Last night I dreamed I had to run like hell to escape a tsunami. We ran about half a mile inland, uphill, with the water at our heels (it was the slow flood-rise type, not the towering wall of water) and eventually ended up climbing a tree at the top of the ridge because we were in lowland country and even the hill wasn't enough protection.

The reason I mention this is that it's not an uncommon dream for me to have. For as long as I can remember, I've dreamed about tsunami. Not regularly or frequently, but they pop up in my dreams in a way that other disasters don't. I have never, that I remember, dreamed about an earthquake or a volcano. I have dreamed that I was trapped in a house which had been engulfed by the wave, windows creaking and leaking and the depth of swirling water visible outside them, praying that the wave would retreat before the windows broke. I have many times dreamed of running. Interestingly, though, I have never dreamed of drowning. The tsunami always passes, and then I'm frantically trying to phone people I know, or help people who were caught in it.

I remember mentioning it to my mother once, and she said that she'd never dreamed of anything of the sort. I just wonder if it's something keyed particularly into my subconscious, and if so, which part? The sweeping disaster? The wave itself? The running away? Are there people out there who dream of earthquakes, or people who rotate through all the available disasters?

The other interesting thing is that the dreams are not particularly traumatic. I don't wake up terrified or stressed or unhappy. I have vivid memories of the running and the fear, but they don't affect me emotionally any more than reading a story about those things would.

I do also have a vague memory that Stephen Fry was up the tree with me, though, so hey, it's not all bad. :)

Tags: dreams, real life

I'm never sure how much good this sort of thing does, but I'm frankly too shocked not to say something.

If you've missed what's happening in Iran right now, the short version is: an election was held, and possibly rigged in favour of the current President and the regime he supports. Millions of people started peaceful protests.

Paramilitary groups were called in and given live ammunition.

It is currently not possible to get at Google, Yahoo, and other such sites in Iran. Foreign journalists are under lock and key in their hotels. People are being arrested or attacked for carrying phones, laptops, anything that could communicate with the rest of the world. People are nonetheless finding ways to blog, twitter, or otherwise get the word out.

People are being arrested, or simply disappearing, for doing so.

A more detailed rundown of events
Information and warnings about getting involved on Twitter et al, and some more information here
(Everyone is simultaneously trying to verify sources while not putting said sources in danger by quoting them or directing unwelcome attention to them - it's a citations nightmare and there's far too much room for rumour and misinformation. -_-)
A timeline of events so far - contains speculation
BBC snippets from correspondents - they are much more cautious in what they say but I don't see anything to contradict what else I'm hearing.
Another BBC article with links to some of the footage that is starting to emerge, which contradicts the official statements from the Iranian government.

If you want a bit of immediate activism, people are being encouraged to change their location and timezone on Twitter to Tehran, in the hope that this will make it harder for the Iranian government to track down Iranians using the service. I don't know if it will really help, but it seems like it might be worth a shot.

Tags: news
I feel: stunned

... Albert the Clocky, my independently mobile alarm clock who is currently sitting on the floor across the room, just suddenly and for no apparent reason jerked around on his wheels to face me.

... I am a little freaked out now.

I feel: um

"A Wing and a Prayer" chapter 4 is up at the writing journal.

In other news I seem to have no life. -_-

Tags: aerialbots, my fic, skyfire/silverbolt

Which spelling?

- Kieran

- Keiran

Edit: Just an opinion poll - both are correct spellings.

Tags: writing

Watching this unfold is deeply eerie. It's like being on the other side of Lost or The Langoliers.

I'm sure it's 'just' an accident - a crash that has happened so suddenly and out of the blue that there was no time for radio response - but the use of terms like 'vanished' in the early reports, and the speculation about a lightning strike and an unregistered storm make you wonder where that plane is now, under what skies it might be flying.

Even though I'm sure, sooner or later, they will find wreckage, I'm kind of hoping it will just mysteriously reappear in some bizarre location. Or the passengers will all be found safe on an uncharted island. Polar bears optional.

Tags: news

I don't know how many Yami people still follow me on LJ, but just a heads up - I've finally got around to fixing all the dead links on "The Other Side of Twilight" on my writing journal, so the posted fics to date are all readable over here.

I wonder if I might be able to blitz on through and finish the series if I just jumped in and did it. It's just there's so much else that needs writing. >_< Including Aerialbots and originalfic.

Edit: Teaserdrabble:


It's not the command that freezes his blood; it's the look on Tatsumi's face. So still. So quiet. So calm. With just the smallest lightening around the mouth. Like a smile. Like a farewell.

Watari pushes off from the wall like an athlete, throws himself across the room. The shadows are rising before he can draw breath to scream. They envelope Tatsumi, draw him in, and Watari's outstretched fingers barely grasp his jacket--

Then Watari is falling through the space where Tatsumi was a moment ago, rolling and cursing, fetching up in a heap against the far wall. The shadows slink back to their corners.

Tags: my fic, tosot, yami

This video will make you happy.

Tags: random

Has the definition of "jossed" changed? I always understood it to mean that something in a fic ended up actually happening on the show in some form (someone writes a post S2 Buffy fic where Spike comes back to Sunnydale, then Spike actually does), but it seems as though people use it now to mean just that canon has contradicted fanon.

Tags: fandom

I AM NIGH INCOHERENT WITH SQUEE. JUST SO YOU KNOW.

Spoiler-free version: Just. Just awesome. Keeps all the fun, excitement, camp, and kick-ass OH HELL YEAH of the franchise, while going off in its own fresh new direction. Loads of fun to watch, just the right length, graceful handling of ties to the rest of the canon, and hilarious and well-timed use of classic references. A++++++ WOULD SHAG KIRK WATCH AGAIN

( Couple of spoilery comments... )

In short: GO AND SEE IT. MORE THAN ONCE. Also, it needs to be out on DVD right now this second so I can vid it. I have the best vid ever in my head and have done almost since I left the cinema. :D

I had an additional moment of joy at the start, in the form of a trailer for "Revenge of the Fallen". I haven't been keeping up with the pre-release stuff so I wasn't able to do any in depth spotting, but there was a decidedly Ravage-shaped 'con racing across a desert, and then at the end there was an ENORMOUS WHITE AND RED 'BOT WHO LOOKED TERRIBLY FAMILIAR OMG (Edit: Actually scratch that, just watched it again on Youtube and I don't think it was him after all, WOEZ) and caused me to kind of overload with squee. I KNOW WHAT I WILL BE SEEING IN THE IMAX THIS SUMMER.

We also paid a bit extra for the nice seats in the cinema, and thanks to a bit of awesome negotiation from mrkgnao, managed to sit up on the balcony with nice high seat backs, with the result that I do not have a headache and we all had enough leg room. :D

Edit: Spoilers in the comments.

Tags: films, real life, skyfire, star trek, transformers, vidding
I feel: SQUEE

So I've been playing around with The Sims 2 again recently and the results were predictable.

( Human!Aerialbots. )

Other Sims in the neighbourhood include the Seekers and Skyfire, whom I had to separate in a hilariously short space of time because the Seekers all tried to sleep with each other and then ended up furious with each other, and then Starscream started hitting on Skyfire, which resulted in Skywarp and Thundercracker beating Skyfire up so often he could barely take two steps. So now they have been packaged off to different corners of town. There is also a Megatron floating around somewhere just waiting to put Starscream in his place.

... the Seekers look distressingly like a J-Rock band. Just so you know.

Tags: aerialbots, crack, games, transformers
I feel: amused

Possibly the funniest video ever. I love the store manager's comment at the end.

A rather strange mix up between Canada and Northumberland - the last line of the article is gold.

Yahoo is closing down Geocities. Honestly, I was only vaguely aware that Geocities was still around, but it gives me a pang of nostalgia nonetheless - my very first website, complete with midi file, black background, and the blink tag, was hosted on Geocities, just like everybody else's.

Tags: news

The internet is this amazing platform for communication, merrily stripping away boundaries of distance and time. Right back from when it was all mailing lists and midi files and the BLINK tag, I've loved how I could suddenly see into the rest of the world* - find out about media and events and ideas on the other side of the globe. People all over the internet can swap things they love, and broaden each other's horizons.

Except now half of what I search for on Youtube pops me up a message: "You cannot view this content in your country". Pandora no longer works for UK IP addresses because of licensing laws. Amazon plays god with its listings, deciding what is and isn't appropriate.

It's like we've got this endless, boundless field in front of us with no walls, and a good portion of the world has taken one look at it and started pouring the concrete as fast as they can.


* for a given value of "the rest of the world", of course, but beyond my own borders, certainly

Tags: tech

Just started watching hack//SIGN pretty much at random while folding letters, and wow, it is not at all what I was expecting. Somehow I had it in my head that it was a crappy, silly four-episode thing with no plot, but I was obviously mixing it up with something else, because it's awesome. And has plot. And is deadly serious. And really goddamn creepy.

Mysterious Female Voice: ... and I will be your guardian and protect you...
Me: Oh great, it's going to be a cutesy shoulder angel, isn't it?
Main Character: *gets into trouble*
Guardian: *appears from wall and is a HUGE HORRIBLE FREAKISH AMORPHOUS THING THAT KILLS PEOPLE*
Me: o_________O

It amuses me, though, that it has been written so that it would basically make no sense to anyone who hasn't played a MMORPG - they don't bother to explain in the narrative all the stuff like NPC quests and so on. I really like that, and the way it does feel like a real game. I also like that you know from the first episode that one of the male in-game characters is played by a girl. It turns the character from a stock "I will protect you with my life, my lady!" male guard into a really interesting conundrum.

Unfortunately I have run out of letters to fold, so I am going to watch one more episode before my lunch break is over, and then I shall have to put it on hold.

p.s. Spoil me and DIE.

Tags: anime

I've noticed before that male content is thin on the ground compared to female. Does anyone know any good sources for male outfits/hairstyles? Particularly replacing the fugly athletic and sleepwear...

Also, hasn't anyone started up a site for purely male outfits? You'd think they would have. Maybe I should.

(I am on one of my mad rampant MAKE STUFF kicks which has resulted in a) the purchase of a dollshouse kit off ebay, b) attempting to do vector graphics with pen and tablet, and c) desire to make custom content for ANYTHING THAT MOVES.)

Tags: games, making stuff

... oh my gods, how can Tooru and Yuujirou be so utterly in love, in a clearly shounen-ai-slanted show, without ever saying a damn word about it?

(This is not a complaint: boysnuggles are lovely, but I am simply charmed by the subtlety of their relationship. This is probably not going to stop me nosing around after fic.)

Also I want to know if there is some sort of required class for student council presidents that teaches them how to APPEAR OUT OF NOWHERE at crucial moments. :D

Tags: anime, slash

... I'm really quite excited about Dreamwidth. I particularly like the separation of "filters" (people who can read your locked posts) from your "reading circle" (journals you want to read) - it's going to make my life so much easier. I've also discovered I can log in over there with my LJ-based OpenID, so I am collecting interesting communities already.

I spent a portion of this afternoon folding letters. Being as there are about 2000 of these in total, co-worker L and I are in the habit of Doing Other Things while folding. She watches Korean dramas; I have just discovered onepieceofbleach.com and was on the look out for new anime.

And I ended up watching "Princess Princess", which I had never heard of, and it is awesome. It's a typical "crack" series set up - an all-boys school where the prettiest students are forced to dress up as girls and be the "princesses" to "lighten up" the otherwise dull existence of same sex schooling - and the main character, a transfer student, naturally finds himself roped into this against his will.

Except, weirdly, it's not actually all that cracktastic. In fact, so far, it's even - dare I say it? - subtle in some ways. For starters, the main character goes against type - he starts off going DO NOT WANT about the princess thing, but when he realises that it basically means a free ride and a lot of privileges, he thinks "why the hell not? it's only dressing up!" and is an absolute natural. In fact, the one who has to be dragged kicking and screaming is one of the side characters. Not only that, but the characterisations are slightly more... I don't know, not exactly rounded, but they have more than one string to them. You identify Stock Characters within about three seconds, but do all seem to have an extra dimension. There's the Cool And Rather Dangerous Student Council President - who was also a Princess as a first year. There's the Obligatory Insane Hyperactive Specialist (in this case, a fashion designer) - but after his first appearance, the other characters point out that he's not ALWAYS that weird, he just gets overenthusiastic about his subject.

Edit: Aha, I think I know what the indefinable something is that I'm noticing - I think it's that, although the premise of the anime is deeply silly, and there are moments of spazz, the actual characters all appear to be basically sensible. Even while cross-dressing and/or generating shoujo sparkles.

I like it. I shall watch the rest of it tonight or tomorrow. I'm holding out for shounen-ai, but I'm honestly not sure if that's the intent (though you have to wonder about the premise if not) - they seem to be implying something with the main two characters, but it's quite nicely, subtly done, and I don't know if it's heading for romance or friendship.

Oh, and within five minutes of starting to watch I was mentally substituting the "Yami" cast for the three "princesses" (Tsuzuki as the new guy, Watari as the having-way-too-much-fun guy, Hisoka kicking and screaming) and the class president (Tatsumi, duh).

(Note: I doubt there's anything of note worth spoilering in such a short, fun series, but please don't - it's interesting watching something I have absolutely no prior knowledge of.)

Edit 2: oh my goodness, episode 6 might be the cutest feel-good thing EVER.

Tags: anime, fandom

I am enjoying Easter at home, lounging about in sunny conservatory, and writing random original yaoi fic. There is chocolate. It is good.

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, Amazon is in the middle of a massive PR fail that appears, whether intentionally or otherwise, to be censoring gay and lesbian literature and non-fiction by preventing it from appearing in casual browsing lists and some searches (classing it as "adult content" regardless of whether or not it has actual adult content; apparently the keywords "gay" and "lesbian" are sufficiently "adult" to require their removal). The books can still be found, but they're not readily noticeable - as far as I understand it, it's rather like the owners of the bookshop agreeing to stock books from all publishers, but then putting some of those books in a locked basement. If you walk into the shop and ask for a particular book by a particular author, a salesperson will go down to the basement and bring it back for you - but they won't allow you to browse in there and see what else is available.

And in this case the result seems to be a very unfortunate bit of discrimination: heterosexual sex (Playboy issues, sex toys, graphic het erotica) is still readily findable; G-rated biographies by gay celebrities have been taken off all bestseller lists etc. "Twilight" (vampire babies eating their way out of the womb) and "Watchmen" (rape, graphic violence, genocide, giant blue penis) are still popping up in the bestseller lists, but E.M. Forster is not. The Guardian has written a good, detailed article that explains the logistics of the ranking problem (and why this is a big deal for authors), there's an explanation of Amazon metadata here, and this is an interesting article about public relations failure in the internet age. There's also a spot of googlebombing going on with the definition of Amazon Rank, and a million and one calls for boycotts on Twitter under #AmazonFail.

I personally suspect this is a cock-up rather than a deliberate bit of discrimination - but it does raise some worrying questions. Someone may have decided to exclude 'adult' content from searches, and then made a mistake with the categorising of 'adult' - but that then makes you wonder who exactly gets to decide what makes a book worthy of being included in the best seller lists. Does one sex scene exclude it, or does it have to be two? Is homosexual content of any level inherently more offensive than heterosexual?

It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, their PR comes up with in response to this.

Edit 2: Below claim debunked.

Edit: We've got someone claiming to have hacked Amazon deliberately, using automated code to file hundreds of complaints against anything tagged LGBT, and thus causing Amazon's system to automatically derank them. Frighteningly, it sounds plausible, but it is, of course, entirely possible that the 'responsibility' claim is itself trolling. And I really can't tell which is more likely. Ah, internets - causing new and exciting ways to lose faith in humanity every day.

Tags: amazonfail, real life

- I know it's cheesetastic, but I still love the damn film.

- oh my gods, President Whitmore is ACTUALLY JOHN SHERIDAN. No, seriously! Seriously! Same voice! Same stern jawed expression! Same "I'm totally honest to a fault, dammit!" personality!

- oh my gods, David's boss is a horrific walking gay/camp stereotype and I NEVER KNEW.

- it is deeply disconcerting to watch an extended version of this film, because although I haven't seen it since we stopped watching videos (as opposed to DVDs), at one point I had watched it a lot. And all the extra bits stand out jarringly when I'm expecting a different segue.

- speaking of which, I could take or leave all the extra bits really, except I did like the clarification on what was up with Russell's kids (never realised the older one was a stepson).

- speaking of children, just realised that I was never clear on the names of the President's daughter or Jasmine's son, because their parents/carers insist on referring to them as "munchkin" or "babe" at all times. Ugh.

- I was also massively unclear on a lot of the geography of what was going on. I had assumed that all the disaster shots were taking place in one city, whereas of course they're spread out over three (I suppose the landmarks are more instantly recognisable to Americans). And there's actually a lot more devastation than I realised - they slip in the mention of other devastated cities under the radar.

- Oh, on the subject of stereotypes - we always winced at the "Brits" in Iraq, but oh dear LORD, what the hell? They sound like something out of Biggles! "BY JOVE! THE AMERICANS HAVE GOT A PLAN!" Not only that, but I just realised that the establishing shot of Russia is represented by a huge bolt of lightning and a looming stone castle thing. Um.

- I have no idea if this was intentional, but I just realised that David's "let's give the thing a virus!" revelation is less of a totally out of the blue plot device than it might seem - he's just been talking about ways to make the aliens give up on Earth (by destroying it), his father nags him not to sit around and catch a cold. Maybe I'm entirely reading in, but I would expect the thought train then to have gone straight to "War of the Worlds", giving the aliens a cold, and then OH, we could give them a COMPUTER cold...

- and there seem to be a few random pop culture references in there. David's computer starts up with a distinctly HAL-like voice saying "Good Morning, Dave...". Russell announces that he "picked a hell of a day to quit drinking". I'm sure I noticed another one but I can't remember it.

- man, I remember when the video came out, there was a competition where you could win a Mac of the same type David has, and I wanted it so badly because I was sick of writing fanfic on the family computer. :D

- interesting that all the major romantic relationships are established ones - one marriage, one failed marriage, one committed relationship - rather than from scratch. I like that.

- gotta ask, though - do these highly technologically advanced aliens not have some kind of ID CODE SYSTEM for the little ships, that can point out when one that has been MISSING FOR FORTY YEARS suddenly turns up?


And now, to bed. At some point this weekend I will attempt to update on a) real life and b) writing thingies. Woot.

Tags: films

I MADE A LOL:



I CRACK MYSELF UP.

Also, I PROMISE I WILL WRITE AN ACTUAL PROPER ENTRY AT SOME POINT SOON. Work has been busy and currently I am having a mad kamikaze writing day of doooooom.

Tags: humour, random, real life