I guess this group is having some benefit, even if things hurt so much inside a drink seems almost worth the risk with the meds I'm on.

So, I saw {Name Withheld}s new journal (totally by chance, one of those friend-of-friend of friend of... things), and... it really didn't hurt. I think I'm a bit stronger now, strong enough that the only regrets I have lie in the time. I'm less concerned with having the last word, with getting even. Have I forgiven? (And despite what some might believe, yeah, {Name Withheld} was the co-pilot for that crash) Mmmnnn... not yet.

But I have less hatred. It's something I can look back at now, shake my head in regret, and put it away. It will, I think, always be there, scars are always visible to the person who bears them. But I have novels to write. Training to finish. An illness to manage, and recovery to maintain. I have no more time for {Name Withheld{.

I did my best. I still feel some did their worst, but that's their burden, not mine, and frankly, there are far worse things in the world to encounter than a paper tiger like that. But I fucked up, too. I own that. And I'm a better woman for the time it took me to work through it.

There's a school of thought that even if you've moved on, if the person who feels wronged has not forgiven you, you are still bound together. You are still hurting each other.

Well... farewell, faded flower. Now we're both free.

I have been reliving the Blake love with R, who is new to the show and just the sort to appreciate it on that fannish level. Very fun. It gets to me reminiscing.

B7 really is awesome. It really is one of the best, cardboard sets and golf ball planets, Dayna's pink pants, and Jarvik notwithstanding. (And it has much higher production values than the movie I'm making, which is scaring me slightly.)

And I find myself returning to an observation I first made in a public forum, oh, it must be eleven years ago, and which I quickly learned to shut up about, but which I have never really stopped believing: Blake and Avon are not very slashable. Oh, they are soul mates (or whatever), but plausibly getting them into bed is very difficult. I stand by my perception that Avon is flaming het and Blake is flaming A. And even were that not the case, neither is going to be vulnerable to the other in the way they'd have to if they were going to have sex. Yes, there is such a thing as invulnerable sex: Servalan knows it well, but Blake and Avon, I think, don't. It requires a callousness or a playfulness toward other people that Blake does not have. And it requires a willingness to be exposed and awkward (even just physically) that neither of them has. Furthermore, conjecture what you will about the "real" attitudes toward homosexuality in the Federation we don't quite get to see on 1970s TV, the Federation is a highly gendered, somewhat sexist social space, which means male homosexuality is fraught with power politics, which is another reason neither Avon nor Blake would go there with each other. They have enough power politicking to do without further complications.

I have said it's hard to slash them, but it's not impossible. I have read in my life one story that does it entirely plausibly: blakefancier's "Save for Twilight". In this beautiful, sad tale, she very wisely and realistically strips away all the factors that keep them apart: they have no social status to lose, no power to lose, no future. What they do have is a lot of physical hardship and a lot of need for physical comfort and no one else to turn to. And that's the recipe. If you like B/A, go read it now.

I'm slowly gearing up to revamp my StarMerrow Science Fiction and Fantasy site so that it doesn't look quite so 1995. But my education in web publishing truly does come from the '90s, and I'd like advice on best way to update this web presence.

Some considerations:

* The current site is a good example of the limits of my HTML coding skill. If I'm going to create the site myself, I'll probably want to use some sort of WYSIWYG.

* I don't have much money. I could put some together for an initial outlay, but maintenance will have to be pretty cheap.

* Speaking of which, my current host is www.sonic.net, and while I like them, I'm not sure how much longer I'll have access to them. I'm currently using my parents' account, and they are likely to be moving fairly soon and getting a new ISP. Suggestions for cheap/reliable web hosting?

* I don't need anything fancy. I like quick-to-lead, Flash-free sites that give you a lot of information in a quick, easy menu-like way.

Thanks in advance to all you informed web designers out there!

This is also for my multi-chapter I'm working on. I know the dono/tono honorific means "milord" what about "milady?" How would you refer to a woman of noble birth? Like if you were addressing a woman as Lady so and so?

I really love the music. Plus, Hayami Sho (voice of Naoe for those who didn't know) is singing the song. Enjoy. :)

Hello again.

I've been so busy lately that I almost forgot about my question. Please forgive me. I dont know if you fangirls dont care about my questions or are like " Oh god, another question?". So know I'll cut right to the question:

While or when  Naoe was controled by Oda (or something like that) in the novel, Did he hurt Takaya (physically or mentally, it doesnt matter)?

There it is. Well, Im gonna go now & enjoy my night. HAPPY HALLOWEEN GUYS!!!!

 

ah! stupid me! i forgot to insert the credits :
The image above doesnt belongs to me. all rights reserve to Rebecca-san.

I just posted a Mirage of Blaze Music Video on you tube. Hope you like it. Let me know what you think. Here it is . . .

Hey, I'm hoping someone can help me. I'm working on a multi-chapter MoB fic and since I'm still relatively new to the fandom I need a little help.
In the anime, Naoe's blaze is orange while Takaya's is blue. I don't remember reading anything about the specific color in the translations that I've read so far though I should probably go back and re-read. (I also have a lot more to go before I've read all of them) but does the color of the blaze have a certain significance? Any info you guys can give me on this would be immensely helpful. Thanks!

If I were to rank my top 5 favorite LotGH characters, Yang would be the only FPA character to make the list. My fondness for Attenborough, Schenkopp and Cazellnu combined can't even compare with how much I love Reuenthal. It goes without saying that I absolutely adore the characters of the Empire, particularly the admirals under Reinhard's command. They're like the knights of the Lohengramm Dynasty, bound to honor and glory.

I'm not going to talk about every single admiral but all of them deserve a mention:
VICE-COMMANDER OF THE FLEET - Siegfried Kircheis
FLEET ADMIRALS - Wolfgang Mittermeyer & Oskar von Reuenthal
ADMIRALS - Fritz Josef Bittenfeld, Ernst von Eisenach, Adalbert von Fahrenheit, Cornelius Lutz, Neidhardt Muller, Karl Robert Steinmetz & August Samuel Wahlen
CHIEF POLICE SUPERINTENDENT - Ulrich Kessler
CHIEF OF THE ROYAL GUARDS - Gunter Kiβling
CHIEF OF STAFF - Paul von Oberstein

MAJOR SPOILERS from here on

( A quick take on Hilda and Bittenfield )



( Oberstein rocks because he doesn't give a damn what you think of his methods )

I have been rewatching Crusade with enormous cathartic enjoyment, quickly adulterated by renewed grief over the show's untimely demise. This a story I would truly have loved, and the older I get, the fewer of them I find. It would be fun to see a new movie from the B5 universe, and probably funner for me if it included some of the Crusade people, but what I really want is Crusade, the arc that JMS had planned for that series. Of course, that will never be filmed. Even if all other circumstances allowed it, the actors would be too old now.

What I'd really like to see is a novel, but apparently that's not forthcoming either. Long and frustrating internet searches suggest that JMS is still of the mind that Crusade is over and done, over and finished with, done, finished. I'm not sure why he's so adamant about this, why he's so unwilling to release even an outline of his plan for the story--because I would heartily enjoy reading just an outline. I still have hopes that maybe he has something planned with those outlines, hence the reticence. But if he has, he's playing his cards very close to his chest for a story that, alas, is not gaining marketability the older it gets.

If anybody has any other information, or good fan fic rec's that expand on what's known of the plans for the arc, I'd be more than grateful if you let me know. Now, let commence the deafening silence...

Finally found some time to make a series of posts post about this underappreciated masterpiece.

The moment I finished Legend of the Galactic Heroes (LotGH), I couldn't really think of anything to describe it mainly because my head so full of ideas and information that I couldn't even begin to form a coherent opinion. Now that I've seen the two LotGH movies (My Conquest is the Sea of Stars and Overture to a New War) and the Hundred Billion Stars; Hundred Billion Lights Gaiden OVAs, I am finally a little more organized in my thoughts.

What a ridiculously amazing anime.
In fact, this is possibly the best space opera I've ever seen. If you enjoy Babylon 5, BSG, Star Wars, Star Trek, or series that touch on war and politics with a strong human element, I highly recommend Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

LotGH is, without a doubt, EPIC in every sense of the word. Despite its length, the story moves at a relatively fast pace and not a single episode is wasted on filler material. LotGH takes you straight into the action from the get-go by opening in the middle of a war which has lasted for 150 years. Although I like war dramas, I'm not usually interested in the political side of things but LotGH has such a compelling narrative on the government systems of the dictatorial Galactic Empire and the democratic Free Planets Alliance that it's hard not to care about them. The anime doesn't try to drown the viewer with political jargon or convoluted conspiracies, but rather, present the advantages and shortcomings of the two different systems from a very human perspective.

"Sometimes I have my doubts. The Empire, with a few nobles ruling the masses, is a bad government. The Alliance, with a government chosen by the people, is badly governed. Which one do you think is wrong?" - Yang, on the Goldenbaum Dynasty and the FPA.

( Read more... )

Thank you, thank you, thank you, all of you who sent me good wishes and prayers. My MRI results are in, and everything is normal. There is no possibility of MS, ataxia, or damage/disease to the brain stem.

It turns out the doctor was not clear in his instructions, and that I did nothing wrong by following the usual referral-testing procedure. In fact, I tried three times to have him informed that I was there. I only found out what I was being tested for when the radiologist ran through the usual checklist to make sure she had the right patient.
At first, I thought she was asking me if I *had* these conditions, until she reached 'ataxia', and I had to ask her what that was, and she couldn't tell me.

Seriously. Did they think I wouldn't look it up?

It was a terrifying 48 hours, with me afraid I was manifesting a degenerative nerve disease--funny, for some reason, I seemed to think that because I already have a serious disability, I wouldn't get anything else. Silly of me, no?

I still suffer from vertigo, which needs to be treated, and I have medication I take for it. I found out the hard way that air horn-like fire alarms and warning strobe lights will incapacitate me. (We had a drill this week, I walked out of the room with the doctor, the strobe hit, and I could not stand. I could not tell which way was up, where my feet were, my balance was gone. She had to half-drag me down the hall out of the range of the strobe._ Very stupid system to install in a place where the disabled/medicated mentally ill outnumber the able-bodied staff.

But thank you all. Seriously. Those two days would have been a lot worse without your kindness. Bright blessings to you all.

New translation :)

http://quaint-twilight.livejournal.com/64434.html

Japanese to Chinese translation by Hinako. Chinese to English translation by me.

Basics of this chapter: Kagetora and Kiyomasa escape; Kotarou and Naoe are trying to rescue Kagetora

---

( Translation... )

¹washi - hand made Japanese paper
²Kiji - literally translates to 'demon character'