Okay, what is even going on with this Livejournal/Dreamwidth business? From what I've gathered, LJ changed some formatting things and people are going Chicken Little over it, hence the mass-exodus to DW. And this was really just gathering, as I would not have noticed any changes if it didn't become a big deal overnight. Mostly I'm confused and kind of frustrated; already a few journals have changed so that I can't comment on them anymore unless I get a DW account. All this because a few options got taken out in the generic comment threads?

Granted, I'm coming in with kind of an outsider's point of view, but... would it really hurt to wait it out for a bit? I wouldn't complain, only it seems the only option presented is to pack up and move, like LJ is going to eat you if you hang around any longer. I guess there is a crossposting thing, but again, you have to be a DW member to comment on those (which begs the question, what is the point of crossposting?), so essentially I'm going to be forced to at least keep up with two accounts if I want to continue following people. Which, again, isn't that big a deal if it didn't seem to have just sprung up like this.

idk. I know I'm overreacting, but from my (admittedly out-of-the-loop) perspective this whole business seems like a lot of overreaction in the first place. I probably wouldn't have a problem getting a DW account if this didn't literally all happen within a day. I pretty much came back from a day away from the computer and half my friend list had switched within the span of a few hours for no apparent reason to me at the time. And, I will be honest, that was incredibly frustrating.

Basically I would really be interested in learning:

- Why people were so quick to make this jump
- What advantages DW has over LJ, because upon skimming over the website I'm honestly not seeing them
- If I will have to maintain a DW account anyway to comment on journals/to get the DW people to see my journal, because I'm almost positive all of my f-list isn't moving and for their sake I will keep this account
- Anything else that might help make this more clear?

ETA: Made a DW account here because, at this point, why the hell not. If I do end up using it I will probably post the same sort of things as I do here and might try and figure out how crossposting works. In any case, learning more about the situation has made me less irritated about it. Maybe it'll be good to start from scratch; I can make a layout and all that fun stuff now, maybe.

Hey writers. Can we bring the adjective "arch"-- as in, playfully sly-- back into modern English? Please? I was reading Pride and Prejudice a few weeks ago and was struck by how awesome a word that is. It's great because you can just visualize someone arching their eyebrows as they say something archly.

Trying to write a scientific-sounding essay on the Mola mola but I kind of just want to flail about how amazing and honestly weird this animal is.

Fun facts about the ocean sunfish:

- It holds both the record for being the heaviest bony fish (that is, basically the biggest fish that isn't a shark or a ray-- just look at it compared to these fishermen!) and being the most fertile vertebrate on earth, laying as many as 300 million eggs at one time.

- Despite having no tail fin and no swim bladder, sunfish have been recorded diving a dozen times in one day and up to 600 meters deep.

- They're called sunfish because they're usually observed lying sideways on top of the water and basking in the sun. However, in French and Spanish they're referred to as moonfish, presumably because they're round and pale. Actually, baby sunfish do look a bit like little suns! I think my favorite foreign name is the Chinese fan-che yu, or "toppled car fish."

- They're pretty mellow, which I guess is typical of big plankton-eating fish, and they sometimes follow divers around.

- During the 17th and 18th centuries, sunfish were used in Japan as tax payments to shoguns. This may be the most unwieldy form of currency I've ever heard of.

- There's a story about St. Piran, a 6th-century Cornish abbot, in which he was tied to a millstone by pagans and thrown over a cliff into the ocean. However, as he was sinking, the millstone began to float, and it carried him back to the shore unharmed. Mola is Latin for millstone, so it's likely that Piran's rescuer was really a sunfish. Perhaps this is where Alomomola's Pokedex entry originates!

- Sunfish are commonly plagued by parasites, so to find relief they'll scout out kelp drifts, which are bundles of kelp that were torn from their holdfasts and carried out to sea, and enlist the help of smaller fish to clean them off-- classic example of a symbiotic relationship. Failing this, they'll float on top of the water and let seagulls pick them clean, which I would imagine to be much less pleasant.

- Since they're massive and have tough, leathery skin and are somewhat poisonous (they eat all kinds of nasty jellyfish and are actually related to pufferfish), sunfish have few natural predators. Presumably out of spite, sadistic sea lions will ambush a sunfish, rip off its fins, play Frisbee with it for a while, and then leave it to sink helplessly down to the ocean floor. I am not making this up.

weeell, I should probably finish this essay.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like the amount of tactician!fic on FFN has been skyrocketing lately. Sure, it's a clinical problem with this fandom, but personally I have never felt overwhelmed by it before.

So I have a proposition!

We should all write stories about canon tacticians doing what they do best. I'm not talking about the FE7 tactician, even though he/she is present in the game. I mean characters like Soren, Innes, Elphin... basically anyone who has a hand in the army's strategy and isn't an OC. Many of these characters haven't yet been portrayed in fic as tacticians, and I'm sure a large part of fandom is hardly aware that there are FE strategists besides Mark Sparkles (i am insisting on this name okay).

This isn't a contest or anything like that, but if we could all maybe post them close to the same time, that would be fantastic. Give the FE section a breath of fresh air and all. I'm just throwing it out there now, so if there's a lot of interest, feel free to spread the word so we can get a lot of fun stories up!

I might even write something for a change...

Going from FE to Pikmin is a recipe for pain.

-This journal entry is dedicated to the 92 Pikmin who bravely gave their lives today in defense of their brethren and captain. May their seeds flourish and their little ghost thingies find rest.-

So, as I go back through FFN and read more stories I'd previously forgotten or never noticed, my favorites folder has been getting bigger. Not by much, mind, but that and other things gave me an idea to do something similar to what I'd unfortunately stopped keeping up with on deviantART a while back. I'd like to start doing fic features on LJ. Something like public, third-person reviews, I guess, but we'll see how things go.

The first fic I'd like to feature is Checkmate, by aviatrix8.

( Full review behind the cut. Spoilers if you haven't read the fic yet!Collapse )

In short, "Checkmate" is a gem of a piece that deftly wraps together underused characters and an unexplored setting with a new spin on a trite character; combined with a subtle, easy-handed self-referentiality and a prose style as simultaneously straightforward and deep as its two leads, it's a wholly satisfying read.

One of the hallmarks of great FE badfic is the gratuitous use of "medieval" swearwords. Take your hero of yore, formulate some creative oath based on them, and bam! Instant culture, right? Or at least instant hysterical laughter.

But I was wondering as I wrote, is there a way to pull this off? Our repertoire of modern swearwords really isn't all that modern, but to me there's something that always feels a bit off writing them into dialogue in FE fic. Maybe it's because there's something endearing about the NoA pseudoswears, or maybe it's the combination of swearwords with the otherwise rather modern-sounding dialogue that just tips the scales too far.

How do you guys go about this issue? Which cuss words do you think work in FE fic, and which ones don't? Is there a way to create world-specific oaths that don't sound completely silly?

I spoke too soon! This is sort of a spur-of-the-moment meta, but hopefully it’ll be at least a little interesting.
 
( Regarding Roy and his characterizationCollapse )
That's all for now. Thanks again for reading, and I'm really sorry these have been so long...

ETA: I almost forgot, I should probably say that this is just about all headcanon. If you think of things differently regarding wyverns, or would like to add on to what I forgot to cover, I'd love to hear it. :)
( Read more...Collapse )

Dang. Pretty sad that the month's nearly over and I'm only on my third meta. I think if I didn't go so much for big comprehensive posts and instead just talked about like, characters I like, then maybe I'd post more. 'a' Also sorry that there aren't that many pictures; I was going to do more, but I kind of figured this was running too long already.
 

Fiiiinally finished... the first part of my wyvern meta. OTL

( Illustrated field guide behind the cut!Collapse )

I should have part two up within a few days. In that I'll go over domestic wyvern breeding, training, and strategy to the best of my ability. Thanks for reading!