So this has been popping up everywhere on my flist and I thought it'd be a cool muse thing to do:



Christmas Gift Toy & MySpace Layouts at pYzam.com





So, between now and Dec. 25, if any of your muses want to give my muses presents for Christmahanukkwanza, just have them drop them beneath the tree. I think with the search option you can literally give pretty much anything. If you put up a tree, I'll return the favor, and this post will be the first one in the_firedoor through the holiday season!

Some stuff about my kidlet muses

( School sucks, right? )

I'm getting to my (2) meme's now that I have time but this is something I am concerned about. I do not want Maya to turn into a heinously unlikable character just because I don't have enough perspective on the situation to see exactly how much sympathy she deserves and how much punishment. I honestly really hate it when that happens because if you turn a girl who does bad shit into a victim too many times, it just doesn't work and then you've kind of permanently screwed the character over because the hole you dig for her keeps getting bigger and bigger. So I am asking for your advice since you can see what I can't see. I know it's probably not something you've really thought about but if you have had a thought, even a passing one, about how I'm handling her character, let me know. I'm leaving this entry public, so ANONYMOUS COMMENTING IS ON and all comments are screened, so if you want to say something that way it's cool with me too. I'd just. Like some feedback.

Actually, is anyone using Joseph Gordon Levitt? Did I call him already? Am I losing my memory here....?

If no one's using him, I have a part for him.

Even if I don't explicitely say so, your opinions are important to me here (I ended up submitting the fear icon for bellatrix) so, tell me:

      

Which one does it for you? :D

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I got your present. I has MADE my life! And also, gives me someting to were to drag night tomorrow...:)

♥ much love!

Each player of this game starts off with 10 weird things/habits/little-known facts about yourself. People who get tagged to write a blog of their own 10 weird habits/things/little-known facts as well as state this rule clearly.

Give me a muse, I'll give you a list of ten such random things. And dudes, I have a limited amount of time to do this, so I'd love it if you'd all participate, but if you do, please limit the number of muses to 3. Danke. :)

Does anybody know what this means or how to do it? It's really frustrating that I can't see pictures because so much fanart is uploaded to lj. :( This was the solution to the problem, but I have no idea what he's talking about or what to do:

The most likely cause of your problem is that your browser or firewall is set to block images from sources other than the host unless they have been explicitly allowed. Images from a user's ScrapBook are hosted on pics.livejournal.com. Please make sure that your browser and/or firewall is set to allow images to display from this domain.

???????

Because that post made me think. Mainly because, although love triangles generally don't faze me all that much, that example Meru gave of the whole Aragorn/Arwen/Eowyn triangle actually did sort of irritate me, even though, like Meru, I ended up really liking Eowyn/Faramir (ridiculously cute, my friends ^^). And I think that what pissed me off there was just poor characterization. Because if you do have a love triangle, your characterization has to be absolutely solid because that pretty much creates the entire love triangle and defines the reason that the person in the middle MUST pick one person over the other.

And in the Aragorn/Arwen/Eowyn situation, that just wasn't done at all. Because Eowyn was known as The White Lady of Rohan, and by white, I don't just mean pasty and Caucasian, I mean that her heart was cold and white, like ice. She underwent so many trials; her parents were dead, the uncle who had been so kind to her once had been so reduced that he didn't even care when his own son died, she was in danger of being married to Wormtail, the man she knew was poisoning her uncle but who could not be removed from the king's presence. And so, because of all these trials, her heart frosted over, became cold, like ice, so that she could survive. And then, suddenly, Aragorn shows up and she's portrayed as this lovesick child, when she has been the ONLY real adult in the castle for so long. I think that 90% of the reason Tolkien gave for Eowyn's not even having a chance at getting with Aragorn was that her perception of him was this childish fantasy of a brave knight, only that didn't at all click with what we knew of her personality. And so really, I think that, yes, Eowyn could have stood against Aragorn, I think that she would have seen who he really was, I don't think that, at that point, she could be blinded by appearances.

The problem, though, was that if Tolkien characterized her in the way that she really deserved, she would have been the more obvious choice for Aragorn. Not only because of force of personality, but also just because she had a much larger role in the books than Arwen, she actually did a lot more, and, most importantly, she interacted with Aragorn a lot more. In fact, the only thing that really made Arwen special was the fact that she was ridiculously beautiful and that Aragorn had grown up with her. Also, she was no threat to his overwhelming masculinity.

And so, I think that that is where love triangle fall apart from me. I can deal with them, even like them if the characters are all well-defined and the relationships between the three are well-defined. Because then it makes sense that one would choose one over the other, and that it's healthier in the long run for all three. But I don't like it when the author seems to have a bias and tries to fit the characters to that bias, thereby shafting one member of the love triangle in terms of characterization and turning it into a contest of worthiness. Because love isn't about worthiness or how one person stacks up against the other, it's about what fits, and different things fit different people. And so, in the Arwen/Eowyn case, Tolkien could have left it just as it was, with Eowyn technically having more winning qualities than Arwen, if he had made us understand why what was between Arwen and Aragorn was so much more powerful than what could have been between Eowyn and Aragorn. Love doesn't make sense sometimes, it doesn't function that way, and so the choice that makes the most sense on the surface can be completely wrong, but as the artist, you really have to do a good job of explaining why.

And I guess that's also what pissed me off so much about H/G. This idea that it was a contest of worthiness, that somehow because Ginny had completely CHANGED and become Miss Superjock Susie Highschool Prom Queen Bitch, she somehow deserved Harry more. It was like, yeah, on the surface, maybe it makes sense. But there was no interaction, there was no real REASON for it, just a bunch of surface characteristics and JKR's word that she's somehow Harry's Perfect Girl. Which just...no, no, I have to SEE what makes them click, you can't just say that they should click because all the evidence points that way and leave it at that, because that's not how love works.

Even the sexual attraction reason doesn't work anymore. A lot of fans like to claim that Harry couldn't have gotten with Hermione or Luna because he couldn't think of them in a sexual manner, where he could see Ginny in that light. But, clearly, Ginny's being ridiculously hot came out of NOWHERE and if JKR had wanted to, she could have made Luna or Hermione suddenly appear gorgeous in Harry's eyes and it would have made just as much sense.

Not to mention, Luna, Hermione, Draco, Neville, McGonnagal, Dumbledore, Sirius, and Remus have all stood up against Harry's rage at some point, so that really isn't a selling point at all.

You know? We have more actual emotionally-charged interaction between Draco and Harry than we do between Ginny and Harry. And I think the problem is that you can feel the author, you know that JKR wants Harry and Ginny to get together even though it either doesn't make any more sense than Harry and anyone else or it makes even less sense than Harry and someone else, leading you to believe that the author must, for some reason, see Ginny as better than all the other candidates. And that is where a love triangle falls apart. At least in terms of art. If that makes sense.

Also, you're all very ugly goldfishes. Just so you know. Bloop.

Calling Holly Hunter

EDIT: I'm sorry, but this is too perfect, TOO PERFECT!

---->

When she wakes up every morning, it’s to the pounding of the surf far away outside her window and the taste of salt thick in the air. It’s cold, her little brown room, and bare, except for a worn wooden table, a few spindly, worn wooden chairs, a closet, and this bed that she wakes up in every morning. Only this morning, when she wakes up, the door to the closet is open somehow, and when she sits up and turns towards it, the thin bed sheets swimming around her hips and thighs, she’s struck by her own reflection in the full-length mirror that hangs inside the closet door. It is unclear, her visage, because the watery white sunlight that hangs over each overcast day like a shroud is pouring in through the window right about the bed and striking the mirror so that it flares, washes out her reflection a bit. But it’s there anyway, and it can’t help but startle her, because she’s not used to seeing it until she chooses to look for it somewhere. She stares for a while; her pale, pale washed-out flesh like bleached linen; her thin almost colorless lips like the underbellies of worms left out in the rain; her eyes, which could be the most beautiful things about her, green as they are. Over time the colors have burned out and away, however, every storm seeping the pigment from them little by little, until now they slouch in her face, dull and worn as old sea glass that has never reflected the sun. She gets up, walks barefoot over the worn, warped boards to the closet she calls a bathroom, careful not to look in the mirror again.

Except, she thinks, later on when she’s at work, leaning over a table, mopping up a spot of grease off the beige Formica with a threadbare white cloth; except it didn’t go that way. A long time ago, someone told her that if you’re ever called by your real name, no matter where you are or who does the calling, you can’t help but look back. No matter how good you are, somthing always catches up to you then.

And she’s thinking it must have been something like that, as she opened the door and prepared to step out beneath the faded grey sky, face to the cold sea wind, that compelled her suddenly, without even breathing, to glance back over her shoulder and catch herself in the smooth, green-grey surface, poised to leave but still standing there. Only this time there was no light to bend and break the reflection, it was just her form against the lifeless stretch of sand outside her door; the billow of her long, fair hair about a body rendered shapeless in a worn red frock, the premature sag of her pallid face, the wormy lips, the wrinkled brow, and her eyes, attune with the howl of the wind outside, but slate-blank as shuttered windows.

G2
Maddie
Elle ♥
Isabella
Isaiah
Aleta

G3
Tracy
MIRA
Trevor
Ollie
Muriel
Belle

Themes
Dreams
Family
Fears
Love
Movies
Quirks
Relationship with [insert name of family member/friend/romantic interest]
Sex
Music
Food
Art
Books
Politics
Porn
Martha Stewart

Mira's around and bored and doing a little dance in my head in the middle of the kitchen because she's not hung-over she's still just slightly drunk. She went out with her friend Gus last night (who I may bring in, he's kinda cool apparently) and gave me this whole drunken narrative about what they did but didn't let me post it. It's kinda sad, she's like 15 and Noah just lets her wander the streets in the middle of the night and do whatever she wants, although she's smart enough to always have someone with her. It's funny because Gus doesn't really look out for her, they both got really wasted last night somewhere. Probably at Mira's, actually, that's where they were first. And they played this really weird game of Monopoly that didn't make much sense because they were smashed off some sort of hard liquor. That's the thing about those damn kids, it's all down the hatch from a tumbler, they never savor anything the way they should. :D And then I think they might have gone and seen X-Men, but they wouldn't remember much of it this morning and then...who knows, I think they went to a 24-hour Chinese place and had fried rice. It was sad, they couldn't find a party. So they ended up coming home at like midnight (they live in the same building) and Mira changed and then collapsed on the couch in the living room and watched Ghostbusters with some guinness on some movie channel before she fell asleep.

At which point Noah came home, saw her sleeping there, pulled the blanket on the couch gently over her shoulders and tiptoed upstairs. Except, actually, he came home, was pissed that she had the couch and he couldn't move her, ran into something large and noisy on the way to the stairs, cursed, remembered, turned around and turned off the TV so they didn't waste electricity, and finally stumbled to bed. Yes. :)

She's actually dancing around in the kitchen in her boxers with Lucy, pretending to do the catwalk to that Shakira song. I dunno, I sort of love her, she's a lot better than she was. She's so determined to be a model and become some sort of international sex symbol before she's, like, 17. Noah's not really ok with this dream because he shoots models for Vogue and the like and so he knows how they're treated, but he did take headshots because she begged him. Figured that would be the end of it, but she expects him to use his industry contacts to get her in. It's funny. He does sort of ignore her at times, but now that he sees she's growing up, he suddenly doesn't want her to, because it makes him feel old and it makes him realize that in a few short years, she'll be gone and he'll be by himself. I think...he's finally starting to come to terms with Brett's death and to see exactly how much the world around him has sort of changed since. Mira was 13 when he went and now she's 15 and she has this whole life he knows nothing about and these friends he's rarely ever seen.

I don't know. She's cute, she's fairly sunny, although she can have an edge if you piss her off. She's sex-obsessed like any teenager, and the times she's most happy are when she's wasted because she has that many issues. Especially the ones she doesn't even know about. I don't think she's ever had sex sober, and she's....kinda crazy in that way, but I think she can be fun to talk to, too.

I dunno. I'd like to bring her out more if there are muses who wanna get DOWN like whoa. XD

...and it's made me laugh.

So, Joe's still the devil and Jodie's still a princess out of ancient Egypt (the one in my head, not the real one). And everything went down the way it went down, except for Kayla. Jodie was pushed forward through time by some demon. Consequently, as she'd broken a mortal law, she couldn't function in the mortal world any longer. So she was forced down into Joe's kingdom. Which Joe was fine with until he read the small print.

You see, Joe has no control over mortals. He can use his powers any way he wishes in Hell and on the dead, but once he comes into the "mortal realm" although he can use his powers on himself to alter his appearance, he has no power over the living or over human will. Earth is pretty much guarded by nothing; it all just functions by itself. I feel as though way back in the day, whoever created it infused a bit of themselves into everything on it, in order to keep "watch" that way, but for the most part, there's no one upstairs, it's a self-regulating machine.

So Jodie shows up and Joe tries to use his power to control her will or to at the very least get her to stop insulting the decor, but he can't. Because, technically, Jodie's not dead. She's not alive but it was more through the removal of her mortality than through the removal of her life. So you know, he figures, alright, I'll wait until she dies and then she'll be mine. So he waits. And waits. And waits.

Until he gets a clue and realizes that Jodie can't die, either. She exists now outside of mortality and its obligations, somewhere between life and death. She's immortal. So he's stuck with her and her mouth for all of eternity. And there is nothing he can do about it. You know, except cry at night. But then Jodie makes fun of him.

It's all highly satisfying, really.

So after looking over everyone's G1 lists I've got to thinking and have decided that I'm gonna shift my G1 around a bit, pretty much to eliminate the magic. Except for in the cases of Joe and Jodie because Jodie's become fairly good with a flame-thrower, which means Joe's naturally flame-retardant skin is pretty much a necessity (God, I love those two). So expect something up from me soon that's less about the melodrama and more about the...sellodrama! Like, the tape. Um.

Also, my 8-year-old sociopath is scaring me. Mah.

No. Make Noah's break my break. I need some time off because I really can't take this hypocritical bullshit anymore. I'll tie up whatever loose ends I need to tie up. And then I'm gone.

Ciao.

It's funny. I am NEVER hung over. Never. I'm not gonna say it's a problem, but it's odd nonetheless.

Anyway, I'm friends with bookshop and she posted this anon meme type thing in her journal a few weeks ago and it's grown by leaps and bounds. And when I say bounds, I mean almost 3000 anon comments/confessions. Some of them are very strange (like this one, in fact) and there are a lot that probably aren't true, but looking at them...a lot of ideas for potential stories popped into my head.

Does this make me a bad person? Being a Ravenclaw, I don't care. And at any rate, I thought that you guys could maybe use it for the same thing. Or hey, even drop a cnnfession (I actually did and if you'd really like to paw through 33 pages of comments, you could probably figure out which one it was - knock yourself out!) becaue it's an interesting thing to be a part of.

Anywho...happy reading?