel, and the song came on, and... whoa. Hmm. Do I really want to take it that way? But I've already got the vid working itself out in my head--heavy use of Club Zero on the bass... Hmm. This could work.

On a side note... HA! I'm NOT evil! HA! -14%! And I wasn't in denial, either, I was actually honest on all the questions! Ha! Beat THAT!

"You are the perfect being. Any psychotic tendencies you may possess are neatly balanced by you desire to help others and your devotion to the lord above. Well you could be an excellent human being, but you're most likely in denial. Try the test again, and try to tell the truth this time. If you still get a score of 0 then you may very well be the savior of the entire human race."

Better start calling me Messiah, then... ^_^

2002-05-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

Ever heard of a book called Yarrow? Freakiest thing ever. Cat is me. Well, I'm more of a bitch. And I don't think of myself as shy, and neither do my friends, although everyone else does. But her physical description and the things that happen to her. Cat is me.

2002-05-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

Oh, yeah. More things to piss me off. Going to fail that AP Calculus exam tomorrow. Badly. Why am I in that class? I haven't understood a single thing we've done all year... Actually, I kind of get some of it when I get a chance to look on it on my own, on the internet, or using any resources other than the teacher and the notes he gives us. Hmm. Think that says something about his teaching methods? Not that I'm blaming the teacher for my failing, of course. Just a random thought.

Anyway. After the exam, I don't have to go to classes, 'cause it's exam day and I'm in an AP class so, yay, lucky me. Except not so much. First off, exam ends at 12. Bus arrives at 2. I do not currently have a parking pass, so I'm stuck taking the bus. That's a two hour wait. Joy. So what do I do in between? I could go to class out of boredom, except: 1. Shyeah, right, and 2. I don't have classes after noon. I have lunch, study, study, and Calculus. I could maybe go to study and confuse the heck out of my teachers and the staff down at the attendance office, and then get called down the the attendance office to explain something that's perfectly obvious, but I really don't feel like dealing with that crap. And for the last period, not only will there not be anyone else in the class, there won't be a teacher. I have absolutely nowhere to go. So, I could sit around outside, like I'm out on privs. Except I don't actually have privs (bad Kiti, getting privs suspended). But it's not like I don't skip lunch to go out on privs anyway. So that could work. Except that it's supposed to rain tomorrow. Aside from the minor discomfort of being in the rain/sitting on wet grass, when it rains, privs get cancelled. A lone person out on privs when there are no privs is a little suspicious. So. I could try walking home. Three miles, along the highway. With a backpack. Fun. The three miles I don't mind so much. The backpack and the highway... plus, there's the whole rain thing again. I like walking in the rain--by choice. When it's the only option, I might get a little annoyed. Final option, walk a few blocks down to the town library and read for a while. This is looking like the best plan right now, actually. Except that, me being me, I will probably lose track of time and miss the bus, and get stuck walking home after all. Damnit.

Yeah, so. Life's gonna suck tomorrow. Damnit, I want my car. And a parking pass. Public transportation sucks monkeys.

2002-05-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

Argh. Mini-rant! This is stupid and minor, but it's irritating me, so I rant. VIDEO EDITING PROGRAMS SUCK MONKEYS.

First of, I started out helping XENIA fix the equipment, 'cause she's the one who wanted to work on a vid but I'm the mechanic.

Problem number one. The VCR sends signals to the computer; the DVD player doesn't. Solution: switch the VCR to channel four. Somehow, the DVD player has been switched to play on channel four. Go figure.

Problem number two. Computer is out of space. Solution: delete old, no longer needed video clips.

Problem number three. Can no longer access current project due to missing clips. Solution: strangle Xenia for deleting those 'no longer needed' video clips. Wait, no. That's just the mental image. My mistake. Solution: decide that the computer's just confused and restart. Restarting doesn't help. Solution: System restore. Don't freak out on me yet; just a small one, within the month ('cause poor Beast can't restore to anything before that anyway). That doesn't work either. Bang head into desk repeatedly. Non helpful. Try acessing other (FY, AS) projects. They don't work. Try creating new project and accessing. Works. Try accessing other (FFX) project. Works! Try accessing the three I'd tried before (FY, AS, Xenia's YYH). Doesn't work. But, does tell me which clip is missing. Solution: copy random clip and rename as the missing clip. Try to access project. Success!

Problem number four. Project plays fine, up until the missing clip. Everything after that is screwy. Solution: delete the missing clip from the project and record that scene again later.

Xenia has given up on working on her video today, so I take over. I want to work on that FFX one, anyway; all I'd done with that was get the opening scenes in, since I'm focusing on the AS vid.

Problem number five. Video freezes as soon as I add a clip. Solution: exit and run program again.

Repeat number five. Over and over and over again. Restart computer.

Problem number six. For whatever reason, any clips added from anything other than the ending sequence of FFX are about half the size of the screen. Solution: Swear. A lot. And restart. And so on and so forth. Finally realize that the source clip of the ending was downloaded, not recorded, and actually is twice the size of the other clips, just being resized. Maybe the other clips are automatically being resized too. Solution: produce current unfinished movie, which should make all clips the same size and remove need for resizing.

Problem number seven. Movie gets to 22% and then stops. Twice. Solution: Screw it, I'm gonna netsurf.

2002-05-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

...I didn't sign in just now. Blogger still remembers me signing in from yesterday? It's not supposed to remember me... *is irritated/freaked*

Well, anyway. Ignoring the latest in the long list of minor oddities in my life...

ESCAFLOWNE.

*faints*

To all those people who have marked May 3rd as the day Spiderman comes out, let me just say this: Ha. Ha ha, ha.

Don't get me wrong. I plan on seeing Spiderman too. Eventually. Looks nice. Or at least it did, before I watched this, and had all perspective thrown entirely out the window.

The Escaflowne movie. Big screen. First row center. I was in Gaia. And dear gods. Wow. Spoiler-free, my reaction (one of them) to the ending was an overwhelming urge to glomp Folken-sama and not let go, ever. What really disturbed me is that most people who haven't seen the TV series wouldn't get that urge at all, because his original motivation in this (Van got the throne instead of me!) is a lot more selfish. In fact, I commented on Folken-sama on the way home, and the person driving reacted "Ugh!" If she hadn't been driving at the time, I would have been forced to leap across the seat and strangle her.

Other highlights: Nariya and Eriya. Brief appearance. But a beautiful one. But one that would cause almost no reaction without seeing the TV series first. Two reactions. 1: Their whole role in Escaflowne is narrowed down to this? 2: Wait... so, if Folken hadn't found them (and that whole thing in their past hadn't happened, of course), they could have lived a normal (and presumably fairly happy) life? The other big thing in comparison to TV series: DILANDAU. Still insane, but his reaction to his Dragonslayers (they're not called that, actually, but I don't think they were given a name)... Dear gods. The weak die, the strong survive?! Dilandau?!

On a non-TV-related note... THE VISUALS. WOW. I already knew the soundtrack was amazing. But the promotional pictures I'd seen hadn't impressed me. There were just so many visual treats, though! When Hitomi first arrives, she in her blue-and-white uniform is the only bright spot in a dark scene--a goddess bringing brightness to a dark world. Dilandau's armor reminded me of nothing so much as a demon, and dragging it up from the water = rising from the depths. Escaflowne, on the other hand, is described as a god that descends--complete opposites, but both are to destroy the world. And Escaflowne's transformation made me immediately think of an Angel of Death.

Folken-sama mentioned 'unmei' towards the end, and I got chills. But the theme behind Escaflowne the movie is entirely different from Escaflowne the TV series. Both are about life and death, of course. And battle. But destiny was mentioned only that one time. In Escaflowne the TV series, controlling destiny, creating an artificial fate in order to end war, a war to end all wars--these were major themes, from Zaibach's point of view. But Folken's (and originally Hitomi's) goal is to simply fade away--and take everything with him. Destroy the world to end suffering. It reminded me a great deal of FFX, actually (Yunalesca! Seymore!). His motivations were drastically different. He didn't even have his claw--the physical symbol of all his suffering.

I still wanted to glomp him, though. Glomp sounds suddenly too fangirl for me. This was a very serious movie. But I wanted to hold him and be there for him. At the end especially.

One thing that's bothering me. Sora. WHO IS THIS PERSON?! I love her, don't get me wrong. But why is she there? Where did she come from? What is she? I was thinking Atlantis for some reason, actually... but with absolutely no basis aside from pure intuition. Sora, who are you?

I wanted to glomp everyone at some point. Everyone. Well, Allan, I wanted to fight at his back. But you get the idea.

BTW. Sora, Time of Gold Flowing, and Final Vision. The three best songs in existence.

And the movie was subbed, not dubbed. YESSSSS! ...although the dub actually looks pretty good. But, YESSSSS!

Passed a more mundane theater on the way home. With the movies they were playing listed out front, you know? As we're discussing fate and destiny and suffering and life and loyalty.

...Spiderman.

Ha. Ha ha. Ha.