tea berry-blue

(lyrics by _samalander)

( Poem Below the Cut )

So, I, uh. I'm still not sure what to think of this, but I'm writing Avengers fanfic.

Dear Captain America.

I started writing it this week. rainy_day has been writing a story that I've been discussing with her since before she started it, in April, and I really liked the premise of it, because she's actually trying to write Captain America in the present day as someone with 1940s sensibilities rather than just a lot of anachronistic jokes or points where he doesn't understand pop culture, which seems like a tall order but also a rather good commentary.

She hit a wall in her story and we were discussing where to go with it, and as a sort of morale booster thing, I decided to write a letter from Tony Stark to Steve Rogers for her.

And I kind of got hooked. I started writing letters from Tony Stark to a fictional writer-of-Captain-America (since the Captain America comic exists in Marvel canon, in one of those wonderful metaliterary twists that I love), and it's chock full or nerdery about comic history and comic fan mail, but I'm also trying to write in character development and plot and I just don't know what I got myself into.

Plus, the comments people are leaving on it are just amazing.

Part of me is torn because I feel like if I'm going to write something, I should write something commercially viable, but I also love the idea of playing with characters who are cultural icons because there's something intensely meaningful about it. I wrote a couple blog comments this week about why it's important to demand change from big publishers like DC and Marvel, because they have ownership of beloved icons and have the power to use those icons in important stories. This is in the wake of DC canceling a story where Batwoman would marry her longtime girlfriend. Ironically, DC didn't cancel the story because they were concerned about the lesbian angle, but because they thought the characters getting married would make them seem "old." This is in line with them retconning a ton of hetero marriages, as well, so I'm willing to believe that, but it doesn't take away my disappointment.

So I've been doing that. I also need to say that I'm completely floored by the response I've gotten. I've been posting fics on fanfic archives for years, and the most I've ever gotten is about fifteen comments on a single Harry Potter fic. This one already has over 2000 hits, forty-odd comments, and all of them are pretty much unequivocal praise. Some of them are really long and well-considered and talking about what I'm doing with a lot more thought than I was putting into the fic at first. I'm extremely touched that people are taking the time and are feeling this strongly about something I had just started noodling around with for kicks, and it sort of makes me feel like I need to do better.

I've also been playing more music, of course.

I also played this song for rainy_day, since she said she'd been listening to it on repeat while working on her fix:



And here's a song I wrote in 2000, about falling out of love:

Six weeks with the ukulele. I am delving deeper and deeper into the unexplored territory of angry!ukulele, which I do not think is a very broad genre. This song is intended as a counterpiece to The Sea Song: one is about fire, and one is about water. One of them is about feeling safe and one is about feeling broken. Both of them are about letting down defenses and allowing life to happen as it will.

I have learned 3 songs well enough that I can play them by memory, not counting 'Happy Birthday," and I have lost track of how many chords I know. There are three songs I can almost play by memory, and three more songs I can play passably with the chords in front of me.

I have decided to learn a bunch of catchy pop songs that were not intended for ukulele. It's pretty fun. RESULTS:



Also, my fingers hurt.

So, I got my ukulele exactly a week ago.

This is what I accomplished in the week:

My boss Brendan’s buddy, Brian (say that three times fast), entered an animation contest to possibly win a development deal with Sesame Street!

His video is not only super cute, but it is in the top five!

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

You should go watch it and vote for him! Especially since it has an octopus AND a seahorse.

Anyway, a lot of people are doing throwbacks to the old “12″ pinball animation, with varying degrees of success.

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

More after the link!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

My boss Brendan’s buddy, Brian (say that three times fast), entered an animation contest to possibly win a development deal with Sesame Street!

His video is not only super cute, but it is in the top five!

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

You should go watch it and vote for him! Especially since it has an octopus AND a seahorse.

Anyway, a lot of people are doing throwbacks to the old “12″ pinball animation, with varying degrees of success.

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

More after the link!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Destiny recently started posting about her attempts to go shampoo-free, so after asking her about it and doing a little reading of my own, I decided to do it, too!

I have always heard from stylists that shampoo is very bad for my hair and to only use it once every week or two, but to condition it every day. So when Destiny started talking about not using shampoo at all, I have to say I was immediately intrigued.

I started reading up. The most valuable information I found was from this WikiHow article. It was a lot to absorb, so I kept reading up and read a lot of other opinions and reviews of the book it was based on, Curly Girl, by Lorraine Massey.

The idea is pretty simple: most shampoo contains chemicals called sulfates which are used to strip oils. This is good because it strips out all the non-water-soluble products you use in your hair, but it is bad because it also strips the natural oil out of your hair and dries it up!

So, to repair your hair, you need to stop using shampoo with sulfates. However, in order to do that, you need to stop using hair products that require sulfates to get them out of your hair! These products are products made with silicones, which are…well, you know what silicones are. They’re plastics! Lots of hair care products have silicones in them because silicones coat your hair and protect it from all kinds of junk, and also work to glue split ends back together, but they also keep the natural oils in your hair from getting soaked into your hair like they should, and they also need sulfates or other harsh chemicals to come out!

So it is pretty simple: if you want to use silicones, you have to use sulfates. Sulfates damage your hair, so if you want to not damage your hair, you have to use neither sulfates nor silicones. This means changing your hair care regimen to only use silicone-free hair products. If you do this, you will never need to use any shampoo!

I told my mom about it last week, and she told me about this guy she used to know who worked for her father. Pete had really long, beautiful hair and he always said that they key to his beautiful hair was that he only shampooed it once a year, on his birthday. My mom said it never looked dirty or greasy. So that, combined with reading Destiny’s writeups and lots of testimony online, convinced me.

The next step was getting the products. Thursday at lunch, I went out to do this! This is tough, because there are a lot of ingredients that are silicones. Most of them end with “cone” but not all of them do! Fortunately, I found a huge list online.

And now I will let the video tell the next part!

I made this video four days ago. In spite of reading many warnings that my hair might look worse for the first few weeks, it immediately looked amazing! It has looked really good every single day since I started it Thursday night. Even today when I washed it at night and slept on it, it doesn’t look too bad, and I have never been able to do that before.

There will be more updates on this as I go! If anyone has questions they would like to ask me about the process please feel free!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Destiny recently started posting about her attempts to go shampoo-free, so after asking her about it and doing a little reading of my own, I decided to do it, too!

I have always heard from stylists that shampoo is very bad for my hair and to only use it once every week or two, but to condition it every day. So when Destiny started talking about not using shampoo at all, I have to say I was immediately intrigued.

I started reading up. The most valuable information I found was from this WikiHow article. It was a lot to absorb, so I kept reading up and read a lot of other opinions and reviews of the book it was based on, Curly Girl, by Lorraine Massey.

The idea is pretty simple: most shampoo contains chemicals called sulfates which are used to strip oils. This is good because it strips out all the non-water-soluble products you use in your hair, but it is bad because it also strips the natural oil out of your hair and dries it up!

So, to repair your hair, you need to stop using shampoo with sulfates. However, in order to do that, you need to stop using hair products that require sulfates to get them out of your hair! These products are products made with silicones, which are…well, you know what silicones are. They’re plastics! Lots of hair care products have silicones in them because silicones coat your hair and protect it from all kinds of junk, and also work to glue split ends back together, but they also keep the natural oils in your hair from getting soaked into your hair like they should, and they also need sulfates or other harsh chemicals to come out!

So it is pretty simple: if you want to use silicones, you have to use sulfates. Sulfates damage your hair, so if you want to not damage your hair, you have to use neither sulfates nor silicones. This means changing your hair care regimen to only use silicone-free hair products. If you do this, you will never need to use any shampoo!

I told my mom about it last week, and she told me about this guy she used to know who worked for her father. Pete had really long, beautiful hair and he always said that they key to his beautiful hair was that he only shampooed it once a year, on his birthday. My mom said it never looked dirty or greasy. So that, combined with reading Destiny’s writeups and lots of testimony online, convinced me.

The next step was getting the products. Thursday at lunch, I went out to do this! This is tough, because there are a lot of ingredients that are silicones. Most of them end with “cone” but not all of them do! Fortunately, I found a huge list online.

And now I will let the video tell the next part!

I made this video four days ago. In spite of reading many warnings that my hair might look worse for the first few weeks, it immediately looked amazing! It has looked really good every single day since I started it Thursday night. Even today when I washed it at night and slept on it, it doesn’t look too bad, and I have never been able to do that before.

There will be more updates on this as I go! If anyone has questions they would like to ask me about the process please feel free!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

My daddy got mail from God. And since he was afraid to throw out his mail from God, he made me do it. But I didn't throw it out! I opened it!



The quality is super wonky for some reason! I apologize! But still teh funneh!

<3 <3