Kasey
August 29-2009
Ok, so for this newsletter I’m going to talk about a subject I’ve wanted to write about for a while—fanfiction. Some of you I’m sure know about fanfiction and what it is, perhaps even having read it or wrote it, while I’m sure others of you are pretty much clueless about it. Since it happens to be one of my favorite things just about ever I decided I would tell all of you a little more about it and why it is so great. (Also, this is ridiculously long so feel free to skip around. I’d recommend reading the reasons to read fanfiction in the beginning. I also put a dictionary of fanfiction terms that you might or might not want to read and finally I put the different ships I read and which fandoms they are from. And yes, I will define ship and fandom for you in a moment.)
First things first. What is fanfiction?
Fanfiction is a work of writing using characters from an original novel, TV show, movie, video game, etc. Every book, TV show, movie or whatever it may be and their fans are referred to as a fandom. For example, according to Wikipedia “The Harry Potter fandom is a large international and informal community drawn together by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The fandom works through the use of many different forms of media, including web sites, fan fiction, podcasts, fan art and songvids.”
Ok, so you’re probably thinking, sounds great and all, but why would I want to read fanfiction?
Fanfiction is great for a number of reasons. First of all, if you are a fan of a certain book, for example Harry Potter, fanfiction lets you continue reading about characters you already know and love in a variety of different settings. Fanfiction writing generally encompasses all sorts of genres, despite the original genre the author intended.
A big part of fanfiction is shipping. I will get to some other fanfiction terms later, but this is such an important one that I decided to mention it now. Shipping is presumably a term derived from the word relationship and involves the reader or writer pairing two characters together romantically. With such a large portion of fanfiction involving romance in their stories, most readers want to know before they read a story what ship is involved in the story. Ships that occur within an author’s original universe are known as canon ships.
Shipping is a large reason that I enjoy fanfiction. One of the fandoms I am a part of is the Harry Potter fandom. If you’ve ever read Harry Potter you know that canon (or real) relationships from the books would be Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, James/Lily etc. Although I like James and Lily as a pairing I am not such a Harry/Ginny or Ron/Hermione fan. When I read fanfiction I usually read Draco/Hermione, Ginny/Draco or Albus Severus/Scorpius fanfiction. (Albus Severus is Harry’s son and Scorpius is Draco’s son). Even though J.K. Rowling never wrote these relationships in her books, fanfiction allows me to read stories with these pairings in them.
Another great thing about fanfiction is the length of stories. Most times when you buy a novel it is at least 50,000 and sometimes upward of 100,000 or more words. In the fanfiction world stories can be any length the author chooses. Drabbles (according to Wikipedia) are stories exactly 100 words in length, although myself, and many others, refer to stories fewer than 1,000 words as drabbles. From there, I’ve read stories in varying lengths. Sometimes a few thousand words are all that is needed to tell a short story. I’ve also read stories ranging in the 30,000s and 40,000s (too short in real life to be considered a novel) and stories that seriously are longer than the longest books, upwards of 200,000 and 300,000 words. Just last night in fact I read an Albus Severus/Scorpius fic that was 95 chapters and over 140,000 words. That’s basically a really long book if it were a published book.
Another great thing about fanfiction is that it allows you to read multiple stories with the same characters, and even better, once you find a favorite fanfiction author or multiple authors, most tend to write more than one story with the same characters. I know I have certain authors whose writing I love and who have written many stories with the same characters.
You’re probably thinking that fanfiction writing can’t be all that great. After all, a true writer would just use their own characters and go get published or something right?
Wrong.
Although there are a lot of really bad fanfiction stories out there, there are a ton of great ones too. Most fanfiction writers do write original fiction as well and I have heard of a good deal of published authors who either wrote fanfiction in the past or still do it for fun on the side. In fact, I’ve read a ton of novel-length fanfiction with writing as good as, or better than in some published novels I’ve read.
The best part of fanfiction though is probably that it is free and can be read online. While fanfiction can be found in a variety of places, the website fanfiction.net is a big site for almost any genre. Of course, stories on this website aren’t screened before they are posted so there are a lot of bad quality fics on the site. Livejournal communities are another big place to find fanfiction stories and are usually devoted to one specific fandom or ship. Other independent websites also host large communities of fanfiction writers. One important thing to note about fanfiction.net though is that they don’t allow RPF (real person fiction) or fics with explicit content.
Now that you know a bit more about fanfiction you might be thinking about trying it out and seeing if you like it. But you probably don’t know where to start, or all the terms associated with it, which can make your first foray into fanfiction a little difficult. (Wow, lots of alliteration there). Anyways, to help you out I’m going to compile a list of fanfiction terms and their definitions. (If you happen to read or write fanfiction and want to contribute to this list or argue one of my definitions feel free to post in the comments)
Canon- Information that either comes directly from a specific work, or has been stated by the author to be factual. Ex. That Harry has a son named James is a canon statement.
Fanon- Generally the opposite of something known to be canon. A fact that is fanon is something that does not come from the author’s original universe or has been stated by the author to be false. Ex. Dramione, otherwise known as the ship involving Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger is a fanon ship since it doesn’t happen in the Harry Potter novels.
Ship, Shipping, Shippers- A ship is a relationship between two characters, usually shown by putting a slash between two characters names (Draco/Ginny) or by combining their names in a way that is specific to that ship. (Kris Allen/Adam Lambert is collectively referred to as Kradam) Shipping is the act of pairing characters together in a relationship and a shipper is a person who ships two characters.
Slash and Femslash- stories involving gay couples. Generally slash refers to male/male stories but can be female as well. Femslash (or femmeslash) is the term sometimes used for female/female stories. (I know other terms are used in Manga/anime but I don’t read those so I can’t really tell you what they are)
Het- stories with heterosexual couples.
IC and OOC- stands for in character and out of character. Usually refers to how a specific character or characters are acting in relation to how they are normally perceived as being.
AU- alternate universe. AU stories are stories with major changes to canon facts, such as setting or time changes, bringing back characters that are dead in the canon world or making good characters evil.
Gen- a genre of fanfiction that is short for general. Usually denotes stories with minor emphasis on romance or stories that can’t fit into one specific genre.
Parody or Badfic- stories that are usually written on purpose by an author. They are meant to be funny and usually incorporate cliché plot points.
Angst- stories where one or more characters suffer torment of some kind, usually emotional angst.
Beta reader, Beta read- a beta reader is like an editor. They read an author’s stories and help correct grammar, spelling, etc. They might also help an author with plot points and characterizations.
Crossover- fiction that involves characters from multiple universes combined in one story.
Fluff- stories with very little substance or plot.
PWP- Porn Without Plot or Plot? What Plot? Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.
Future-fic- again, rather self-explanatory. Takes characters and writes about them far into the future.
Mary Sue- an original character introduced into a fanfiction by an author that is basically the “perfect” character. They tend to be disliked by readers because they tend to be flawless and un-realistic characters. Not all original characters are considered Mary Sues however.
MPREG- a type of story involving male pregnancy. Obviously this can’t happen in real life but I guess some people enjoy reading MPREG stories. I however, am not among them.
OTP- One True Pairing. Usually a reader/writers favorite ship within a fandom.
RPF- Real Person Fic. Stories involving real people, usually actors or other celebrities. Because certain websites refuse to post these types of stories (fanfiction.net for example) they are usually found in livejournal communities, among other places.
One-shot- a story that is told in one go as opposed to a multi-chaptered fic, with obviously, multiple chapters to it.
Smut- like PWP, these stories usually involve just sex w/out a plot.
Squick and Kink- Squick- something in a story that could potentially be uncomfortable/offensive to a readers. Stories with potential squicks should always have warnings. Kink- something in a story that may appeal to/turn on a specific reader. Squicks and Kinks are generally related b/c one person’s squick may be a kink to another reader.
WIP- work in progress. Refers to a story that is not yet completed by an author.
Non-Con- non-consensual sex (rape) w/in a story. Should always be posted as a warning to readers.
A/N- author’s note. Sometimes placed before or after a story and is a personal note from an author to their readers.
Songfic- stories that are written with a specific song as inspiration. May contain the lyrics to the song within the story.
Ratings: Fanfiction stories are usually given ratings. The system of ratings varies between sites. Livejournal communities tend to use the MPAA movie rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17) to rate stories. Other places like fanfiction.net use a system that is basically the same except that it goes K, K+, T, M and then on some other sites X or some other equivalent for NC-17.
Anyways, I’ve basically written all I can think of right now for fanfiction. If you actually read this entire thing I’ll be surprised, but I wrote it mostly to encourage people to try fanfiction and as a reference tool of sorts for if you do.
Before I finish this off I thought I’d share the pairings I read in fanfiction. I know some of you probably read fanfiction so you might be interested in this. Or you know, I might be the only one interested in which case I still really don’t care b/c I’m going to tell you anyways, lol.
The main fandoms I read are Harry Potter, Avatar and American Idol (which obviously involves real person fiction which I realize isn’t for everyone). I also want to start reading fics in the Torchwood universe but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. (Torchwood is an AMAZING British sci-fi show. Watch it!!!!!)
Ships I read:
Harry Potter:
1) Draco/Hermione- One of my OTPs for this fandom
2) Draco/Ginny (less often than Draco/Hermione)
3) Albus Severus/Scorpius (next-gen fic)- another of my OTPs
4) Lily/ James
I also am going to try and get into the pairings Harry/Draco and Remus/Severus. My new favorite type of fanfiction is slash, so I have been reading a lot more of it lately.
Avatar:
1) Zuko/Katara- OTP. This is about the only main pairing I will read for this universe but I also don’t mind Aang/Toph when it comes up in stories.
American Idol:
1) Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
Torchwood:
1) Jack/Ianto- OTP. Just about the only canon ship that I ship. And its slash! Just another reason I love this show so much.
2) I probably wouldn’t read it as fanfiction but I also like Tosh/Owen, Gwen/Owen and Gwen/Rhys (other reasons I love this show. All of these pairings have at one point or another been canon.) Also I can't forget Jack/Jack and Jack/Captain John
Yeah, so that’s basically it for me. I do ship a variety of other ships in different fandoms, but I haven’t really read any fanfiction for them (yet). If you have any questions about anything feel free to comment!
And thanks for reading! (If you didn’t read this entire thing I don’t blame you) Also, if you do read/write fanfiction please let me know! I like talking to other fanfic readers.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Newsletter #00061
Kasey
August 22, 2009
It's been a while since my last newsletter I realize. My apologies on that. I've been really busy with band camp and other things. And, to be honest, I wasn't actually going to do a newsletter today but there was something I really wanted to write about so here's an impromptu one for you all.
What I wanted to talk about today is a condition that I, and many others in the world have (approximately 1 in every 23 people, or so scientists think). It is called Synesthesia and there are many different forms of it. According to Wikipedia, Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.
Basically what this means in layman's terms is that seeing or thinking or hearing a certain thing can lead to another, involuntary reaction involving a different sensory reaction. For example, one type of synesthesia that occurs in some people is the type where letters, numbers, months of the year, days of the week, etc. are associated with a specific color. For synesthetes with this type of synesthesia, these color associations are involuntary and consistent.
There are many different types of synesthesia, such as people who have reported seeing color when they hear certain sounds, or tasting a specific taste when they hear a certain word.
As far as I can tell from my research into synesthesia I have two types- Ordinal Linguistic Personification and Spatial Sequence (or Number Form) Synesthesia.
Ordinal Linguistic Personification is a type of synethesia where the synesthete associates letters, numbers and other things like months of the year and days of the week with a specific gender and usually personality. I have been doing this ever since I was a little kid, and until I read about this type of synesthesia online I didn't even realize that other people didn't always do this. For example, this is what I think of gender wise when I think of the alphabet or the numbers 0-9
Girls-
0,2,3,5,6,8
A,B,E,M,O,Q,W,Y
Guys-
1,4,7,9
C,D,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,N,P,R,S,T,U,V,X,Z
Also most numbers and letters have certain personality traits. For example, Three is kind of a tomboy and sometimes in my head appears more as a guy than a girl. Five and Six are close friends. One is a rather studious, boring type of guy while Four is more fun loving and is kind of a jock. Seven is pretty much a jock too. Seven is also a teenage guy who is really smart. Eight is quiet and nice and pretty much a mothering type.
Those are just a few of the things that I have always associated with my numbers and letters in my head. It must sound crazy to someone without this type of synesthesia but to me its perfectly normal and I've been doing it all my life.
The other type of synesthesia I have that until recently didn't even know had an actual name is Spatial Sequence or Number Form Synesthesia. Basically, people with this see numbers in a specific mental map sort of thing. It can also happen with dates, months of the year and days of the week.
Its sort of hard to explain but for me I see years in a specific timeline. It always seems to hover in front of me and extends at a diagonal facing slightly towards me in either direction to my left and right. When I am thinking about a specific year I find myself mentally placing my body at that position on my timeline and looking forward or backwards into the other years. Now that I try and write out what it looks like it sounds really ridiculous and I realize I haven't done a good job describing it, but basically I always seem my months of the year, days of the week, years, and even letters and numbers in a certain physical position when I think of them and I have always automatically thought of them that way. And all of those things have different mental images if you will.
Its all a little confusing to try and describe to someone, especially if that person doesn't actually have that specific type of synesthesia. It makes me wish I had the type where I associated colors with my letters, if only because it is an easier type of synesthesia I think to describe to a person than Number Form Synesthesia.
Another interesting thing about synesthesia is that it's believed to be genetic and linked to the X-chromosome due to the fact that scientists have seen synesthesia passed from Mother to Daughter, Father to Daughter and Mother to Son but never from a Father to a Son.
Anyways, I thought this was a topic that would be interesting to share and to see if anybody who reads my newsletters has a form of synesthesia. (For more information on the different types of Synesthesia or on Synesthesia in general I'd suggest going to this page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia)
If anyone else has any form of this condition tell me in the comments because I'd be interested to know. Especially if any of you have the types I have and can relate to what I said above. I know that Tim Gamache has the color one and sees colors associated with letters and numbers but does anyone else?
August 22, 2009
It's been a while since my last newsletter I realize. My apologies on that. I've been really busy with band camp and other things. And, to be honest, I wasn't actually going to do a newsletter today but there was something I really wanted to write about so here's an impromptu one for you all.
What I wanted to talk about today is a condition that I, and many others in the world have (approximately 1 in every 23 people, or so scientists think). It is called Synesthesia and there are many different forms of it. According to Wikipedia, Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.
Basically what this means in layman's terms is that seeing or thinking or hearing a certain thing can lead to another, involuntary reaction involving a different sensory reaction. For example, one type of synesthesia that occurs in some people is the type where letters, numbers, months of the year, days of the week, etc. are associated with a specific color. For synesthetes with this type of synesthesia, these color associations are involuntary and consistent.
There are many different types of synesthesia, such as people who have reported seeing color when they hear certain sounds, or tasting a specific taste when they hear a certain word.
As far as I can tell from my research into synesthesia I have two types- Ordinal Linguistic Personification and Spatial Sequence (or Number Form) Synesthesia.
Ordinal Linguistic Personification is a type of synethesia where the synesthete associates letters, numbers and other things like months of the year and days of the week with a specific gender and usually personality. I have been doing this ever since I was a little kid, and until I read about this type of synesthesia online I didn't even realize that other people didn't always do this. For example, this is what I think of gender wise when I think of the alphabet or the numbers 0-9
Girls-
0,2,3,5,6,8
A,B,E,M,O,Q,W,Y
Guys-
1,4,7,9
C,D,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,N,P,R,S,T,U,V,X,Z
Also most numbers and letters have certain personality traits. For example, Three is kind of a tomboy and sometimes in my head appears more as a guy than a girl. Five and Six are close friends. One is a rather studious, boring type of guy while Four is more fun loving and is kind of a jock. Seven is pretty much a jock too. Seven is also a teenage guy who is really smart. Eight is quiet and nice and pretty much a mothering type.
Those are just a few of the things that I have always associated with my numbers and letters in my head. It must sound crazy to someone without this type of synesthesia but to me its perfectly normal and I've been doing it all my life.
The other type of synesthesia I have that until recently didn't even know had an actual name is Spatial Sequence or Number Form Synesthesia. Basically, people with this see numbers in a specific mental map sort of thing. It can also happen with dates, months of the year and days of the week.
Its sort of hard to explain but for me I see years in a specific timeline. It always seems to hover in front of me and extends at a diagonal facing slightly towards me in either direction to my left and right. When I am thinking about a specific year I find myself mentally placing my body at that position on my timeline and looking forward or backwards into the other years. Now that I try and write out what it looks like it sounds really ridiculous and I realize I haven't done a good job describing it, but basically I always seem my months of the year, days of the week, years, and even letters and numbers in a certain physical position when I think of them and I have always automatically thought of them that way. And all of those things have different mental images if you will.
Its all a little confusing to try and describe to someone, especially if that person doesn't actually have that specific type of synesthesia. It makes me wish I had the type where I associated colors with my letters, if only because it is an easier type of synesthesia I think to describe to a person than Number Form Synesthesia.
Another interesting thing about synesthesia is that it's believed to be genetic and linked to the X-chromosome due to the fact that scientists have seen synesthesia passed from Mother to Daughter, Father to Daughter and Mother to Son but never from a Father to a Son.
Anyways, I thought this was a topic that would be interesting to share and to see if anybody who reads my newsletters has a form of synesthesia. (For more information on the different types of Synesthesia or on Synesthesia in general I'd suggest going to this page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia)
If anyone else has any form of this condition tell me in the comments because I'd be interested to know. Especially if any of you have the types I have and can relate to what I said above. I know that Tim Gamache has the color one and sees colors associated with letters and numbers but does anyone else?
Newsletter #00060
Brad
August 11, 2009
So, it's been awhile again, but from now on i have something that will prevent this problem. my main reason i haven't been writing is i can never think of what to write about, but it isn't like i don't come up with ideas, i always do, it's just that i always forget when i sit down at the computer to write. so from now on i'm going to carry around what i am calling my "newsletter handbook" which is a small composition notebook that i will write down all my ideas in and discuss them in my newsletters with you readers. so hopefully this recurring problem is finished now.
my first topic is spurred on by my friend nick, who if you are reading this on facebook is tagged over there> and also guest wrote on kasey's day in a newsletter. we were having a pointless argument over words rhyming with themselves. the points of view were as follows:
1. that a word can rhyme with itself because you can have more than one of the same word, and one word is obviously going to sound the same as itself, therefore rhyming.
2.that a word cannot rhyme with itsef because every word sounds like itself, but a rhyme is with two different words.
so, to see which is actually correct, i will give you a definition of rhyme courtesy of dictionary.com
rhyme (in the context we need it)-a word agreeing with another in terminal sound: Find is a rhyme for mind and womankind.
so i know my opinion, but i will let you choose, what is your thought?
so, recently, i had a very stimulating conversation with a very close friend of mine, and we were talking about.......hmm...i'm not even sure how to categorize it. if you all could relate i would call it a "lower brass life talk" but not all of you would get that. so i'll just move on and explain. we came to the conclusion that messages in simple text over either the internet and email or instant messaging services and text messages on your phone can be....i don't want to say bad, but used to conceal i suppose. think about it this way, when you im or text message a person, there is no real-time conversation, you can wait to respond and plan out your next statement, your next move so to speak, as if you were trying to stay one step ahead of the other person in a game of chess. but this is not the only reason. have you ever been with someone and had a conversation, thought about it, and then sent the person a message making sure you know that you may have meant something other than what you said? well this is why it could be bad too, it provides too much of a "crutch" as it was referred to to things like this. making it possible for people to lie outright or be misunderstood, or so many other things.
okay, now for the main point of the argument. these things would not be bad if e could keep faithful to ourselves and our friends at the very beginning of things, first time, not in a repercussion. this is how life and interaction should be. the problem is that it isn't so easily done as it is said. the thing you must do first is figure out who you are and what your truth is before you can pretend to tell friends things honestly. and this is my largest problem in fact. but then, the next step is to learn to be open around others, to stick to truth as a policy and not an option......well, i'm not sure that went as i planned or if it sounded as i wanted it to, but hopefully it did and you get what i was trying to say.
now to a lighter note. last saturday i had some friends over, and we were sitting around the fire when we noticed a strange strip of clouds or smoke or something, that was moving across the sky as a cloud, but was way to thin to stay it's shape and not get distorted. it was strange, we had conversatoins about it. this is how we spend our time, haha, looking into the clouds, telling each other they are going to kill us and something is wrong =P
alright, the end of summer is very close now, and so if you remember a certain newsletter of mine at the beginning of the summer i say the same, you should treat it as a new beginning and try to take advantage of whatever oppurtunities come your way. i will not be putting a newlsetter out next week, my life will be taken over by band camp. so hopefully i will get one out the week after.
questions:
-did you have/are you haven a good summer?
-do you know where swamps come from?
-can you define the color red?
quote:
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
August 11, 2009
So, it's been awhile again, but from now on i have something that will prevent this problem. my main reason i haven't been writing is i can never think of what to write about, but it isn't like i don't come up with ideas, i always do, it's just that i always forget when i sit down at the computer to write. so from now on i'm going to carry around what i am calling my "newsletter handbook" which is a small composition notebook that i will write down all my ideas in and discuss them in my newsletters with you readers. so hopefully this recurring problem is finished now.
my first topic is spurred on by my friend nick, who if you are reading this on facebook is tagged over there> and also guest wrote on kasey's day in a newsletter. we were having a pointless argument over words rhyming with themselves. the points of view were as follows:
1. that a word can rhyme with itself because you can have more than one of the same word, and one word is obviously going to sound the same as itself, therefore rhyming.
2.that a word cannot rhyme with itsef because every word sounds like itself, but a rhyme is with two different words.
so, to see which is actually correct, i will give you a definition of rhyme courtesy of dictionary.com
rhyme (in the context we need it)-a word agreeing with another in terminal sound: Find is a rhyme for mind and womankind.
so i know my opinion, but i will let you choose, what is your thought?
so, recently, i had a very stimulating conversation with a very close friend of mine, and we were talking about.......hmm...i'm not even sure how to categorize it. if you all could relate i would call it a "lower brass life talk" but not all of you would get that. so i'll just move on and explain. we came to the conclusion that messages in simple text over either the internet and email or instant messaging services and text messages on your phone can be....i don't want to say bad, but used to conceal i suppose. think about it this way, when you im or text message a person, there is no real-time conversation, you can wait to respond and plan out your next statement, your next move so to speak, as if you were trying to stay one step ahead of the other person in a game of chess. but this is not the only reason. have you ever been with someone and had a conversation, thought about it, and then sent the person a message making sure you know that you may have meant something other than what you said? well this is why it could be bad too, it provides too much of a "crutch" as it was referred to to things like this. making it possible for people to lie outright or be misunderstood, or so many other things.
okay, now for the main point of the argument. these things would not be bad if e could keep faithful to ourselves and our friends at the very beginning of things, first time, not in a repercussion. this is how life and interaction should be. the problem is that it isn't so easily done as it is said. the thing you must do first is figure out who you are and what your truth is before you can pretend to tell friends things honestly. and this is my largest problem in fact. but then, the next step is to learn to be open around others, to stick to truth as a policy and not an option......well, i'm not sure that went as i planned or if it sounded as i wanted it to, but hopefully it did and you get what i was trying to say.
now to a lighter note. last saturday i had some friends over, and we were sitting around the fire when we noticed a strange strip of clouds or smoke or something, that was moving across the sky as a cloud, but was way to thin to stay it's shape and not get distorted. it was strange, we had conversatoins about it. this is how we spend our time, haha, looking into the clouds, telling each other they are going to kill us and something is wrong =P
alright, the end of summer is very close now, and so if you remember a certain newsletter of mine at the beginning of the summer i say the same, you should treat it as a new beginning and try to take advantage of whatever oppurtunities come your way. i will not be putting a newlsetter out next week, my life will be taken over by band camp. so hopefully i will get one out the week after.
questions:
-did you have/are you haven a good summer?
-do you know where swamps come from?
-can you define the color red?
quote:
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Friday, August 7, 2009
Newsletter #00059
So it’s been what, like 3 weeks since I last did a newsletter?? (Not including that one where Nick guest-wrote). Sorry about that. I’ve been really busy. Actually I should be doing my AP history homework right now, but that’s totally not happening FYI. Although I did get through like 13 pages or so, which is the most I’ve done in one day ever. Anyways /rant. Moving on.
So a week or two ago I was talking to Lauren Pi online and we came up with an idea of something we wanted to try, just for fun. I’ve had writer’s block for months now and she has had artist’s block, which, obviously is a bit of a problem. Anyways, we decided that we would choose a word or a theme and I would draw a picture involving it and she would write a story. The word she chose was magic.
Anyways, here I am thinking Shit, I have very limited artistic abilities. This will not end up good. The idea of what I wanted to draw came to me very quickly, and I figured it would be something that hopefully wouldn’t be too hard to do.
The plan was to show two teens, a boy and a girl, in a field in front of woods at night. There would be stars in the sky spelling out the word MAGIC (Yes, its cheesy. No, in my head it was less cheesy—at the time anyways). The boy and girl would be facing each other with their hands at about face level and their fingertips would be touching. And the boy and girl were both supposed to have this light sort of thing emitting from their hands/fingertips. The boy was going to have red light around his hands and the girl blue so that where their fingertips met it would be purple. (Red + Blue = Purple. Thank you elementary school art for that lesson).
Basically this was the plan. I was going for the whole “love is magic” thing and the fact that both the boy and the girl had that rather magical light thing coming from their hands. In my rather tired mind, it was a genius idea.
Long story short: There were a few *ahem* difficulties with my original plan once I tried putting it to paper. Not to mention the fact that this was wayyyy more time-consuming than it should’ve been. Anyways, I eventually did get the picture done, albeit with a few small changes.
Change 1: The boy and the girl became two guys. I like it so if you have a problem with gays deal with it. (Not to mention you probably shouldn’t be reading my newsletters). The actual reason it became two guys though is because I thought it would be easier to draw. NEWSFLASH! It wasn’t. Seriously. The guy on the right (you’ll see the pic in a minute) took me FOREVER.
Change 2: No forest. It was too hard to draw.
Change 3: The guys are side to side rather than facing each other. Any of my original delusions regarding how much talent I actually possess are long gone. I couldn’t figure out how to draw them facing each other so you get a front view instead.
Ok, so you’re probably thinking “So what does this picture that Kasey has spent like an hour describing actually look like?”
Good question. Here’s a few pictures of it for you all. It turned out slightly better than I thought it would, but I think I will stick to writing in the future.
So a week or two ago I was talking to Lauren Pi online and we came up with an idea of something we wanted to try, just for fun. I’ve had writer’s block for months now and she has had artist’s block, which, obviously is a bit of a problem. Anyways, we decided that we would choose a word or a theme and I would draw a picture involving it and she would write a story. The word she chose was magic.
Anyways, here I am thinking Shit, I have very limited artistic abilities. This will not end up good. The idea of what I wanted to draw came to me very quickly, and I figured it would be something that hopefully wouldn’t be too hard to do.
The plan was to show two teens, a boy and a girl, in a field in front of woods at night. There would be stars in the sky spelling out the word MAGIC (Yes, its cheesy. No, in my head it was less cheesy—at the time anyways). The boy and girl would be facing each other with their hands at about face level and their fingertips would be touching. And the boy and girl were both supposed to have this light sort of thing emitting from their hands/fingertips. The boy was going to have red light around his hands and the girl blue so that where their fingertips met it would be purple. (Red + Blue = Purple. Thank you elementary school art for that lesson).
Basically this was the plan. I was going for the whole “love is magic” thing and the fact that both the boy and the girl had that rather magical light thing coming from their hands. In my rather tired mind, it was a genius idea.
Long story short: There were a few *ahem* difficulties with my original plan once I tried putting it to paper. Not to mention the fact that this was wayyyy more time-consuming than it should’ve been. Anyways, I eventually did get the picture done, albeit with a few small changes.
Change 1: The boy and the girl became two guys. I like it so if you have a problem with gays deal with it. (Not to mention you probably shouldn’t be reading my newsletters). The actual reason it became two guys though is because I thought it would be easier to draw. NEWSFLASH! It wasn’t. Seriously. The guy on the right (you’ll see the pic in a minute) took me FOREVER.
Change 2: No forest. It was too hard to draw.
Change 3: The guys are side to side rather than facing each other. Any of my original delusions regarding how much talent I actually possess are long gone. I couldn’t figure out how to draw them facing each other so you get a front view instead.
Ok, so you’re probably thinking “So what does this picture that Kasey has spent like an hour describing actually look like?”
Good question. Here’s a few pictures of it for you all. It turned out slightly better than I thought it would, but I think I will stick to writing in the future.
The word MAGIC written in the stars is just as cheesy as you all probably thought it would be, w/e.
Here’s another one closer up.
And one more. You can see the colors around the boys’ hands, which was a way cooler idea before I put it on paper, BTW.
Next was Lauren’s role in this grand scheme of things. Unlike me however, she didn’t hop right to the opportunity of writing about magic. Instead she waited until we hung out and she saw my picture so that she could write based off of what I’d drawn. We both came up w/ most of the ideas for the initial storyline, which involves my two characters at a magic school. We decided to name them Rhian and Seph. Rhian is the one on the left and Seph is the one on the right.
So far we only have about a page written up of our story. Who knows if it will ever go anywhere, but it was definitely fun doing what we did for this project. Here’s what we got written in case you wanted to read it. (FYI Lauren wrote most of this. I think the last paragraph or two was mine. We both came up w/ the ideas for the story though)
Rhian and Seph’s Story:
The creation of magic is a phenomenon that is highly debated amongst the greatest sages of the day. Where it originated we do not know. The wisest of magic entities can, however, tell you, if you are gracious enough to listen, the substance upon which magic is fueled. It is something even a mere wizi-child can comprehend. From the smallest of pixies to the largest of giants, this force binds us all. This bond is love.
At large, however, this fact is mostly ignored as the magic community herds its youth into large towers to study tome upon ancient tome of nonsensical spells and brews. And it is here that we find ourselves in the company of a young man who, if you ask, politely, will tell you his name is—
“Rhian!”
“What?” spoke a disgruntled voice.
“You are going to be late. It makes a dismal first impression on the Sages. Tut, tut, what would your mother think?” came an irritating high-pitched response.
“Probably nothing, seeing as we haven’t spoken since she sent me to this spirit-forsaken, pitiful excuse for a learning institution.”
At this point, Rhian’s companion decided to present his rather small person by stepping down the spiral staircase from which his voice had previously been drifting.
Roland Humphrey Ignatius Carleton III came from a long line of legendary figures that had done everything from free small nations to coming remarkably close to curing the common cold. Roland distinctly not following in his family’s incredibly large footsteps, and not just because he was a man of such small proportions, proceeded to do absolutely nothing with his life.
Or at least, this is how Rhian would describe the chosen career path of the bane of his existence. In reality, the white-haired, pointy-eared man was the doting assistant of Rhian’s mother. To the great disdain of both Rhian and Roland, his most recent assignment tethered the two together for the indefinite amount of time during which Rhian would be forcibly studying magic at Carleton’s Ridge.
“This spirit-forsaken, pitiful excuse for a learning institution happens to be the finest establishment the likes of you should ever hope to be admitted to. It is on the sole grace of your mother’s name that my great-great uncle’s university has lowered its standards so drastically,” huffed Roland.
*I believe I take over after this point*
“Listen here elf—”
“I’m not an elf!” squeaked Roland indignantly.
Rhian blatantly ignored Roland’s protests, not unlike he had been doing for the greater part of his life.
He got to his feet and shrugged on one of the woolen cloaks thrown haphazardly across the chair beside his bed.
“I’m leaving.”
“Dressed just as scruffy as ever I see.”
Roland’s criticism fell on deaf ears as Rhian was already well on his way. Where to, he wasn’t sure, although he was certain of one thing. Rocks and Their Uses in the Wizarding World, the first of many undoubtedly pointless classes filling Rhian’s schedule, would not be his final destination.
So I’ll bet you’re wondering. What exactly have I taken from this whole experience??
Well, for one thing. Lauren is wayyyy better at writing than I am at drawing. Which, I think is totally unfair. But hey, that’s life! Also, drawing does nothing to cure writer’s block. Nope, nada. But it was still a lot of fun!
As a bonus, I hung out w/ Lauren for about 5 days in a row after she got back from Ocean City and that is when this whole story/picture experiment came about. The day after we wrote this up I slept over her house and brought these little stone things w/ me that I had taken from the centerpiece at my cousin’s wedding. We planned to each do a painting and then hot-glue some of the stones on, only Lauren ended up throwing away her canvas out of anger (Another note: apparently writing does little to cure artist’s block as well).
Myself on the other hand, managed to do a really cool painting, which I’m going to show to you now. (For future reference, paint the background color, which in this case was black, before the swirls. It makes life a whole lot easier—trust me on that)
Here’s one of the entire thing. You can see the stones on the top left and bottom right corners. The gold paint is pretty shiny too but I’m not sure if you can see it in the picture.
Here’s one of the bottom right corner.
Here’s one of the top left corner.
Ok guys, well that’s all for today. I was hoping to touch on other topics but this newsletter is already really long so I guess that will just have to wait until another time.
August 7-2009
-By Kasey
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Newsletter #00058
"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
"Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose what is easy and what is right."
"The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and therefore should be treated with great caution."
- Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
"...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself..."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Fear is something that troubles every human being: big and small, young and old; we are all affected by it. These fears can be rational, irrational, minor or troubling. Whatever the case, we all experience some type of fear. Some people can overcome their fears, while others struggle with them throughout their life. Fear is an essential tool in life, and really, without it we wouldn't be able to survive. Fear is a part of us, and we need to come to accept it. I'm not judging whether a fear is rational or irrational - to every person, their fear is rational to themselves, and that's what matters.
Something that should be known: Don't judge unless you want to be judged yourself. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all. Those are some sayings you may have heard, and they are true. If you go and ridicule someone of their fear, be prepared for them to do it back to you. And just try and be a nice person. There is no reason to insult a person. Even if they are jerks to you, you loathe them, and you can't stand them, don't insult them. There are those people in the world who, no matter what, will get on your nerves. Just ignore them. It's hard, but it's worth it. Even if the person deserves it, just ignore them. Now, I realize I'm no perfect person, and I've been a hypocrite to what I've just wrote, but it's something I try to do.
For some reason, I have a really high code of honor, or whatever, I'm not sure exactly what to call it. I can never stop helping a person. I'm the president of Leo Club, an Officer in SADD, I want to do more community service, I just feel a need to help the world as best I can, and make a difference. I want to do so much, but at times it feels like I'm not going to be good enough. I set way too high expectations of myself, but I want to reach them so badly. Yet it seems like I never do enough. I've been thinking too much lately, so I've been agitated, but I just feel like I should be doing something productive. Thankfully, I consider writing productive, in that it makes the mind work and be creative, without being destructive, which is why I like it so much. Math is the organized structure of my life, though I recently acquired a book that is telling me otherwise, which will be the entire base of my next newsletter. I need to read it through another time or two, it's a lot of confusing physics and stuff....
I felt compelled the other day to inform the readers of our newsletters about the various designs of teeth, and to educate you all about the various kinds, and what they do. You may know some of the information, but it is somewhat interesting nonetheless, and you can use your newly acquired knowledge to entertain people with random facts, or the next time you see a person eating, inform of exactly what they are doing.
First, there are the incisors. They are made biting, and for cutting.
Next, there are the cuspids. They are for shaped for tearing at food.
Bicuspids are used for crushing food.
Molars are there for grinding foot.
"Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose what is easy and what is right."
"The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and therefore should be treated with great caution."
- Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
"...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself..."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Fear is something that troubles every human being: big and small, young and old; we are all affected by it. These fears can be rational, irrational, minor or troubling. Whatever the case, we all experience some type of fear. Some people can overcome their fears, while others struggle with them throughout their life. Fear is an essential tool in life, and really, without it we wouldn't be able to survive. Fear is a part of us, and we need to come to accept it. I'm not judging whether a fear is rational or irrational - to every person, their fear is rational to themselves, and that's what matters.
Something that should be known: Don't judge unless you want to be judged yourself. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all. Those are some sayings you may have heard, and they are true. If you go and ridicule someone of their fear, be prepared for them to do it back to you. And just try and be a nice person. There is no reason to insult a person. Even if they are jerks to you, you loathe them, and you can't stand them, don't insult them. There are those people in the world who, no matter what, will get on your nerves. Just ignore them. It's hard, but it's worth it. Even if the person deserves it, just ignore them. Now, I realize I'm no perfect person, and I've been a hypocrite to what I've just wrote, but it's something I try to do.
For some reason, I have a really high code of honor, or whatever, I'm not sure exactly what to call it. I can never stop helping a person. I'm the president of Leo Club, an Officer in SADD, I want to do more community service, I just feel a need to help the world as best I can, and make a difference. I want to do so much, but at times it feels like I'm not going to be good enough. I set way too high expectations of myself, but I want to reach them so badly. Yet it seems like I never do enough. I've been thinking too much lately, so I've been agitated, but I just feel like I should be doing something productive. Thankfully, I consider writing productive, in that it makes the mind work and be creative, without being destructive, which is why I like it so much. Math is the organized structure of my life, though I recently acquired a book that is telling me otherwise, which will be the entire base of my next newsletter. I need to read it through another time or two, it's a lot of confusing physics and stuff....
I felt compelled the other day to inform the readers of our newsletters about the various designs of teeth, and to educate you all about the various kinds, and what they do. You may know some of the information, but it is somewhat interesting nonetheless, and you can use your newly acquired knowledge to entertain people with random facts, or the next time you see a person eating, inform of exactly what they are doing.
First, there are the incisors. They are made biting, and for cutting.
Next, there are the cuspids. They are for shaped for tearing at food.
Bicuspids are used for crushing food.
Molars are there for grinding foot.
An example of the human mouth.
Well, that's it for my newsletter. I already gave some quotes, so those will suffice for this newsletter.
Now, instead of asking questions to YOU, I want you to ask ME questions. Since we're always asking you things, now you can ask us. They can be whatever you want. Try and make them geared towards the three halves of us, Me, Kasey, and Brad, though you can direct individual questions. I haven't talked to either them about this, so if they don't answer questions you ask them, sorry. Just to try something new. I'll answer some in my next newsletter, and if Kasey and Brad want, they can answer some too. So, what questions do you have?
August 5-2009
-By Josh
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