{change happens}

I believe in a thing called love!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:46:02 GMT

"You make me want to believe in destiny because when it comes to you, I just can't deal myself a winning hand. Every deck I cut slips me hearts but your heart's out of reach, always."

"I make my own destiny. You're in it."

"The ace of spades means death.

Everyone knows what the ace of hearts means."

"You don't get it, do you? I'm in love with you.

That's not going to change just because you make me wait a couple of years.

I won't say a word if you don't want me to. But I'll still love you."

"This isn't a game.

If it were, it'd be the kind of game I can't (afford to lose) win."

"The Black King has fallen. Be my queen."

"Loving you is all that keeps my heart whole."

"Love me?"

i'm just so sick of wasting my time
love and death are always on my mind

"I gave fifteen reasons why I love you. I can't give you even one reason to love me."

"Take it. I trust you. It's yours. I'm yours."

"I taste your lips with every breath. Every sip of water's flavored like your kiss. Every spoonful of cereal's taken with blood-milk; shards of my broken heart stick in my throat and won't let me swallow my breakfast down."

"I love you. I'm serious. What will it take to make you believe me?"

"I am not healing.

I still love you."

"This wound in my heart beats black, black, black. No medicine will make me better."

Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can't finish what you start
Nobody broke your heart
If you're alone it must be you that wants to be apart

"I am so desperate for you to love me."

"You'll find my final message fifteen years after I'm dead.

It'll still be true. Ashes and dust, I will love you bloodlessly even after my heart has stopped beating."

20 (not a poem!)

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:07:07 GMT

I realized why I love Cold Case so much: There is always a happy ending that's never a saccharine one.

Law and Order: SVU doesn't get my devotion in the same way because sometimes, the bad guys get away. Too often, in fact. Or they fail to make their case.

Cold Case? There has only been ONE ep where the bad guy got away with it and even then, he got grabbed later on in the season. They don't cover the court case. I don't know what sentences they get or if they're even found guilty. But that's not the point. The point is that Cold Case always ends with a montage of the guilty person being cuffed and taken away while you see what happened to the other characters in the story.

There is always justice. The good guys always win.

...And right at the end, you see the victim as a ghost. One of the cops sees her or a family member but the point is, the victim is there and got justice and knows it. Even after death, there's that justice there.

I think, sometimes, that my love of Cold Case is really that simple.

The good guys win but it's not about them. It's about the victim.

So every ending is bittersweet because even as you see the bad guy get hauled away, you see the victim too. You don't get to be pleased that the good guys won, it's not as simple as cheering on a sports team. It isn't about the victory of the righteous; it's about the fact that someone is dead and the person responsible for that death has been caught.

Cold Case, more than any other show I know, is about justice and consistently shows justice triumphing while the heart of the show is the people on whose behalf justice fights.

Imagine a superhero comic where the focus wasn't the superhero but the people he helped. If every comic didn't feature something in the superhero's line but instead focused entirely on a character's life and the superhero was just maybe a page or two in the whole issue.

Like that. Cold Case is like that for me.

Justice for everyone. Everyone. The bad and the good alike, their deaths are all investigated and solved.

Good always wins but that doesn't bring back the dead.

pay no attention to this

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:37:40 GMT

Backstory: Following exchange stems from a comment this post on race and colorblindness. The first comment is the comment I responded to, and then I got a PM that I tried to reply to, only to find that PMs couldn't be sent to her. Ergo, posting my response here for her to read.

Juliet_Winters:

Christianity seems to be the best practical system I've seen for drawing disparate peoples together. The desire for revenge is or should be set aside in the name of God. Yes, yes, there are many counter examples, but that's the way it's supposed to play out and that's the way I've seen it play out.

Me:

Of course! Christianity, not Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or any of the other religions around!

I mean, Buddhism, which has never had a single war fought in its name and explicitly forbids the sort of crazy-ass conversion where Christians invade other countries and tear down the temples/mosques of those countries is totally not a better choice.

Personally, I'm an atheist. Not a Buddhist. I just find it ridiculous whenever people suggest religion as a panacea for everything.

Juliet_Winters, via PM:

You had one of the more civil notes on Jagi's page, so I'm answering you here.

As you are an atheist, your answer did not surprise me.

However, as I am a Christian I do believe that the answer to much of what is wrong with the world is to be found with Christ.

For a long time I was in essence a Unitarian and would have said that really any variation of a religion that was peaceable enough could be the foundation for better understanding.

That's true to a point, but since I actually do believe in one religion rather than another I can not in all honesty recommend what I consider to be a false one.

Have you read the New Testament?
If you read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and/or John) you might be surprised at what is written there and what is not.

Jesus never advocated for war. He did however recommend that you give your government what it asks of you, presumably whether that be taxes or military service. Had he wanted to, like Mohammahed, he could have set himself up as the head of a religion that would have reaped much gold and wives for himself with glory for his family everlasting. He had a faction that was ready to do that for him.
But he didn't.

Christian brothers and sisters of all colors worshipping together is a great, good thing. An amazing thing. A miraculous thing. Even 25 years ago, they said it couldn't be done. But one of Christ's essential teachings is forgiveness. Another is humility.
If there is sufficient forgiveness and humility between the parties involved, then there will be peace. These words don't hurt either:

John 13:34-35 (New International Version)

34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

The trolls on Jagi's blog call her many names most of which stem from their disbelief in her naivete. But Christians are naive. And Jagi is a Christian. Note how she has not hit back at any of them though I am sure it would be tempting to do so, particularly when they call her an idiot and worse.

Me:

I'm not really a fan of conversing over PMs -- I'd much rather use a journal entry if you want to continue this conversation.

Whatever Jesus preached matters less than what his followers did and do in his name. His words may be of peace but if what people do in his name is invade, destroy, loot, rape and kill, then that is the impression that people will have of Christianity. That is the lasting damage, the legacy, of your religion.

Consider my country, Sri Lanka. You offered me a quotation from your Holy Book, so I offer you one from a history book:

Many lowland Sinhalese were forced to convert to Christianity while the coastal Moors were religiously persecuted and forced to retreat to the Central highlands. The Buddhist majority disliked Portuguese occupation and its influences and welcomed any power who might rescue them. In 1602, therefore, when the Dutch captain Joris Spilberg landed, the king at Kandy appealed to him for help.

The first casualty of the Portuguese colonialism was all the indigenous religions. The viharas and temples were destroyed. The famous Sivan temples of Galle and Trincomalee were razed and the remnants were used to build the Portuguese forts in those areas. Only four Buddhist priests were left alive in the Kotte kingdom. The Moors that had control of the coastal trade were religiously persecuted and their mosques were destroyed.

That is in no way bringing together people of diverse backgrounds. Attempting to force everyone to be just like you, to worship your god, is stifling diversity. If you're going to preach humility and forgiveness, I'd suggest that you practice it.

Your friend could admit that her words were wrong and hurtful and that by saying people should be colorblind, she was in essence saying that everyone should be the same. Colorblind makes the default white; if you say we are all the same color, what you are doing is erasing our backgrounds and your experiences, but assuming that we will conform to your experiences and attitudes.

That would be practicing humility. Listening to other people and taking their words into account instead of blocking it out and calling anyone who disagrees with you trolls. Being naive stops working as an excuse when she's had people try to explain the reality of the situation to her at the panel and in her journal. There's a point at which it becomes willful ignorance and she's crossed that point already.

She's not the martyr here. She's the one being hurtful. Suggesting that other people convert to Christianity isn't a helpful tactic and it derails from the actual issue.

Picspam meme!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:31:50 GMT

Meme stole from perivates on livejournal.

• Post ten pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.

• NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.

• They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.

• You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

Rape is not the norm.

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:19:09 GMT

Rape is not the norm. There is no reason to assume that a fic chosen at random will contain rape or something else triggery.

When people say that you shouldn't read fic that has no warnings on it because it might contain rape/other triggers, what they're in effect saying is that writing fic about rape is perfectly normal and a standard plot device/twist.

No. It's not. There is no way that it's reasonable to say that writing about rape/child abuse/incest is so common that people should think it's the norm and need to take especial care to avoid it.

The current stats are 1 in 3 women will encounter some form of sexual assault during their lifetime. I have no stats like that for fanfic but common sense would seem to imply that all the gen fic and non-triggery fic should outnumber the fics that fall into niches of rape, incest, underage or whatever else can make people flinch.

And even if a third of all fics written do actually involve rape? That's still less than half. That's still not enough to tell readers that it's their responsibility to e-mail the author and ask if the fic contains rape.

Rape is not the norm and people shouldn't have to treat the process of reading fic as if it is.

Project I Heart iJay

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:51:06 GMT

Taken from bridgetmkennitt:

"With all the buzz filling the air about DW, I wanted to do something that was wholly based on IJ. InsaneJournal is a small community. I liken it in my head to living in Hawaii with the rest of the world (LJ) just a hop, skip, and a jump away. I love my little home. So I came up with a project for me to show that support.

What is it? I plan to comment more on artwork, on vids, on fics, on meta that are posted on IJ*. I'll post more in asylums (a definite do!) since asylums so rarely get love here. I'll keep track of all this on a post so I can see how much I've done, and how much more I need to do. I'm one person, but it's something that is completely in my power to do.

This isn't a negative post about LJ or DW. This isn't a post calling people to arms (though if anyone else wants to comment and post more in asylums, I'm not going to complain *g*). This is just me doing this because I want to. Because I can. (And really, this just gives me more excuses to use my icons. How can I resist!)"

Comments made on my flist won't count, though since there are only two people who post on my flist, that isn't such a big sacrifice. XD Now to start commenting. First up, scans_daily is getting friended. Then I'm going to start doing interest searches and friending new comms to comment on those.

Hey, guess what, iJay?

I HEART YOU!

Maybe I should make I heart iJay icons while I'm at it.

put your money where your heart is (on the night stand)

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:52:31 GMT

I just caved and bought myself Permanent Extra Userpics. It's only ten extra dollars, and I heart iJay. I really, really do. And when I love companies or products, I want to throw money at them to encourage them to keep going down the right path. It's like the opposite of a boycott!

And as long as we're talking iJay -- I want to smack everyone who ditches iJay for Dreamwidth. I can get ditching eljay if you disapprove of their policies or the way they handle customer relations or whatever but iJay? Hell, Squeaky's consistently gone out of his way to make fandom feel comfortable here, he works incredibly hard on fixing issues whenever they pop up, he has a TWITTER he posts on whenever something goes wrong or iJay has planned maintenance ...

I'm willing to accept that some people can't handle iJay because the asylum theme is triggering for them. But if you've already been on iJay and you're ditching it for Dreamwidth because that's where all the 'cool kids' are? EW. I hated people like that in high school. It's so mindless -- everyone listens to the same music, watches the same movies and frequents the same clubs. If I disliked group think as a teen, believe me, I'm not any more likely to like mob think now in so-called adults.

There's nothing wrong with iJay for it to deserve to get ditched. Wanting to flit over to the next new thing is just flatout shallow. I'm the girl who holds on to fandoms for a long time, whose best friends are still the first real friends she made and who refuses to get rid of her Just William books because she still likes them. Get it? It's loyalty. If someone treats you well or a company is giving you what you want, why switch? squeaky's been amazing. I think he deserves better than to be abandoned like this.

In cooler news, I have a Spiderman bedsheets.

And this is a Placebo icon that I'm using because I love Placeco and seeing this icon makes me happy.

Happy Birthday, White Rain!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:18:48 GMT

For your birthday, you get a personal soundtrack, courtesy of moi! Dedicated to White Rain, fanficcer, RPer, icon artist, fangirl, political activist, fandom activist and as always, my Ficcer in Crime.

1) Someday -- Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Someday we may yet live
To live and let live

Let's start this off with a hopeful song about what the world will be like because of people like you!

2)If He Tries Anything -- Ani di Franco:

I'm invincible
so are you
we do all the things
they say we can't do

Girls sticking together can accomplish anything.

3)Girl Anachronism -- Dresden Dolls:

i am not so serious
this passion is a plagiarism

It's a very weird but awesome theme song for you.

4)Tear You Apart -- She Wants Revenge:

soft breath, beating heart
as he whispers in your ear
I want to fucking tear you apart

If that doesn't fit clashshipping perfectly, I have no idea what does.

5)She's A Rebel -- Green Day:

she's a rebel, she's a saint,
she's the salt of the earth
and she's dangerous

They wrote this song for you.

6)Nazi Halo -- Jack Off Jill:

you go so low
your faggot rainbow
your Nazi halo
won't save you this time

This will either horribly offend you or you will think it's amazing.

7)Infra-Red -- Placebo:

I'm coming up on infrared, there is no running that can hide you,
Coz I can see in the dark.
I'm coming up on infrared, forget your running, I will find you.

The music video to this is a fantastic piece of social commentary. You have got to watch it.

8)So Much Better -- Legally Blonde: The Musical:

Maybe I'm doing something right
WOW! I feel so much better than before.

Perfect song for jumping up and down in triumph! Which is something you should do a lot of.

9)For Good -- Wicked:

And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

I think the lyrics say everything for me.

11)Night -- Voltaire:

although forewarned by peers and kin
I always give into the night

This soundtrack started out happy and is ending happy. ♥ Whenever you enjoy any of those songs, think of me and have a Happy Birthday!

A Public Apology To Everyone Who Recced Wicked

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sun, 10 May 2009 12:40:29 GMT

Remember when you guys were trying to get me into Wicked? And I refused to take any interest in because I'd read the book and found it incredibly boring and refused to believe that the musical would be any good? And you sent me the soundtrack, insisted that I listen to 'Popular', and I told you it was cute but not really my style and thus dismissed the entire musical soundtrack and didn't bother listening to the rest of it?

I am SUCH an idiot. I really and totally am. I saw the musical in London and it is fantastic. A thousand times better than the book, easily. I'm listening obsessively to Defying Gravity, For Good, Not That Girl and What Is This Feeling. I've downloaded a video recording of the London musical, and have been playing it on repeat for the last six hours. I have fifteen Wicked icons on my insanejournal account.

Consider me converted and absolutely, abjectly apologetic that I didn't listen to you guys when you told me that the Wicked musical is just about the best thing ever. Legally Blonde: The Musical is still my musical of choice but Wicked's a really close second.

Summary of post: Wicked rocks. You guys were right. I was wrong. I apologize x 1000 for not having listened all those years ago when you tried to get me into it. And I desperately need to read Glinda/Elphie fic now.

Take Back The Night (this is MY night)

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:49:03 GMT

When I was younger, I used to be scared of the dark.

By younger, I don't mean five or six. I mean thirteen, fifteen -- that sort of younger. I used to be scared of the dark because I have an overactive imagination. What I can't see, I populate with horrors. Zombies, vampires, haunts and ghouls lurked in every corner, ready to snatch up me if I let my guard down.

Then I grew older and a new danger was added: Rapists.

Take Back The Night, the classic edition, usually has a parade/rally at the end, where people march in a long column, carrying candles. The idea is that there's safety in numbers and so the girls carrying the candles can march into the night with no fear, reclaiming it as a space for them and refusing to believe that the night is only safe to walk in if you're a white, cisgendered, heterosexual male.

Today, I did a Take Back The Night march of my own. I didn't mean it to be one when I started out. I just wanted to get some exercise, so I walked 7km to my cousin's house, chatted with her for a little, then refused her offer to give me a lift so that I could get more exercise by walking back. As I walked back, it started to get dark. I'd left my house at 7:47PM. Now it was past 9PM, and I was walking down the same street where my father had been followed by three men and had racist insults thrown at him.

I was walking alone, in the dark, in the same country where my teenage, female cousins were followed home by racist idiots who threw rocks at them while yelling insults. The same country where I'd seen a small East Asian girl get trapped in a corner of the bus by some Austrian man, while right next to him, a soldier in full uniform sat and did nothing. The same country where on the way to my cousin's house, just an hour ago, I had a man yell something at me from the window of a moving van.

I was alone, it was dark, and it was definitely hostile territory.

I had my cellphone on me. I could've called my mother and asked for a lift home. Considering the terrain, my parents would've been glad to oblige. I could've waited at a bus station, taken the bus, and my parents would've been none the wiser. Both of those would've been safe moves to make. Smart moves to make.

Instead, I turned my MP3 player onto repeat 1, kept 'Defying Gravity' from the Wicked soundtrack playing, and walked home defiantly. My parents first moved to Austria when I was 5. I went to a German kindergarten. I speak German. I buy groceries here. My parents pay rent for the house we live in. We contribute to the Austrian economy.

I have just as much right to walk the streets as any Austrian does. I have just as much right to walk the streets unmolested for the color of my skin, my eyes, my hair, the accent in my words or the rainbow band on my wrist. The streets were not built for the exclusive use by men. The concrete has no impressions in it that say 'both genders by day, men only by night'. Why should I have to only walk outside safely alone during daylight hours? The night is mine, and the streets are mine as much as they are yours.

I have the right to walk the streets at night if I chose and tonight, I chose to exercise that right. I flinched when people went by me on bikes, and my hands curled into fists with no conscious instruction from my mind. When I saw a man walking in front of me and realized I was catching up to him, I chose to keep walking instead of crossing to the other side of the street, even though I could tell by the way his steps slanted that he was drunk. I overtook him and walked on, expecting any moment to feel him throw his cigarette against my back.

He didn't. I kept walking.

And now, I am safely home, tired but exulted by the knowledge that for an hour and a half, the streets of Austria were mine by moonlight, in the night, in the darkness. This is the part of my post where I'd normally be encouraging you to follow my lead. I won't -- not for this. I did something reckless, acting out of a sense of how I wanted the world to be instead of how it is. I can't tell you to do this, to walk out into the night and assert your right to do so with no more fear than a member of the ruling class, because it could get you hurt. It could get you beaten up, insulted, raped, spat at, or killed, depending on where you live and how poorly you fit their idea of power looks like.

If I thought it would change anything to tell you to do what I did, to walk freely in the night time, I'd tell you to do it. But women aren't going to take to the streets en masse to make the point that the streets belong to them as well, and telling you, alone, to go out and reclaim the night would be telling you to be a target. I won't do that.

But I will say that if you do? You will feel powerful. You will have taken for yourself the hours that society insists are reserved for those with power; you will have taken their power and proven that their power is your power, and there is no reason why you should not have that power too.

Back from Nice!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:37:44 GMT

Nice was fantastic. I heart France and Greece in general, and Nice has good memories for me. Some of the highlights of the trip were:

trying beef tartare for the first time (didn't like it, but hey, new experience!)
getting to have a hotel room all to my own with my parents next to me
finding sea glass and collecting it (read out it in one of the Chicken Soup For The Teenager's Soul book)
buying leather wristlets that you lace up
buying a chicken for a homeless woman and her kid
seeing a whole pig roasting in a square (HUGE pig, big as me!)
a really nice French guy stopping to offer directions just because he saw me about to open up a map
motorbikes EVERYWHERE! I was in some sort of heaven, I swear.

I have tons of photos and shall be posting them on dA to save my Photobucket bandwidth and because Flickr has a limit on how many photos it'll let you upload with a free account. Boo.

Currently, I'm catching up on Amazon Fail, getting ready to celebrate the Sri Lankan New Year, and trying to write RP posts. Work tomorrow, was going to wear a sari, but am far too tired to do that now. It looks like I'm going to be using these to shop for English books/manga now.

So utterly tired. Going to finish the posts that I promised, then crash to -- OH CRAP, 11:30 already?! Okay, fuck finishing posts. Bed. Now.

I leave you with this thought -- if I step on your foot, you tell me it hurts, then my next moves are going to be to apologize for hurting you, and then move my damn foot. Just saying sorry isn't enough.

Oh. And this, mostly because of the cheesecake:

Now to bed.

YGO music meme drabbles.

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:26:37 GMT

1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn your music player on and turn it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabblet/ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterward! No matter how whacked out your drabble is. :)
4. Do ten of these, then post them.

Not That Girl, Wicked Musical

1. Anzu's not jealous often. She's a dancer, she's got the best group of friends ever, and her life has been one adventure after another. She's lived more before her eighteenth birthday than most people do during their entire life.

Watching Mai and Jounouchi get married breaks her heart.

She isn't in love with Jounouchi. It makes perfect sense that Joey'd choose Mai. She's the golden girl of the world. She isn't in love with Mai either. Not that Mai isn't attractive, but...

Atemu's gone.

Anzu looks at Joey and imagines Atemu standing there. She can't imagine herself in Mai's place. She won't allow herself to do that. After Atemu left for the afterworld, she saw him too often in Yugi's face.

She keeps her eyes resolutely on Mai, the figure who won't flicker.

Standing at Joey's side, as his best man, Yugi watches Anzu and his heart breaks for her.

Popular, Wicked Musical

2. Rebecca gasped, batting Mai's hands away, "Mai-chan! I can't breathe! This corset is going to kill me!"

Mai tossed her hair back. Age hadn't dimmed the gold of her curls or the arrogant sparkle in her eyes, "Becky, do you want to be popular or not?"

"No!" Rebecca tried to untie the laces of the corset, wondering if Mai had ever had any experience as a Girl Scout. Or maybe a Navy Seal. "You're the one who wants me to take over for you."

"You're American, you're blonde, and someone has to make sure that the boys don't start thinking that Duel Monsters is a no girl's allowed game." Mai took advantage of Rebecca's distraction to spray some mousse into her hair. Though Rebecca's hair might be the right color, it needed curls to boost its volume. Mai'd save her from being just a geek and turn her into a star!

Nazi Halo, Jack Off Jill.

3. Dozens dead. His village destroyed.

Bakura threw back his head and screamed. To the sky, he vowed vengeance. To the bodies of his family, he vowed peace. To the Pharaoh, he promised justice.

The Pharaoh defeated him, and his oaths went unfulfilled. A still-born promise is a dreadful thing.

3,000 years later, Bakura rose again. Justice would not be denied.

"But -- how?" Words fading, a gurgling gasp of disbelief as Atemu stared down at the bullets riddling Yugi's body, "You cannot win. You're the villain! "

"No." In Bakura's eyes, the ghosts of Kura-Elna howled their vengeance, "You are."

Part Of Your World, The Little Mermaid.

4. "Watching the humans again?"

The Cure Mermaid nodded, curled up in her shell and observing the human world through a little portal that hung in the air of the Shadow Realm.

"Can't see why. It's not like you can do anything except fight for them when they call us."

A shrug, and she flipped the pink scales of her tail at Harpie's Brother, "Perhaps one day," Her voice was like music, light in the Shadow Realm, "They will set us free."

Harpie's Brother snorted, "What, have you been watching Aladdin again?"

The Cure Mermaid refused to dignify that with an answer.

Snakes, Voltaire.

5. Ever since the last time that Bakura had been banished to the Shadow Realm, Seto's been having nightmares. He dreams that he's covered in snakes, curling over him, the dry rasp of scales on skin continuing all night long. He's invariably bleeding by the end of the nightmare; the nightmare never ends until the last snake rears its head up and stares straight into his eyes.

There's that one moment of eye contact before it plunges into his mouth and makes a suicide dive down his throat.

Seto wakes choking, fingers at his own throat, caressing the bite marks that Bakura left there.

He thinks Bakura's trying to reach him from the Shadow Realm. He won't get dragged into this fight (again). Mokuba comments on how little sleep Seto seems to be getting these days. Seto wonders if Mokuba is having nightmares as well.

He will never forget Bakura if he's meddling with Mokuba too.

Bakura returns, and the nightmares leave Seto. He won't ask Bakura if he was sending them; better to pretend that he is beyond Bakura's ability to touch.

Bakura proves the pretense for a lie when he leaves a fresh set of marks on Seto's smooth, pale neck.

One Girl Revolution, Legally Blonde soundtrack.

6. Mai's everything that she ever wanted to be. She's confident. She's rich. She's beautiful. She's famous. She's independent. If she wants to issue a statement, the press is always happy to talk to her. If she plays in a tournament, she knows she's going to win or at least place in the top five. Everything she wants, she gets. One way or another.

Mai's soul is in danger, and some stupid boy saves her.

Mai's standing in the rain and crying, and some stupid boy on a motorcycle is comforting her.

Mai's soul is in danger, and some stupid boy sacrifices his own to save her.

Mai survives. She survives everything. She's confident. She's rich. She's beautiful. She's famous. She's independent.

Everyone else is diminished by Yugi's weird other half disappearing.

Mai's life continues down the path she is forging for herself.

Meant To Live, Switchfoot.

7. "Tou-san..." Ryuuji nearly begged. He knew what Plan B was. Without the Puzzle, Yugi was vulnerable. If Ryuuji could just kill Yugi in that moment, and have someone else find the Puzzle, someone that he could defeat, the Puzzle would be his. He'd promised his father that he would do it, if necessary.

But he hadn't met Yugi there. One game, and everything that Ryuuji had known about the world had shattered. Everything he'd trusted his father on was wrong.

"Tou-san." Ryuuji looked at his father's face, at the eyes that the mask didn't hide, and realized that if he killed Yugi, he would die as well. What little part of him wasn't his father's son would be gone. Like the Puzzle, he'd be only an instrument of power.

This wasn't what his life was meant for. His father had lied.

A Guy Like You, Hunchback of Notre Dam.

7. "Come on, Jounouchi-kun! You'll be late." Yugi encouraged Jounouchi, giving him a playful push towards the door.

"Naaaah. Mebbe I'll just stay at home, Yug. There'll be a lot of guys at the airport. What makes you think she'll want to see me?" Jounouchi hung back, not convinced despite Yugi and Honda's best efforts.

Yugi gave him an exasperated look, "Because if I were her, I would."

Jounouchi decided that even chicks weren't as weird as Yugi could be.

if he tries anything, ani di franco

8. In another universe, Mai Kujaku is the world's first female superhero. She calls herself the Amazon, carries a whip with several spikes, and has the sense to wear shorts instead of a short skirt. The corset's bulletproof and wore over a black flight jacket.

She kicks ass on a daily basis. During the night time, her partner, Isis, takes over. The tabloids love the lesbian crime-fighting duo for their strong advocacy of women's rights, fearlessness, willingness to pose for photos and form-fitting costumes.

The one time that a photographer gets a little grabby with Isis, Mai breaks his hand and his camera, in that order.

Isis kisses Mai for that, and then to prove she doesn't need protection, breaks the cameraman's other hand.

Everyone else is careful to keep their distance after that; there's nothing as dangerous as girls looking out for each other.

Head On Collision, New Found Glory.

9. "The bruises suit you." Ryuuji said, and Seto smirked, "I'd say the same about you, but social lies have never been my strong suit."

"Too bad that I'm the one who keeps them on display, then, isn't it?" Light words as Ryuuji did up his hair and glanced over his shoulder at Seto with a smirk of his own. "Same time next week?"

"I'll be busy." Seto lied, watching as Ryuuji pulled on his mesh top and red jerkin. Fingerprints showed up on Ryuuji's hips and wrists, his upper arms banded by them like armlets. More bruises on his neck, teethprints still red, and Ryuuji's mouth was still kiss-swollen. Seto would never walk out like that, so bare and so bruised.

Ryuuji's ability to smile for the cameras while so far from perfect was part of what Seto liked about him; it annoyed Seto greatly that there was anything at all that he liked about the enigmatic other CEO.

The fact that he was the only one to see this side of Ryuuji was poor consolation; nobody else saw this side of Seto either.

Yellow Brick Road, Jack Off Jill.

10. Leon told himself that it was a fairy tale. In fairy tales, the youngest brother (the good brother) always had to endure trials to get to the princess (to earn his brother's love). This was a fairy tale, and therefore, everything would be over soon.

He couldn't find the rainbow. The crown was made of thorns. The lion kept eyeing him as if he was a particularly delicious morsel. Leon was sure the Tin Man was covered in lead paint. The Scarecrow was only an anorexic girl.

The dark-haired girl leaned over and purified poppy smoke filled the air. Leon hated its thick, sweet scent, but told himself desperately to be calm. This was only a fairy tale. It would end well.

Contest entries!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:28:39 GMT

what is more exquisite? by =ficklegoddess on deviant ART

&

Rainbow of the Ocean by =ficklegoddess on deviant ART

Maybe I have some talents after all :P

I can never ignore this meme.

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 02:08:59 GMT

Find a poem you love and post it.

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

-Anne Sexton

Happy Sri Lankan Independence Day!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:32:02 GMT

To celebrate Sri Lankan Independence Day, I'm offering to write people's names for them in Sinhala.

Above image is my name, written in Sinhala. If you want me to write your name in Sinhala, comment! Please spell your name correctly and next to it, in brackets, put how it's pronounced, since Sinhala has more vowels than English.

For example:

Fickle (Fick-el, rhymes with trick-hell)

And then I'll write your name and you can show it off. XD

Micro-fics meme!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:22:09 GMT

Who wrote 'em: fickle aka only_fiction

What it is: Rachel/Tobias, Animorphs. [used for thought speech]

What that means: Ten fics. Ten genres. Ten words or less.

Why you should try writing your own: It is so much harder than it looks. Really.

Why I'm crying on the inside: Because this really IS harder than it looks!

Other stuff I want to say: ~~Want to see me do this for any other pairing other than the one I chose? Leave me a comment with the pairing and I'll do my best. I could use the writing exercise. XD~~ Having actually written the meme results, NO WAY. Much too difficult to do multiple times. So first five comments only get to make requests.

Crossover:

"I'm a Slayer?!"

[Vampires and Yeerks, beware.]

1st Time:

Rachel sets her alarm. Tobias wakes up to demorph.

Alternate Universe:

"Ms. President, is it true your boyfriend goes skydiving with you?"

Crackfic:

"I wasn't kissing JAKE. It was Rachel!"

Morphing breeds confusion.

UST:

Rachel strokes Tobias' feathers but craves his skin instead.

Hurt/Comfort:

"Rachel -- Rachel, I'm trapped!"

"Morph. ... MORPH!"

He tries. For her.

Smut:

She draws one of his discarded feathers over her lips.

Angst:

Rachel flies with the bird but she loves the boy.

Humor:

"Was it really necessary to poop on Chapman?"

Rachel grins.

Fluff:

Flying's better with Rachel. She makes the sky more exciting.

Be impressed!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:52:09 GMT

only_fiction. I now have a writing journal up on insanejournal, and spent most of today getting the layout customized to a form that I like. I think the basic look of it works well enough that I can use it for my personal journal as well, though obviously more cornflower blue-and-white instead of grey-black-green like my fiction journal is.

Header image comes from a doujinshi I own -- Ryuuji's very green eyes. XD And the text is from an Ani di Franco song.

Now to start transferring over fics! Specifically, Netherworld, since that's going to cross over the ff.net rating soon and require me to either start posting the chapters elsewhere or e-mail people the chapters individually.

lalala

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:57:06 GMT

Test entry.

Little Brother: READ IT NOW

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:08:14 GMT

Whatever you're doing right now, stop. Go read Little Brother instead.

Little Brother is the best book I've read all year. This would have more meaning if it wasn't the start of the year, so let me rephrase that. Little Brother might be the most awesome book that I could possibly read this year.

There's an excellent summary of the book here, so I'm not going to hash over the book. Instead, I'm going to give you bullet points as to WHY you should read it.

The author references our culture. Flashmobs, Linux distros, game systems being cheap but the games expensive, livejournal, Flickr, everything. And he gets it right! You've seen what happened when the media tried talking about Anonymous versus Scientology. This guy actually manages to create a believable 17-year-old narrator.
It's about Homeland Security and what happens when safety trumps freedom. The title's a homage to 'Big Brother' but unlike 1984, this book is set in our times. Modern times. It's much easier to get sucked into this book because the protagonist is our age and deals with our tech, instead of being an adult with a forbidden love affair.
On that note, the book deals with the generation gap and how adults are more likely to buy into the scare tactics of the media. But it doesn't present all adults as rigorously inflexible. There are good guys amongst the grown-ups, and bad guys amongst the kids, and the way that he manages to make moral ambiguity and self-righteousness a major theme of the novel is amazing.
Race issues! It's a bit of a throw away in that it's not a major theme of the book, but that's part of what makes the sudden discussion of them so fantastic to me. There's a quick convo between the protag and a friend of his about how the friend will suffer more if they're caught, and the protag acknowledges that yes, brown people have the scales balanced against them. It's a tiny little thing, not a major part of the book, but oh, how fantastic it is to se it acknowledged as a part of real life instead of glossed over or forgotten about.
Awesome female chars. There's not just the standard love interest and the best friend chick, but also female chars with authority, female chars who are bad guys, and female chars who rock the geek world. They're depicted as being as much a part of the world as the male protag is, and the author's Net-savvy enough to even have the protag be wary of one girl that IMs him because the protag knows how many guys like pretending to be girls online.
Neil Gaiman, Scott Westerfeld, Brian K Vaughn, and I love it. I fully intend on buying copies IRL and making my friends read them. Since most of you are lucky enough to not live near me, I'm instead devoting the entirety of this post to trying to convince you to read it.

You know what else is awesome? The author himself and his thoughts on ebooks and sharing books/music online. His explanation for why he gives his books away for free online is quoted below, because it's just said so well that any attempt on my part to sum it up would pale in comparison to his original words.

I recently saw Neil Gaiman give a talk at which someone asked him how he felt about piracy of his books. He said, "Hands up in the audience if you discovered your favorite writer for free -- because someone loaned you a copy, or because someone gave it to you? Now, hands up if you found your favorite writer by walking into a store and plunking down cash." Overwhelmingly, the audience said that they'd discovered their favorite writers for free, on a loan or as a gift. When it comes to my favorite writers, there's no boundaries: I'll buy every book they publish, just to own it (sometimes I buy two or three, to give away to friends who must read those books). I pay to see them live. I buy t-shirts with their book-covers on them. I'm a customer for life.

Neil went on to say that he was part of the tribe of readers, the tiny minority of people in the world who read for pleasure, buying books because they love them. One thing he knows about everyone who downloads his books on the Internet without permission is that they're readers, they're people who love books.

People who study the habits of music-buyers have discovered something curious: the biggest pirates are also the biggest spenders. If you pirate music all night long, chances are you're one of the few people left who also goes to the record store (remember those?) during the day. You probably go to concerts on the weekend, and you probably check music out of the library too. If you're a member of the red-hot music-fan tribe, you do lots of everything that has to do with music, from singing in the shower to paying for black-market vinyl bootlegs of rare Eastern European covers of your favorite death-metal band.

Same with books. I've worked in new bookstores, used bookstores and libraries. I've hung out in pirate ebook ("bookwarez") places online. I'm a stone used bookstore junkie, and I go to book fairs for fun. And you know what? It's the same people at all those places: book fans who do lots of everything that has to do with books. I buy weird, fugly pirate editions of my favorite books in China because they're weird and fugly and look great next to the eight or nine other editions that I paid full-freight for of the same books. I check books out of the library, google them when I need a quote, carry dozens around on my phone and hundreds on my laptop, and have (at this writing) more than 10,000 of them in storage lockers in London, Los Angeles and Toronto.

Love him, read the book, and spread word of the book around as much as you can. This guy is one of us. He talks about our technology, he writes about our world, and he's good at it. He's a geek to the core, and one who doesn't back down from tackling politics head-on. I'd fangirl about it more, but I'm going to see if he's written anything else.

Icon set of heroic chars/groups!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:44:35 GMT

YAY ICONS! I woke up one morning with inspiration for an icon set floating about in my head, then spent most of a day working on them. Cue a set of 85 '[name] is my hero' icons. XD The icons are of various characters/groups from DC, Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek and Misc. Characters featured included members of the Batfamily, the Supes, X-Men, Teen Titans, Outsiders, Green Lanterns, Spidey-world and many more.

And this gave me a chance to break in my new icon journal in ijay, iconic!

Samples:

001

002

003

004

Choose your hero/ine here at iconic!

And if you can think of a hero/ine that'd icon well (as in, has a very recognizable symbol), then go ahead and suggest it via comments. I'm thinking of making an Avatar set and maybe a Naruto set, with the village and element signs, though that'd obviously be more for groups than for individual chars, alas.

ficklet, original

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:24:38 GMT

As with everything, she wants only the best, so when she decides to divorce her emotions from herself, she hires the most skilled lawyers she can find.

At $500 an hour, they don't tell her she's crazy. Why let the psychiatrists get their hands on her fortune if they can have it?

They draw up an agreement for her emotions and herself to sign, and pronounce the matter close once the two identical signatures mark the bottom of the page.

The first time PMS hits, she sues them for malpractice.

She wins millions, but is too busy crying to care.

meme. icons. people of color.

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:29:46 GMT

Taken from the_willow, my user icons of people/characters of color. ~~I'm so used to anime that I forgot all the YGO/Japanese chars count as characters of color.~~

Be thankful I left out my icons of aliens because I wasn't sure if they counted or not :P Llama got included when Stich/Percy/Meeko/Cricket/Mushu didn't because it's Kuzco, no matter what body he's in, and he's South American and human.

Quotation meme!

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:40:29 GMT

Random quotes meme, borrowed from ceresi! Go here and refresh until you get five quotes that resonate with you, then put them up in your journal.

To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give. That takes courage, because we don't want to fall on our faces or leave ourselves open to hurt.

Madonna

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.

Christopher Morley

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.

John Viscount Morley

Three failures denote uncommon strength. A weakling has not enough grit to fail thrice.

Minna Thomas Antrim

Fickle's posting patterns on Twitter.

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:39:29 GMT

While trying to convince Savior to get a Twitter, he made two mock Twitter-compilations to show what it would be like if he got one. I'm posting the one where he sporks my Twitter posting patterns.

Lysander [PWNED, care of Fickle] says:
Rewritten to best appropriate Savior-world equivalents.

I love Fickle. XDDD 1 minute ago
@ ficklediety omg! See, exactly! Did you see the link in the comments?! 2 minutes ago
Awww, the Kiwi got sent home for making crappy vegetarian curry. 4 minutes ago
"WHAT HAPPENED TO ANDRAE?!" 8 minutes ago (there's no substitute)
Watching Top Chef and chatting with the Brat. <333 9 minutes ago
[tinypic] <-- omg wtf is that!? I AM SCARRED XDDD 11 minutes ago
Back from cooking. Made spagbol and twelve icons. *accomplished!* 14 minutes ago
Something just set off the fire alarm. 16 minutes ago
[ extraneous Gunslinger quote] 18 minutes ago
[ extraneous Gunslinger quote] 19 minutes ago
[ extraneous Gunslinger quote] 19 minutes ago
[ extraneous Gunslinger quote] 20 minutes ago
[ extraneous Gunslinger quote] 20 minutes ago
[ extraneous Gunslinger quote] 21 minutes ago
[ extraneous Gunslinger quote] 22 minutes ago
[ extraneous Gunslinger quote] 22 minutes ago
Wtf? Livejournal is down? 26 minutes ago
Awake. 29 minutes ago

You gotta love that boy. Especially for his succinct explanation of WHY the Gunslinger quotations:

Lysander [PWNED, care of Fickle] says:
The following message could not be delivered to all recipients:
But Gunslinger was just my equivalent because I couldn't think of anything else I quoted recently, and you have a tendency to include EVERY BIT OF DIALOGUE in the show you're watching

Narcissus Reborn [Lysander has been PWNED!] *unicef says:
*dies and hides* I do not! Just the good bits. XD Otherwise you would be DOOMED when I watched two seasons of Practice in a row -- I just didn't find anything there worth quoting.

In conclusion? I love my friends. And I love my Twitter. *hugs it*

more poems please?

ficklegoddess@gmail.com — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:59:36 GMT

thursday: drowning in love

friday: drowning in doubt

saturday: drowning

sunday: God, I can't drag my
self to church this morning.
please make a house call.

~*~

Plans:
next month:
find someone new.

this month:
get over you.

this week:
get you back.

today:
survive

~*~

I'd have a nervous breakdown
only
I've been through
this too many
times to be
nervous

~*~

THE QUESTION OF SUICIDE:

Keep it a question.
It's not really an answer

~*~

the layers I have put
around the pain of
your going are thin.

I walk softly through
life, adding thickness
each day.

a thought or a feeling
of you cracks the surface.

a call to you
shatters it all.

I spend that night in death

and spin the first
layer of life
with the sunrise

~*~

I'm past the point of going
quietly insane.

I'm getting quite
noisy about it.

The neighbors must think
I'm mad.

The neighbors, for once,
are right.

~*~

I am missing you
far better than
I ever loved you.

~*~

I write only
until I cry
which is why
so few poems
this month
have been
completed.

it's just
that

~*~

a new morning
of a
new life
without you.

so?

there will other.
much finer,
much mine-er.

and until then
there is me.

and because I treated
you
well,
I like me better.

also, the sun rises.

~*~

the need you
grew
still remains.

but less and less
you seem the way
to fill that need.

I am.

~*~

Someday we are going to be lovers.
Maybe married.
At the very least, an affair.

What's your name?

~*~

I loved,
which was purgatory.

I lost,
which was hell.

and I survived.
Heaven!

~*~

I found the poems in a book called "How to survive the Loss of a Love", along with many others, but those are the ones that I liked best. Especially "Layers" "Neighbors" and "Plans". Originally, I posted them to my deadjournal on the 14th June, 2003, and while I was going through my deadjournal and flocking entries, I found them and decided to share them here with all of you.

They don't have to be about love directly. I take them more as a set of general life rules for survival.