Chaos · Can · Bring · a · Miracle

Drops of Jupiter by Train. Man, I love this song so much, I'm not even sure when I first fell in love with it, but I could listen to it every day and probably never get tired of it. I'm not sure if the words are being sincere about someone who was just that great, or if they're kind of sarcastic and don't mean that much good, but the way the singer's voice flows with the instruments and the way the song goes through its verses and bridge never gets old to me.

Surprisingly, I'm not going to mention Twilight here. It's the insane fandom that bothers me the most, I've read much worse books.

Good books:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I absolutely love this book. The writing style is strange and unique, often using descriptions that no one ever would, but it's done so consistently and so well that it works in the book's favour. It is also a story that is able to have a lot of depressing events but somehow give the reader's a sense of hope so that we're not depressed for weeks afterwards. I strongly recommend this to people.

The Outsiders by S.E Hinton. Ask anyone who read this book in school what they thought about it, and you'll probably get a huge "I LOVED that book!" Unless other things we had to read in school that was dull and kind of annoying to get through, this book presents things point blank, and has characters that you really get attached to. I was afraid that after these years I wouldn't like it anymore, but it's still a great read.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien. I know it seems pretentious to put this on the list, but I really do think it deserves its hype. I'm not a part of the generation these books were for, where they were used to taking things slower, while I am fidgety and don't have a long attention span. It's not the author's fault, and I find that just when I'm about to give up because I was getting bored, something would happen that would pull me back in. The last scene in Fellowship of the Ring with Frodo and Boromir was awesome, and I really loved the Ents.

Bad books:

Seven Tears Into the Sea by Terrence Farland. This book is boring and tries to make itself make itself seem so much more interesting. When I finished it I actually described it as Twilight without the plot, so I think that says something. It has so many red herrings I lost count, such as a psychiatrist that the main character never wants to meet because "he knows my secrets and might tell someone". This girl has no secrets, believe me. The girl also meets a boy that is actually a Selkie, which you think would be interesting, but it's only a backdrop to make the story not seem as dull as it is. This Selkie boy was actually kind of cute, in a little puppy type of way, but he practically told her outright what he was three times, and the girl then thought "but could he really be a Selkie?" The book just angers me, not because I spent $14 on it, but because it took up my time and I'm not going to get it back.

When the Wind Blows and The Lake House by James Patterson. Talk about wasting a good plot. The story is told through the point of view of a vet as she finds a girl named Max who is genetically engineered to have wings. This part of the book is incredibly interesting, with Max being mostly bird, having hollow bones, a strong chest and even lays eggs to have children. But sadly, the entire thing has to be watered down into this horrible government conspiracy plot. And I'm not talking about how the people doing this stuff to Max and other kids covered it up because it's unethical, that would at least be a plot. No, I mean close to the end of the book after not much happening, some guy from the FBI shows up and randomly tries to kill the 100% human characters. Max has a brother named Matthew who I never felt attached to, Max became a superhero as the book went on and the other kids were totally ignored, the vet and another guy named Kit were rather flat and uninteresting. Kit I thought had potential in the plot because his family died in a helicopter crash and he was afraid of flying,a nd that could have tied in really well with the fact that Max can fly, but I don't think it was ever brought up again.

And The Lake House was even worse! I still saw bits that had potential, but every story has stuff like that, so I don't count that as being something good. I had bought both these books from a used book store because I was told they were better than the Maximum Ride series (don't get me started on this guy recycling a plot he already ruined). According to my sister, they're still bad. The kids are still as underdeveloped as before, the plot's just stupid, two of the kids nearly have sex and try to shrug it off as their biological clocks being different, which does NOT excuse the ick factor of two 12 year olds about to screw each other. And there are these huge info dumps that only serve as padding and never come back to serve the plot.

An example, talking about a woman who only showed up in these pages and is never mentioned again: "Patty had known Roger all her life. They had been lovers since their early twenties and married for fifty-seven years. Patty Jo Clark Stevenson, originally from Lake Forest, Illinois, candy heiress, Vassar graduate, director of the Dallas Symphony Foundation, philanthropist, mother of five, grandmother of fourteen, felt the tug on her stomach as the airplane began its descent."

There has been more work put into an extremely minor character than any of the main characters. Not to mention it's a bunch of useless info dumping.

False Memory by Dean Kootz. I already gave my feelings in another post a while ago, and I still stand by what I said. It explains everything to the readers as if we couldn't possibly get it ourselves. There are children's books that treat its audience more maturely!

I have been having a lot of stress lately, not helped by the fact that Facebook is annoying me more and more (Seriously, why do people who never talked to me before add me as a friend and continue to not talk to me? It's rude, if you ask me)

But THIS clip from Princess and the Frog made me feel happier. I don't care if this doesn't live up to the expectations it has raised, if that clip is anything to go by, I will probably enjoy it.

No, I haven't seen it, but I'm guessing by the reviews I've seen that it was even worse than the first movie. I've heard it been laughed at for almost everything it did, that The Fantastic Mr Fox looked more convincing than the CGI for the wolves, and that it was a blight on cinema.

Not that it matters to me, I've been hating seeing that mediocre series everywhere I go, but when I hear reviews like that, I know I'm not going anywhere near it.

Over the past week I've been watching my sister play Bioshock (I tried, but I sucked at it) and I totally fell in love with it. This is now my desktop, and I've been spending my time browsing through fan fiction and fanart.

So what do I do to celebrate my new love? Make a fanmix of course! Because I'm addicted to these things.

Based off the good ending for the game, so it goes without saying that it mentions spoilers. Individual download and ZIP folder (42.9 mb). Folder contains cover art and PDF that has track list and credits.

( and in the end what was your reward? You never said, but I think I know... )

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Would you kindly leave a comment if you download this? Or not, it's your choice.

This isn't related to the rest of the post, but tabbi_katt and I decided to rent Bioshock just so we could have something to play on our PS3, and I think we forgot a part of the power thing at home. That or I'm less observant than I thought and just haven't seen that piece anywhere, which sucks because then we definitely can't play it.

I'm watching Stargate Universe and decided since this is the first show I've ever remained up to date on, I'm going to type out my thoughts during moments. Please be aware that for some odd reason I can't remember the character's name well enough at the moment, so things will come off somewhat vague.

( cut for obvious spoilers: 1.08 )

Eh, I'm interested in what will happen next episode, so this show has really suckered me in.

It's official: I'm really missing my dog.

Last night I had a dream where I went home (supposedly, it was nothing like my household) and my dog was all over me and wouldn't leave me alone throughout the entire dream. I got to hug her a million times during it, and then I woke up.

Thanks subconscious, I wasn't already aware of my homesickness so I needed a little something more.

You're probably wondering Doesn't she miss her family too? Aren't they a bit more substantial? Yes, I do miss them as well, but they can get in a car and come visit me here and they have other things in their lives to do that help them enjoy the day. My little sister has to be the most independent kid I've ever seen, she's perfectly fine, though she does sometimes ask me on the phone when Christmas will get here so I can come home.

I'm really curious about how it will look when I go home for Christmas. My family is probably making as many jokes about it as I am about it, because it's well known that i was the only one who could put up with her most of the time, and she was pretty attached to me. First off, she's named after an imaginary friend I had when I was a kid, so that helps with the bond (my dog's name is Sasha, by the way). And she seems to have issues when I'm gone for more than two days. When I went to a week-long Girl Guide camp, she apparently crawled under my bed covers every night, and there have been more recent times where she crawled into my lap when I got back from a trip and another time where she seemed to ignore me just to spite me.

So yeah, I can't wait for a break from school so I can go home.

I guess it was only a matter of time until I got spam comments, but they're just confusing.

I adore my silly "when a 9 fan is bored" videos, mostly because I try to collect clips that make sense with the parody. Nothing against other mashes, but there are some I've found that aren't that funny because the audio is just crude humour and doesn't relate to the footage anyway. But I'm getting off-topic.

One comment I got was from the second video, most likely during the Sin City mash at the very beginning where someone said they saw that 7 didn't have the red patch on her back, a continuity error that has been noticed before, but that was all they said. Not what they thought of that segment, just something that could have been pointed out in the actual clip that is floating around Youtube.

Another comment I received today was simply: yea am 788th fan

That was it, nothing else. I had to go and look at the video to see that they meant they had gotten the video to 788 views. That's so very... useless. I could understand being excited if it was 999 views, but it's just a random number and doesn't tell me what you thought of the video. Did you think it was funny, mediocre, six and half minutes worth of crap? I'd like to know.

I know I call them "When a fan is bored" but that doesn't mean I don't put work into the clips, it's just a name to set myself apart from the 9Mash episodes.

These aren't enough to make me rant and rave, mostly because that would be a waste of time and energy, but it still makes me feel like I didn't do what I wanted to do, which was make something people could enjoy.

Edit: This has absolutely nothing to do with the post, but look! Steampunk style cakes! I love the wedding cake, it's so cute and amazing.

Okay, I have a question that I would really like answered because I think it's something important.

Now, I have this fanfic idea, it will probably take awhile for me to fine tune the outline, much less write it, so I need to get opinions on it before I get really started.

See, the fanfic is an AU story where a character that was kind of weird before has symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, and I'm just really worried that people will not like that idea at all because AD is a very big deal. I've looked at a bunch of personal stories and facts to try to be accurate, but am I still taking things too far?

I need to know! I don't want to anger someone!

I've decided to revive the recommendations post I had once done and kind of let die. As much as I rant about fan fiction, I still find some stuff that makes me remember why I stick with it, and I figured it would be nice to share that.

( tsubasa RC: 4 )

( Calvin and Hobbes: 2 )

( Sonic the Hedgehog )

( Inkheart:1 )

( Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: 2 )

( Tales of the Abyss: 1 )

I still have more stuff to recommend, so hopefully I'll update this better than I did before.

As you can probably guess from all the rants I've been posting over the place, I haven't been in the greatest of moods these past few days. So after a long time in TV Tropes, I came across a list of Crowning Moments of Heartwarming in Real Life, and found a video.



Try not smile, I dare you! This cheered me up so much.

I have kept these rants in for awhile and need to get them out. If you don't care to read them, then you can just ignore them.

Okay, to start off, I must say I love the 9 fandom, it's filled with really nice people and are lenient about pretty much everything as long as it doesn't break the rules of the forums or communities.

However, it's also filled with some crappy fan stuff, and I'm too much of a wimp to say anything because the people are so nice otherwise.

( Read more... )

Okay, I'm done. For now, at least. I get annoyed too easily, and can't stop no matter how hard I try.

Boo! I was supposed to have an AMV done for halloween, and it's now *looks to computer clock* 12:14. Jeez, I procrastinate even over things I was procrastinating with. The video wouldn't even have been hard to make, I just listened to the audio and never really did anything with the footage.

On the topic of Halloween, I'm wondering what my little sister dressed up this year. I hope it was something strange, imaginative costumes are much more fun than store-bought ones.

I have made a fanmix! Boy, getting the cover art on some of the files was troublesome, but it's done now. There are SPOILERS in the explanations, read with caution.

( info/download under here )

Because this is my first fanmix, I'm afraid I might have messed something up, so if you're having problems with the downloads or anything, please tell me.

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Edit: What the...? I referred to the scientist as "it"! What is wrong with me! It's fixed now.

practise- fake cover by ~Mokyn on deviantART

I shall spam you all some more with my silly little photoshop projects. This was part of an assignment for school, in which I had to make a book cover (the class decided on it) that used a focal point somewhere. You'll have to enlarge it to see the text, it's not so small on the actual 8.5x11 image.

I went with this because I already had a story idea in my head, one that I hoped would be a tearjerker for some people but not actually depressing. Yeah, the cover and title are pretty bleak, but for what I have planned so far, it's not a half-bad story. I like stories with strange, interesting titles, and for the one I'm making, it has the premise of someone suffering from dementia, so the title encompassed the feeling I wanted.

By the way, at no point in the story is there a beach, I had originally wanted a picture of two people showing a close relationship, and couldn't find a stock photo of that on dA, so I went with this to finish the assignment.

Anyway, to other stuff: This is the original stock photo, that I manipulated a bit to fit the mood I wanted. Lot of fiddling with levels on photoshop. Oh, and the name "Ken Adams" isn't even my creation, it's Joey's fake name from Friends. I could have just used my name, but I didn't want to put that on the internet, so I decided Ken Adams was a good idea.

So... yeah, sorry for rambling in such a nonsensical way. I'm kind of tired yet hyper at the same time right now. Critique would be greatly appreciated, because I know this needs work, I just can't think of what.

I've been looking through rpg_list to find an RP to join, since I'm in the mood, and I still want to play Kiki somewhere (every RP I've looked at never had characters from Kiki's Delivery Service, which I find a shame). The problem is that most of the ads link to a different site called Insane Journal. I suppose it doesn't matter, but I'd prefer to stay in LJ.