7 things meme
Mar. 22nd, 2012 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katekatStolen from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lostgirlslair - Comment to this post, and I'll give you seven topics to talk about, which you then post your LJ, and so the meme spreads.
She gave me: Favorite ever fanfic, sushi (requested bymrtwstedwhsprs ;-), Los Angeles, Japan from a tourist prospective, favorite graphic tool, favorite class, and... ice cream
Favorite ever fanfic
OMG HARDEST THING EVER. I tend to wear out the fanfics I love, and I have kind of favorite for every pairing, or every mood, or I'm nostalgically fond of fics because they were the first to pop my cherry in a variety of ways. Off the top of my head, though, here are top three? oh gods, but seriously, this is just... i mean, i could honestly name a fic for every frigging fandom i've ever read and still wouldn't feel like i'm being completely forthright. GAH.
Reremous & Tabaqui's No More Snakes & Ladders is like the definition of hurt comfort goodness that you can sink your teeth into. I used to read it a couple of times a year until i made artwork for it (which entailed reading every chapter three or four times to get the images and quotes right, so, um, kinda burned all the words into my brain). If you've never read it, go read it right now. Spander. NC17 (very)
Seperis' (this is) Not a Statement is like the hurtiest weird unspoken hot adorable uncomfortable Kradam fic and I love it with a weird devoted longing that makes me almost blush. Something about what goes unsaid and how she goes about making it unsaid makes this story work for me, and I've reread it like, i don't even want to know. American Idol S8 Kradam. NC17.
Saras' Girl's Reparations and then Foundations is just this stunning epic emotional thing that is sweet and yet not utterly saccharine, has a beautiful storyline without falling into the major hearts and flowers, just really great characterizations and again, something I've read multiple times that just holds my attention. Harry/Draco, Reparations = PG, Foundations = R/NC17
sushi
I love sushi. My biggest disappointment last summer going to Japan was that I felt uneasy going to get kaitenzushi (sushi fast food, basically) because of the whole 3.11 thing. (and no, i know it wasn't rational, but it was the way i felt, so I didn't eat any). I do love a good ikura roll, but i can't do them often in the US because US sushi restaurants pack their rolls like it was a competition to see how much can get stuffed into one thing (and I may have a big mouth, but it's too small for that). I despise california rolls with a passion - don't like the taste, don't like crab, and particularly don't like the whole crab-salady-mayo thing going in most american-based places that serve these. No, give me some good nigiri sushi - Maguro (tuna), or Unagi (eel) with a lovely bit of sauce, or Otoro (fatty tuna) or I can eat like plates and plates of hamachi. I've sadly not had much of an opportunity to ever go to the places that would do some of the rare or unusual types of seasonal sushi - kasugo (sea breem) or anago (conger eel) are supposed to be really good. Perhaps someday!!!
Los Angeles
LA to me right now means sunny afternoons walking the dog around the neighborhood, the smell of warm flowers wafting as pass the multicolored houses. LA is that panoramic view I get to see every couple of days when the dog is willing to walk up the *steep* hill so we can get to the top and look towards the ocean. There are a lot of towers and buildings and houses between it and my little corner of this city, but when I get up there and see the sparkle off the glass windows, the white of Griffith Park Observatory poking up from the hills of the park around it, the Hollywood sign in jittery joy standing alongside, I grin. LA is driving every day, hunting for parking in the neighborhood north of USC every morning, is cold breezes in the shadows even on the warm afternoons. It's a city where the possibility of a rainy day is an excuse to move a night of drinking up (from Sat to Fri) so we won't have to go out of doors in the wet. It's not that we'll melt, but just that it rains so rarely we usually use it as an excuse to stay in, curl up with a blanket, drink warm drinks, and watch it come down from the sky. LA doesn't sleep, but it also doesn't cohere - it's not one big city but a million little ones all tentatively connected by proximity and by roads. A million little stores and nooks and crannies, some unexpectedly open on sunday, some brightly graffitied by artists whose names i recognize from searching art blogs. LA, my corner of LA, is like the $1.25 bunch of daffodils i picked up from Trader Joes the other day - kept in the cold refrigerator away from water they stay buds, with potential, but put in a glass jar with cold water, just waiting to burst open with crazy yellow color.
Japan from a tourist prospective
HMMM, I have to say out of all the countries I have visited as a tourist, Japan is the most helpful. Granted I've mostly been in the Tokyo area, which is like the cosmopolitan-iest city of cities, so it's not like they're unused to travelers, but I love how everyone will actually help. How local police are stationed in these little police boxes basically to give out directions (to you and to Japanese natives who also aren't going to find their way). How even at the train station people will help you figure out your proper platform. The first time I went it was simultaneously like all the books I'd read and all the pictures I'd seen and not that way at all. Which, I think, is kind of what you want when you're touristing, right? Places to go that will both surprise you and remind you of what you already know; people that will help you find your way when you're lost; things that feel new constantly rubbing up against things that feel old in surprisingly pleasing ways. Granted, it can be really expensive, really really fast. But it's also relatively easy to find decent cheap entertainments and food, too. The only thing I'm not too sure about is lodging having never had to look for short term.
favorite graphic tool
Gotta be layer mask, once I figured out what the hell it was. it also too me so long to figure out quick mask that i hardly ever remember to use it. but i think probably every file of every graphic i've ever made has a layer mask in it of some kind.
favorite class
another totally tough one!!! because some classes i loved for the people in them more than the class itself. others i loved for the work i did in them. others for the readings i got to read. My favorite classes are ones where I have someone to fight with who I respect, and enough of a balance of other people in it that it's not just them and me fighting all the time, but enough that I feel like we all get something out of it. OTOH, when I really consider it, probably my favorite class is the one I first got to TA with my favorite professor in Austin that was on adaptations of Japanese classics. I got to take the class, but teach it too, and worked so closely with my professor and we were so in sync that it was just awesome. Some of my friends were actually IN the class too (which is why i got in the habit of not actually looking at names on assignments until i was done grading them), and they were talkative and enthusiastic and the entire thing was pretty awesome.
ice cream
LOVE IT. I had a bit of an ice cream fest here when i got back from Japan last year. I used to love mint chocolate chip the absolute best, and then they started making all those cracked out flavors with bits in them, and, well, right now my favorite is probably one called Moose Tracks? Its vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and moose tracks fudge. MMMMMM. I'm pretty much a sucker for any kind though. It's terrible because my dad's house always has a couple of cartons in the fridge and i simply cannot resist having a bowl almost every night when I'm visiting there. (which is actually why i don't buy it most of the time - temptation! evil!)
wow, ok, i can type apparently. anybody surprised? :D
lostgirlslair - Comment to this post, and I'll give you seven topics to talk about, which you then post your LJ, and so the meme spreads.She gave me: Favorite ever fanfic, sushi (requested by
mrtwstedwhsprs ;-), Los Angeles, Japan from a tourist prospective, favorite graphic tool, favorite class, and... ice creamFavorite ever fanfic
OMG HARDEST THING EVER. I tend to wear out the fanfics I love, and I have kind of favorite for every pairing, or every mood, or I'm nostalgically fond of fics because they were the first to pop my cherry in a variety of ways. Off the top of my head, though, here are top three? oh gods, but seriously, this is just... i mean, i could honestly name a fic for every frigging fandom i've ever read and still wouldn't feel like i'm being completely forthright. GAH.
Reremous & Tabaqui's No More Snakes & Ladders is like the definition of hurt comfort goodness that you can sink your teeth into. I used to read it a couple of times a year until i made artwork for it (which entailed reading every chapter three or four times to get the images and quotes right, so, um, kinda burned all the words into my brain). If you've never read it, go read it right now. Spander. NC17 (very)
Seperis' (this is) Not a Statement is like the hurtiest weird unspoken hot adorable uncomfortable Kradam fic and I love it with a weird devoted longing that makes me almost blush. Something about what goes unsaid and how she goes about making it unsaid makes this story work for me, and I've reread it like, i don't even want to know. American Idol S8 Kradam. NC17.
Saras' Girl's Reparations and then Foundations is just this stunning epic emotional thing that is sweet and yet not utterly saccharine, has a beautiful storyline without falling into the major hearts and flowers, just really great characterizations and again, something I've read multiple times that just holds my attention. Harry/Draco, Reparations = PG, Foundations = R/NC17
sushi
I love sushi. My biggest disappointment last summer going to Japan was that I felt uneasy going to get kaitenzushi (sushi fast food, basically) because of the whole 3.11 thing. (and no, i know it wasn't rational, but it was the way i felt, so I didn't eat any). I do love a good ikura roll, but i can't do them often in the US because US sushi restaurants pack their rolls like it was a competition to see how much can get stuffed into one thing (and I may have a big mouth, but it's too small for that). I despise california rolls with a passion - don't like the taste, don't like crab, and particularly don't like the whole crab-salady-mayo thing going in most american-based places that serve these. No, give me some good nigiri sushi - Maguro (tuna), or Unagi (eel) with a lovely bit of sauce, or Otoro (fatty tuna) or I can eat like plates and plates of hamachi. I've sadly not had much of an opportunity to ever go to the places that would do some of the rare or unusual types of seasonal sushi - kasugo (sea breem) or anago (conger eel) are supposed to be really good. Perhaps someday!!!
Los Angeles
LA to me right now means sunny afternoons walking the dog around the neighborhood, the smell of warm flowers wafting as pass the multicolored houses. LA is that panoramic view I get to see every couple of days when the dog is willing to walk up the *steep* hill so we can get to the top and look towards the ocean. There are a lot of towers and buildings and houses between it and my little corner of this city, but when I get up there and see the sparkle off the glass windows, the white of Griffith Park Observatory poking up from the hills of the park around it, the Hollywood sign in jittery joy standing alongside, I grin. LA is driving every day, hunting for parking in the neighborhood north of USC every morning, is cold breezes in the shadows even on the warm afternoons. It's a city where the possibility of a rainy day is an excuse to move a night of drinking up (from Sat to Fri) so we won't have to go out of doors in the wet. It's not that we'll melt, but just that it rains so rarely we usually use it as an excuse to stay in, curl up with a blanket, drink warm drinks, and watch it come down from the sky. LA doesn't sleep, but it also doesn't cohere - it's not one big city but a million little ones all tentatively connected by proximity and by roads. A million little stores and nooks and crannies, some unexpectedly open on sunday, some brightly graffitied by artists whose names i recognize from searching art blogs. LA, my corner of LA, is like the $1.25 bunch of daffodils i picked up from Trader Joes the other day - kept in the cold refrigerator away from water they stay buds, with potential, but put in a glass jar with cold water, just waiting to burst open with crazy yellow color.
Japan from a tourist prospective
HMMM, I have to say out of all the countries I have visited as a tourist, Japan is the most helpful. Granted I've mostly been in the Tokyo area, which is like the cosmopolitan-iest city of cities, so it's not like they're unused to travelers, but I love how everyone will actually help. How local police are stationed in these little police boxes basically to give out directions (to you and to Japanese natives who also aren't going to find their way). How even at the train station people will help you figure out your proper platform. The first time I went it was simultaneously like all the books I'd read and all the pictures I'd seen and not that way at all. Which, I think, is kind of what you want when you're touristing, right? Places to go that will both surprise you and remind you of what you already know; people that will help you find your way when you're lost; things that feel new constantly rubbing up against things that feel old in surprisingly pleasing ways. Granted, it can be really expensive, really really fast. But it's also relatively easy to find decent cheap entertainments and food, too. The only thing I'm not too sure about is lodging having never had to look for short term.
favorite graphic tool
Gotta be layer mask, once I figured out what the hell it was. it also too me so long to figure out quick mask that i hardly ever remember to use it. but i think probably every file of every graphic i've ever made has a layer mask in it of some kind.
favorite class
another totally tough one!!! because some classes i loved for the people in them more than the class itself. others i loved for the work i did in them. others for the readings i got to read. My favorite classes are ones where I have someone to fight with who I respect, and enough of a balance of other people in it that it's not just them and me fighting all the time, but enough that I feel like we all get something out of it. OTOH, when I really consider it, probably my favorite class is the one I first got to TA with my favorite professor in Austin that was on adaptations of Japanese classics. I got to take the class, but teach it too, and worked so closely with my professor and we were so in sync that it was just awesome. Some of my friends were actually IN the class too (which is why i got in the habit of not actually looking at names on assignments until i was done grading them), and they were talkative and enthusiastic and the entire thing was pretty awesome.
ice cream
LOVE IT. I had a bit of an ice cream fest here when i got back from Japan last year. I used to love mint chocolate chip the absolute best, and then they started making all those cracked out flavors with bits in them, and, well, right now my favorite is probably one called Moose Tracks? Its vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and moose tracks fudge. MMMMMM. I'm pretty much a sucker for any kind though. It's terrible because my dad's house always has a couple of cartons in the fridge and i simply cannot resist having a bowl almost every night when I'm visiting there. (which is actually why i don't buy it most of the time - temptation! evil!)
wow, ok, i can type apparently. anybody surprised? :D
