shayera

I'm going to do a meme!

How it works: you comment saying you want to do the meme, I give you an age (please tell me how old you currently are as well), and you fill out the meme questions with what applied to you back then, and what applies to you now. naye gave me 21.

That was a long time ago. I turned 21 at the midyear point of 2002.

( Who was I at 21?Collapse )

It is now thirteen years later. On the one hand, it feels like at lot has happened in that time, and I have certainly grown a lot as a person, but on the other hand it feels like it wasn't that long ago.

( Who am I now?Collapse )

Homestuck is doing things to me again, and I've poked at fandom. Below the cut are recs for three brilliant vids and two sweet ficlets (descriptions of the fics contain spoilers for the recent developments)

( Vids and fics!Collapse )

The lovely naye suggested a blogstice around midsummer to get back into the habit of posting. And she has a point. I just tend to think I have nothing to say. :P

This Wednesday I went on a 14 km walk - walking very slowly, looking at stuff, picking wild strawberries at times and generally enjoying myself. I love taking long walks in areas I haven't walked before. This was basic Swedish countryside, fields and forested hills and little red houses.

I might have overdone it, though, because I got a bit of a sunburn, and yesterday I was pretty much down and out with some annoying fever. I feel better today, though.

I've been reading a lot. Other than Homestuck (still obsessed!), I recently read 精霊の守り人 (Seirei no moribito), which is a very good Japanese fantasy book. Then I read スレイヤーズ (Slayers) which is... not. Ugh. It might work as an anime, but it doesn't work as a book at all, although the book is the original. >_<

I'm also reading a book from 1670 (downloaded in scanned format from Stockholm University's library), written in England about Japan. It says a lot more about the European world view than about Japan, but that makes it very interesting. The first chapter starts with the biblical Creation and goes on about Noah's sons, to explain what they considered the background to far-away countries!

It's midsummer, and we're about to have strawberry cake. A week or so ago my mother made rabarberkräm (rhubarb... jelly?), which was amazing. I'm addicted to it. :D

It's been way too long since I posted anything, I guess.

Well. Here's a reaction post about today's Homestuck!

( With a lot of spoilers and speculationCollapse )

Homestuck still gets me excited. ^_____^

Let's hope 2012 will be a good one. :3

I can actually see Mt Fuji from my window today too, but barely. It's pretty misty. I tried to take a photo, but it's too faint to stick on the camera. Sadly, there are no dragons.

I'm posting this from Dreamwidth. Most of my friendslist is on LJ, so it's not like I'll be able to jump ship, but I'm testing the crossposting out.

Crossposted from http://shayera.dreamwidth.org/114433.html.

I should go to bed but Homestuck has updated and I've already watched the vid several times and I'm going *squee* and *eeep* and *OMG* and *ooooh* and *waaaah*!!! Not necessarily in that order.

( Spoilers and squee!Collapse )

I want to write about RL stuff, but at the same time I don't want to. Whining is boring.

So I'm going to write about fandom instead!

I'm still in over my head in Homestuck, despite the sad, sad fact that it's still on hiatus and probably won't update until some time in October. But the fandom on AO3 is so awesome, and it's making me all squeeful!

I don't think I've been this into a fandom in... Ever, possibly. Or, okay, I've been fanning heavily on a lot of things, most notably One Piece and Doctor Who, in pretty much the same way I'm doing with Homestuck right now, but the difference is that I'm also seeking out fic. I don't tend to do that a lot, at least not beyond what my friends rec. Fandom and fanon tends to scare me off, for some reason. And with Homestuck, I even felt uncomfortable with fic at all at first, because it's a webcomic and not a published media. (The creator being "one of us" - an internet creative person - skeeves me a bit). But I'm staying away from AH personally and reading fic on AO3, and it turns out there's so much awesome stuff out there.

I think maybe it's the fact that AO3 doesn't seem to be infested with badfic writers. And also that wank doesn't tend to happen in and around fic. And Homestuck fandom on AO3 is so active and so creative and I just want to hug all of it. ^___^ (Of course, not all of it is my cup of tea. Doesn't stop it from being amazingly creative.)

( Fic Recs!Collapse )

I've been writing fic myself, too. Right now I'm writing a longfic, As It Should Be (Post-Scratch, the human kids end up on Alternia, and things aren't quite right. ~12K and counting) - which I probably shouldn't, given my track record of giving up halfway... But I want to finish it, and it's not like I don't know how it's going to end. Ganbatteru!

(Posting Homestuck fic to AO3 is happymaking. I love getting kudos - of course comments are better, but all those kudos means someone is reading and liking it, and it makes me all fuzzy inside. I'm so easy. ^^)

I should post about something else. But then Homestuck updates again and...!!!

( All the angst. ALL OF IT.Collapse )

( I try to chart all these different versionsCollapse )

I keep impatiently pressing F5 at Homestuck.

Addiction is a powerful thing.

( In which I speculate a bit about the recent updatesCollapse )

ETA: Update!!!

( Fresh thoughts, not necessarily coherentCollapse )

I am obsessing. Nothing to see, move along.

( The latest update and some thoughtsCollapse )

Uh. I seem to have committed Homestuck fic. o_O

It's just a bit of family fluff, four little pre-series ficlets tied together by a theme. 3200 words. On Parents. (Because children ask questions.)

Over the last week, I've kind of madly fallen in love with Homestuck. Which is all xparrot's fault, though it's my responsibility for being intrigued by her pimping post. And she has good taste (with which I mean, similar to mine).

It's awesome, but terribly distracting, and I absolutely did not have time for a shiny new fandom to obsess over right now. But now I'm stuck feeling all fannish! *flails helplessly*

In fact I'm supposed to be reading stuff like this:

今船御府内御取締向厳重被仰出候付而は辻番所之儀番人壮健之者差置持場内勢々為見廻夜中は別而心附怪敷者等徘徊致し候ハ々早速取押置最奇御目付に相届触候事

Direct quote from a document I have in front of me right now. Except the original is slightly more complicated, because some of the kanji there are pre-simplified, and my computer doesn't have the pre-simplified forms available. And yeah, that's Japanese, slightly less than a hundred years old. It's like a whole different language.

Which is difficult and awesome at once, but only when I'm not in the mood for fannish flailing? Uh. ^^;;;

To top that off, the pleasantly "cool" 25 degree days are over and the soulcrushing humid heat is on. UGH.

Time for more photos! This time there's a bunch of pictures of the Todai (University of Tokyo) campus in Hongo under the cut.

( Buildings, parks, and flowersCollapse )

Alright! Some people wanted to see photos. I have way too many photos to try to go through everything at once, so I chose start with some from my apartment and the area close to here. Still, be warned for picspam.

( Read more...Collapse )

I'm not posting. I'm going to have to do something about this.

At first, I wasn't posting because I thought I'd wait until things calmed down a bit. I'm starting to realize that maybe they won't. Heh. It's not that I have a lot of classes or activities, it's just that I'm working hard and learning so much that is new to me that when I have time to spare, my brain feels dead.

So. Is there anything in particular you want me to write about? Any questions about what I'm doing or what things are like here? Do you want me to post photos?

I'd post a poll, but since I'm not on a paid account, this will have to do.

I just learned that Sarah Jane Smith Elisabeth Sladen has died. I never thought the news of a celebrity's death would make me this sad. But damn, she was good. She'll be missed.

As a research student (研究生), I'm not duty bound to participate in anything - but I have the opportunity to. And opportunities are for taking! I'm taking a few classes, and participating in after-seminar activities, and it's a fascinating experience.

( To be one of the the studentsCollapse )

I've had a busy few days, as it tends to happen when you've just arrived in Japan.

( Some things I've been up toCollapse )