I have to recommend this excellent article from DKos on the subject of the way our society treats people of size. It's possibly the best post I've ever seen on the subject and it says exactly what I always wanted to.

Exerpt -

Second of all, what makes you think it's ok to target obese obese people for "being fat in public"? To concern troll a person for their size when they're talking about education, or the environment, or LGBT rights... or even when they're being an asshole on those topics? The larger somebody is, the less likely it is that they don't get shit for being fat all the fucking time. It's highly unlikely that they don't a) know they are large, and b) suffer from it, in ways that are not the direct result of the weight itself.

It's seriously the last socially acceptable prejudice. You wouldn't tell someone complaining about racial discrimination that there are many commercially available skin lightening creams out there, would you? Why is it OK to tell someone complaining about being dismissed, ignored and considered unintelligent for their size how you managed to drop 10 lbs. with this or that diet?

The author makes her points much better than I do - her post is a definite 'must read'.

Someone left me a review on ff.net on one of the very first fanfics I wrote in LOTR - it was really sweet and made me feel good, but when I started looking around at the stats on some of my old stories, I found they all had pretty consistent hits month to month.

OK, for a minute I did think 'hey, these things are still being read a lot!' but then reason reared it's ugly head and I thought that that probably wasn't what was going on - especially when the hit counts stay so consistent from month to month. Now I'm wondering if what are causing my strangely consistent hits are these 'bots'. You know, those things that crawl around the web piling up references for search engines? Wouldn't they would cause a 'hit' on a story too? I'm no web page guru so I'm not sure if they would. Does anyone know? About how many of those 'bots' are out there harvesting links on a monthly basis? I'd love to think that these hits are because of my blazing writing skills *cough, cough* but the humility confirming 'bot' theory sounds a lot more believable. Ever since they canned Frontpage, I'm totally clueless about web anything but does anyone know for sure if bots cause story hits on ff.net?

Guess what I got to do today? :D


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OK, so I am still relatively ‘new’ to reading manga, though I was watching anime long before I even knew it was a genre, so this may not be news to everyone, but I wanted to gush.
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My latest favorite manga/anime combinations are Blue Exorcist (Ao No Exorcist) and Kamisama Hajimemashita (Kamisama Kiss). Both are brilliantly drawn and have compelling stories and both give me the impression that they are far enough along in their mangas that they will actually finish the story (something which, sadly, not many of the ones I like seem to).( ”More…”Collapse )

I had to share. These are some pics of my daughter at the recent Setsucon. She was 'Road Kamelot', a character from D. Grey Man, and the first picture below is of her standing between Todd Haberkorn, who voices the show's main character, Allen Walker, and Cherami Leigh who voices Road. It was the perfect choice of costume for the guests who showed up.



I was very pleased with the way the costume came out. I had originally wanted Kyra to make the costume herself, but, as per usual, her sewing is still a little primative, and I ended up unable to keep my hands off it. She found the perfect shoes, wig and stockings online and I made the skirt and shirt. The final result was lots more 'cool mom' points. :)



Here's a group that collected themselves at the con on the first day. I don't know most of the people, but the characters they are portraying, from left to right are: Allen Walker, Timcampy (played by my daughter's friend), Road Kamelot (my daughter), Lavi and Kanda.

Kyra had a lot of fun and even found a few other 'Road's.



An all round successful event!

Wonder of wonders, but they actually had a convention less than several hours from my house! This past weekend, me and the kids visited Setsucon, a relatively new but growing convention in the State College area. It was pretty nice - just about the right size for me, though I still missed stuff. The main guests were Todd Haberkorn and Cherami Leigh and though I missed Ms. Leigh, my daughter was able to get her autograph while dressed as one of the characters Ms. Leigh voices. :) I was able to give Mr. Haberkorn a drawing I did of a character he voices and he was kind enough to be most effusive with his praise. I gave him a copy of it signed by me and he signed a copy of it for me.



(sorry the print is so hard to read - there's another version here if you want to read what Mr. Haberkorn wrote.)

He's also working on a remake of Star Trek - basically a continuation of the 1964 series from where they left off on the episode 'The Turnabout Intruder' (is it sick that I still know ALL the names of all the ST episodes and can tell you which episode it is within 3 seconds of the beginning of the episode? Yeah, I know it is.) that has, so far been REALLY good. He was supposed to talk about it, but I missed it. As a matter of fact, the only thing I could fault the organizers of the con with it would be to have better descriptions of the events on the schedule. They were a little vague on some of the descriptions and if you didn't already know what they were talking about, you would miss a program that you might have wanted to see.

I'll have to see about getting pictures up later when my daughter (who took them) gets up. With the snow today, they cancelled school, but I am sure I'll be able to tell when she rises by when she starts posting on her Tumblr account. *sigh*

My daughter's been hounding me to open a Tumblr account so she can show off my art to her friends. I must admit it's kind of nice when your kid thinks her mom's cool enough to show off to her friends - LOL! Anyway, I put up some of my later works, with watermarks on them because I know Tumblr's rep, and started posting. Astonishingly, a clip from one of my pieces took off like GANGBUSTERS over there - as did my piece 'He Ain't Heavy', the one I did of Al holding wounded Ed after the 5th laboratory incident. It's kind of nice to see I'm not the only sick puppy on the planet. Heheh!

Finally got to see 'The Hobbit' and I am happy I kept myself so spoiler free. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, though watching Watson running about through Middle Earth was a little distracting, seeing Mitchell from Being Human was FAR more so. My daughter had another moment to be geek-proud when her mom recited dialog before it was said from a movie she'd never seen before. And she, delightedly told me, she was finally going to get the answer to the riddle I'd asked her since she was a kid - and apparently never gave her the answer to. Have to confess, the Riddle Game scene has to have been my favorite - so perfectly done, so perfectly canon. *happy sigh*

The final bright spot in my unspoiled enjoyment came when the credits rolled by and we saw 'Benedict Cumberbatch' in the list. My daughter, her friend and I all fangurled and I said 'with Watson, Mitchell AND Sherlock in it, it has to be a good movie!' LOL!

In other news, I've discovered another anime / manga to adore.

Blue Exorcist is just now being dubbed into english but it's 25 episodes are available on many sites subtitled. I ripped through the anime, then the manga (and, wonderfully, the manga has LOTS more stuff than the anime does - yippee!) and now they've come out with a post-anime movie that was just released to theaters December 28th. Now, it was just released in Japan which means it won't be even available with subtitles for maybe a year... Waaaaa! I don't want to wait a year!!!! I don't want to wait a year for the next installment of the Hobbit and I don't want to wait a year to see the Blue Exorcist movie! *Whimper* What's a fangurl to do? (Ok, yes, write fanfic, draw, I realize, and yes, I am doing both, but wha!!!).

To give you an idea of why I like this new series so much, check out this lovely pic I found online. This is not my art and the website was in Russian so I couldn't really credit it, but - you might get an idea of why I like it. *cough*



That's fanart of Rin Okumura (the wounded one) being found by Ryūji Suguro. I am only now getting the droolstains off my sofa... *hopeless*

"...a free press dependent on revenues from corporations whose goal is to control government, cannot be a free press."

Wish I'd said it, but it was in an article on DailyKOS that I couldn't agree more with. I should make that a tag line.

Anyway, I'm afraid I've been away from LJ for a while and if I've not replied to posts I should have or kept up with people I should, I appologize. I've just not been in the 'blogging mood' - a severe case of 'what the heck could I say that anyone would be interested in?' I guess.

Found a new anime that I really like. It's called 'Guilty Crown' and it's lovely! Exactly the kind of anime I like - well drawn shonen with at least a somewhat credible plot - but it's only available in subtitles. It's also got an amazing soundtrack that I just can't stop listening to! Ah well. Hope it's the next thing Funimation dubs - it's awesome!

I'm sitting on some art for the next FMA Big Bang and I'm writing a story. It's coming along well, though I find it almost impossible to both write and draw at the same time. I just don't have that kind of spare time. One or the other, though my exercise regime suffers from either endeavor. LOL!

Good morning and have a nice day to all.

Believe it or not, some of us in the US view 'the holidays' as more than a commercial venture. For me, they are a chance to relax a little, take a breather, visit with family and friends, NOT TO SHOP. In fact, the more ridiculous and brazen your 'black Friday' advertising, the more I feel like never buying another thing. Especially on 'black Friday'. So, sorry, no matter how many ads you shove into my inbox or stuff into the television program I am trying to enjoy, I won't be spending a dime tomorrow.

I'm sure you won't miss me and many others will spend their money tomorrow, but when you glorify blatant consumerism, it just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. Sorry, but I'm not going to buy anything tomorrow.