Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

When I stop to think about my life, I can see that I've done nothing right with it. Each time, I actually think of one or two things that I've done wrong with it. Then I forget about it again. Here's one that comes to mind at the moment. I don't have anyone with whom I can share my problems, so I just bottle them up inside and try to forget about them. This morning, it suddenly seems like I should have sometime in my life imposed myself on some of my friends to get to know them, and maybe if they were willing, tell them enough about myself that they might have some idea whom I am. Instead, I come to a time when I don't have any real friends, I can't remember the last time I've talked with someone, including a friend, without starting a fight, and the one person who is willing to carry on conversations with me through IM walks away in the middle of the conversation without telling me more than half the time. So I have to keep my problems to myself to avoid starting fights and getting fired, so I end up exploding in front of people more and more often. I know I should call my social worker when these sorts of things happen, but I'm uncomfortable doing that with a stranger, particularly considering all the times (don't remember how many, guess a couple of dozen) I've cheated her out of ~$100 or an hour of her time because I was lazy or didn't feel like it. I am fully aware that this is a very disjointed paragraph, and I have missed a lot of things that I've been thinking of typing in the last 45 minutes. If anyone wants to ask for clarification on any of this or talk about pretty much anything else, I appreciate it. I'll be binging here for the next couple of hours until my drugs kick in.

As you may have noticed, I made a tag and a database for my shorts.

Expanding on my comments on the first one, I'm not sure why I claimed that I would learn better, as that doesn't seem plausible. Also, I likely misremembered the character limit. In yuri shimai (which I've been rereading for other stuff), at least, it was far dinkier than 400. I may just end up posting all my comments on the Web and just say 「こちらではスペースが足りませんので、下のURLへどうぞ」 or some such.

Meanwhile, the fact that I've been using plurals should tell you that I've thought of another one, even if you can't access the database. I just thought I might make a spaghetti Western for the hell of it, and it happened to be in relation to the YuriHime Bumon that I thought up an actual story for that genre. (At this rate, I oughta call it "Project Ichijinsha Taishō" or something.) Of course, I've barely even seen any Westerns (probably less than the number of space Westerns), and I'd require a hell of a lot of research to make it historically accurate. This is also my only chance to use 19th-century firearms, so the ideas I can only use there bring more clutter to the plot.

Incidentally, it's interesting that Clint's famous line is not actually from a Western, just from a character who acts like he's in one. It doesn't seem to be listed on Wikiquote, but as you can see here, the line is completely changed in Japanese. Fortunately, I was planning on wording the official translations to convey my messages and to sound good, not to be exact translations of the English (or vice versa).

Also, it occurred to me that even Project AnthraXX has much more focus on male characters than anything published in YuriHime Comics (unless you count the one with the transsexual), so maybe that wouldn't be such a good place for it either. Maddie's Maids might work, but considering it takes place after the events of AnthraXX, there's no need to be thinking much on that anytime soon.

In my adventures, I discovered the Word of Power that could destroy all existence: "Th." Of course, it was only valid if voiced starting in the 12th tone and glissandoed to the 13th, but it was still dangerous knowledge.

This was of course an upshot from researching the name of the protagonist of another (than the one I mentioned*) short story I happened to think up on Wiktionary. I am aware that, having never learned a language where tone is particularly important, I have no idea how to pronounce it, but that's true for pretty much anyone saying a name from a language he doesn't know. (I chose which pronunciation to use for each character just for variety, and I couldn't even post the "ǔ" correctly in the table because it only allows ASCII characters.) It's also related to fantasy's concept of Words of Power, as seen in such media as Project Artificer, Book of Vile Darkness, and a classic example of Rich Burlew claiming that Wizards are idiots because he changed the rules to make less sense.

*As you can see, I'm planning to post follow-up thoughts on the first one and an introduction to the second.

After my many troubles with Yahoo!® Groups and Google™ Docs, it occurred to me that a wiki might help. I'll be trying it out and moving a varying amount of stuff there depending on how much I like it; your comments, requests, and suggestions are welcome.

And the order's away. In similar news, I may be putting in the next order in May instead of June [July] depending on how the limited edition package for Aoi Shiro looks compared to the price. Hopefully, my exceptionally speedy source will be able to review the special contents before they run out.

Edit (2008.04.07): I've been following this magazine for its full more-than-two-year run, and I still can't remember when the issues come out. Bloody 'ell. It's fixed above.

It was somewhat ironic that the two letters to the editor that were printed in the hard copy of the J&C for the 1st (the two at the bottom here) were both in praise of bigotry because Jesus says so (?). I decided to hurry up and type this one once I found out that they actually don't allow you to view articles for free after a week has passed (thus showing that my job isn't quite as pointless as I thought). This factor means that I have no way of looking up exactly the context of the latter letter, but the former provides much material for me.

( For reference purposes )

Admittedly, the writer is not hateful in any way, and in a way, this makes it even more disturbing. She believes that she is right, and that her policies are for the good of the people involved. She doesn't say anything about religion, instead citing that it's "unnatural" and that the solution is to develop new artificial drugs to make the "patients" natural again, and that it is the right way of the world to be horrified and devastated when someone you know turns out to be gay. However, her assertion that something outside the norm is unnatural makes it difficult for me to think that she believes in evolution, which narrows the field somewhat. (I just heard on TV a few hours ago that 39% of Americans surveyed claimed to be Creationists, and that was somewhat disconcerting to me.)

These beliefs that you are right based on faith are a sticky subject. By definition, you believe that your beliefs are correct, and in the case of many Christian denominations, that means you believe that anyone who disagrees is going to hell unless you save her. This means that it is only morally right to make other beliefs illegal. The remark about usurping the Constitution above is related to the popular opinion that the Founding Fathers only intended freedom of religion to include Christianity (despite many of them being Deists), a claim that is obviously impossible to prove either way at this point. Personally, I believe that rights apply to everyone except those who harm others, not just those who are believed to be harming others by certain people, and that if the letter of the Declaration and Constitution doesn't mean that (which I think it does), it should be amended so.

Another difficult question is the problem of how people come to have faith in the first place. By definition, it cannot be based on any physical evidence, which is also the argument against attempts to disprove religion. Consequently, the primary way people develop their beliefs is through what they experience, mostly through following what they're told by the people they respect during their developmental years. I'm not a scientist, so if I had been born one generation earlier on my father's side, I would probably be a Christian. My staunch atheism is based perhaps entirely on the fact that I was raised among people who relied on physical logic rather than spiritual things. This has of course been a problem ever since the first two religions encountered each other, so unsurprisingly, I don't have a solution for it just yet.

I also take issue with the assertion that an individual's coming out will always destroy those close to her. I can't see why this would be the case except if the kith and kin in question believe there is something wrong with it, which many do not. This thus ends up being another claim that other beliefs are wrong. I know I can't say much from personal experience, but in my narrow-diametered circle of acquaintances, I have seen half a dozen homes wrecked, including my own. In all but one case, this was because the straight man of the house had a different idea of fidelity than anyone else. (People weren't too straightforward about the exception, but I gather that it was already a same-sex couple.) I think that denying and suppressing what one is only leads to things getting worse, as I imagine is much of the problem with all those Catholic priests and Ms. Winfrey's school in South Africa.

As I've had in my notes for many moons and never gotten around to fleshing out into a post, it would really be nice if I could find a secular state somewhere to live. I know that wouldn't solve anyone else's problems, but at least I wouldn't have to deal with them. That's my answer to most of life, after all.

On a somewhat darker (or at least neutral) note, Ms. mizuno_youko just posted an interesting link.

In an attempt to avoid being associated with or having the same names as real colleges, I looked up "anthorpe" on Wikipedia, only to receive absolutely no hits. Considering how many I get on Scroogle, this is somewhat baffling, particularly noting that there are no longer unsearchable words. Still, the fact that adding "college" or "university" to Scroogle doesn't turn up anything early on suggests that if there are any, they're obscure enough that I needn't worry about them. Still, Wikipedia would be quite useful to look at what real towns would be associated with the one I use (although it's still allowable because it's not in a real state). From a cursory examination, the hits on Scroogle that are actual locations all seem to be in the UK, and they're not indexed on Google™ Maps.

Also for the same project, I heard something on CA$H CAB about a condition about lack of feeling or something like that called something like "anedonia." Sadly, I didn't have the closed captions open at the time, so I can't figure out how to spell it and thus look it up. Does anyone know of such a thing?*

Edit (2008.05.03): *It was later pointed out to me that it was "anhedonia"—pretty obvious once you think about it.

As you may remember, I've always tried to posit that my intention with my projects is not to make anything realistic, but to create total fiction. I've tried to express this in recent drafts of the disclaimers. (I had them on the main page, but they quickly outgrew the 2-kB limit. I should probably put them somewhere else so you could access them without joining, but then I'd have to reword the second-to-last sentence. . . .) Of course, I have no knowledge of legal issues, so I just cobbled the document together arbitrarily. If you have any ideas on improving it, I'd be interested in hearing them.

I've also removed a couple of documents from the Project AnthraXX and Homuncupunk sections because they contained the most glaring misogyny on the site. Sadly, those pages were the main sources of information for those two. Hopefully, I'll get around to updating and re-uploading them sometime in the near future.

. . . but I probably won't drive a vehicle into the building when I am, unless you count the garage.

Anyway, I'm a bit late in informing you that, unless some miracle occurs, I'll be off to Georgia from the 8th to the 12th. For more convenient reference, I'm planning to post these on the calendar from now on. You can access this without joining the group.

I've also posted a link to my LJ notes. The links are also public. I still don't know any way to link you to a list of my documents, and the RSS feed has stopped working even for me, as far as I can tell.

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies [TV shows]
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie [TV show].
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.

I've altered this as little as possible to make it viable; it also includes shows that I used to like, to fill out the numbers. (I wanted quotes that I remembered, so that narrowed the list quite a bit.) I also randomized the order by a method that's a tribute to one of the shows. Also, one was from an episode that I just saw the other day.

1. "Pathetic human race. Arranging their knowledge by category just made it easier to absorb. Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands! Ha ha ha ha!" ( blitzcon )

2. "I've spent my whole life stickin' it to the man. If I do this, I'll be the man. I don't think I can be the man." ( phoenix_talon )

3. "IT'S ALIVE, ALIVE! I've always wanted to say that." ( phoenix_talon )

4. "Don't touch that dial. And, if your TV has a dial, go buy a new one."

5. "What's the matter? Teacher's pet got cold feet? Anytime, pretty boy!"

6. "This oven door has run off with your wife, so you decide to gear-up and get even."

7. "Urge to kill... fading... fading... fading - rising! Fading... fading... gone." ( phoenix_talon )

8. "I let him think for a while 'cause I knew he had the answer. I knew it was a good answer, and he was going to tell it to me. 'Cause when you ask a question, you expect an answer. That's the way it works... question, answer, answer, question. If he gave the answer, I'd have to come up with the question. That would be Jeopardy[!]. That's wrong."

9. "Now calm down son, listen to daddy. It's just a bad dream. I promise you, Senator Thurmond is not in your closet. That's a good boy. Yes, okay you go back to bed now."

10. "There are over 13,000 cabs in New York City, but there is only one that pays you." ( Ms. mizuno_youko )

Since arifyn suggested Google Docs BETA, I've tried it out a bit, including moving the document in question there. Comments so far:

*I'm rather irritated that the system feels it necessary to make "corrections" to my HTML—similar to one reason I moved from Geocities, as I noted in the previous post.

*It also doesn't seem to allow special characters, changing them to the HTML numeric codes. Although this provides greater portability, it makes it virtually impossible for me to read what I've typed. . . .

*I also am unable to use Page Up/Down in a document, although the Ctrl-S hotkey is quite convenient.

*I'm not sure how to link you to a list of what I have. You may be able to search by username, but since I don't know any other than my own, I can't see that. (I suppose I could try logging out and then doing so, but that's a pain in the ass.) However, I do have a URL for the RSS feed of my documents. It would help if someone would try that and see if it works.

At this rate, I'll probably keep HTML files that can be logically broken down into 20-kB chunks at the group, but I haven't decided anything concrete.

I've posted my notes for future posts (previously previewed in in the works posts) on my Yahoo! Group, so members can check out prospects for anything they might want to read at any time. (Sadly, Firefox opens it as an HTML file, so formatting is absent. Maybe I should just keep updating it as an LJ post in my Memories instead.)

Meanwhile, I've found out a few other things about Yahoo! Groups:

*lokodraucarn actually did use a Yahoo! account to join; he apparently just used a separate email address. Thus, as far as I know, there is no way to join without a Yahoo! account.

*I can actually link you directly to individual files, as I have above. However, you will probably still have to join and sign in to access them.

*I have pinpointed the rule for whether or not I'm allowed to edit files directly at the group: only files of 20 kB or less. At least this gives me a way to deal with it, if I want to try and make sure I can use it. It still seems pretty stupid, though.

Also, you may note that the number of titles in the "kansō" section is growing and growing, particularly with the recent splurge. I'm thinking that I'm going to prioritize the ones that haven't already had full write-ups on Yuri na Hibi (at least since I've subscribed) or been posted on daily_yuri. I also have at least one that I want to type up for an aid to the description when I try to sell it on ebay, but I may not get around to that anytime soon either.

Although I don't comment on journals of people I don't know, I do read them regularly (except the parts about cooking). The former (along with her posts on lililicious and daily_yuri, where I don't even read the comments anymore because of the negative ones) is an excellent source of all sorts of yuri- and lesbianism-related information. (Although I didn't need the part about Hiper Radio!! because she told me about her source (which has RSS), it was good to hear about the fact that only a very small part of the audio file was relevant—and which part that is.) The latter contains interesting essays on the travails of an artist. Although I avoid art like the plague, I think this sort of thing is relevant to anyone in a creative field.

The few things I have in common with these people also mean that they occasionally remind me about things that I've forgotten, such as:

*I should reread the good parts of Lens no Mukō sometime. Apparently I don't remember much of anything about it. I'm very bad about remembering details (particularly in such non-flashy stories as these) from only going through them once. That was the reason that draskireis threatened to kill me once. . . .

*There was a regular character named "Redd Herring" in A PUP NAMED Scooby-Doo. As you may have noticed, I have a reason for the name for almost every character I create (both because I'm bad at making them up and because I love allusions and trivia), but rarely in such a heavy-handed (?) manner. Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that almost everything I ever make bottoms out at PG-13.