(no subject)

This is one of my favorite short stories ever. I actually own this compilation and it has many of my favorite stories, including my all-time number one short story, "The Deadly Ratio" by Theodore Sturgeon. But this one is called "Moonflower" and it's well worth the read. I can't believe I found it on the internet!

(no subject)

This is one of my favorite short stories ever. I actually own this compilation and it has many of my favorite stories, including my all-time number one short story, "The Deadly Ratio" by Theodore Sturgeon. But this one is called "Moonflower" and it's well worth the read. I can't believe I found it on the internet!

Mindless fangirling

Is it really bizarre and totally wrong of me to cry over Nobuo Uematsu's music? I mean, is it really weird that he gets me this emotional? He's arguably the best modern composer we've got. Okay, maybe not, but certainly my personal favorite modern composer. I could call him a genius and not be too far off, I think. It's not just that even my my very choosy college music professor would be smiling approvingly over the structure of this music, but personally, so many of my sweetest memories are tied up in these soundtracks. It goes so well with my life. :)

And I think it's good that some people who are maybe just very young gamers with little exposure to culture can be exposed to music of this calibur. Uematsu got a standing ovation at the first Music From Final Fantasy concert, I mean, can you blame the audience? I would love to just thank him, you know, for all of these years of his wonderful work. For "Flowers Blooming In The Church" on "repeat" on my CD player. For hours of debate with friends over which is better: Liberi Fatali or One Winged Angel. (One Winged Angel for me, I mean, even the controversy alone would make that song. ^_~ ) For titles like "Dance With The Balamb Fish," "ODEKA Ke Chocobo," "Underneath The Rotting Pizza" and, "It's Difficult To Stand On Both Feet, Isn't It?"

And then, you know, you get orchestrated versions, and fandom remixes with cool sounding names like "Sector 7 Hath Wrought The Angel" and Engrish songs like "Eyes On Me" which, though it makes very little sense, is one of my favorite songs.

It's funny, though. Big, huge music like this used to be for worship, gods and angels and life and death, praise for Jesus and requiems for the dead. And now, orchestrated versions of Cloud's Theme! No no, that's not a complaint at all! Just an observation. (The orchestrated version of what is generally accepted as Cloud's theme is incredible, with crashing symbols and, you know, meaningful crescendo and all of this. I think the official title is "Anxious Heart," but everything's written in Japanese on my soundtrack so I don't know and I can't quite be bothered right now to pop it in the CD player to see if it's the same song. I think it is.) And a requiem for Aerith, right? And Sephiroth gets his own choir? Squall's angst has music bigger than anything you'd hear in mass these days. Strange! Fiction is our new god. (Well on the other hand, maybe fiction was always our god. Maybe gods, like reality, exist because we make them exist.)

Sephiroth, though? He doesn't exist. Otherwise maybe I'd make out with him.

My only hope right now is that people know when I'm kidding and when I'm not.

On a different subject, I swear that one of tongari's boys must live around here. Sometimes when I go into Riverhead I see this guy who looks very much like one of the W-inds guys go by on his bike. He's got the soft, flowy hair and delicate features, the whole thing, and he always looks very content. He's so cute and I always wish that Hwei was there to throw a bag over his head, tie him up and take him home see him. (If I can ever capture him, Hwei, expect another parcel! ^_~ )

I've got twenty five birds right now. I've never had so many so early in the season, but this year I agreed to take other rehabbers' surplus, whatever they couldn't handle. As I'm the only one on the East end who's doing starlings and grackles these days, that adds up to a lot of starlings. Nine robins, one grackle, and fifteen starlings. They're all mellow right now because I've just fed them again, so they're all hanging out on perches or in carriers, with their little heads under their wings, or just looking around or maybe taking a bath. The oldest starlings are figuring out that those skinny, moving things in a dish are actually food. It's funny when they see them for the first time. They're curious, and they peer down there and sidle over, and maybe poke one, and when the worm moves, the bird jumps back like "WTF?!" Then he'll go away and eyeball it from a distance for a while, until he gets brave again. Props go to Frodo the starling for killing the first worm of the year. Merry for the first perch, and Aragorn for the first bath. (Go figure.)

Two days ago, I really thought my little finch Auli'i was dying. I've had her since forever (well, a few years,) and she was an adult when I got her, so I'm guessing she's pretty old. She's been showing her age for a while, but two days ago she really looked ill, all puffed up and on the bottom of her cage. So my Mom came knocking to see if I needed help with anything since I had all these birds, and I told her I thought Auli'i was dying. So she starts to cry, and then I start to cry, and I'm sitting there holding Auli'i in my hand and feeding her a strawberry, when all of a sudden my Dad knocks on the door. He's got this big box and he's all jolly and saying, "Wow, look at this! Do I have to hire the hall or something?" I'm like, "Whatcha got there, Dad?" And it ends up being yet more flowers from Dark Horse. (Because that was the day we were supposed to get together and he couldn't make it, so he sent like a billion more flowers. Isn't that nice?) Then my Dad sees me and asks what's wrong and I told him that I thought my finch was dying and he says, "Ah, well... What can you do? Everything has its time." And he sees my Mom in my kitchen sniffling and he goes, "You're crying...she's crying... I'm getting the hell out of here!" Actually now it seems pretty funny.

Auli'i, by the way, is still with me. She looks better than she did that day, she's up and about, eating, drinking, perching, singing and all of that. She looks old, but I think she is old. And she's safe and warm and fed. That's what matters, right?

Update on Pendragon's tail: I removed the bandage (I had to replace it because he crapped all over everything in the world,) and his tail looks okay. The stitches are a little shocking to me, because he's my little dragon baby, but they look normal, I guess. I've never seen stitches in scales before, so I'm going to take him back to Rob on Wednesday to make sure it's all good. Then hopefully I can take him off the ABs, because he's been on them for a month and I don't like to keep anything on ABs for so long. Mahalo big to everyone who sent us good vibes. It looks like it all paid off. ^_____^

Back to fangirling for a moment. I woke up in an FFVIII mood today because this morning I had some weird dream about Irvine Kinneas. (It was this dream where, in the game, you could make him date Selphie, but there were fifteen different possible scenarios that changed depending on what you made Selphie say to him. And then it turned from a game to real and Squall had to defuse a bomb in a school.) But now, listening to "The Best of FFVII Orchestrated," I'm back into an FFVII mood. When I listen to the music, I worry that I'm not keeping my fanfic in character, and in the world of the game. Maybe it's too dark. Because even though FFVII was a very dark game, I think I tend to take things too far and make it all too macabre. The game had a kind of whimsy to it that I don't have and can't seem to do, and now I feel like I need to go back and tone it down.

Ah, well. But maybe first I should finish my laundry, you know, like an adult, instead of spending hours chatting away about video games.

But first...FANART! I see that this page mostly supports Cloud and Aerith. Hey, that's cool, cause whatever. I think either pairing can be done well. I like Cloud withAerith, and I like Cloud with Tifa, and I am of the mind that Cloud and Tifa totally did the deed that night under the Highwind. I mean, what else could they have been doing? Sheesh. But anyway.

Reeve and Aerith? Huh. I wouldn't have thought of that.

Aerith and Sephiroth. Aerith looks lovely. Sephiroth looks a little too sweet, but it's still a decent picture.

Villains, hilarious. (But would you really count Edea as a villain? I wouldn't.) On this same page, a truly interesting (*points to above babble about the video game / spirituality connection*) Sephiroth / Lucretia Pieta by Meriko. I love Meriko. I love the Pieta. Mmmm.

The well-known ShinRa heirarchy pic, plus some fanart. That last drawing on the bottom is very cute.

Cloud and DEAD!Aerith! Some of them (the first, fourth and tenth,) are pretty gruesome if you ask me. Most of them are well done, and some (2, 3, 5 and the last one) aer very sad. The second to last one, Cloud looks a little too coy. ("Check it out, heee. Putting the dead girl in the water!" O_o ) The fifth from the bottom is beautiful and maybe my favorite piece of FF7 fanart I've seen on this entire page. Her feet and ankles look a little weird, but who the hell am I to judge? I couldn't draw feet if I tried for weeks.

Really cute Aerith and Tifa drawings. One or two of them are a wee bit yuri-ish (or would that be yurish?) but nothing adult, so cope. They are very cute. And the last one has a funny drawing of the girls and FullDrag!Cloud. Finally!

Cute drawings in which Aerith and Cloud meet for the first, and the second time. I like that one with Cloud waking up in her flower bed. (That didn't sound quite right, did it?)

Squee. A bunch of FullDrag!Cloud drawings! (minrho, were you the one who wanted to see those? I think we talked about that in chat one night.)

Do you love GlassShard as much as I do? You should.


*cough* Right. I am such the Jenova's Witness. I'm going to come knocking at your door with pamphlets about the real Saviors of the Planet. ;D

Uhh, laundry. yeah.

Mindless fangirling

Is it really bizarre and totally wrong of me to cry over Nobuo Uematsu's music? I mean, is it really weird that he gets me this emotional? He's arguably the best modern composer we've got. Okay, maybe not, but certainly my personal favorite modern composer. I could call him a genius and not be too far off, I think. It's not just that even my my very choosy college music professor would be smiling approvingly over the structure of this music, but personally, so many of my sweetest memories are tied up in these soundtracks. It goes so well with my life. :)

And I think it's good that some people who are maybe just very young gamers with little exposure to culture can be exposed to music of this calibur. Uematsu got a standing ovation at the first Music From Final Fantasy concert, I mean, can you blame the audience? I would love to just thank him, you know, for all of these years of his wonderful work. For "Flowers Blooming In The Church" on "repeat" on my CD player. For hours of debate with friends over which is better: Liberi Fatali or One Winged Angel. (One Winged Angel for me, I mean, even the controversy alone would make that song. ^_~ ) For titles like "Dance With The Balamb Fish," "ODEKA Ke Chocobo," "Underneath The Rotting Pizza" and, "It's Difficult To Stand On Both Feet, Isn't It?"

And then, you know, you get orchestrated versions, and fandom remixes with cool sounding names like "Sector 7 Hath Wrought The Angel" and Engrish songs like "Eyes On Me" which, though it makes very little sense, is one of my favorite songs.

It's funny, though. Big, huge music like this used to be for worship, gods and angels and life and death, praise for Jesus and requiems for the dead. And now, orchestrated versions of Cloud's Theme! No no, that's not a complaint at all! Just an observation. (The orchestrated version of what is generally accepted as Cloud's theme is incredible, with crashing symbols and, you know, meaningful crescendo and all of this. I think the official title is "Anxious Heart," but everything's written in Japanese on my soundtrack so I don't know and I can't quite be bothered right now to pop it in the CD player to see if it's the same song. I think it is.) And a requiem for Aerith, right? And Sephiroth gets his own choir? Squall's angst has music bigger than anything you'd hear in mass these days. Strange! Fiction is our new god. (Well on the other hand, maybe fiction was always our god. Maybe gods, like reality, exist because we make them exist.)

Sephiroth, though? He doesn't exist. Otherwise maybe I'd make out with him.

My only hope right now is that people know when I'm kidding and when I'm not.

On a different subject, I swear that one of tongari's boys must live around here. Sometimes when I go into Riverhead I see this guy who looks very much like one of the W-inds guys go by on his bike. He's got the soft, flowy hair and delicate features, the whole thing, and he always looks very content. He's so cute and I always wish that Hwei was there to throw a bag over his head, tie him up and take him home see him. (If I can ever capture him, Hwei, expect another parcel! ^_~ )

I've got twenty five birds right now. I've never had so many so early in the season, but this year I agreed to take other rehabbers' surplus, whatever they couldn't handle. As I'm the only one on the East end who's doing starlings and grackles these days, that adds up to a lot of starlings. Nine robins, one grackle, and fifteen starlings. They're all mellow right now because I've just fed them again, so they're all hanging out on perches or in carriers, with their little heads under their wings, or just looking around or maybe taking a bath. The oldest starlings are figuring out that those skinny, moving things in a dish are actually food. It's funny when they see them for the first time. They're curious, and they peer down there and sidle over, and maybe poke one, and when the worm moves, the bird jumps back like "WTF?!" Then he'll go away and eyeball it from a distance for a while, until he gets brave again. Props go to Frodo the starling for killing the first worm of the year. Merry for the first perch, and Aragorn for the first bath. (Go figure.)

Two days ago, I really thought my little finch Auli'i was dying. I've had her since forever (well, a few years,) and she was an adult when I got her, so I'm guessing she's pretty old. She's been showing her age for a while, but two days ago she really looked ill, all puffed up and on the bottom of her cage. So my Mom came knocking to see if I needed help with anything since I had all these birds, and I told her I thought Auli'i was dying. So she starts to cry, and then I start to cry, and I'm sitting there holding Auli'i in my hand and feeding her a strawberry, when all of a sudden my Dad knocks on the door. He's got this big box and he's all jolly and saying, "Wow, look at this! Do I have to hire the hall or something?" I'm like, "Whatcha got there, Dad?" And it ends up being yet more flowers from Dark Horse. (Because that was the day we were supposed to get together and he couldn't make it, so he sent like a billion more flowers. Isn't that nice?) Then my Dad sees me and asks what's wrong and I told him that I thought my finch was dying and he says, "Ah, well... What can you do? Everything has its time." And he sees my Mom in my kitchen sniffling and he goes, "You're crying...she's crying... I'm getting the hell out of here!" Actually now it seems pretty funny.

Auli'i, by the way, is still with me. She looks better than she did that day, she's up and about, eating, drinking, perching, singing and all of that. She looks old, but I think she is old. And she's safe and warm and fed. That's what matters, right?

Update on Pendragon's tail: I removed the bandage (I had to replace it because he crapped all over everything in the world,) and his tail looks okay. The stitches are a little shocking to me, because he's my little dragon baby, but they look normal, I guess. I've never seen stitches in scales before, so I'm going to take him back to Rob on Wednesday to make sure it's all good. Then hopefully I can take him off the ABs, because he's been on them for a month and I don't like to keep anything on ABs for so long. Mahalo big to everyone who sent us good vibes. It looks like it all paid off. ^_____^

Back to fangirling for a moment. I woke up in an FFVIII mood today because this morning I had some weird dream about Irvine Kinneas. (It was this dream where, in the game, you could make him date Selphie, but there were fifteen different possible scenarios that changed depending on what you made Selphie say to him. And then it turned from a game to real and Squall had to defuse a bomb in a school.) But now, listening to "The Best of FFVII Orchestrated," I'm back into an FFVII mood. When I listen to the music, I worry that I'm not keeping my fanfic in character, and in the world of the game. Maybe it's too dark. Because even though FFVII was a very dark game, I think I tend to take things too far and make it all too macabre. The game had a kind of whimsy to it that I don't have and can't seem to do, and now I feel like I need to go back and tone it down.

Ah, well. But maybe first I should finish my laundry, you know, like an adult, instead of spending hours chatting away about video games.

But first...FANART! I see that this page mostly supports Cloud and Aerith. Hey, that's cool, cause whatever. I think either pairing can be done well. I like Cloud withAerith, and I like Cloud with Tifa, and I am of the mind that Cloud and Tifa totally did the deed that night under the Highwind. I mean, what else could they have been doing? Sheesh. But anyway.

Reeve and Aerith? Huh. I wouldn't have thought of that.

Aerith and Sephiroth. Aerith looks lovely. Sephiroth looks a little too sweet, but it's still a decent picture.

Villains, hilarious. (But would you really count Edea as a villain? I wouldn't.) On this same page, a truly interesting (*points to above babble about the video game / spirituality connection*) Sephiroth / Lucretia Pieta by Meriko. I love Meriko. I love the Pieta. Mmmm.

The well-known ShinRa heirarchy pic, plus some fanart. That last drawing on the bottom is very cute.

Cloud and DEAD!Aerith! Some of them (the first, fourth and tenth,) are pretty gruesome if you ask me. Most of them are well done, and some (2, 3, 5 and the last one) aer very sad. The second to last one, Cloud looks a little too coy. ("Check it out, heee. Putting the dead girl in the water!" O_o ) The fifth from the bottom is beautiful and maybe my favorite piece of FF7 fanart I've seen on this entire page. Her feet and ankles look a little weird, but who the hell am I to judge? I couldn't draw feet if I tried for weeks.

Really cute Aerith and Tifa drawings. One or two of them are a wee bit yuri-ish (or would that be yurish?) but nothing adult, so cope. They are very cute. And the last one has a funny drawing of the girls and FullDrag!Cloud. Finally!

Cute drawings in which Aerith and Cloud meet for the first, and the second time. I like that one with Cloud waking up in her flower bed. (That didn't sound quite right, did it?)

Squee. A bunch of FullDrag!Cloud drawings! (minrho, were you the one who wanted to see those? I think we talked about that in chat one night.)

Do you love GlassShard as much as I do? You should.


*cough* Right. I am such the Jenova's Witness. I'm going to come knocking at your door with pamphlets about the real Saviors of the Planet. ;D

Uhh, laundry. yeah.