Hee hee, Kuwabara can control the length of his sword... XD (yee! monsterbeasts! XD)

I watched Digimon Tamers today. When I was reading American Gods (which was a wonderful book) there was a line in it about how when you hardly ever see a show, the few times you do see it, it's usually an episode you've seen before. I saw approximately five minutes of Digimon Tamers once, and that five minutes was from the episode I saw today. This also happened before. Spooky.

Anyway, I saw the entire episode today and I liked it. Your recommendation did not disappoint, Carolyn. XD Now I'm going to have to make sure I don't forget to miss it on Saturdays.

And an episode of Batman Beyond I hadn't seen before was on today... I loves that show. I loves it good.

Jeez, I guess that last line there was such a good clincher... XP;; People, the Clarity chapter isn't done yet.. (if it was I would have done as I usually do and made a topic for it over at the board--also it would say 'end' at the end instead of 'to be continued') That's only half. :3; Still have to write the other half. Yet it is nice to know that apparently I have somewhat maybe learned how to properly end a scene. -_- (edit:) It's my own fault :3;; Sorry :B;

(then I start on next Claris chapter)

New Karma.

Updated Kurai. (you know you want to read Clarity...)

There's some pictures on my art page that I didn't post in here, too. n_n And I did other stuff..and stuff.

Is it just me, or does Laura's father (on Hamtaro) look like he's about sixteen years old? o_o

Okay, I said barring catastrophe... and while it's not a catastrophe (since Malfactor didn't annihilate himself, as he is wont to do when left off for extended periods of time), my power's been out for hours and just now returned. So I lost all that work-time and dad wants to go out to eat and it's already five and argh. I hate to break promises...

BUT I did get to talk to Emiko and then Laris, which was good and fun. Oh well. I'll try to get done anyway. I just have a lot to type and typing is so tedious, since I also edit while I type. It is the least fun part of writing.

Although it could turn bad if the storm gets heavy and threatens to knock out the power. X3; Light rain, please! n_n

Mmm.. light thunderstorm, alone in the house, mood music playing, typing Clarity, coke in hand.

It doesn't get much better than this, people.

Ho ho, since Bryan is not here I am using Kazaa for my own devious purposes (read as: downloading atmospheric and new age music. EVIL!).

Okay friends, barring any catastrophe like me actually having to do something tomorrow (which is not likely since mom and bryan are gone and dad will be at work), I promise the completion of the uber-update of d00m, which will include many things, but mostly a large portion of Clarity's next chapter.

I need to put up my sparring trophies... I pulled them down to show them to Ali and Laris when they came over. My brother has some trophies too, from Tae kwon do and also maybe I think for soccer or something. I'm pretty proud of those trophies. First and second place. Somehow I look at them and think 'See, I'm not just an inactive geek, I can do physical things if I want to.'

Though to be honest I have totally forgotten most of the patterns. The only one I can still NAME is Song-song. But I remember how to spar and I remember most of the sparring rules. I loved sparring. It's so much fun, even though my favorite Tae kwon do move--the flying kick--is not something you can feasibly do to someone in a fight. Of course Emiko will never let me forget the time we sparred each other and she knocked the wind right out of me, to the point where I was on the ground, totally unable to breathe. I tell you, that was scary. I could absolutely not breathe. It was my own fault--I think I essentially ran into her foot.

But I'm pretty good at sparring, and pretty good at fighting physically in general, probably because of my brother. We fight a lot less than we used to, but we would go at it when we younger (and by younger I mean up to fourteen and fifteen years old).

However, though I like fighting, though I like engaging in a fight, I dislike such sports as boxing. I find boxing barbaric, because of the lack of rules. There's no respect. In a martial arts fight there are rules. There is respect. You respect your opponent even if you must beat the crap out of him for the trophy. And make no mistake--sparring, even with rules and pads (and we wear a lot of pads--hands, feet, head gear, mouth guard, etc), can get dangerous. Bones (jaws most commonly) can be broken, noses bloodied, etc. Naturally this tended to happen with the older age groups, people who hit harder and faster, so it wasn't something I had to worry about, but like I just related to you, I have gotten the wind knocked out of me and I've knocked the wind out of others.

The other thing I miss about Tae kwon do was breaking boards. Damn, it's so much fun to punch or kick through a board. It just makes you feel strong, I guess. Kicking through two and three boards is even better, because regardless of how strong the wood was you think to yourself 'Jesus, look what I did! I kick ass!' It makes you feel good about yourself. Even if you sometimes end up with a scraped ankle or hand due to a messy break. :3;

Fuck, I have so much to type. This is going to have to wait until tomorrow, my brain's already started the liquefication process...

People get pissed at each other for the pettiest reasons. Today's reason is: getting upset with someone because they do not share your character preference. By that I mean, I dislike Aeris, and I dislike Rinoa. I really do. Nothing you say is going to make me like these characters. You could write a senior thesis on it, and I would read it, and I would say 'So? They bugged me. I don't like them.' But that doesn't mean you need to hate me for it (not that anyone does, this is an example). There's absolutely no reason to fight over something as lame and petty as a fictional character, or anything else of that nature, like the game itself, or a band, or whatever. I love Fou-lu, I love Okage, I love Ace of Base. If I met and befriended someone and then found out they hated Fou-lu, hated Okage, hated Ace of Base, I WOULD NOT CARE, as long as they didn't launch into reasons why I should hate them, or worse, why I am a bad person for liking them so.

I have a friend, an excellent friend, who hates fantasy. She hates Star Wars. She is incredibly religious, creationist, even. Do I care? No. Do I love her still? Yes. Because she is one of the nicest, most reliable and understanding people in the universe and I have known her forever. The fact that we don't share these preferences means nothing. Yet she has received death glares from eavesdroppers when proclaiming her hate of fantasy and Star Wars, glares that I would only give to a person who has just killed my entire family and all my cats. I don't understand why people do this. IT DOES NOT MATTER.

I severely disliked most of FF8. It is my least favorite of the Final Fantasies I have played (and I admittedly have not played several and do not intend to play 11). But if you think it's the greatest, then GOOD. More power to you. It doesn't mean I don't like you, and I sure hope it doesn't mean you're not going to like me, because honestly that is just fucking stupid. I have seen terrible flame wars over this kind of thing, actually, even over whether FF8 sucked or not (my opinion: overall, it did. You don't think so, okay. It's just a difference of opinion), and back when 7 came out, there were battles over the goodness of Sephiroth or the goodness of Cloud, and ESPECIALLY over Aeris. Ali-fluff, I know, is an Aeris fan. I do not like Aeris. I did not shed tears for her death. But I have never fought with Ali-fluff over Aeris and I never will, because that she is an Aeris fan is fine and dandy with me.

But the rage people would express amazed me. The rage people still express amazes me. Seriously. Who the fuck cares? Hating someone because they hate a character, a game, a band, a TV show, a movie or whatever that you love is completely idiotic. The only reason I would be upset with someone that was against something I liked would be if he or she proclaimed that people that liked this thing were the equivalent of Neo-Nazi's or something to that effect. Otherwise, I don't care, and I don't understand why so many people do.

Well, Bryan and Mom are gone. You know what that means... Cokes in the morning and blogging from Imperium. Imperium being the newer computer in the house, being the computer which could not also pass for a heap of scrap. However, since Bryan's final words to me as he 'hugged' me (more like a gentle headlock) were 'Don't fuck up my computer' I won't be doing much with it besides listening to its music and blogging from it from time to time. It is about ten thousand times faster than Malfactor, so I also think if I used it too much I would get used to its fastness and using Malfactor's slow ass self would become too much to bear.

Then again, Imperium has its share of annoyances. Bryan has Kazaa, and Bonzi Buddy, which means ads are popping up in my face all the time, even when I'm not visiting a freeserver page.
But he has a lovely keyboard which actually works when you hit its keys, in stark contrast to several keys on Malfactor's board, which must be struck repeatedly, sometimes with sledgehammers, in order to be recognized by the computer (this usually happens with the 'A' key, and of course the left, down, and right keys on that pad have been rendered completely useless due to a fatal Coke spill many moons ago--caused not by me, but by my brother knocking over the cup). The resolution is also gigantic, because Imperium's screen is gigantic, and I do not dare change it because honestly I have no frigging clue as to how to work Windows XP. (Malfactor is running 98, and if I had my way he'd still be running 95--the only reason we upgraded was because he flat out refused to work with it anymore. I expect he would choke on XP anyway, the poor old bastard)

Nearly at the halfway point for Clarity's next chapter. Intending to reach that point and then type it up and post it, and then finish other minor updatey things, soon. And then Kurai will have its update. Yess.

I was meant to go to the doc today for a physical (Rhodes requires it, as do most other colleges), but apparently they can't fit me in until the 28th. Rhodes wanted the form by the 15th, but oh well... nothing I can do about it. -_- I just hope the person I see is a woman.

Heh heh, Vera's talking about the Bouncer makes me think of a few weeks ago when Bryan's friends were all here, and since none of them was doing ANYTHING I started playing video games. They essentially MSTed the Bouncer as I was playing it. Their favorite character? Volt of course. I don't like playing as Volt because he's all big and slow, but I did it for them and they said 'Dude, you're disgracing Volt' because I'm not very good with him. But it was funny. Yes.

I'll go write Clarity or something now. =P

Fresh Karma. (and yes, I know Kurai says it was updated yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to finish updating, which is why there's no stuff on the new page. Perhaps I can finish today)

If nobody read me... If I really believed that nobody at all really ever came here and read anything I wrote, or if I were in a situation where it would be impossible for anyone to read what I wrote, would I still write?

Well yes. Of course. Not to say because I need to or I have to, although maybe sometimes I feel that way, but because writing is one of the only things that makes me really, really happy. Writing and talking about writing. Creating and talking about creating. Characters and stories and talking about characters and stories. It is that which makes me happy above all other things. (video games, anime, books, and talking to people who don't make me feel like a moron also make me very happy. But there is nothing quite like really writing)

So if I had no audience I would not stop writing. But I would, admittedly, be less enthused, though no less happy if you know what I mean. That is, I would be happy while I was writing and while I was thinking, but I would be much less so when it was all done and I wanted to share it with somebody. Because that to me is one of the points of writing. I do not write only for myself. Any writer who says that to you is a nasty liar, unless they only write in private and they keep everything they write locked away from human eyes. And not because they're afraid of what people will say if it is read, but because they simply wrote it for them and they do not want or need anyone reading it.

But any writer who wants to make a living off of it (like I eventually do someday maybe I hope) needs an audience, and obviously must care about her readers. I need an audience. I care about my readers. I don't see any shame in that.

Okay, does anybody know what the hell happened to Livejournal? o_o