heartofsteel:

Bleach #248:

Ichigo was shocked to learn that Muramasa was going to Kurakara Town where his homeland was. The Chief Commander told them that Muramusa had lied stating he had killed his own shinigami wielder but in reality his wielder had been sealed by the Chief Commander for causing chaos in Seireitei years ago in Kurakara Town. Feeling guilty, Ichigo tried to get out of the flames that trapped them but in vain. Yoruichi managed to get out but her created route was resealed by the flames. Yoruichi was also hindered by two Zanpakutou while Kenpachi fought more seriously with another Zanpakutou.

In the Kurakara Town, Muramasa saw Orihime who had been told by Urahara of someone entering the place via Soul Society. She healed him but he stated he was Ichigo's enemy. Ishida and Chad confronted and prepared to attack him. Meanwhile, Hitsugaya and his Zanpakutou arrived and created an ice tunnel through the flames so that Ichigo could escape from the trap and he did.

flamencanyc:

I am very sad to see that Pegasus, my favorite club on the real Liberty Avenue in the real Pittsburgh, is closing this week after nearly 30 years in business.

For you QaF fans, Pegasus was kind of like a cross between Woody's and Babylon, with it's own little baby Babylon (18-21 section) to one side. It was warm and welcoming and played great music. It was small enough to be intimate -- much smaller than Babylon -- but big enough to be a real party.

I have fond memories of dancing with, gyrating with, laughing with, hanging out with, and making out with a number of fun and friendly, bubbly and beautiful young men and women there. I will never forget it.

R.I.P. Pegasus. I'll miss you.

Full article with lots of details here.

firefly124:

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about Christmas. More so this year for some reason. But that's a rambly post for another day when I'm not actively procrastinating writing up med sheets.

The thing is, the Focus on the Family annual campaign to "stand up for Christmas" has always struck me as logically inconsistent on a number of levels. It was very nice, then, to be pointed to this article by a Christian author that addresses some of those very things. He even touches on the Pagan roots of some of the traditions (not to mention the timing) of the holiday, while keeping a fairly balanced look at the end result. (I have about as much patience for "the Christians stole Saturnalia" hysteria as I do for "retailers who don't say 'Merry Christmas' are evil.")

Well worth a read.

heartofsteel:

Naruto Issue #474: Prepare to Act as Hokage

Sai clone appeared before Naruto, Kakashi and Yamato and told Naruto that Sakura intended to kill Sasuke herself so as to lessen Naruto's emotional burden even if he were to hate her for it. As Naruto was in shocked, Gaara, Temari and Kankuro appeared and told Naruto and others of the happening in the Kage Summit and that Kakashi was being suggested to be Hokage for time being. Kakashi stated he had never consider the idea of he himself being a Hokage and told them that it was up to the Konoha ninjas' decision. Gaara told Naruto that a war would be commencing. Hachibi and Kyuubi jinchuriki would be protected. Gaara swored that he would risk his life to protect Naruto and told him to follow the way of kage if he really wanted to be a Hokage. Gaara told Naruto what Sasuke had done at the Summit and that Sasuke was a criminal and had only pursued his aim in form of hatred. Naruto was at a loss.

Other place, Madara confronted Danzou and others. Danzou revealed his right mechanical arm preparing to deal with Madara. Madara commented that it had been years since they met after the Uchiha massacre.

Bleach Issue #384: Can't Fear Your Own Sword

Hisagi was injured by Tousen who had hollowified himself and other shinigami captain stated that Tousen had fallen to this stage because he had obtained this kind of power willingly unlike Ichigo. Hisagi demanded to know what Tousen had been fearing of as he recalled Tousen's advise to him in the past that to be a fighter, he had to be fearful of his sword. Back to present, Tousen stated that he feared to die as a shinigami as he stabbed Hisagi in his stomach. The other shinigami captain activated his bankai at him.

One Piece Issue #566: Fierce Attack

The battle intensified as Luffy and others tried to save Ace. Luffy cut two soldiers who were preparing to execute Ace as he fought the admirals. One of the admirals was bemused over Crocodile's fighting against the Marine eventhough he had grudge with Whitebeard. He prepared to fight Crocodile even if he was indebted to Crocodile's grand dad.

D.Gray Man Issue #189: Yuda's Voice

Allen Walker was shocked to find he and Kanda were in the headquarter even though both of them were supposed to be on their respective missions in other part of Earth. He and Tyki (who subconsciously for no reason) stomped on Earl. A new member of the Noah introduced himself as a manipulator who could twist a person's limbs without touching them. The Order's researchers apologised to Allen for being held hostage again. The Earl threatened to hurt them unless Allen could go back with him and the Noah.

Allen was shocked and the Earl told him that Allen was the 14th himself. The 14th's subconciousness temporary took over Allen's mind and he told the Earl that he would return, kill the Earl and become the Earl of Milliemium himself. The 14th even called the Earl 'Brother'. The shocked Allen recalled his teacher's words that if the 14th took over Allen's body, he would kill everyone he treasured. Allen took control of his own body and mind and kicked the Earl away. Kanda went to support him and bit doll!Road in his mouth. As Road told Kanda of Alma (who was taken away by the Noah), Kanda stabbed her. Allen called him to calm down. One of the Noah activated a kind of light that the researchers called Allen not to look. But Allen was mentally sent back to the past when a little boy named Alma was looking at Kanda who was lying beneath the water hole. Allen was surprised.

Fairy Tail #08:

Natsu defeated Eigor but Kage stole the lullaby and sped off to the Guild master meeting place. In the forest, he ran into Fairy Tail guild master but could not bring himself to kill the old man with the lullaby as he recalled Gray and Erza's words. The arriving Natsu and others tried to stop Kage but were hindered by other guild masters. The Fairy tail guild master's words touched Kage and he gave up the lullaby. Apparently, the guild masters had already knew of Egor's evil plot and had prepared before hand.

The angry lullaby evolved into a giant monster. Erza, Natsu and Gray joined forces and destroyed it, and unfortunately along with the guild masters' meeting building. The Fairy Tail Guild master almost passed out.

havocthecat:

I love Sanctuary! I have not, as yet, seen anything past the two-part season two opener, however. (I foresee a marathon coming up.) But. Can we discuss things that are both awesome in Sanctuary, and things that are not? For example, Kate Freelander, who is a whole lot of fun in the first two eps of season two, is awesome.

Also, I have a confession to make. Helen Magnus/John Druitt is supremely fucked up, for obvious reasons. I...kind of like it, though. So long as everyone acknowledges that it's messed up and wrong and that he's not a misunderstood woobie. He's Jack the Ripper, and there's really no making up for that.

Last of all, femslashers, have any favorite pairings? (Please, no Ashley/Helen talk; I'm sorry, but I just can't take it.)

This entry has been cross-posted. Comments are welcome on either post.

justhuman:
Back in NJ, but not quite at home.

I'm safely at the home a friend, but not the friend that was supposed to pick me up from the airport.

So there's stuff going on. Stuff that I will probably not report fully in an open post. Here's the bullet points.

*I'm fine
*Limited intel tells me no one else is hurt
*Limited intel leads me to believe my car is fine...but I may need to go pick it up from a location a couple of hours away
*I'll be home Wednesday...at some point
*I may be offline/limited contact for a few days

firefly124:

According to LJ, IJ, and DW, the following people have birthdays coming up this month: erickajo*, pyjamapants, snarkywench_64, liz_marcs, seti_apollonius, pendamuse, gypsy_morph, jackiejlh, theturningworld, saracen77**, savine_snape, lady_rhian, sc010f, keladry_lupin, ayerf, slyth_wolf, wonderfulwrites, and mollyssister. Happy birthdays to you all!

If you would like an original or fannish drabble (story of 100 words) or ficlet (less precisely worded but still very short story) as a birthday gift, please comment with the fandom and character(s) or pairing you'd like it to be about (obviously not quite applicable for original fic) and some sort of prompt, and I'll do my best to get it written before your next birthday! (A lot sooner if I can help it. Yes, I realize I still owe fics back to August, but now that clinical's done with class soon to follow, maybe I can finally write more than just TFTWSD.)

If you're wanting a rundown of what I will/won't write, I've got a post covering the basics here on LJ and here on IJ, though I should add that just because I haven't written a fandom or pairing before doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy a challenge. And if you're wondering how to prompt for something non-fannish, there are some suggestions here on LJ and here on IJ.

*Has anyone seen or heard from erickajo in the past, oh, 11 months or so?

**I think I still owe you last year's birthday fic, saracen_77. *cringes* Sorry!

heartofsteel:

Full Metal Panic - the Second Raid #01:

Sosuke and his military comrades entered a war torn country to rescue some people and realised their opponents also had updated weapons. With Tessa's guidance, Sosuke managed to return back to his quarter safe and sound with victory. Back to the submarine, he resumed his school work but forgot to bring Kaname's school book back to her after his two days military mission. Kaname was pissed off.

morgandawn:

A&E's TV show "Intervention" (a show about kicking drug addiction) featured a woman with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome who was taking 2x the maximum daily dosage of fentanyl (a pain killer). She was also mentally ill: the flowers were killing her, people could zap her with their stored electricity over the phone and she advised - at all costs - for people to avoid Connecticut. Why? Because Connecticut did not have enough people to absorb the evil electrical rays.

So you'd think any rational person watching the show would assume that her addiction problem was most likely the result of a severe mental illness. And not watch the show and come away thinking that Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome was not a real medical condition because she was freaking about flowers. Or decide that her pain and symptoms were not real because she had odd theories about the electrical properties of people talking on phones.*

But sadly, this level of rationality is not a universal given. So the next time you run into someone with cancer or arthritis or MS and they also happen to have a delusional disorder that causes them to eat flowers and rant about alien probes - remember, that automatically means cancer and arthritis and MS do not exist.

Just wanted to make certain we're all on the same page. Or not.

*There is some doubt whether she was suffering from EDS or, at the very least, that her symptoms had progressed to the point that she needed to overdose on pain meds every day. The show did bring a doctor to the intervention who was familiar with EDS and he very carefully side stepped the issue.Saying things like: "even if she does have EDS, there is no need for her to take a lethal daily dose of pain meds."
[A Dreamwidth post with comments | Post a Dreamwidth comment| How to use OpenID]

zulu:

( spoilers )

This entry was originally posted at http://zulu.dreamwidth.org/441952.html. have spoken there. Comment there with OpenID.

heartofsteel:

Full Metal Panic Fumoffu #12 - FINALE:

Sosuke frightened the bun seller in school when he demanded for a bun by shooting his rifle into the air. As a result, he had to sell buns during her one week absence. Kaname and others volunteered to help him. A physical fitness teacher had grudge with him and tried to poison his buns but Sosuke's traps got him into sickness and when he finally tried another time, the bun seller had returned and hit him into retirement.

Sosuke was being intimidated by some gangsters but his gun frightened them off. The gang leader ordered her men to kidnap Kaname to subdue Sosuke but Sosuke forced all information from the man who passed the message and intimidated the gang leader instead using her beloved younger brothers. He also listed out weakness of all her men and all of them surrendered and ran off. Kaname was impressed.

Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood #34:

Ed and Al only revealed part of their truth to Olivia and they were sent to work. Along the way, they were surprised to learn that Miles was an Isbavl whom Olivia did not mind as long as he was willing to follow her lead. At their workplace, they met Falman who showed them around the place. Meanwhile, Olivia was informed of Kimbley who had been hospitalised nearby asking for their help and she did not like the idea of a criminal state alchemist being released by the central regardless his crimes. In a mechanical area, a homunculus - Sloth broke out of the ground and created chaos. Ed told the arrived Olivia that Sloth could not be killed and she decided to do something that would be worse than death.

Inuyasha Final Act #09:

While Kouga parted with Inuyasha and others, Inuyasha sensed Sesshoumaru with another demon. Other place, Sesshoumaru ran into his mother who offered to guide him a way to train his sword. A hell hound was summoned and it grabbed Rin and Kohaku into the underworld. Sesshoumaru pursued them and Rin's soul vanished in the process, leaving her dead. His sword technique was completed in his grieveness. When he returned with the dead Rin and a despondent Kohaku, Sesshoumaru's mother revived Rin with her underworld necklace. Jaken thanked her on Sesshoumaru's behalf. Sesshoumaru's mother knew of Kohaku's situation and she told him that he could not be saved by Sesshoumaru's sword. Meanwhile, Miroku and others were trying to decipher Kikyou's last words about protecting Kohaku's light.

justhuman:
Reason 997 why to love Dreamwidth - from their weekly update post

* Icon keyword renaming. As everyone with a fondness for icons knows, if you rename an icon's keywords (maybe you've changed your naming scheme, or discovered a typo that's been there for months and you just realized) all previous uses of the icon revert to default, because the keyword has been changed. Well, thanks to allen's hard work -- and I mean 'hard work'; this patch went through a ton of revision -- you will soon be able to pick whether or not you want to update old posts to use the new keywords, thus making sure that your old posts keep showing the right icon even though you've changed the icon's name

By the way, reason 903 to love DW is that their weekly news post is actual news and won't make you want to scratch your eyes out.

I've got invites.

atom_bunny:

Well, I made a grand total of 83,504 words. I didn't quite finish the side story because it's going on for longer than I thought it would, but I can finish that later.

I still managed to write much more than I thought I would this month, so I'm happy. ^_^

firefly124:

I successfully met the 5_for_five challenge: write at least 500 words at least 5 times out of the week for 12 weeks. Ta-da!

						</div>

Shiny!

The fic o'doom, aka The Fic That Wouldn't Stay Dead, is now over 66,500 words. Meep! But I think it's keeping me relatively sane this semester, and the motivation of this challenge has helped me keep at it. It's rabid enough that it'd probably have kept eating my brain anyway, but there's this thing that happens when you let a rabid story do that without ever writing any of it out. It just sort of spins itself out and dies. Now, that might actually be a good thing in some cases. There are times I think that might be the best fate for this fic. BUT the writing of it continues to take the weight of the semester off my mind at key times, so having the motivation to sit down and churn out at least 500 words (and often as not, it's after passing that point that a scene takes off) has been a very good thing.

Huge thanks to lady_rhian who thought up this challenge in the first place and mega thanks to sshg316 for opening the challenge up to the rest of us and helping keep us motivated to just keep writing!

Also? Tomorrow's the last day of clinical for this semester. Whee!

tigresslilly:

I hate family holidays. It's not as bad as it used to be. There isn't a mind numbing soul obliterating anxiety about them anymore as there used to be. There's just a dull ache of worry and some slight stomach tremors. Really the worst bit was that I thought I'd probably never have to go to a shin dig like this again. I would go one day, I just would never have to.

I didn't want to talk about where I'd been what I'd been doing and how I was. I'm better but not so well that I can always talk about Zac or Wyoming or what was a fairy tale life that while childish and unsustainable was also beautiful. I just can't talk about it especially with people who don't get it and no one in my family gets it.

Instead I gave short answers and listened to long unending diatribes of how awesome everyone else is. I was glad they were well but I could have done without the jabs at where they were compared to me. I sincerely hope I never did that to them or anyone else, though my successes are so few and far between, I'm sure I've had little opportunity to knock some else further down that way.

In particular my cousin, who works at Fenway went on and on about how boring but glamorous her job was, how much she hated living at home (though she does nothing there but sleep and hang out), and how wonderful her parties and nights out were. I wanted her to be successful. I was prepared to hear about her success and joy so it didn't even sting that much when she kept slighting me and where I was or discarding some of the work I have to do like chores and house upkeep and whatnot.

What did sting was to find out later that her job at Fenway pays $9/hr she works no more than 30hrs a week and she doesn't get benefits. She'd sat there and scorned my retail work as less and demeaning when we make the same hourly rate, I work full time and my job gives me benefits. I don't have an hours commute by public transportation to pay for or anything.

In other more pleasant news my bro got a letter from Mass Maritime and we think it might be his acceptance *hopefully*. I've got to wait for him to come home and open it but I'm super hopeful for him. It's very exciting.

Also, they've finally corrected the comp and literacy portions of the mtels, I should finally have results and hopefully a license on the 9th. Maybe I've be able to pick up some second term work or start vigorously looking for the fall. I'm apprehensive and excited. I don't know what I'll do if this doesn't work and my parents feel strongly I'll need several other back up plans that I'm not sure how to approach but I'll have to figure something out soon I guess.

dragovianknight:

bridgetmkennitt, you might want to not click the link until after you're done with your fic fest fics. :D

( Random ideas are pretty womancentric, really. )

heartofsteel:

One Piece #428:

The villian pirate leader used his same net fruit user skill to trap Zorro and Sanji. The giant beatle attacked the villians and got hurt. It overheard the voices of the people fearing for their homeland and decided to sacrifice itself despite the little girl - Yoko's cries. Luffy freed his arm and punched it away from the giant net. The people regreted their selfishness and decided to fight back the enemy. The beatle shedded its skin and freed Luffy, Sanji and Zorro from the nets. But it exhausted itself and collapsed into the villian’s waiting net. Luffy and others were ready to strike back.

Full Metal Panic Fumoffu #08:

Melissa and Kurz finally arrived to aid Sosuke protecting Tessa. During the stay, Tessa despite Kaname’s dissatisfaction would try all means to go to Sosuke’s bed at night until Melissa handcliffed her together. On the last day of the stay, Melissa and others took Tessa to a hot spring inn. There, Kurz and two of Sosuke’s classmates tried to get past Sosuke’s traps to peek the girls but failed. Before Tessa parted the class, she was given a signed well wishes card and a bouquet of flowers. She was moved to tears. When she returned back to work, she vowed she would protect those people.

caersidi:

I was only just saying this to Katherine the other day.

dragovianknight:

So, cleaning out my purse for the first time in...a long time, I found two fic fragments, and I don't know if I ever typed them in/posted them, and in the case of the second, I can't remember which universe it was in, though it seems like something I should have talked about. (The first is clearly a sequel to the fic in which Angelo found Marcello in Pickham.)

So, behind the cut, ( two DQ8 snippets, and hopefully one of you can tell me where I was going with these... )

I think it's sad that I have to rely on other people to remember what the hell I've written, to be honest. But there you go.

dragovianknight:

20% off downloadable patterns! So I broke down and finally bought the pattern for the Bacchus Socks I've been eyeing forever. Now I just need to convert the pattern to magic loop, since that appears to be the only way I like to knit socks. And get a 2mm circular needle.