Are You Kidding Me?

Yes, I know this is a fictitious work. I made it. -___-

Does the above argument sound ridiculous to you? It does to me. Yet someone was trying to make this kind of argument earlier. No, not about Skittles. About pants. That's right, pants.

There's a new type of jeans out there that show rainbow threads when they start to wear down. They've been labeled as "gay jeans", and so folks are kicking up a fuss. Saying that the brand shouldn't sell to such a small market as they won't keep in business. As if that wasn't bad enough, then people started going on about what a rainbow means in the bible and that it is something sacred, and that it needs to be "taken back".

This isn't okay people. They're jeans. It's rainbow. You are not the only people who need to wear clothes. Nor are you the only people who have the right to appreciate colorful things. There is no "taking back" of anything in this. People are allowed to like rainbows. They're allowed to incorporate them into their everyday life. Regardless of whether or not their straight, gay, bi, trans, pan, not interested, or somewhere in between. 

You aren't being harmed by this. You won't go to hell because of a pair of pants (though you should be careful if they're a mixed blend of materials). Just because a group associates with rainbow colors doesn't mean you cannot enjoy said colors. You have the right to enjoy them. BUT SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE.

I'm tired of the hatred. It's getting downright dumb. It's been dumb for quite some time. So the next time you see something that's aimed towards some other group other than straight people (which doesn't actually exclude you, it just means you weren't the main objective) try and look at it objectively. Is it really something you should get offended by? Truly? Or are they just Skittles?

Think about it.

The Many Sins of Fanfiction: Part 1

Have you ever liked a book, movie, or show so much that you were sad to see it end? Have you ever wanted to see more of those characters, perhaps in new and exciting situations? If so then fanfiction might be a good outlet for you.

Fanfiction is fiction written by fans of a movie, show, or book using existing characters and/or situations to develop new plot. These works can range from the mundane to the extraordinary, and anyone at any writing level can create them. Unfortunately, that means there comes a point where you will encounter bad fanfiction. 

I myself have had run-ins with it on many different occasions. So I decided it would be fun to make a "Many Sins" post about it. I labeled it as just the first part as I'm sure I will come back to this subject again in the future. And so, without further ado, here is the first batch...

Sin Numero Uno: Bad Writing

I personally feel you should have a basic grasp of whatever language you are writing in before you actually attempt to write. It is extremely irritating to click on something that has a decent premise only to find the story to be littered with errors. I'm not talking using the wrong tense occasionally, or the wrong two (to? too?). I meen righting lyke this, ohkay? It isn't hard to click the little spell check button. So PLEASE USE IT! Otherwise I'll get twitchy, and immediately stop reading.

Sin Number Two: Bad Dialogue

Similar to the first, but not the same. This one is easy enough to avoid. Just read your dialogue out loud. If it doesn't sound like someone would actually talk that way in real life then chances are you need to reword some things. Also use moderation. There's nothing worse than like hearing someone like speak like this like they're a freaking like ditsy like person! Like. *shudders*

Sin Number Three: Bad Plotting

So you've killed a character off. Good for you! That jerk deserved to die! But... you really liked writing his character. You miss being able to put him into situations where he gets to sass at everyone in a thirty mile radius. He was fun. So you decide to bring him back. Yay! Except bringing him back doesn't make sense in the story. But, like I said, you miss him. So you do it anyway. Sure you have to make up a convoluted reason as to why he was able to come back from the dead, but your fans won't mind. He's a fabulous character! Who cares if it seems forced! To hell with sense! 

Except... it does matter and people do care. It doesn't matter how awesome a character is, or how awesome a story is. If things start to teeter on the edge of what the frickity frack was that ridiculousness then you are in serious danger of losing your followers. The thing with any plot idea is that there has to be at least some semblance of believe-ability. Otherwise there is a disconnect, and the last thing you want is your followers to disconnect from you and your work.

...

Those first three deal with bigger structural issues of fanfiction. These next ones however are sins that I consider to happen out of pure laziness.

The Sin That Comes After Number Three, Also Known As Number Four: Extreme OOCness

 OOC means out of character. The reason why I say extreme OOCness instead of just plain OOCness is because as a fan writer you will always, ALWAYS make the characters from your fandom a little out of character. After all you were not the one to originally create said characters so it's not something you can help. The characters are also going into situations that you can only guess as to how they might react.

The key here is that you have to try. Mind you the rules are a bit more bendy in an AU (alternate universe), but you have to at least get a basic grasp of what the character is like, and then try to figure out how that character would react in certain situations. If you are making a fanfiction where the main guy character is the strong and silent type then it is not okay for you to suddenly break character for him and make him into a gigantic crybaby just because he stubbed his toe. Just like with bad plotting, if your rendition of a character is not in some way believe-able then your followers won't buy it, and they certainly won't continue on with your story.

The Fifth Sin: Gender-swapping

There is a right, and a wrong way to gender-swap. It all depends on your reasons for doing the swap in the first place. Unfortunately the main reason people use this idea is because they are uncomfortable writing the character(s) with their normal gender identities. You usually see this with people who want to write romance between two characters who are of the same gender normally, but are uncomfortable with the idea of writing two guys or gals getting together. So they switch one so that there is only one guy and one girl.

I could rant for a long time about why this one bothers me, but I'll spare you the dramatics. Hopefully it's obvious why this one gets people into loads of trouble, and if not... well whatever. On to the next one.

Sin Number Six (The Last Sin... For Now): Nicknames

I can't stand this one. It just. Uhg! So annoying. Now I'm not talking about using nicknames that sound good and would make sense for a character, nor am I talking about using a nickname as a tool to be irritating to said character. I'm talking about a continual use of a nickname instead of a character's given name that makes very little if no sense what so ever. Want some examples? Well let's see... in the Avenger's fandom I have personally seen Tone for Tony Stark, and Lokes for Loki. As you can see both character have four letter names so what is even the point of nicknaming them? I've also seen in the Merlin fandom, people using Arty for Arthur, which no. And the worst I've seen so far (again from the Merlin fandom) is Merls for Merlin.

Again, it's obvious as to why this one is a sin, and if you don't see as to why it is then I'm afraid there is no hope for you.

And so ends The Many Sins of Fanfiction: Part 1

I hope you enjoyed yourselves. Be on the lookout for another part in the future.

Oversights Lead to Ouch! That Hurts!

Today I relearned a lesson I should have already known in full. It is a lesson that involves cats, though this time it was the cat above specifically. The lesson? Don't give a cat the opportunity to use your neck as a spring board.

I learned this when I was younger. One of our cats had wanted out of my arms and up onto something, and as a result I got my neck gouged pretty good. I still have a scar from it. Well today the same thing happened. I was holding October with the intent of putting him on a bookshelf. However, I forgot that the plant on said bookshelf was cat grass, and in his rush to get at it I was used as a spring board. It would have been fine if it'd been my chest; I was wearing a robe. Unfortunately though his back legs landed on my throat, and double unfortunately we haven't clipped his back claws recently.

He got me in a few places on my neck, and at first it didn't look bad at all. But then a minute went by and the suckers started bleeding, quite a lot actually. I knew it wasn't anything too bad though, it just looked bad. I bleed rather easily you see. So I cleaned it up, got a gauze pad, taped that on, and then to keep pressure on it wrapped a scarf around the area. Then I went right back to organizing the books (which was what I'd been doing previously to this incident).

It's a pain in the butt, and I have to be careful with it otherwise the tape will come off. It also aches somewhat. Hopefully it'll heal quickly, though I am curious as to whether or not it'll scar. That might look cool. Anyway, to those of you who own pets, BEWARE! DON'T DO WHAT I DID! PROTECT YOUR NECK!

You have been warned.

Le Sigh...

So we've moved into our new house and everything is going great!

Except...

we're sick.

And...

there's no running water.

Sooo... addressing the first thing. I believe I started this whole thing off. I got sick, went to see the doctor, he gave me penicillin and sent me on my way. I started to get better, took the whole week's worth, and while I was doing that my sister got sick. Now my mom is sick, and I am too... again.

Went back to the doctor. Guess what he did. Any ideas? Whelp, he gave my sister a different kind of antibiotic than he gave me. For me? He checked my ears, took some blood to test for allergies, and sent me on my way. So apparently he thinks my issue is allergies... oh and salivary stones. Coughed one of those babies out right in front of him. But it's "nothing to be concerned about". Uh huh. Suuuure doc. 

The water thing is a bit of a pickle. We had some for about half a day. Then the thing crapped out on us. We've had a guy come out, and he's still not 100% sure what the issue is. Thankfully my family has had to endure worse conditions than this before so we know how to rough it for a bit. It's just... uncomfortable. Our landlord is doing everything in his power to get things worked out, which is nice. Most landlords we've had aren't so good at their job. It's awesome to have one now that cares.

All in all I'm just a little bit miserable right now, but doing my best to cope. Hopefully things look up soon. That's all for now. This is Kimi, signing out.

Peace!

Common Mistakes with Painting

Today I'm going to talk a little about common mistakes while painting. These aren't some top five I found in some article or anything, but are ones that I find myself on the wrong end of. Maybe you do some of these too. Who knows? Let's find out together shall we?

1. Impatience

This one is pretty obvious. When you get impatient about wanting something to be finished then you don't produce your best work. You end up pushing the paint around instead of actually finishing, and that my friend leads to mistakes.

2. No Clear Vision

Now this one isn't always a bad thing. Some of my neatest paintings have come from just rolling up my sleeves and diving in without any idea of what I want. However this way of working can easily backfire, and you end up with more of a mess than anything else. 

It's especially dangerous if you have an idea of what you want to do, but no idea how you want to go about doing it. I had this problem recently. I wanted to do one particular type of landscape, but dove in first without an idea of how to proceed. It was only after I'd started that I looked at reference pictures and as a result had to redo some of my work. It was a downward spiral from there, and I ended up scraping the project instead of wasting more paint on something I couldn't save.

3. Over Correcting

This one I know is common among most artists. It's when you see something you don't like, and so you correct it. Only then you see another thing. And another. And another. Soon your painting has changed so much you no longer like it. You can also correct so much that in your correcting you make a blunder.

I did the latter of the scenarios once while doing an intuitive painting. It was really gorgeous, but had a couple of white spots. In trying to correct the white spots I completely messed up the flow of the painting to the point where it couldn't be salvaged.

4. Not Letting Things Be

There comes a point in painting where you need to walk away. It could be you've spent too much time looking at the darn thing and you're starting to go cross-eyed, it could be you don't know where to go from where you are and are feeling hopeless, or perhaps it feels like it might be finished, but you aren't sure.

When you become unsure it's best to take a breather and walk away. Sometimes that's all you need. Sometimes you need more time. What you're hoping to achieve is a different state of mind. A fresh outlook. If you don't do this and just stare at the canvas you won't get anything done, or worse you make a mistake that messes it up. The same thing is the case for something that's finished, but you're unsure about it. If you don't sit on it you can end up having to redo the whole thing.

5. Not Trusting Yourself

This is a big one. Ultimately, with anything in life, you must trust yourself. If you aren't able to listen to that part of you that tells you it's enough, to do something this way instead of another, or to not put the paintbrush in your mouth then you end up with a lot of problems. You must have confidence, at least a little, or you'll never get anything done. What's more, when you have finished you'll be easily swayed by the comments and criticisms of others.

So these are my top five issues I have while painting. They don't always come out, but when they do it's super annoying! However, if I just chill a bit, relax, breathe, and then re-access the situation usually I can get through whatever the problem is. So if any of you suffer from these issues make sure you try to do the same.

I wish you luck in all of your creative endeavors.

^-^

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Fails at Life

Okay folks, I have been completing some of the Zelda games, and my sister said it was time for Skyward Sword. I was okay with that and began playing. I'm a bit at a disadvantage as I am a lefty, but even with my awkward flying, my spastic swordsmanship, and absolute craptastic strategic falling it still has been a fun game. Both of my sisters enjoyed playing and never had an issue so it was safe for me to assume that I'd have no problems either. Ha! WRONG! What happened? He did.

I have unfortunately found a glitch in the game. When trying to get the different parts of the Hero's Song I decided to go to the forest first. However, upon seeing it was blocked I assumed there was an order to where I had to go and so headed for the desert. That's where I met him again. His name is Golo, a fine chap unless you talk to him more than once. I did that and as a result the dragon sequences wouldn't start. I only found out about the game killing glitch after I set it off, and I only had one save slot where I had already saved over my progress with the glitched progress. So the end result? I have to start... ALL...OVER...AGAIN. Of course by now there is a patch, but in order to get it you have to have your wii connected to the internet, of which ours is not nor ever will be.

So yeah... all that fighting... all that treasure hunting... almost getting the demon human... gone. All gone! And all because of one, little Goron. I'm going to restart it now. As an upside, I can work the controls better! Downside? Besides having to go through everything again? As a lefty the accidental bombing issue before you get the bomb bag is a LOT worse. Well... wish me luck. :(