TFC.net

I went home for the weekend, to see my parents. It was pretty whistle-stop though, because I'm back again, and ready for another day in lectures tomorrow. Well, I would be more ready if I was actually doing some coursework right now, but...well...you can't have everything.

Have some bullet points, because I don't think I'm up to prose at the moment.

1) I went to the opticians and found out that I have to get new glasses. That's kind of annoying. New glasses are expensive. Luckily I get 30 pounds off for being a student. I found a pair I like, I think I'll go and order them tomorrow. But at least I will be able to see the overheads a bit more clearly in class now (I thought I just couldn't read the handwriting).

2) I am drawing some Clematis right now (reason #1 for not doing any coursework). Hopefully the page'll be done some time this week. I've really been wanting to draw some Clematis all weekend. I have been inspired by a) listening to some Franz Ferdinand for the first time in ages (somewhere along the line, Franz Ferdinand songs and Clematis have become linked in my brain) and b) finding a really beautiful Japanese fanart site (maybe if I practice drawing hard enough I'll be that good some day).

3) I watched the film 'If...' yesterday. It's a very good film. It starts off in a public boarding school and is very Tom Brown's School Days, but the further you get into it the more surreal it becomes. I think maybe it was more metaphorical than straight surreal, but what it was a metaphor for, I'm not quite sure. Anyway, very nice direction, I would recommend watching it.

4) CLAMP in Wonderland 2! I've only watched the low quality version so far, but I'm enjoying it. My favourite parts so far: a) Evil Vet!Seishirou b) Ashura! Ashura! Ashura! c) OMG Ioryogi is so cute in his little car!

5) I seem to have developed a fascination with the evolution of the English language. I think I'm going to have to read up on this if I ever get time.

6) Maybe I had something more to say, but my memory feels about as cohesive as a...very...um...some sort of not cohesive...thing...

It sure is dark out now that the clocks have gone back.

So, just when I was starting to despair that I wouldn't find anything good to watch this season I came across Ghost Hound. It's better than the name suggests, and doesn't seem to contain any spectral canines so far. The story seems to revolve around a boy who is traumatised by an incident from 11 years ago, and keeps reliving it in his dreams.

The animation is by Production IG, and going only on my experience of xxxHolic, it does have a Production IG feel to it with the colours and the animation. But the animation is nowhere near as shoddy as in the xxxHolic anime, and was actually very nice. The soundtrack gives the whole thing a wonderfully sinister feel. The lack of fanservice being shoved in my face is a nice change too. If the quality stays at the level of the first episode (which is always doubtful), then this should turn out to be a great show.

Plus, the first episode was titled 'Lucid Dream'. Coincidence or coincidence, eh?

Other shows I haven't dropped just yet:

Gundam00
As I mentioned before, I'm staying with this one because the fanart it'll produce is likely to be really nice. I seem to be a fan of Tieria so far. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he wasn't the wet flannel that I'd assumed he'd be; turns out he just likes wearing a series of horrible cardigans. I also feel that I'm supposed to be a fan of that blond pilot and the scientist guy with long brown hair, but I just can't do it because that long brown hair is the worst haircut I've seen on anybody, ever; it's just horrible.

Dragonaut: The Resonance
The animation for this one is quite nice, and the story is interesting enough. It's a shame that the CGI is so bad that it almost ruins the whole show. Nevermind; if I close my eyes during the CGI parts it should be fine. I'm interested to see what part the best friend is going to play; he looks like he might be important.

Shugo Chara!
I'm experiencing deep shame that I'm still watching this one. I understand that it is vapid and awful. But sometimes it's quite nice to watch something that's full of meaningless cute and pink and glitter and every sickening magical girl plot device you can ever think of. I might drop this if I come across anything else that's worth watching. Or maybe I'll just watch it anyway and kill myself slowly from the inside out.

I had my first lucid dream last night! (Well actually my second, but I don't think I was properly lucid in the first first one, which was years ago anyway.)

How exciting.

I was dreaming that I was talking to one of my cousins. She was telling me that one of my teeth looked like a tic tac. And then my teeth started falling out. This has happened in a number of dreams that I've had before, and it used to really worry me, but this time I said to my cousin, 'Don't worry about it, this has happened to me loads of times before; it's just a dream'. At that moment it was like the metaphorical lightbulb went off in my head. Holy freaking shit, I'm dreaming and I realised it! I was quite excited. And then I could feel a sort of pressure, which I assumed meant that the lucidity was slipping away from me, so I tried rubbing my hands together, which you're meant to do to ground yourself in your dream. What I wasn't expecting was how realistic it would seem. It felt like I was actually rubbing my hands together, it didn't feel weird or dreamlike at all. I really didn't think that a lucid dream would be as tangible as the real world. It freaked me out and I got scared and deliberately let go of my lucidity. A few seconds later I was awake.

So I didn't get to explore the dream world at all. All I can remember seeing during my lucid state was the bin that I was spitting my teeth into and the floor with loads of my teeth strewn over it. Hopefully next time I won't freak out so much. Who thought it would seem so real though? Awesome.

I was able to stop moping about the lack of Mononoke this morning, because I stumbled across the Bakeneko story from Ayakashi on YouTube. I'm so glad I finally got to watch it, even though I'm still kicking myself for dropping Ayakashi before it got to the Bakeneko story.

Anyway, Bakeneko was just as good as the rest of Mononoke, and I have a few of points to make:

a) Is it me, or did the medicine seller seem slightly more tetchy in this one and not quite as calm and collected as in Mononoke?
b) The part with the scales showing the movement of the bakeneko as it prowled around them was a very nice touch, and proper scary.
c) The medicine seller carries porn around in his chest!!!!!1 I wondered what all those drawers were for.

So now I really can mope about there being no more Mononoke to watch. I hope they make another series. I really do. Arrrgh I need to watch mooooore!

I was going to go to bed, but it's too early, even for me, and then I was going to watch some screen, but there's only so much poor anime that I can take in one go. Seriously. There doesn't seem to be any good cartoons to watch this season. Where's Mononoke? I want another Mononoke. Maybe my standards are too high now, but I just tried watching Shion no Ou, which is perhaps the worst thing I have ever watched in my whole life (actually no, there was that one about the cop who shot up the mafia boss and had the catchphrase, 'da bomb!'). Why I ever thought a cartoon about a mute girl playing a game I've never even heard of would be interesting I don't know. The only good thing about it was that one of the annoying girls turned out to be an annoying trap; and the fact I'm classing this as a good thing is probably a good indicator of the rest of the show.

Anyway, I'll keep wading through the mass of mediocrity to see if anything else is worth watching. I think I'll stick with Gundam00 at least; because there should be pretty fanart even if the series turns out to be boring (still too many robots and not enough dancing for my liking).

But, that aside, this week has been a good one. Mostly I haven't been in the library much, which is a good thing (a lazy thing, but a good thing). The time that hasn't been spent in the library has been spent looking up Mononoke fanart (why is it all so good?) and listening to some super electro - so, all in all, it's probably been more productive than time spent in the library anyway. Let me fill you in on what I've been listening to, because it's quite exciting:

1) LA Priest - I am loving 'Engine' because it is super pretty and reminds me of my gameboy
2) Late of the Pier - 'Space and the Woods' is a 80s-sounding track that is great to dance to
3) Digitalism - It's all good, but there's something about the main beat of 'Idealistic' that just does things to me

And here I was going to write a whole spiel about how I've curiously grown to love electro music, when I hated it before, and how I love how most songs at the moment sound like they've thrown Donkey Kong, the Raccoons, and the rest of my childhood, into a blender, with a disco ball for good measure. And then that was going to lead into the part about how growing up with computer games is awesome, and how, because of this, the people of this generation think substantially differently to people that didn't grow up with computers, and how that's really kind of exciting and brilliant. But, I think maybe I was being too enthusiastic, because (without delving too TMI into my ovulation cycle) it has very much been the time of the month when everything seems awesome and fantastic. But, seriously, whenever I think about computers I get excited and start thinking in primary colours and sparkles. I think there is maybe something wrong with me.

The other thing I've been doing this week is more classes. I'm finding my reading old stuff class so fascinating. I can't help but share stuff that I've learnt here. It's just too interesting! So today I'm going to tell you about the thorn. You might know about this already, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Back in the day, like way back, in like Medieval times and stuff, people used to use more letters to write with than the 26 we use today. Mostly, there were at least 2 extra letters, which were actually runes adopted from some culture that writes in runes. One of these runes was called a thorn, which looks like this Þ and sounds like 'th'. So, people used to use this rune when they wanted to write 'th'. Sometimes. When this was written down it looked a little like a y. In the end, the way people used to write it was indistinguishable from a y. So, for example, when they wanted to write 'the' they would write 'ye', which I'm sure you've all seen around in things like 'ye olde gift shoppe' right? And nowadays people read it 'ye', which is funny, because back in the day, everyone (or at least everyone literate) knew that you pronounced it 'the'. Trufax.
I would also tell you about the rune, the yogh, which is today spelt with a z and found in names like Menzies and Mackenzie, and is pronounced 'y' or 'gh' or the German way of pronouncing 'ch', but you will probably not want to hear about that. Although I will say that (according to wikipedia) it used to be common in words like 'cough' and 'though' and loads of other words ending in 'gh'. Interesting.

Oh alright. I also read Tsubasa chapter 169 this week. Spoilers ahead.

Full story »

Well, I have been going library mental recently. I spent Saturday in the library (and got very little reading done, which helped to give my weekend a very melancholy feel), and then I went this afternoon too. I felt a bit ill this morning, because I ate too many potatoes last night, and I was really um-ing and ah-ing over whether I should bother to go to the library or not. I managed to persuade myself to go, at least for an hour or so, and managed to stay for about 3 and a half hours! Keeeeaaaaaaaaano.

I think maybe I like going to the library because it makes me feel like I'm doing some work, even when I'm not actually.

Anyway, going to the library makes me feel much less guilty about spending my free hours during the weekend drawing fanart (click for big):

It's the medicine seller from Mononoke. I'm quite sad because the series has just ended, so I thought some fanart might cheer me up (and I wanted to draw his make-up). Mononoke is one of, if not the, best anime series I have ever watched. Seriously. It is brilliant. The horror/mystery theme of the show is very engaging (the kind of engaging where you can watch it twice and still not solve it), and the animation, while slightly funky, is beautifully directed. It's so intricate, and yet disjointed at the same time, which is perfect for a supernatural story.

And the medicine seller. The medicine seller is everyone's favourite. And there's lots of nice fanart out there too. Not only is the medicine seller more badass than a bucket full of ninjas, but he's enigmatic too. We don't even know his name!

I've got a theory about the medicine seller, which I'd like to expound on. My theory, let me tell you it:

1. The medicine seller isn't human. Well that's pretty easy to guess, what with the funny ears, the seeming inability to age, the ability to be two people at the same time, and all that. But he also doesn't act human. He doesn't seem to experience the whole gamut of human emotions like the other characters do. He doesn't seem to empathise with the humans or the mononoke, but then he doesn't seem to hate them either. We don't see him happy or sad, or even lonely. He might be very good at hiding these things, but I don't think so.
2. We don't know the medicine seller's name or backstory (and how great is it that we don't have to sit through an angsty backstory). I've a feeling that we would find out if they were integral to the story, but they're not. In fact, I don't even think that he has a name or backstory. I don't even think he has a reason to kill mononoke. He just is, and does, and that's all there is too it.
3. I think that the medicine seller is not actually a character, but a metaphor. Just as the mononoke themselves seem to be metaphors of negative human emotion, and the damage that those emotions can cause, I believe the medicine seller is a metaphor of the opposite, as it were. If a metaphor/realisation of the accumulation of negative emotion exists, it makes sense that there would also be a metaphor/personification of the dispelling of those emotions, which occurs through the determination and subsequent acceptance of the causes of those emotions (the truth, form and regret of the mononoke). In short, the medicine seller is a kind of elaborate personification of closure.
4. Therefore, the medicine seller doesn't actually exist, except in the morality tales that we see in the series; and that's why he doesn't need a name or backstory. I believe that the series isn't meant to be set in a large fictional world, but rather to be taken as a series of connected, yet discrete, morality tales, which relate the overcoming of negative emotion in its various guises. So the medicine seller doesn't need a backstory; these tales are his story.

Well, that was a bit confusing. But my main point is that Mononoke is amazing and that everyone should watch it (this goes to you Mariya, and also to myself, because I think I need to re-watch it at some point).

I managed to go do some work in the library today. Hooray! OK, so it was only for about an hour at most, but it gets the ball rolling.

And today I had another 'reading old stuff' class. I got given homework again, only this one is even older, longer and difficulterer than the last one. Why couldn't people just write proper back in the day? What's with the funny handwriting? Seriously, if everyone had written in comic sans, the world would be a better place. No wait, scratch that; that would be awful. If that ever happens I'll kill myself.

My new resolution to actually go to the library this week and do some work. So far the new resolution is not going well. So far I've only spent my time drawing fanart of the Raven King from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I haven't even posted a form I need to post, because I am too lazy to write the address on the envelope. Oh well. Here's the offending fanart (click for big):

It's kind of quick and lazy, and I was going to draw his whole body, rather than just a headshot, but I lent the book to my Mum, and I don't know how to draw his coat. Also, the symbolism in this picture is about as subtle as a fire-engine with the word subtle painted on the side. I might give it another attempt later, but not if my conscience gets the better of me first, and forces me off to the library.

I drew the picture, in a bout of enthusiasm, to send it off to Cynn Corvus, which, if you haven't visited it (and why haven't you?), is a great fansite for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which, if you haven't read it (and why haven't you?), is a great book. Go and read them both (although it's probably best to read the latter before the former).

And, on a completely unrelated not, PISS ME, am I ever going to remember to watch Flight of the Conchords? I missed it again today!

So my freaking rent went up by 50 pounds per month. Jesus H Christ.
I've spent the past hour moping on the phone to my parents.

I will run out of money this year. It's completely unavoidable. It's no longer a case of 'if' I run out of money, just a case of 'by how much'. Luckily my parents said they'd help me out if I ran into difficulties. Hmmm...a few more years before I become financially independent then. Oh well. I might be poor, but at least I'm going to be poor and doing a job that I really want to do. That'll stick it to 'The Man'.

I've spent my weekend doing absolutely no work at all. I think that's ok. No one's chided me for it so far. I should probably work out what stuff I need to take to tomorow's lecture though. Next week I'll go to the library and start my course work. I will! What are you looking at me like that for? My conscience deems it ok to slack off in the first week, but subsequent slacking off will be UNACCEPTABLE. In reality this means that I still won't do any work, but I'll feel really guilty about it. I don't care, whatever, bring it on, I say!

Mostly I spent yesterday sleeping. I'm still trying to achieve a lucid dream, and I put special effort in on Friday. Before I went to bed I made sure to read about it for ages, so I'd have it on my mind. And, I woke up slightly in the early hours of the morning, which is apparently the best time to fall asleep and straight into a dream. I tried this technique called FLID or something, where you have to wiggle your fingers as you fall asleep, which supposedly keeps you conscious while you, er, lose consciousness. It started working I think. I could feel my breathing getting really slow; much slower than when you're awake. I think I was almost asleep. Then I panicked, like a loser, and woke myself up, and subsequently couldn't get back to sleep for the next hour or so. And then the next thing I knew it was 11am and I had been asleep for 12 hours, and I had to run around because I had to go to the bank before it closed.

In the evening I went for a meal in Chinatown with Deborah and her flatmate's friends. We went to this restaurant that is supposedly famed for it's poor service. And it's true, the table was not so much laid, but more dumped; the waiter practically threw the plates at us! Good thing they were plastic. It was also noisy and the food was bland. I'm not quite sure why this makes people want to visit over and over again. But it was really really cheap. And right now I like anything that's really really cheap.

Today I watched the first episode of Gundam00. I haven't really watched much anime recently, none of the new series have piqued my interest so far. Seriously, I don't fancy watching anything with a mass of female characters that all look exactly the same, all look like they're about 5 years old, and all look like they'll be very unsuccessful at not letting their underwear show during the course of the series. Of course I'm a hypocrite, because I will download anything that contains more than it's fair share of bishounen, generally differing only in hair colour. Luckily for my integrity, the bishounen series tend to be just as dull as I imagine the bishoujo harem animes to be, maybe even more so, so I rarely end up watching them either.

Anyway, what was I saying? A series full of bishounen? Hello, my name is Janine and I just watched Gundam00. I admit it, you wouldn't believe me if I didn't anyway, I only watched it for Yun Kouga's character designs, which, hopefully, should turn out to be quite nice. I couldn't really see much of the character designs in the first episode, because everyone was covered up in robot-piloting suits, and not even interesting piloting-suits of the tight-fitting kind (hello Suzaku). From what I could see, the main character looks the same age as Ritsuka, but is actually older, which means less shota for me to feel guilty about, but I can't see any Soubi's either, which is a shame, but hopefully one of the characters will have an equally flamboyant sense of dress. The first episode was full of fighting and action, and I had no idea what was going on. I wonder if, having not watched any Gundam before, I've actually bitten off more than I can chew with this one. Also, the problem for me is that I can't think of anything more boring than a bunch of robots fighting each other. I only like robots when they have added disco. Well, I'll stick at it for the character designs. Here's to hoping that the future episodes will have lots of intrigue and character development and less of the robots please.

Right, I have to go prepare to fight it out with my landlord. We're signing new contracts this evening, and I am very much hoping that he doesn't want to increase the rent.

Hiiiiii!!!!!! I finally put up a new page of Clematis. *sigh* I never manage to get the new page up as fast as I'd like to. Well, I have been busy recently, but then, there's always an excuse isn't there? Oh well. I'll keep at it. It might be easier to procrastinate on drawing now that I've got homework.

I've got homework! For the first time in forever. It's quite exciting. But it's also quite difficult. My homework is to transcribe this. I can hardly make sense of it! Well that's not true, but it'll take a while. I know that the title says:

In what thinges the use of
the Lawe consisteth

Bwahahaha! People used to speak funny. You can have a go at reading it yourself if you want (the good thing about old stuff is that there is no copyright), but don't tell me what it says! I want to work it out for myself. And I'll get there in the end.

I've just had my first lesson in reading archives, or palaeography. It is really difficult. Seriously, I think I find hiragana easier to read than this. It's quite fun though, and I get to look at old stuff, which is what I wanted to do.

And, here's an interesting thing. Did you know that the β as used by Germans to mean ss, as in Straβe/Strasse, is not actually a beta, but is in fact a contraction of the old way of writing a double s (with a large f-like s, followed by a little s)? See below, for a badly written example:

But what I was thinking about after the class, was how on Earth are people going to cope, who are learning to read some of the stuff created today? I'm not talking about handwriting here, I'm talking about internet-speak. If any blog entries survive, they're going to be completely incomprehensible! OMG and WTF might be easy enough to deduce, but what about ROTFLMAO? Or IAWTC? Or God help them if they come across something like roflcopters or lolerskates. Seriously. It's a good job that none of this stuff is really relevant to society.
...I'm joking! I'm joking!

Wednesday's off! I get Wednesday's off! I'm sure I'll spend them all in the library doing lot's of reading... >_>

But today I'm spending it cleaning and watching the live action Honey and Clover movie. I'd almost forgotten how much I enjoy Honey and Clover. The movie feels a bit short, so lacks some of the character development, but it still has the same feel to it; the feel of summer afternoons, wild flowers and patchwork quilts (and I'm not lying). I love this story. It's about being young and falling in love and finding your way in the world, and it doesn't matter who gets the girl or that in life there are no real conclusions, all that matters is having friends and being together.

Man, Honey and Clover sure makes me sappy doesn't it.

I am drawing Clematis I am. It just needs to be inked and coloured and uploaded now, and I'll do that tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, and so on, and so forth.

Anyway. A quick pop in before I go to bed to say that this is the best image I have seen all day. Do you think it counts as satire?

I thought I'd tell you a bit more about my course. But then I realised that I don't actually have that much to say. The people on the course are all very friendly, the work is so far non-existant, and the site plan of the university was clearly designed to confuse anyone who hasn't worked there for at least 10 years.

Our last event on Friday was to go on a tour of this library. The archivist who showed us round was very cheerful and friendly, and HE REALLY REMINDED ME OF SOMEONE. I couldn't get it out of my head during the talk, but I couldn't work out who he reminded me of (someone on TV maybe?). Then this morning, after I thought I had completely forgotten about it, I was just in the process of waking up, when the answer just popped, unbidden, into my mind. MONTY DON! He looked like Monty Don off Gardeners' World! Well I never.

Today I have been filling in forms to try and get more money off stuff, because that is very important. I, somehow, haven't found the time to draw any more Clematis recently, but I will, at some point, just you wait and see. Although, Clematis does now have it's own wiki, whatever good that will do. I almost got quite excited about it. I'll probably give it some more content later, including character profiles, because I've been meaning to redo the character profiles on the main Clematis site for a while now.

So, since I promised it, here are some thoughts on some fannish things.

Toward the Terra (spoiler free)
I really enjoyed this. It looked like it was going to be a little wishy-washy at some point in the middle, but it was actually very good. I really enjoyed that it had a very good take on the concept. It was very adult in a way; everything was a little gray, and you can't really class anyone as being either good or bad. I like that in a story. The most interesting character was Keith, by far, but I also had a soft spot for Shiroe (because he was far too pretty, and no, I am not a shota fan no, but...)

Tsubasa Chapter 167 (click for spoilers)

Full story »