WEEABOOS!

What is a weeaboo, some of you may ask?
A weeaboo is someone who is creepily, annoyingly into anything Japan.
People who like anime aren't necessarily weeaboos, but all weeaboos invariably like anime.
The distinction is the annoying factor, I think.
But how can you tell if someone is annoyingly into Japan?
I have a simple test.
In the following paragraph, one word should set off all alarms:

Wow, I'm tired. My parents dragged me out to the county fair today, and then turned me loose while they volunteered for the gardening association for two hours. And ... *squee* Quilts! Legos! Old photographs! Chickens!

Yes. I'm basing my entire entry around seeing that one word. I'll have to play it by ear now.

I saw a chicken and I wanted to take him home. The feathers on his head were really long and, well, think of Einstein hair on a chicken. He had funky feathers, and it was awesome. I dragged my parents back to see that chicken. I admit, I'm eclectic and weird.

Eclectic. That would be from the Greek exlegein, I think. ex-, which is out, and -legein, meaning to gather.
More specifically, it's someone with an assortment of interests or tastes in something. I think officially it would be defined as "a mixture of philosophies" but that doesn't really help.
More to the point, eclectic is rapidly becoming one of those words. People who don't know many words all independently decided that would be a good word to pepper into their speech, regardless of its actual connotation. What about this situation makes me think "WOW THERE'S SOMEONE WHO'S ECLECTIC, LOL"? Nothing. At all. In fact I'm not even sure I'd use eclectic to define a person.
Why do I point all this out? Firstly because I want everyone to see how smart I am because it makes my balls feel big, and second, this is a common thread with weeaboos. Like furries, goths or emos they pride themselves on being unique snowflakes. Unfortunately being unique doesn't necessarily make you useful, so they quickly latched on to the "eccentric genius" stereotype common with their Japanese cartoons, and indeed all cartoons.
Like all humans on the internet, this particular weeaboo seems to fancy herself an author du jour.

I had a monster of an entry written up about Gambit and its current delay. And then LJ ate it. *grumblegrumblegrowl* The short of it is that ... taking a chapter that's written, and then swapping out one character and hoping that the chapter won't need to be completely rewritten is foolish. As I have discovered the hard way. (read: I've now had to rewrite every scene in the story to accommodate the skewed dynamic)

So she's angry her characters sound unique. Most probably her characters only sound unique to her, because indeed she wrote them.

I should be glad my characters don't swap out so easily, because to me that says I'm doing something right. (Even if, technically, it is one character that's just dressing up as the other people. No, I'm not sure how I'm keeping all the people switching roles around straight either. I am, just don't ask me to explain it .. or at least don't expect it to make sense.)

I love it when what I'm reading makes no sense. It's like trying to solve a maze, but instead of being greeted by a way out I get a headache.

That's one thing I have to say about Gambit: it makes sense when you're reading it, and writing all the personality sleight-of-hand isn't that difficult, but explaining it coherently is impossible.

Sounds like a flimsy excuse for piss-poor writing to me.

However, the most interesting thing I'm experiencing with this chapter is that character interactions change, and change drastically, if you swap out characters. Things like past history and perception get in the way. It's a good thing, as social interactions should be nuanced enough that there's a distinct difference between different people; It's just not something I'd really ever considered before. Granted, I've never had muses refuse to budge until I changed an entire chapter to suit them either.

You must be new to writing. Welcome. Not every interaction has to be, as you call it, nuanced. If every interaction were, why, I'd reckon those characters would be fucking irritating quirk-sticks. The rule for "nuanced" interaction should be, I think, like perfume: enough to see that it's there, but not enough to see that it's coming.

On a side note, I think this is why most fanfics with alternate pairings don't work.

No, most fanfics (all of them) don't work because they're thinly veiled authorial self-insertion fantasies.

Something happened today, because Gambit suddenly skyrocketed in hits. I've no idea why, but ... yay? Though I think Ithilwen's going to never ask me a question in a review ever again. I have a slight obsession with Kuroba Kaito. He's on my cellphone screen in fact. Him and a water lily.

I have no idea what any of that means.

This is why Shinou and Chi and Emy and Midoriko had to threaten my life no less than five times while I was writing Gambit, because I spontaneously decided no one else would want to read it and I wasn't going to post it. I think there was also a moment I decided it was too cliché and no one would want to read it, no matter how much fun I'd been having writing it.

That little voice in the back of your mind is trying to keep you from making an ass of yourself. You should have listened.

I've noticed something. I'm perfectly content working on all my current stories, but once I've played with them enough to get a solid grasp on their world, the part of me that thrives on world-building is off to find a new toy. Apparently, the new toy is now 19th century Paris with alchemy, witchery, and something that may be the Bavarian Illuminati thrown in for snaps.

Bet you think you're really clever with that one, huh? Throwing a bunch of seemingly --lol random-- elements together and forcing them to work, no matter if it's like sewing the head of a dog onto a dolphin's body?
Well I'm here to inform you that you're a no-talent hack. France, like most of Europe, had witch burnings. One of the grandfathers of alchemy (Nicolas Flamel) was French. None of these elements seem at all unrelated to anyone with even a tenuous grasp of history.
While to most that's good news (fantastic this story won't be apeshit crazy) to you I'm sure that's like a punch to the kidneys. YOU MEAN I'M NOT A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE? No.
Also if I hear one more fantasy story that starts with "so an alchemist..." I'm never reading again.

*peers into her author's Bag o' Ideas and wonders if she dropped it in LSD at some point* You can't give me any ideas that don't require a staggering amount of research, can you? There's enough work there to keep me from doing any writing on it until early 2008.

Staggering amount of research, huh? Yeah I bet. Fifteen minutes on the Wikipedia entry for "France" followed by "alchemy".
Also quite a number of entries ago I recalled mentioning "no one cares what your mood is" and then mentioned that everyone used huge vocabulary words to describe their moods, half of which weren't even moods. I think I even used "quixotic" as an example.
Well I was being facetious before, but goddamn if her mood isn't listed as "quixotic".
I hate the fucking internet.

Found out yesterday that Funimation is going to dub Ouran Host Club. Am I the only one that thinks this is an exceedingly bad idea? I love Host Club. It's hilarious. It's just ... not going to translate well.

Yeah because you understand Japanese humor so well it made sense to you.
Here's a spoiler for you: humor isn't so specific to any one culture that its humor will be lost on all outsiders.

Dear morons that couldn't keep their porn addiction at home,

That's how all open letters should start.

Though, have you ever had a series of days where you just feel like you fell off the ball, and then someone greased it?

Yeah I just wanted to take that out of context.
I'm going to check through her tag list, because I'd wager I'd find at least one of my "words and terms I check for" before I write a blog off as shitty.
Yep, there it is: tarot.
I fucking love tarot. I think the entire mythos behind it is fascinating, and to write it off as a device for fortune telling, to me, degrades its actual meaning.
Let's see-- oh she took one of those internet quizzes. Well fucking fuck who cares what tarot card you are. THE STAR, huh? Big fucking deal. What does it say-- oh, she represents hope and dreams realized.
I wonder what card I'd be? LET ME TAKE THIS QUIZ AND FIND OUT, THEN POST MY RESULTS HERE LIKE ANYONE GIVES A SHIT!
Seriously if you're going to post the results of an internet quiz don't make an entry.
That's today's lesson: don't make frivilous entries.
Also sorry about forgetting Friday but fuck it I was busy.
(By "busy" I mean "I forgot").