I have held back no water in its season

So, I have filled my invite request list and still have two DW codes free! Anyone want them? Taken!

In other news, it keeps coming to my attention that OpenID intimidates people. It shouldn't. It's exactly like any other log-in, only easier.

To do my bit for a distributed internet, allow me to offer the following extremely simple, step-by-step (there are only two) directions for using OpenID on DW:

1) Go here and enter your LJ/IJ/JF/etc. username (like this: branchandroot.livejournal.com).

2) When the confirmation page comes up, click on "yes, always".

That's it! You're logged in, congratulations. Go comment or make an flist or load a userpic or whatever.

Now, to be really spiffy, you can add a third step.

3) Go here and enter an email address. When you get the confirmation email, click the link to validate.

Now you can receive email notification of replies to comments you make while you're logged in like this.

To log in again, just go back to that first linked page (which is also linked from the log-in form with the handy text "log in via OpenID") and enter username.livejournal.com again. Because you selected "yes, always", you won't even have to deal with the confirmation page again, because it's now automatic. For greatest ease, check the little box on the "welcome back" page that says "remember me".

OpenID is not arcane. It's just another log-in. Only easier.

*claps hands* Okay! DW open beta is here, and I have my first fistful of invite codes!

My list currently stands at:

takerzmuse
haruyuki (lj)
kemis
netmouse (lj)
the_rck

If any of you have already gotten a code (if, frex, you had a validated OpenID before open beta kicked off) could you let me know? And if not, let me know if you still need a code? And I'll get one right off!

*bounces off, excited*

Okay, it's time for me to move my IJ content over to DW.

I will also be moving my posting over to DW.

Alas, the new crossposter doesn't support filters yet and may not for a few months to come. So I won't be crossposting at once.

I'll be more than happy to put any IJ people who want a DW account to read with on my invite code list, to be executed in a bit less than a week!

Any IJ people who don't want to get a DW account can still read my locked and filtered posts over there, of course. All you need is a "reading account" (aka OpenID).

( Directions follow; they're simple )

Of course, one of the things cooking at DW is the ability to read your whole flist from LJ or IJ or etc, even the locked posts, on your DW reading list. I will be so geeked when that one comes out. And Squeaky is thinking of maybe switching IJ to run the DW codebase, so you could, hopefully, read fpages from other services right here eventually! Progress is so cool.

*wails* My post! My comments!

*sits down and sulks mightily*

Notice: This is a repost of an entry; the first was cruelly devoured in a crossposting glitch and all the lovely comments with it. If anyone wants to comment again or more I will be perfectly pleased to carry on the conversations.

So, here’s the thing. I’m all in favor of having books that are id-candy, brain-fluff, that demand nothing from your intellect and instead go straight on to punch your emoporn joybuttons.

This is, after all, why I own three quarters of everything Mercedes Lackey has ever published.

But, first off, id-candy is a different thing from good writing. The joybuttons don’t care about bad grammar or triteness or slop, they just resonate to the character shapes that hit one’s kinks. Kinks are often trite and cliche, when you think about it. Id-candy is enjoyable exactly because it doesn’t make your brain engage, it doesn’t deal in subtleties, it doesn’t make you do any work. To get enjoyment out of genuinely artful prose, you generally have to think, to ponder even, to put in some work.

Saying that you enjoy your id-candy immensely and saying that your id-candy is great writing are very different statements. Among other things, the first is true and the second generally isn’t. (Unless you’re using a completely Utilitarian definition of “good”, and when people try to compare Rowling and Tolkien it is unfortunately clear that they are not employing such a definition at all.)

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying the hell out of trite, cliched slop, of course.

Let us consider Misty, for example. She’s the Queen of Exposition, has a tendency to extremely moralistic and preachy narrative, and drives home her morals with a ten pound sledge. She is guilty of the most egregious cultural flattening and caricaturization and the only thing that comforts me even minutely is that she does it to everyone, whitebread, ‘noble savage’ and orientalist alike. (I maintain that Ancient Egypt should take out a restraining order on the woman.) Her characters are flat, their angst is repetitive, and half the time the stories read like SCA handbooks instead of novels.

Nevertheless–three quarters, right there on my shelf, and I reread handfuls of them at fairly regular intervals. This is because they are excellent brain-fluff emoporn.

Also because they are not toxic. Her moralism can get wearing awfully fast, but at least they are morals I can agree with. Mostly.

That’s the second thing. You have to be careful of the id-candy that uses a moral framework that’s harmful to you.

The Twilight books are a prime example of this. The writing is no worse than most id-candy, but the value system those books are hung on is poison. It’s misogynist, racist, deterministic, conflates obsession and stalking with love, and runs the mobius strip of nihilism and femininity myths at full speed with special emphasis on death by/for childbirth. (I would not want to be this woman’s therapist, not without hazard pay). This id-candy has a razor blade in it.

Some people probably bemoan the loss of innocent fun now that we chop up Halloween candy before eating it to make sure there aren’t any evil surprises in it. I expect some people feel the same about their id-candy. But, you know, I’d much rather take the time to chop and evaluate than swallow a needle.

Since I've seen a number of odd notions running around lately, I figured I'd post some quick explanations.

DW is not a clone. It is a fork, like a fork in the road you know? It means starting from the same code but then changing it. In the case of DW, this means both cool new features (which may well also pop up on LJ given the extent of cross-site brainstorming already taking place) but also a lot of major re-writing of the code that won't be visible to most users but will allow more cool new things to be done in the future.

DW is not elite. No, seriously. What DW currently is is broken. It is under construction. That's why registration is not open yet and invites have gone out only to those known to have a reasonably strong interest in the project (who hopefully therefore know about the unfinished parts and won't mind helping test them, sometimes catastrophically). If a hypothetical reader wishes to convince me that being unable to flush the virtual toilet yet is elite... I'm sorry, but no. Pull the other one, it's got bells on. In about two weeks the major construction should be finished and anyone who wants to risk the virtual breaker tripping when you turn on the virtual microwave or virtually sitting on wet paint will be able to venture in.

Users will not, once the site is actually open, ever need an invite to create an account.

Users will need an invite to create a free account. This is because DW does not use ads to support the service (which costs money, after all) and therefore must have a way to make sure that there are only as many unpaid users as the paid users can support. Corollary to this...

( Read on for further examples )

As for any personal accusations against the owners, based on Denise's time working on the LJ Abuse team, I suggest anyone who has genuine concerns read the diversity statement, the guiding principles, the FAQ and the business FAQ. It's best to get things from the horse's mouth and make up your own mind.

So it looks as though free, official streams is the up and coming anime distribution mode.

Not only do we have the experiment at Crunchyroll.net, the new Fullmetal Alchemist series is being streamed, subbed, a bit less than a week after each episode airs, at Funimation.com. Having watched it, I think it may be worth waiting a few days for. The quality of translation is actually higher than the fansubs that came out more quickly. (And thank goodness the commercial concerns have finally figured out that sub fans tend to prefer minimal ‘cultural translation’.)

Presumably this is supposed to pay for itself via advertising, kind of like network television, and also provide a market draw for the permanent media (download and dvd) sales. I hope it works out, because this seems to me to be a very positive direction for anime distribution to take. Certainly the approach of licensing for permanent media distributed months or years after the series airs and is fansubbed has signally, and predictably, failed. A prompt, high quality, free release in a medium not easily recordable, certainly not at anything approaching original quality, followed by reasonably prompt sale of individual episodes alongside dvd collections has certainly worked for domestic television shows. I see no reason it shouldn’t work as well for anime.

For those who want to watch these versions, bookmark the show page.

There are times when I really wonder about Amano, and this issue was one of them.

Spoilers ahead, of course.

She had an opportunity to do some really good character interaction and development, here, and she made it about halfway. Bianchi, as the voice of older experience, provides a frame for the idiocy the boys have recently been displaying; through her eyes we see all the younger characters in perspective, with sympathy for their emotional dilemmas and uncertainties but also a clear understanding that they are acting foolishly and immaturely. Through Bianchi’s prodding, Tsuna actually gets his head out of his ass and realizes that he’s been very selfish in his attempts to ’shelter’ the girls, and tells Kyouko what’s going on. Kyouko, in her turn, provides some much needed insight into the relation between Tsuna and his box. This is all lovely, and pretty sophisticated narrative.

Unfortunately, it’s undercut by the other things going on this issue.

The most bizarre one is the juxtaposition of explicit fanservice, in The Bath Scene, with Bianchi’s mature-person explanation. The combination of the wound over Chrome’s back and the shot of her bare ass was especially peculiar. Through the whole thing, over against the emotional and psychological complications, we have the kind of deliberate full-body nudity shots one expects to find at the start of an ecchi manga. The text-subtext clash was weird and distracting, and I have to wonder why Amano chose that particular setting and emphasis. Bathing scenes can be done in a non-fanservice way easily enough. Why did this moment of wisdom and insight need to be so explicitly sexualized, hm?

Then there’s the girls’ reaction to Bianchi’s explanation, which boils down to “Yes, the boys are being selfish and immature, but they’re manly to do so; let’s not try to hold them accountable any more and instead continue to enable their domestic helplessness”. Once again, the girls’ actions get used as comedy and not to actually spur significant action or development. Bianchi has to lie about what’s really happening to spark Tsuna’s realizations, which has the structural effect of emphasizing only his emotional growth. This badly undercut Kyouko’s display of insight regarding the Vongola box; I was very disappointed, because her character deserves better than to be a two dimensional yamato nadeshiko.

I didn’t find the aforementioned domestic helplessness particularly amusing, either. The reinforcement of exclusive gendered spheres makes me gag. The events of this issue would make a perfect set-up for allowing both the boys and the girls to learn and contribute a little something across those lines, but I do not, for one instant, believe Amano will take the opportunity. The way she handled this issue indicates nothing but a desire to wear the main characters even deeper into their gendered segregation.

Amano, get a grip on your Issues, please.

My response to TRC/Holic is pretty steady these days, and consists of something along the lines of: WTF Clamp?! I mean, the mother named the same thing as the soulmate was bad enough, but now we’re way into the weird spiritual incest and/or masturbation realm. And still no ending in sight. *sighs*

Naruto, on the other hand, is looking interesting, despite the continuing obliteration of the moral and psychological dynamics from the first two-thirds (ie teamwork). It looks like we may be shaping up for a round of “You use that word a lot…”. I am still wondering where the hell Sasuke et al are and how exactly he and/or Madara are going to play into this. I mean, the most emotionally satisfying thing would be for the current trio to break the pattern of the past trios and actually redeem the poor guy, but I’m becoming increasingly unconvinced of Kishimoto’s dedication to satisfying endings.

Bleach… well, now, I have mixed feelings this week. The Ulquiorra-Inoue dynamic got some halfway decent continuation, but little closure. He remains rather a mystery. I don’t actually object to that, but the way that dynamic crossed with the Ulquiorra-Ichigo was… distracting. There’s a lot of development happening, but it all seems to be subterranean. I’m hoping that soon we will get some greater in-action explication.

Fic post from my archive.

It's the Motion

Gokudera thinks it's unfair how good Yamamoto looks on a motorcycle; Yamamoto thinks it's the perfect opportunity. Written for DW's inaugural comment porn meme with the prompt: Yamamoto/Gokudera, motorcycles as aphrodisiacs. Porn without Plot, I-4

It was easier, Hayato decided, when Yamamoto was actually driving the motorcycle. And it was easier because Yamamoto was an idiot, and liked to do silly, flashy moves, and it was easy to roll his eyes at someone popping a wheelie and laughing like a kid.

The hard part was when Yamamoto was holding still on the damn thing. And the hardest part was keeping his eyes away from long, long legs spread casually over a sleek machine and not, not, looking at the way worn denim pulled taut over Yamamoto's thighs.

So, as Dreamwidth approaches the next big production step, I thought it would be worthwhile to make a post about this thing that comes next.

Next is open beta.

Open beta is NOT site launch.

Contrary to what Microsoft has tried to train the public to think for lo these many long years, "open beta" does not equal "stable product". Open beta is the smoke test. It's when we say "this seems pretty stable and the big things are done, it's time to load it up and jump up and down on it and see where the smoke comes out so we can fix that before actual product launch".

Site launch, in another handful of months, is what will declare "yes, this product is stable". Site launch is where we say "okay, this is a (though not the because we keep developing) stable product, this is version 1.0, we're open for all public business".

So, for those who are thinking of coming in during open beta, remember, not everything will be done. Not everything will work. It is just about certain that we will break something as we jump up and down on it at full load. Because that's what open beta means.

Come ahead, intrepid testers and explorers! Just remember this is not Microsoft and no one is pretending that it's all done and ready yet.

*contemplative* I am unsure quite what I think.

The visual style is very similar but more… flexible? It definitely partakes more of the manga Arakawa-version superdeformed style, which I’m not really partial to. I’ll have to see if the animated style really takes with me or not. The detail of the motion is definitely a plus, though.

I can get used to Miki doing Musting. He and Ohkawa both have that flex to their voicing of Mustang, so there’s a reasonable continuity. The one major difference touches on the one thing I’m very unsure of, though.

The characters aren’t as sharp. At least in this pilot episode, neither Ed nor Roy have the edge that the first series provided. A big part of that is the script; there’s just more slapstick going on. And I loved that edge, it was probably the thing that topped the list of “why I totally love this show”.

So, while I think it will be absolutely fascinating to see the manga storyline animated (supposing that is the goal), I don’t know if I will be as wildly in love with this second series as I was the first. I will hope otherwise, but we shall just have to see.

Lois remarked on a book she'd read, today, The Diet Myth by Paul Campos. She included a quote I thought was right on the money:

The weight loss industry exploits cultural anxieties about fat to sell its customers products that don't work, over and over again, by convincing those customers that it is *they* who are defective. The failure of these products is ascribed to the moral weakness of those who purchase them, thus allowing the cycle to go on indefinitely. But the situation is more complex than this. It takes a great deal of cultural distortion to cause normal market mechanisms to break down so completely (blaming your customers for the catastrophic failure of your products isn't usually considered a sound business practice.)

The obesity myth thrives in contemporary America because America is an eating-disordered culture. Moreover, the prime symptoms of this situation -- our increasing rates of "overweight", bulimia, and anorexia -- are also symptoms of, and have become metaphors for, a broader set of cultural anxieties...

And it's dreadfully true. The diet industry is more pernicious than the tobacco companies, not least because of all the other industries that have formed themselves around this bizarre notion that humans should be skinny. US culture has astonishingly unhealthy standards of "beauty", and I believe they tie directly into the equally unhealthy sedentary culture. After all, if it's obvious on the face of it that one is never going to look like the models/actors/athletes/etc. without truly heroic and life-busting measures, and probably not even then, why bother trying at all? The lack of a sensible or sane target and body-image promotes apathy, and the lack of results from the "diets" does the same. The results of random negative stimulus are well proven.

SAIUNKOKU MONOGATARI: PUBLISHER/FAN LOOKS INTO BUYING LICENSE TO TRANSLATE NOVELS.

Go vote in her/his interest-gauging poll if you have any interest in seeing the light novels published in English. And spread the word. Each volume has to sell a couple thousand copies to be cost-effective. Surely there are that many of us!

Our lovely co-owner has been watching the DW posts and put a post of her own together to answer some of the questions that have come up frequently.

DW fact sheet

Just to add a few of my own:

The current default journal style will not likely be the final default style. It's just the first one that got ported over completely! There are still a few bugs with it, as with all things during closed beta. (If anyone currently in testing wants to make use of the Core 2 Testing skin I made, instead, feel free to copy this into a theme layer.)

The default site scheme is still being poked at a bit, but it should be readable now at high res and low, no matter your font size.

On other topics, I'm interested to see the culture that's developing. A number of people are a lot more open in their posting and disclosure of identity. Being the web-cynic I am I hope this doesn't come back and bite anyone as time goes on, but right now it's all very bright and cheerful. Some people are using DW for a new start and some are importing all their history. Special interest comms are starting to pop up. There's still sawdust everywhere and the wallpaper isn't hung, but the roof seems to be on and the plumbing is working!

*giggling* So, Dreamwidth is having an inaugural comment-porn event, just for the fun of it. I've posted some prompts from the anime/manga side, if anyone wants to go and look or leave some more.

One of the benefits of being a friend of the author is: sometimes you get free books.

And this was quite a good free book, so I’m reviewing it. Not in hopes of getting a copy of the next one at all, of course. I’m much too high-minded for that kind of thing. *looks suitably virtuous*

( So let us consider The Stepsister Scheme, by Jim Hines. )

Dreamwidth's open beta is coming!

The date is set, and on April 30th the site will launch open beta on full production hardware. At that time, the one-time sale of seed accounts (permanent accounts for $200) will begin.

Invite codes for free accounts will be released as the site proves it can handle the load, but anyone who wants an account can also pay $3 for a month of paid time, after which the account may then be let to lapse back to free. Or, you know, keep it paid and get all the frills.

Some major things that are in the pipe for open beta: journal importing, entry crossposting between sites, the watch/access split of the friends list, expanded standardized options for journal styles so that you can pick based on the look you like instead of being limited by the functionality you want, vastly improved maintainer options for communities.

A lot of other functions will not be finished by open beta. There will still be rough edges to be sanded down and anyone who moves over completely at that time can expect a few bobbles. I have to say, though, I've been very impressed by the number and vigor of DW's working programmers, so bobbles should be steadied reasonably quickly.

For those who want to look around the current testing site, you can start from Denise's journal. Check out the comms, look at people's journals to see what the closed beta testers have done while they kick the tires. Sign in with OpenID, if you want, and you will have a stripped down (non-posting) account to poke around with.

(And if you don't like pink, well, I submitted three alternate site schemes today, and you can see the screenshots here: Celerity, Blueshift, Gradation.)

Dreamwidth promises to be a very cool thing, and a project committed to Open Source. The improvements Dreamwidth is making are available to everyone to use, including LiveJournal. In addition to simplifying the installation of the software, plans include the ability to port LJ-based databases into the Dreamwidth system, so that LJ-based sites can easily switch over if they wish. No restrictions, no fee, no hook (and no more mind-bendingly complicated and undocumented code). And we're going to have drafts and real hierarchical tagging and memories that work and exporting to pdf in whole or by time-span or tag and and and... *waves hands* cool stuff!

I'm enthused. You can tell.

Take a look around. The testing site and all the improvements you can read about in dw_news and the other comms have been accomplished in nine months. Just nine. In people's spare time, because almost everyone working on this has a day job too. And this? Is just the beginning.

I keep contemplating how the younger KHR characters got to their TYL selves, and what they are at that age and I think I want to jot this down.

Gokudera: Gokudera calms down as time goes on. This does not mean he becomes any less heart-bound to Tsuna, but as he becomes more confident of and secure in his place in the Family he stops needing to yell about it. The point at which Tsuna confirms that Gokudera is his right hand is the true turning point for this. As he calms, Gokudera becomes more efficient, his edge shows more clearly, and he starts to solidify a reputation quite separate from his old one of ‘feral punk’, one of absolute loyalty to Tsuna and his wishes and of complete incorruptibility–the Vongola’s feared right hand, as Gamma says. Given the ruthlessness we see in, for example, 61, I suspect that Gokudera becomes extremely dangerous as he becomes cooler and more effective, and that it is, in large part, only Tsuna’s kindness that restrains him.

( This ran rather long )

So, xie_xie_xie made a rather entertaining post about how to lure straying muses back, and solicited her flist for their own tactics. I thought this sounded fun, and why not spread it around?

I have to admit, my own best results seem to fall along the ‘challenge’ line too. My muses and I generally share a very strong “I could do that better” reflex, so one thing that often produces results is to hit the biggest comm for a given fandom and look for trends that outrage me. If I haven’t written anything lately to reverse the ukefication of some character, that’s usually a pretty good bet (see: Ed, Yukimura, Tsuna).

Chatting with a likeminded writer often works, too, sometimes beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Prime examples: Tennis Sanctuary, The Bond Between the Land and Sea. Once the rhythm of “would’t it be cool” and “yeah, and then…” gets going, the positive feedback resonance tends to boot things right along.

So what about other people?