Sweet Dreams

...to look back on the writing I did in 2012!

Sailor Moon
Politically Incorrect
Worth the Wait
Consummation
Salvation (formerly known as "On A Snowy Night", unposted WIP)
Metamorphosis (unposted WIP)

Kaleido Star
Melting Ice (unfinished)
No Longer Alone
Friends With Benefits (unposted WIP)
Heart To Heart (unposted WIP)

Fruits Basket
Untitled Hiro/Kisa story (unposted WIP)

( 2012: A Year in Review )

In other news, guess who managed to find a decently-priced Man of Many Faces Vol. 2 on the Amazon Marketplace? I did! Usually they're ridiculously expensive, so I was going to exclude the series from my "collect all CLAMP series" goal, but it seems like the prices are finally going down. I got both volumes for about $20. *dances* Now I'm on the hunt for a cheap Kobato. Vol. 5, which seems to be out of print already. (Strange for a relatively new CLAMP series.) Amazon seems to still be selling them for retail price, but they don't have any currently in stock, and I'm not confident they'll ever get anymore in because the cheapest one I found on the Marketplace was for $97! Nobody would sell it for that much if it was still easy to find retail.

I meant to do this a couple of days ago, but I guess it's better late than never, right?

So, without further ado, a look back at 2011, fic-wise!

Sailor Moon
To Be By Your Side (Actually, I think I completed it in 2010, but I didn't finish posting it online until this past year.)
Metamophosis (unposted)
Realization
One Kiss
Small Lady And The Seven Amazons
Phantom Bus
Blast From A Forgotten Past
Intoxication
Not Sixteen Candles
Purification By Fire
Sea Princess
Awakening
Life Goes On
Mysterious Stranger
Unexpected Surprise
Last Prayer
A Woman Scorned
Curse Of The Rose
Waking From A Dream
First Day Jitters
The Haunting Of Mimete
Betrayal
Missing Princess
The Drawback Of Being A Cat
The First Step To World Domination
Thoughts In The Rain
The Ballad of Pegasus and the Maiden (poem)
Anticipation
Long Distance Love
A Time To Die
Thoughtful Girlfriend
Helios, Priest of Elysion (poem)
Countdown To War
Sign of Peace
Familiar Strangers
Fact or Fantasy?
V is for Vampire
To Helios (poem)
Vow To A Maiden
Fireside Chat
Romance and Roses
Kind of Cool
Winter Picnic

Kaleido Star
Melting Ice (unfinished)
Blood On His Hands
Untitled Leon story (unposted)

Fruits Basket
The Bride Wore....


( Year End Meme (Even If It's Already The New Year) )

Yay, I've been summoned for jury duty again! And, no, I'm not being sarcastic. I'm just a weirdo who actually enjoys jury duty.

No manga review for the month at the moment. I was hoping I might have one finished by the end of the month, but I think that will probably depend on if I get selected to serve on a jury or not. We'll see.

Anyway, here's today's meme question:

Day 17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?

Somewhere in between, I guess. It really depends. Sometimes a title will come to me right away, and sometimes I'll go around calling a story that "untitled Kaleido Star work in progress" for a couple years, like I did with Melting Ice. (Man, it took forever for me to settle on a title!) Actually, a couple of my current WIPs don't have titles at the moment (or just have working titles). The Leon story I'm working on is uncreatively labeled "Leon Story", and I'm tentatively calling my Yuri/Layls fic "What Happens In Paris", although I'm not really wild about it. Just haven't thought of anything better yet. My Sailor Moon AU vampire fic technically has a title from when I submitted the first couple of scenes to a contest over at sailormoonland, but now that it's been expanded into a longer story that takes place over several months, I'm thinking "On A Snowy Night" probably isn't the best title for it. Might still use it as a chapter title, though.

Speaking of chapter titles, yeah, I usually do title my chapters. The only story I didn't do it for was "To Be By Your Side". I'm not sure why I chose not to for that particular story, to be honest. Just didn't feel like it, I guess.

By the way, for those curious, here's a list of my top ten favorite titles, in no particular order:

Machiavelli's Folly
Why Kenji Hates Mamoru and All Teenage Boys
To Be By Your Side
Hawk's Eye View
Tick Tock
The Night Before
Playing Doctor
Just Dessert (A play on the phrase "just deserts")
Pillow Talk
Melting Ice 

( Days To Come )

Long time, no update. Still quite busy, especially with it being Birthday Fortnight over at sailormoonland . I didn't even have time to do my monthly manga review. Most of my time has been dedicated to getting things set up for my Sims-style Against The Rules sequel -- and by "setting up," I mean downloading a bunch of custom content that I don't really need. -_- Before, the only CC I bothered with was Bodyshop stuff. (For the Sims-illiterate, that means skins, eyes, hairs, clothes, make-up, etc. Basically, stuff to make the Sims look pretty.) I honestly didn't care much about how the houses looked, since I was the only one who saw them, and I always cared more about the Sims themselves anyways. Now that I'm doing this story, though, I decided to download some other stuff, and now it's become like an obsession. Seriously.

But to tide you over until I actually start working on the story, here's a sneak preview of our two main characters.



This is Akira Kitagawa, of course. Yummy, isn't he? ^_~ Kinda makes you want to strip all his clothes off and... *coughs* Ahem, I mean, well, um, Ami's a lucky girl?



And here -- as you can obviously see by that name tag that I did not realize was on this pic until now *headdesk* - is Ami Mizuno. The hair's not exactly right, but I don't download a lot of unnatural color hair. This was the best match I could find. At least it's blue, and who says a person has to stick with the same hairstyle all their life, right?

I've also created Sims of these characters, but I don't have pics of them yet:

Makoto Kino - Funny story. I originally wasn't going to make a MakoSim, but I decided I didn't like the skin tone of the first AmiSim I made, so I renamed her Makoto and made her over.
Mercury (the dog, of course)
Dr. Saeko Mizuno
Professor Ryu Nakajima
Yui Yokoyama - She probably won't show up in the story itself, due to spoiler-y reasons if you haven't by chance read the fic, but I wanted to make her anyway.
Hideki Matsuno
Maeko Nishimura
Nibori Kitagawa
Izumi Kitagawa
Satoshi Kitagawa
Junko Kitagawa

Still haven't decided if I'm going to make Sims of the rest of the Inners. I don't think they're really necessary, storywise, but it could be fun to have their kids around to play with Akira's and Ami's eventual progeny. (Actually, Makoto already has a kid. I married her to a townie (a Sim that came in the game) who I renamed Itto Asanuma, and now they have an adorable daughter name Hana.)

Here's this month's manga review. (Next month I think I'm going to review something non-CLAMP for a change of pace...)

TITLE: Duklyon: CLAMP School Defenders
AUTHOR/MANGAKA: CLAMP
PUBLISHER: Tokyopop
RATING: Youth (7+)
CATEGORY: Shounen
NUMBER OF VOLUMES: 2
SCORE: 7 (Good)
RECOMMENDED FOR FANS OF: CLAMP (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, CLAMP School Detectives, Man of Many Faces, X, etc.), comedy, sci-fi, action, adventure, supernatural, romance

Link to "Duklyon: CLAMP School Defenders" Review

In other news, I'm feeling a bit bummed at the moment. Over at sailormoonland , they're holding a Last Icon Maker Standing challenge. I made it to the next round, which of course I'm happy about, but I was really proud of the icon I made, so it's disappointing to see that I didn't earn any positive votes and even got one negative vote. I know I'm not the best icon maker out there, but, to be entirely truthful, I didn't really care for any of the other submissions. Some were okay, but none of them really blew me away, so it was difficult for me to pick a Top 3. It seems pretty clear that I must have very different tastes in icons than everybody else... Oh, well, I'll try to do better next round!

For those who don't know how "Land" communities work, everyone is placed into teams, and you earn points for your team by participating in various challenges -- fic writing, graphics, games, etc. I can honestly say it's the most fun I've had in ages, and all the members are really nice. If you want to participate in a community where the Sailor Moon fandom is very much still alive and kicking, sign up at this post and mention that I referred you. (FYI: I'm one of the new leaders of Team Outers.)

sailormoonland  is also where I found my next 30 Day meme.

Day 1

What age you started watching Sailor Moon

I'm thinking it was the summer between fifth and sixth grade, so I would have been around eleven. (Gosh, that means I've been a fan for around sixteen years. I feel old!) During the summer, my sister and I were allowed to stay up as long as we wanted, and one night we stayed up all the way until morning. Mom woke up to get ready for work and was flipping through the channels when she came across this strange-looking cartoon. She said something about how it must have been a Japanese cartoon and changed the channel. I was intrigued, though, and went back to our bedroom to watch this "Japanese cartoon" called Sailor Moon on the other TV. It was the episode where Neflyte went after Serena's home ec teacher, who was getting married and wanted to enter the wedding dress design contest. I pretty much fell in love with Neflyte/Nephrite at first sight and loved the rest of the show to boot, so for the rest of the summer, my sister and I would continue to stay up until morning in order to watch it. And when school finally started up again, we would wake up extra early to catch it as well. (I think it came on at like six a.m. We were dedicated.)

As for the manga, I think it was around junior high when I happened to come across a subscription card for a new manga anthology called Mixxzine in the magazine Animerica. By that time, Sailor Moon was no longer in syndication (and we didn't have cable -- still don't, actually!), so I eagerly subscribed and fell in love all over again. ^_^

Day 2

Favorite character when you were younger

Nephrite! He was the villain in charge when I first started watching, and I just fell absolutely in love with him. So handsome! His storyline with Naru was just wonderful, and it was devastating for me when he died. I think that was my first experience with heartbreak.

Talking about my favorite senshi growing up, it was Jupiter, which is a bit ironic since she's one of my least favorite now. But I still do love first season Jupiter. I love how strong and kick butt she was. (Of course, it's not like she ever lost that, but I don't know... It seemed to me that aspect was kind of toned down in later seasons.) Plus, there's the skating episode, one of my all-time favorites. Being good at figure skating automatically makes a character awesome in my book! *laughs*

( Days To Come )

To wrap things up, the new chapter of To Be By Your Side is posted at FF.net and .moon if you haven't read the sneak preview I posted in my writing journal. (Chapter 11 is also now posted at .moon. I could have sworn I posted it there last month, but I guess I forgot. Weird.)

Before I get to the main part of this entry, the link I provided in my last entry for the new chapter of To Be By Your Side doesn't work. You can find the chapter here.

Now that's cleared up, in honor of the holiday, it seems an appropriate time to share two romance-themed fanmixes I created for a couple of challenges at sailormoonland .

First up is Dream Come True, dedicated to Chibi-Usa/Helios and the SuperS season/Dream arc in general. This challenge didn't require any graphics, but I decided to do album art for it anyway, just for fun. The two pieces of fanart I used are from a talented Japanese artist who goes by the name of Utobu.

Dream Come True Track Listing

1 Dream A Dream - Charlotte Church and Billy Gilman
2 Dreaming of You - Selena
3 My Confession - Josh Groban
4 The Power of a Dream - Celine Dion
5 Dreamers - Sarah Brightman
6 Dark Waltz - Hayley Westenra
7 Only When I Sleep - The Corrs
8 When You Say You Love Me - Josh Groban
9 Surrender - Celine Dion
10 So She Dances - Josh Groban
11 Teenage Dream - Katy Perry
12 What A Wonderful World - Sarah Brightman
13 Dancer In A Daydream - Ace of Base
14 Fly Me To The Moon - Frank Sinatra
15 All I Ask Of You - Sarah Brightman and Josh Groban
16 Watashi-tachi Naritakute - Sailor Moon SuperS Ending One

( Dream Come True )

The second fanmix is called Broken Vow, and it's about the forbidden love between King Endymion and Sailor Pluto.

Broken Vow Track Listing
1. He Doesn't See Me - Sarah Brightman
2. You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift
3. Alone - Heart
4. Love Only Knows - Josh Groban
5. Too Much in Love to Care - Sarah Brightman and John Barrowman
6. Call My Name - Charlotte Church
7. Half A Moment - Sarah Brightman
8. Straight to You - Josh Groban
9. Broken Vow - Josh Groban
10. (If There Was) Any Other Way - Celine Dion
11. Forgiven, Not Forgotten - The Corrs

( Broken Vow )
And, yes, I totally overdosed on the Josh Groban songs on both fanmixes. (Sarah Brightman, too, I guess.) I can't help it; I just adore his music. ^_^ (He was on the Today show this morning, too, singing Higher Window, which is my favorite track from his new album. What a great Valentine's Day present!)