My dreams have been interesting lately, if a lot more mundane than cypher's.

Last night I was on a road trip! I was driving, with one other person with me. Who that was varied throughout the dream, including my dad, my brother, an old friend from college I haven't talked to in years, and... someone from CFUD. We we driving from... somewhere on the east coast (dream-me said Indiana, but the map of our route showed us starting further east from that), and theoretically going to Seattle except for some reason I had plotted our route towards southern California for the first day of our trip. Other adventures include:
- realizing I was driving a manual transmission when I don't know how
- driving with my legs only barely reaching the pedals
- trying to figure out where a KFC was while out in the middle of nowhere at 5pm (we had a smart GPS system though) (PS I haven't eaten KFC in years)
- considering just going for Taco Bell instead (I haven't eaten Taco Bell in years either)
- staying in a sketchy hotel with vibrating beds and only curtains dividing our room from the other three rooms on the floor and getting a look of confusion when requesting a room with double beds
- deciding only after that first day that we should do a post to see if any internet people wanted to see us/put us up
- planning to stop by the AO3 headquarters (???) in Tennessee (which was somehow west of "Indiana").

Yesterday's dream I remember less of, but its central feature was a long phone conversation (with amber, I think, because while half-awake I was thinking "well maybe that would be a good idea except for international phone rates"). It took place in... a concert hall? I started out backstage and then moved to the audience when I saw people gathered there (they had stuck around because they won some sort of prize for their performance, I think). That part was very much like finding an extra scene in a video game, and in fact it's possible some of the people standing around were the Vesperia cast. But I was definitely on the phone for all of it. Somehow.

The common feature between these two dreams is that I really hate both driving and talking on the phone. The phone one woke me up at 6am.

Not sure what any of this says about me.

In the category of things that cheer me up:


Via Making Light and Neil Gaiman on twitter. Full list of the cast here. Based on the Discovery Channel commercial and the xkcd comic, of course.

It has Cory Doctorow singing "I love the blogosphere," you guys! And Neil Gaiman doing "I love a mystery." It just. The song already always make me happy, and the reciprocal fannishness of this video makes me grin endlessly. Especially with the xkcd blog note on it:

I just about fell out of my chair when I saw this. Thank you to everyone who appeared in it, and to Olga and Elaine for doing whatever black magic they did to get them all together. <3. (Side note: I met Neil Gaiman once, back when I was in college, when his book tour came near my town. At the signing afterward, I talked awkwardly to him for what seemed like several minutes while he signed stuff for our group. Later, my friends pointed out that I was speaking too quietly for him to hear—or, in fact, to notice that I was standing there at all. I’ve been quietly embarrassed about that ever since and this video makes me feel better.)

The future's pretty cool!

While I'm clearing out my WIP folder... It's essay time!

One of my major pet peeves lately, both on a personal and a societal level, is the tendency to talk about modern technology like it's incomprehensible ("it might as well be magic") or science like it's a religion ("Darwinism," "evolutionism," or other variants on "it's just another belief system, you're just taking in on faith").

These things are fundamentally different.

( tl;dr about what science is )

...And that's not even touching on the awful ways that logic, math and science are gendered, which is enough issues for another post. Or how often fictional magic is written like just another system (especially by me and in things I like), which I could also talk about a lot. I have many thoughts in this area, you guys!

I feel like I should update, because my last few posts have been whiny and I'm feeling mostly better! But I have nothing terribly exciting I want to talk about. I addressed some things and mentally stepped back from some things. I'm zen-ish for the moment.

Work is good. Lately I am reminded just how cool my job and my coworkers are, and I that I should really put more effort into it. I have been doing okay at this the past few days.

I have been trying to pick back up WIP fic, and I am really enjoying my Medusa/Stein AU once again, even if I still have no real idea where it's going or when it stops. I might try to find a breaking point soon so I can edit and post the first bit and then write whatever else in the universe I want to.

Oh! I do have an announcement. I play Medusa at pandoras as well, now: snakesandladders! The game is amazing, and people should app me more Soul Eater cast! Anyone would be awesome! ...Although I have no idea how I'm going to play Medusa on 15 icons until DW gets a new payment system in place and/or I break down and mail them a check.

I think that's it? And I will probably go to sleep soon, because I am tired. I live a life of high excitement, everyone.

ETA: Okay, I didn't go to bed as quickly as expected. And for some reason I am having issues getting the internet to provide me information on the effects of substantial blood loss on the ability to get an erection. I can make some assumptions, of course, but...

I have been (more than usually) surly, neurotic and bad at sleeping for the past couple of weeks. I thought I might be improving some yesterday, and still think I am a bit. However, I am also adding a bonus fit of "why do I always have to be the responsible adult? It's not fair." Which is hypocritical in any number of ways, starting with the fact that it's a really childish thought to start with and continuing to the numerous ways I am regularly irresponsible. But knowing that doesn't make me feel any better, it just makes me feel whiny and hypocritical.

So this is a generic apology for anyone who might catch (or has caught) some of that, I guess.

I've been sort of compensating with pretendy funtime games a lot, since I am actually very zen and happy about RP at the moment, although I realize this is not an ideal coping mechanism. It is making me feel bizarrely (for me) monofannish, though, since I am almost exclusively playing Raven and Rita. My brain's focus is VesperiaVesperiaVesperia. With a side of SoulEaterSoulEater. I am pretty sure I like other things, in theory?

***
In completely other news, I ran across this quote today and it made me smile:

Focusing in particular on our worlds cities, and spanning settings as varied as belle epoque Paris, Nazi Germany, postwar London, Los Angeles, New York, and the smoggy Shanghai of today, Ladd explores this love and hate relationship throughout...

...It's from a summary of Autophobia, by Brian Ladd, but of course I could not help thinking of Baccano!Ladd on a rampage through time and space.

This is just a list of all the characters I have roleplayed on Livejournal or Dreamwidth. For my own reference, and so I can link this from my profile and be useful without cluttering things! It will be updated periodically.

( List! )

So Raven was threading with Naoto in camp this evening, and it really made me want to write the AU where ( spoilers for Tales of Vesperia and I guess by implication Persona 4? )

RP meme, stolen from people, most recently amber.

( 25 questions )

In related news, I badly need a second character in pandoras, but I have no idea who. Please throw ideas at me!

Via Making Light, Jo Walton at Tor.com writes about reading SF.

This tachyon drive guy, who has stuck in my mind for years and years, got hung up on that detail because he didn’t know how to take in what was and what wasn’t important. How do I know it wasn’t important? The way it was signalled in the story. How did I learn how to recognise that? By reading half a ton of SF. How did I read half a ton of SF before I knew how to do it? I was twelve years old and used to a lot of stuff going over my head, I picked it up as I went along. That’s how we all did it. Why couldn’t this guy do that? He could have, but it would have been work, not fun.

These days I much more often have this problem from the other end—the literary end. The best example of this I remember came from Making Light in a thread called Story for Beginners. A reviewer wanted to make the zombies in Kelly Link’s “Zombie Contingency Plans” (in the collection Magic For Beginners) into metaphors. They’re not. They’re actual zombies. They may also be metaphors, but their metaphorical function is secondary to the fact that they’re actual zombies that want to eat your brains. Science fiction may be literalization of metaphor, it may be open to metaphorical, symbolic and even allegorical readings, but what’s real within the story is real within the story, or there’s no there there. [...]

When I read literary fiction, I take the story as real on the surface first, and worry about metaphors and representation later, if at all. It’s possible that I may not be getting as much as I can from literary fiction by this method, in the same way that the people who want the zombies and dragons to be metaphorical aren’t getting as much as they could.

I never studied literature beyond what was required of me, but what I did do was read a metric ton of SF novels when I was younger, and I think this is a pretty accurate description of how I approach writing. I like subtle worldbuilding, accepting that there are major things about the world that are fundamentally different. I don't like fiction that doesn't have a real story on the surface.

Read the whole thing.

I am just spamming today, okay.

Dinosaur Comics does Lady Gaga. (fah-fah-fah-facade of bluffing)

In related news, I now own this and this. Presents from my family for Christmas, because buying a giant huggable T-Rex for myself seemed way too frivolous. Went shopping with the tote bag the other day, and let me tell you, it was the most badass bag full of groceries ever.

...It is possible I am the hugest Dinosaur Comics fangirl ever. (Did I mention that Ryan North posted a link to the Yuletide story I got on Twitter?)

Via Shakesville, on NPR: Modern Marriages: The Rise of the Sugar Mama is an article which is awful in many ways.

The actual testimonials are mostly not too bad, but the framing is awful. Sugar Mama, really? And just the whole idea that it's such a hardship for men to be in a relationship where they're financially dependent. Like Rana says in comments on Shakesville, they throw out quotes like this:

"Because I have this guilt that I feel like I am not an equal partner," Holmes says, "I will let her make the decision, even though I might have had a different opinion."

Without any acknowledgment that this is something that's going to cause tension in any relationship, and in fact has been doing so for women for all time.

Not to mention the actual numbers are not exactly thrilling:

From 1970 to 2007, husbands whose wives earned more than they did jumped from 4 percent to 22 percent.

Ooh, 22 percent! Assuming the percentage of married couples making exactly the same amount of money is pretty small, that's still three quarters of relationships that are the other way around. Not exactly a revolution.

It also reminds me of something I talked about on twitter the other day, but I don't think I posted about. A daytime talk show was on in the restaurant while I was out getting a sandwich the other day, and among other awful things that came up was the host asking the guest how her relationship with a younger man making much less than her was going. The guest's advice was that you have to be very delicate with a man's ego, and be "very giving in the bedroom."

That advice makes me almost physically revolted. What, if you make less money than your man, you owe him sex (for supporting you), and if you make more money than him, you still owe him sex (to make up for damaging his fragile sense of superiority)? Awful awful awful. I cannot really articulate how icky this makes me feel.

(This is all very relevant for me, of course, because I do make a lot of money. Pretty sure having a boyfriend/husband sounds like way more trouble than it's worth, if I'm to judge by this crap.)

PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO SEW BETTER THAN ME

If I was going to, completely hypothetically, try to make Medusa's outfit, how do you think I should go about it?

Image reference. Basically it's a hooded, sleeveless bodysuit. I realize the simplest way would be basically a hoodie + pants, but I kind of want it to be one piece. But my sewing skills are limited and I'd prefer to work from a pattern. WHERE SHOULD I START?

...Hypothetically.

The other night I finished reading Halting State by Charles Stross. I enjoyed it a lot, but there were at least three major features of the book that I am aware people can go either way on, so instead of just recommending it highly I'm going to say a bit of what it's about.

( Relatively spoiler-free )

So overall, I loved the book a lot. And I'd love for other people to read it, at least to tell me what they think.

The people living in this house are, in fact, all distinct individuals! Still! We have a lot of similar interests and do a lot of things together, but that does not mean that we like and dislike all the same things or people.

In particular, just because I decided to do an anon meme doesn't mean either of my housemates want to or even like the idea! So I'd appreciate it if future comments were not left for us as a collective. I debated over posting something like this for a while, because I am not particularly angry or anything, and the comments so far have been mostly fine, but I thought it was at least worth mentioning.

If you're having difficulties distinguishing us, my cheat sheet is only slightly out of date! We also disagree on a number of other things, including broccoli and spicy food.

I will certainly update everyone if we do end up as some sort of collective consciousness.

I am in a weird mood, so I'm going to try a thing.

I never do anon memes / anon crush memes / any other memes like that really, for quite a few reasons. #1 being that they are generally on LJ; #2 being that I... never feel like anyone would have anything to say to me? And therefore it feels presumptuous or attention-grabbing to link to one. Oh, and #3, anon memes are often just invitations for wank or trolling.

BUT I am always vaguely curious. So I'm going to do it like this.

Comment to this post anonymously about anything you like. Anon is actually always enabled on my journal, and I have disabled IP logging for the duration. So if you have a concern, confession, crush, weird question, or anything else you would feel more comfortable talking to me about without your name attached, this is your place to do it.

...Please be civil. This is still my journal, and I reserve the right to screen comments for any reason. Not that I expect anyone to be hostile or troll - really I find it more likely no one will have anything to say. >_>

I've been doing this thing every night this week. It goes something like this:

1) Try to go to bed at a semi-reasonable time (midnight-1am)
2) Toss and turn for an hour thinking
3) Turn the light back on, get my laptop, and do something (send an email, work on fic, start writing a post)
4) Poke around at the internet for another hour or so
5) Try to get back to sleep again
6) (Optional) Toss and turn for another hour or so
7) Sleep
8) Wake up when my alarm clock goes off at 9:30, and apparently turn it off and immediately go back to sleep (I do not even remember doing this)
9) Get up entirely too much later.

I am currently on step 3 for the evening.

Tonight's thought while completely failing at sleep was that I really miss dance.

When I was a tiny girl I took ballet, and then jazz dance when I got a little older, until the company I was with reorganized and they no longer had intermediate classes and wouldn't put me in the advanced ones because I was still too young, so I was stuck learning first position again after a couple of years in it and so I quit. In high school picked it up again a bit, in that I took dance as my elective PE class. And then I took karate after school for the rest of the time I was in high school, which is not the same thing but which I also miss. In college I didn't do much except a semester's worth of jazz dance again (and also a semester's worth of tae kwon do).

But I've been out of school two and a half years now and I miss it! Pretty strongly on occasion. I love the amount of body control it takes, and the exertion, and the performance.

I'm not sure what I could do alongside my full-time job, though, especially since I usually work late hours. Suggestions, flist?

It is possible this post is brought to you by watching Lady Gaga videos earlier this evening.

ETA: On step 4 now, have discovered an option. WOULD ANYONE LIKE TO TRY THIS WITH ME.

I was going to do this as a question-and-answer meme, like the shipping one, but decided instead to start by just doing the characters I wanted to, so I could make sure I talk about everyone I have things to say about.

So, presenting: My personal interpretation of a few character's sexualities. This is just a selection of characters I have written or played or thought about enough lately that they have a firm orientation in my head, not a complete list by any means. And of course this doesn't necessarily stop me from working with an alternative interpretation for a fic, if I think it would be interesting, because I like exploring different possibilities.

( Seven characters; Soul Eater and Tales of Vesperia )

This is a very abbreviated list, so feel free to ask if there's someone else you are interested in my thoughts on, or ask me to explain my reasons behind these! I will almost certainly have things to talk about. You are also free to disagree and offer your own opinions, since I very much acknowledge that these are my own personal interpretations. The one thing I ask is that you give me the same courtesy - please do not try to convince me that you are right and I am wrong.

On the task of stop hating everything, some things I still love:

1) Dinosaur Comics, and my yuletide gift for it. ("That is what makes the apocalypse misogynistic.") ♥ gamera.
2) Soul Eater (aaah I still love all the characters so much, and thinking about certain bits of it just makes me happy)
3) Tales of Vesperia (ditto)
4) Writing up my opinions on various characters' different sexualities in my head
5) Ginger cookies

On the task of "get actual work done at work," I'm not going to finish up and post #4 until I get home.

...Go me!

Am doing pretty badly on my new week resolutions so far, but it's only Monday. I'll make progress.

In the meantime, this meme:

give me a character and I will tell you my:

+ otp for them.
+ runner-up pairing.
+ honourable mention(s).
+ crack pairing(s).
+ ship everyone else seems to like, but I don't.

...With the caveat that I am pretty bad at both OTPs and knowing what everyone else likes, so we'll see how this goes.

You can ask for any character in any of my fandoms, although ones I've RPed or written give you a better chance of me having opinions.