Today I'm going to post my Sims stuff again! I know how excited you all are. Really. x) loosma has been posting her sims and it's gotten me in the mood to post mine too! :D Feel free to pass over this obscenely nerdy entry and pursue subjects that don't have anything to do with computer games that are basically like barbie dolls for grown-ups.

( Pics behind the cut! Several pics, you have been warned! )

If you have never been to babb_chronicles, you must go. Go now. It is absolutely hilarious and has given me endless hours of entertainment. Follow the cut for the example of bad!fic from the comm and major lulz.

( This has not been edited in any way. I swear. )


*DIES*

I'm going to see The Killers tonight with my best friend! *is excited* And then I'm going to be staying with him until Sunday night, so it will be all kinds of fun. I'm sure I will be missing checking my flist though. At least I'll have a ton to read when I get back. :D

You know, trying to follow canon is not as easy a job as one might think. You can take vigorous notes on the characters and do an awesome job with them. You can write down all the words that should be capitalized that the Lexicon is totally not clear on. You can mark what Harry calls Remus once Remus is not a Prof. anymore, and you can make sure that Draco Malfoy really does utter such common words as "d'you" and "reckon." But you cannot, no matter how hard you try, make sense of JKR's under-age magic rules. I love you, Jo, really, I do, but why must you be so confusing?

In CoS Dobby does a simple Hover Charm and Harry is immediately told off by the Ministry. Also, we are led to believe that it is not exactly the under-age magic that tips the Ministry off, but simply magic being used in an area where magic should not be being used. The wording of the Ministry's letter suggests this, since they never actually say that Harry performed the charm, but rather that a charm was simply detected and, unless I am very much mistaken, Mr. Weasley (I believe) says something like it's really up to the parents in the cases of under-age magic to keep their children in line.

In PoA, Harry blows Aunt Marge up but he's let off the hook for that one. So we can skip forward to GoF when Arthur comes to get Harry and ends up having to blast the Dursleys' living room in half and do quite a bit more magic after that. Now, Harry wasn't sent any letters this time, but perhaps the Ministry knew that Arthur was going to be there. He works for them after all, and he did have to connect the Dursleys to the Floo network. It's plausible, so this instance of magic at the Dursley's can pass as well.

It gets considerably sticky in OotP. Harry's guard shows up on Privet Drive to take him to Number 12 - which the Ministry definitely doesn't know about, since they had it out for Harry at the time and were not at all on friendly terms with Dumbledore - and Tonks does several spells while there. No letters from the Ministry arrive, and they would have been looking for magic at the Dursleys' to pin on Harry. So...perhaps it's not magic in the general area that tips the Ministry off? Okay, then it must be the Trace set only upon under-age wiards, correct? Oh...but Dobby isn't an under-age wizard. Dobby isn't a wizard at all. So what I deduce from this is that wizards who are 17 and older are not traceable by the Ministry. People that are traceable - right down to the very spell that was used - are under-age wizards and...house-elfs. Hmmm. It is the only logic I can find in this mess, and I'm still quite sure it doesn't make sense.

Gee, I can't wait to reach the re-reading of HBP and DH and wonder why anyone bothers with Floo Powder when there is Side-Along Apparation.

I hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas yesterday, and I hope everyone who doesn't celebrate that had a gorgeous holiday of their own.

Personally, my Christmas was awesome. I got far more than I expected (or probably deserve) and it was wonderful indeed (thank you, family, thank you!). Playstation3 ftw! Yes, I'm still 13 years old and my family apparently knows this about me. :D Another of my presents was The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which is adorable IMO. I just finished reading it about five minutes ago. Best parts are the Dumbledore notes and the interesting few little questions answered that I had always wondered about canon.

So, yay Christmas and presents!

I swear to God I am getting far too picky. I've got a long list of things that will drive me nuts inside a fic that have cropped up only in the last year or so, and they aren't even things that are big deals. For example, I don't even like reading what color Harry's eyes are anymore, especially if they're described as being emerald green. Nor do I like reading Draco's eyes as sparking silver or smoky gray. I don't particularly care for any other romanticized description either. Simply using "eyes" will suffice. We know what color they are. Whenever these descriptions pop up in fic I get terribly unwelcome pictures in my head of fangirls drooling on their keyboards as they imagine these hot, mysterious men who do not resemble the canon characters at all. The pictures come because I used to use those descriptions and I was a fangirl drooling on my keyboard as I imagined these hot, mysterious men not resembling canon characters at all. :| Not that people who write like that are actually drooling fangirls, it's just what comes up in my brain and my head shouts DO NOT WANT. It is disheartening, especially since it never bothered me before. WTF, self?

Oh, writing, I love you. I love you far more than you could possibly ever know, but you have seriously damaged my ability to relax inside fandom stories. *sigh*

As much as I really did love DH overall, and as much as I was glad to get rid of Horcrux plots, lately, I find myself sad that DH came out. I miss pre-DH fandom, when Harry still had this great and terrible destiny and Draco somehow got stuck at Number 12. And I miss being excited. I find it highly unlikely that anything will ever, ever give me the same kind of excitement as waiting for the next Harry Potter book.

Melancholy post is melancholy.

With my time incredibly limited on my computer as of late, I still manage to do a meme >_>. Hey, it involves hot guys so as far as I'm concerned, I'm allowed. ;)

I don't remember who I got this meme from. I do know it was from someone on my flist, but I don't have time to go and look.

The challenge was to post 20 men you lust after. I couldn't think of twenty! But here are the ones that made my list:

( Image heavy! )

Gosh, I am so incredibly attracted to Hugh Laurie. What is it with me and older guys lately?? <_<

My mother is so infuriating. Her and other women like her are the reason women are still oppressed in this day and age. She allows it and she thinks it's right. I don't understand her and sometimes I want to strangle her.

That is all.

So I was going through old CDs to import to my iTunes and I popped in two Linkin Park CDs I have. I still like them a lot, just haven't listened to them in forever and I was struck by how very well they seem to fit Harry, lol. Like, almost all the songs fit him to an extent. I could totally see him listening to Linkin Park and being able to relate and liking them. They're a little bit hard rock, a little bit soft and it just fits Harry completely, IMO.

I don't know what Draco would listen to. Nothing Muggle, certainly. That's just so unbecoming of a Malfoy. But if he were to listen to something Muggle I wonder what it would be. Hmmm.

How do you guys distinguish purple prose from descriptive writing? I mean, I know how to spot the obvious:

Jane swept her nimble fingers over the ebony and ivory keys, her eyes having fallen gently shut as she allowed the sweet seduction of the melody to grasp her senses and hold them captive.

*barfs*

But what about, say, setting up a scene? Is it too much to talk about everything a character sees, hears, and feels? At least in that moment, while you're showing the reader where the character is at? Or is what makes the difference using words and sentences that your character would be likely to use, even if it is descriptive?

I've looked at stuff online, but, of course, everyone has something different to say.

Thoughts?

Hi, guys! *waves*

So, I just got back from a rather unexpected 'vacation' last night. I say 'vacation' because it was incredibly unpleasant.

( Cut for tl;dr. )

I've got pages of flist to go back and read, so that should keep me busy for a while, and I've also seen that I've been tagged for a meme by slashpervert, so I'll go ahead and do that now.

( Meme!:D )

That's all, folks!

Okay, so I am seriously excited for Breaking Dawn (Twilight #4 for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about), despite the fact that it is going to be nothing but compete and utter FAIL.

( Cut for very possible spoilers. )

WHAT A PILE OF FUN!!!! Anyone else going to the midnight release? Eh? Eh? FYI, I really am excited ... like really. It's going to be fail, but I will read every word and love every second of it. I'm not sure what kind of love it is, but love's love, right?

Everyone know the picture war/thingy going on between ficcers and fanartists? Yeah, totally slow on the uptake, but I'm here! All the way on the bottom on the last page.

:D

Why can I never explain myself well? D:

Chris Martin, please marry me. You know, despite the fact that you're already married to Gwyneth Paltrow. Or at least come to my house so I can lock you in my closet and make you sing to me. *_*

Okay.

So, I've probably got the strangest taste in men ever. Well, probably not ever, but it's still pretty strange. Not that I think it's strange, it's just that other people tell me I'm strange. You get it.

( Click here to read my nonsense! )