I found the missing file I freaked out about in my last entry! :D Still don't get why it was no longer in the folder where it belongs, but at least a last desperate search attempt for a keyword in the text*, it was found in a back-up folder. Whew! \o/

My paid membership on LJ expires in 4 days, so unless I cough up the money (still on the fence on that), be prepared for a lot fewer icons, more misspelled comments and no way of posting anonymously on here. I'm still grateful to my Unknown Benefactor who paid for these last two months! I hope you were one of those replying to my asking-for-prompts entry, and that I'll be able to write/draw something to your satisfaction, wonderful U.B.! ♥♥♥

Hey, have to you get the ball rolling on a meme? I thought of a bunch of questions (of a general healthy nerdiness, nothing personal I think) that I'd be interested in seeing answers to among my f-list, but am unsure as how to proceed with it. Maybe just post them behind a cut here, and let anyone interested copy & paste into their LJ, then write entries? And tag three other people to do the same, if you like to. I don't know.

( In case anyone wants to )

* The word 'scones', as it happened.

I wonder... are there computer viruses* that eat Word files when you're not watching?

There's this fic I've tried to write for a while now. I let it lie for a week or so until I'd gotten some things clearer in my head, wrote some stuff down by hand in notebook and returned to computer to seek out the file. And couldn't find it. Only the first draft, and I know I added plenty more after that, plus I distinctly remember saving those additions in a separate new file. I'm pretty sure what the name was, too. But it just cannot be found. I've done thorough searches now, including USB drives and the wastebasket and hidden folders, but it's just... Not There.

This is very vexing. Something similar happened before to this very fic, but in that case it may have been just my own fault, possibly deleting things by accident and then saving the purged version. Though now I wonder if I really did, or if it was the same mysterious file-eating thing. Maybe it's a cursed fic.



* Spare me the Latin plurals.

Here's a fic I posted a while back on onepiece_300, where it was treated kindly despite going waaaay over the word limit. But afterwards I felt like polishing it up a bit. After getting great beta from tonko_ni (PLUG: whose fic Till You Feel It All Around You, one of the bestest genfics ever, has now gotten recced on TVTropes! \o//PLUG), I rewrote it a bit and then... sat on it for several weeks for some unaccountable reason. To be honest I figure those who'd be interested have probably seen it already, but since I think it's better now I shall go ahead and post it here, anyway. ;p

After I'd posted the first version, it occurred to me that this ficlet felt close to the style of another fic writer who's on my friends' list. I'm not sure if anyone else would agree, let alone that very writer, but I'm noting it here anyway. Nothing wrong with a little influence, I hope!


Title: Repairs and Replacements
Rating: G
Media: fiction
Characters: Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Chopper, Franky, Brook
Prompt: Broken

Spoilers/setting: From volume 3 to somewhere in Thriller Bark
Summary: Some things can be fixed and others can't.

( What happens after something breaks )

I've been following and to some small extent taken part in naye's amazing chaos thread over here, which is open to all and sundry. There are LOTS of great little ficlets there, enough to make me memory it, in fact.

I thought I'd try to fill the prompt "Ocean soul" by naye, though I'm by no means sure if my idea actually fits the prompt. But it turned out way longer than normal ficlet post. It's not epic in scope or anything, just not very succinct. So I'm putting it up here instead.

I don't have a title for this one. Rated G, no pairings, set in the future but with no spoilers for the current arc. Word count comes to over 1900.

( an origin story )

Inspired by the current prompt at onepiece_300 but going way over the word limit. Posted here instead. Nitpicks (and other concrit) MUCH appreciated!! But not expected, since I fully understand people are busy with NaNo and other important stuff.

...I seem only able to write this pairing using late-night scenes. Not sure what this signifies.

Title: Old Shadows
Rating: G
Word Count: 583
Characters/Pairing: intended as Franky/Robin, but not terribly shippy
Setting/spoilers: Any time after Franky joins the crew
Prompt: Nightmares

( Whatever gets you through the night )

I'm not too good at writing stuff quickly, drawing even less so, and I'm no good with a lot of characters (most villains for one)... but I feel like being prompted! Artwise or ficletwise, feel free to throw me an idea. Anonymous replies preferred! (Because I feel like trying something different.)

*is resolved to blame NaNoWriMo if no-one replies* ;)

Today is 20 years since the Berlin wall fell. Let me tell you, youthful f-list, that was a BIG, BIG deal to all those people who'd grown up during the cold wall, even in so-called neutral countries like Sweden. A truly incredible feeling even at that distance. *nostalgic sigh*

It is also 91 years ago today since Emperor Wilhelm II was overthrown and the Weimar Republic was declared, in 1918. Two days later, the armistice was signed.

And unfortunately there's another German significance to this day - it's also the day of the Kristallnacht, the nation-wide 1938 pogrom that swiftly and violently stepped up the persecution of the Jews considerably. But that was no spontaneous uprising but carefully planned (I read somewhere the Nazis even picked this day in particular as a revenge on the Weimar Republic they hated so much).

Happy birthday, runic_binary!



(She's holding a mysterious burning flower, or possibly a candle shaped like a flower, I dunno.)

I'm in search of a good English word that describes the action of blowing out puffs of air through your nostril in an annoyed manner. In other words, making a "Hmph" sound.

There's sneer, but to me that connotes someone being quite contemptuous . to an unpleasant degree, even. I don't use it osten. Most of the time I describe someone doing the "hmph" thing, this doesn't quite seem to fit.

Then there's sniff, which tends to suit me better, but it seems to have a rather prissy ring, from what I can tell, or at least quite feminine. This seems to make it more suitable for purely humourous situations, especially when the character is only pretending to be annoyed. (Plus, since it also means to purposely smell (for) something it seems rife for confusion.)

What I'm trying to get at is when someone does this in a manner that's more defensive, or at least put-upon, than contemptuous. I've resorted to writing stuff like "He hmphed" before, but it seems a tad desperate. ;) Could my semantics and/or my connotations be off, or might there be another word out there that might fit?

Much grateful for any helpful pointers! :D

Hee.

I like the way the French, German and Scandinavian versions of Google's home page look today.

:D

edit to add: Also true for Dutch, Greek and Portuguese versions.

Happy birthday, hsiuism!

'I am older than I once was and younger than I'll be, that's not unusual,' as Paul Simon once sang. ;)

Have a great day today!

I've been checking out a blog of an American ex-pat living in Sweden (as it's always cool to get the view of outsiders on your own culture when you come from a smallish country, provided they're not very hostile of course), and just learned that English-speakers consider 'berries' to be a subgroup of 'fruit'. The blogger expressed his consternation at hearing that for Swedes, berries are considered their own separate food group. And I silently went "wait, you don't do that?", mentally filing in in the back of my head as yet another example of difference to keep in mind. Not a very important difference, but still one I didn't really know about till now.

Do any of you have any examples of differences between language/cultures that aren't the obvious ones learnt in school or watching popular movies, etc? That you just happened to stumble on one day and made you go "Huh. I see"?

You know, I'm a European and all... And while the two series aren't too similar in general, and there's quite unlikely to be any influence, there are still times when Luffy's readiness to launch himself into enemy troops, and his underlying battle strategy of "let's just beat up the bad guy"; plus the informal, squabbling, unruly noisiness of the Strawhat crew remind me of nothing so much as this.

It hasn't actually been any good for years and years, but back in the day when it was (before 1977), it was brilliant. Also with its constant pun-feasts, I've found it's very, very good at getting me to learn French better.

Thank you, Goscinny and Uderzo.

[insert favourite Latin quote here ^_^]

Gauls rule!

And another Drum thought... Since Chopper can't actually fly, it must have been Kureha's sled that's some kind of flying machine allowing her and Chopper to go up and down to the castle at will. But we never find out how it works, do we?

I'm watching the anime version of Chopper's flashback for the first time on the Funi DVD set. Right now I think I am utterly in love with the Funid dub voices for Drs Hiruluk and Kureha. Especially Dr Kureha. So perfect for the character! <33

One difference from the manga is that here the events of the flashback are told by Kureha to Sanji and Nami before Wapol reaches the mountaintop, rather than only seen by the readers in mid-fight. So in the anime Chopper's background is known in detail by at least two Strawhats - similar to how Nami and Zoro get to hear about Yasopp in Usopp's introduction.

Also, this reminds me of how badass Dr Kureha must be. There was about four and a half years between Hiruluk's death and Blackbeard's arrival and destruction of Drum Kingdom, during which Wapol's tyrannical reign was unchallenged. Yet the Doctorine seems to have kept defying Wapol's medicine monopoly during all that time, while sheltering and mentoring Chopper. Maybe she also helped train him - if not, at least she gave him opportunities to train himself and develop the Rumble Ball.

This is for aqua_karen in celebration of her birthday! It's over a week late, partly because I've never drawn a Sailor Moon character before, partly because she was sneaky about it beforehand. ;p

I drew female Seiya in casual clothes. I messed up on her shirt, sorry! Was meant to look quite nice, instead of the only thing left to wear on laundry day. *^_^*

( Behind the cut )

And also a bonus doodle of Usopp.

( definition of freedom )

From the (on the whole rather interesting) book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett:

"In California in 2004, there were 360 people serving life sentences for shoplifting."

What.

This morning on the way to work there was a woman and a child - mother and daugter, I assume - sitting a couple of seats behind me on the bus. The woman was reading out loud to the girl from a book. Not terribly loudly, but audible enough when there were few other people talking.

I don't know how the other passengers felt about it, but I thought it was pretty cool. Plus, I find there's something almost uniquely soothing about the tone of voice an adult - particularly a caretaker - uses when reading a story out loud to a child, at least if they're doing it the right way. It made for a good start to the day.

(It was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, I'm fairly sure.)

Another stray thought prompted by seeing Little Garden animated but coming right from canon, this one ( about Bon Clay, spoilers up through Impel Down )

Getting harder and harder to block out the state of the world these days, much as I try.

I'm beginning to think airplanes should be outlawed. Seriously. I heard just taking one trip on a plane lets out as much carbon dioxide as going back and forth to work in a fossile-fuelled car for five years.