Petronia

1) hemlocke, forgot to mention I got your postcard too! Thanks~ ^^

2) For the new year, bit the bullet and changed the journal layout to one of the new "minimalism" ones. Font size ought to be easier on the eyes. It's good to have access finally to standard layout options that look like they were designed less than five years ago.

3) To my own surprise, I'm actually using my douban for its intended purpose (tracking books, movies, and music consumed), as opposed to merely lurking in the Sexy Britpop Ojisan MST Photo Archive... I think it's basically an unauthorized Goodreads code fork, but well. Friend me if you have one? XD Currently trying to get East Asian IMEs up and running on this laptop, which I've been putting off for a year.

4) La Mala Educación: for instance, I logged this in douban but forgot to include it in my last post. It's... sort of the If On A Winter's Night A Traveler of GLBT filmmaking, isn't it? XD; One thinks one has a handle on what the story is about, then it turns out to be the first chapter of something else. When the credits rolled sororial unit and I looked at each other like, okay, so did not see the last 30 minutes of that coming.

We think Enrique is hotter than Angel, though that might be the role talking. Would make the most objectionable Libsdom AU fic ever (and Subdee and I have come up with some fairly objectionable ones).

5) A Bit of a Blur: the memoirs of Alex James, bassist of Blur and 3D shoujo manga character. I promised to review this for someone and planned to do it in conjunction with the Durrell tetralogy, but that won't be for a while, so. XD; ( Cut because this entry is getting longish. )

Blur feat. Françoise Hardy - To The End (La Comédie): I finally have FTP again! ...You guys thought I stopped uploading due to the newfangled Twitter software didn't you. Anyway, Alex James' book is best when he discusses topics relevant to my interests, such as New Order's Reading '98 set, or being invited over to Françoise Hardy's flat and offered cheese.** I'd actually been trying to track this down since Cathy's holiday mix last year. When I first watched the PMV I was like, "Ouran High School Host Club do Last Year at Marienbad, lulz," then I realized this was in fact an awesome fic idea. Now I'm kind of obsessed with it. XD; Think I'll go score Robbe-Grillet's script from Gallimard for reference, I've seen it there.

** Basically the pinnacle of dude's existence; also Graham Coxon's. Françoise Hardy, of course, immediately decided non-fan Damon Albarn was her favoritest Blur.

I'm supposed to be studying for my stats midterm, but you know. XD

Fall Out Boy - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me": linked on this thread of worldserpent's, wherein I gripe pathetically that it was not the albion_fic/slacken_ties generation that got "mainstream" media slash fandom interested in bandslash. XD; Though then I went home** and thought about it some more, and now figure it might have something to do with... wholesomeness? Maybe? Approachability? That's the constant factor, from the original popslash to JE to the MCR-gen bandslash (I don't really draw a line between the Western and Asian variants when I think about them, though they don't seem to intersect on my flist). Libs fandom was always going to be better in theory than in practice, because in practice the Pete'n'Carl saga appealed to uhh segments of the fangirl population unlikely to write with rigour. And indie-ists have a quality of intimidation, like they're two steps ahead of your lit-theory-based self-justifications. Alex Kapranos most certainly is. XD;

(With respect to Patrick Wolf I figured it out mere days after that comment, in accordance with the subreality principle Charmian always invokes. It came to me without warning--

--Neil Gaiman. DESHOU.

*is sporked by helvetius*)

I know someone who used to write fanfic about Blur. It's an odd way of framing things mentally: while reading Phonogram I thought, what if Livejournal had existed in Richey Edwards' time. In Ziggy Stardust's time? Everyone still fresh from the Monkees fandom and everything.

Back to the music - Cis is right, My Chemical Romance's cover of "Umbrella" is definitive, a proper release is urgent+key. That video is a wretched tease btw because the whole point is you are waiting for the guitars to DROP LIKE VICTORIA FALLS. I never believed in "Umbrella" as R&B anyhow. XD Even when I listen to the original I keep expecting massive guitars on the chorus, a la Kelly Clarkson, and I'm not in the habit of hoping songs will sound more like Kelly Clarkson. (Or the Cranberries, because isn't that the "ella, ella, eh, eh" bit when you get down to it?)

EDIT -- I should mention that the Fall Out Boy video contains vampires; not a spoiler I think. TEARS. TEARS IN MY EYES.

New Order - Crystal: famously fulfilled its own prophecy by inspiring The Killers to existence (who promptly turned around and rendered homage with "Somebody Told Me"). The joke only gets funnier as time goes by - I ARE SERIOUS VIDEO delivery and all. To put it into perspective, the "Crystal" single came out in mid-2001. No one'd heard of Franz Ferdinand or Interpol or The Rapture or even The Strokes. Hedi Slimane had just begun designing skinny suits for Dior. "Haircut indie" didn't exist as a concept, which apparently wasn't enough to stop New Order from parodying the future.

(Which sounds like New Order. XD Believably, what with Barney Sumner's ageless voice.)

New Order - Krafty: one of my impossible writing goals is to recreate with prose the effect of the camerawork in this PMV (which IMO is one of the most beautiful extant).

Lucky Star does Initial D: I think this just sold me on the series.


** Metaphorically, I was sitting at the kitchen table.

Everyone is talking about HP7, I haven't read it, and yes people the stuff you don't really think is spoilery actually is spoilery, taking the wider meaning of spoiler as "information that causes one to read/watch with expectations instead of without expectations". So I'm getting off the internets. XD I don't have much time to be on the internets anyway!

You'll hear from me in the parallel universe of SSBB, though.

From redplasticglass.

( Just the way this is worded is funny. XD )

Taken by fit of insanity, trawled icon journals for three hours and added sixteen new icons. 50 more slots to fill. Not this one, though; this one I made. XD

Now to update the ones on carnet. _o_

Sentou Yousei Yukikaze FST and The Etched City FST reuploaded to fst (join comm to see posts). Upping a couple more before month's end - may even toss up that 20th Century Boys FST, eheh, though it's hard to count it finished when I haven't read all the manga yet. ^^;

100-word FFXII drabble gifted me in drabble_trade (Chrissie, isn't the first one you too? o_O): here and here (inappropriate bunny cat ears warning). Signups for round two are under way. I think this time I'll offer for offbeat fandoms only and see what happens.

Other FFXII drabble request GETTO ♥ from geekerypokery: here (end of game spoilers warning). Here as well as above I'm assuming that having read the one(s) I linked everyone will click through and read the others, which are even more brill. I haven't requested from other people because I owe too many drabbles and thus feel too guilty to do so. XD;

Drabbles I contributed to drabble_trade:

( for silvermuse89: PoT, Shuusuke and Yumiko )

( for orangensaft: Love Mode, Reiji x Naoya )

Other drabble-related thing I made: fanwork_tag, a sandbox for anyone who wants to play Truth or Drabble, Sketch or Drabble, etc. (it's a lot less bothersome to have the signup post on a low-volume LJ comm than a personal journal). I advise single-fandom games as multi-fandom has a way of getting out of hand ahahaha. Um. WILL SOMEONE ELSE PLS START A FFXII GAME I HAVE NO TIME orz|||

I'm going on RL social hiatus until my birthday (which, well, I'll at least let you know where that's happening XD;;). Not declaring LJ hiatus but don't be surprised if I drop off for a bit - or conversely, spam. I just really need to get a few things done, and I don't have time for that, compiling the next SSBB issue, and seeing people in the evening or on weekends. ...Besides I'm kind of seriously PUP right now. XD;;;;

Today is the LJ's fifth anniversary. ^^ I had a blog on Pitas, of course, and for at least a year after I made an LJ it was my main blog - I was using petronia much like I use carnetdevoyage now, only a good deal less frequently. Then fandom moved here en masse, so I started posting here too.

Don't bother to check, but my first post was about FFX songcalls. Frankly I'm only surprised it wasn't about That Fic With Auron And The Mountain (courtesy of sororial unit).

It's been a fun five years, guys! Here's to five more of the same! At least, I certainly hope so, or I won't make back the money I doled out on this here permanent account. XD

Yes, this is a gratuitous icon post. No, I can't believe I didn't think of it before either.

Alternately:



Thank you, please drive through.