Hi guys

[farla]

Despite available evidence, I'm still not dead.

Although actually if I was dead you guys would probably be the second or so group to know about it. So it's more that I haven't been kidnapped or in a coma. I'd hope, anyway, if I came out of a coma to find out Mom's told you guys stuff I'd be pretty upset.

Wow this is morbid.

So anyway, yeah. I've just been stressed about other stuff and avoiding everything. Sorry, no good reason for any of it. Now to get to work on all the stuff I have to do and people I have to contact now.

Speaking of things that aren't dead, the rats are still doing well despite all our hopes and plans. Does anyone know if we can leave them out once it gets below freezing? They're living in a pretty good brushpile and have access to plenty of nesting material, but they're elderly pet albino rats, so I'm dubious of their survival capabilities. Although they've been outdoing the chickens by a fair margin so far.

Comments

[bay115.livejournal.com]

Comas and kidnapping are never good things, lol. Welcome back nonetheless, though.

As for your rat question, not sure but I think so. Have your rats very been outside during winter before? If so, I think they should be able to adapt to the cold once more. Your area should be able to have rats already able to handle cold winters, most likely. Also, you said the rats outdid the chickens, so they should be fine.

[farla.livejournal.com]

No, to the best of my knowledge they've never been outside at all before this summer. They are pretty chubby little guys though.

^__________^

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

Yay, good to see you again! Not that it wasn't fun playing "Spot the Farla" on the Homestuck anon meme. I should probably shoot you an email sometime, huh?

I always kept my babies indoors, and we don't have real winters here anyway, so I'm afraid I don't know!

Re: ^__________^

[farla.livejournal.com]

>_> ...now I'm wondering how many times I managed to get under the radar there. (I have no idea how well I spotted you there, but seeing you on the prompt meme was fun.) And sure, though I warn you I suck about as much at answering email as I do the rest of this.

Yeah, we usually deal with this stuff by keeping everybody inside. It gets cold enough sometimes the cats have trouble, so I'm not sure about smaller animals. I'd try setting their cage up on the porch and catching them but I think a brushpile against the ground is probably warmer than a cage on a wooden deck. Plus they were always sickly and wheezing in the cage, so even if it is warmer I'm not sure it'd be an improvement or just get them killed from lung problems.

Re: ^__________^

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

Oh, have you been reading my stuff? I would love to get reviews on some of my fics from you sometime. I've taken to posting them on AO3, because Sarasvati converted me. Though of course I'll still throw things onto FF.net if they are things that have their own category there. I'm kind of a glutton for exposure.

Speaking of Sarasvati, I am quite happy with how many good writers have come into the fandom since the last time we talked Homestuck fic.

Um. I should probably warn you that there is some possibility that that girl you had a bit of an altercation with has figured out who you are. She PMed me to complain about what a bitch you are, and I had to tell her that you're a friend of mine, and also that you aren't from the forums or formspring. On the other hand, due to a failure of reading comprehension, I think she may still believe you are the person who outed themselves in this post.

She is no longer on my friends list. She may be kind of bitter at me right now, and she would have every reason to be. So, yeah.

Re: ^__________^

[farla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been avidly following all the memes, but just doing "yay good story" level stuff. I'm thinking of going through and (nicely!) reviewing Homestuck stuff once I finish other obligations, so soon maybe?

Oh well, figured that was kind of inevitable and as you say, I'm not on the forums so it doesn't matter. You replied to me when I complained about the term bitch, and I went on to say that same stuff directly to her a lot anyway, and then she thought there was only one person so I figured sooner or later she'd condense everything into one person. I talked to her once before on the whatpumpkin community and she's pretty high strung/prone to misunderstanding even what I though were heavily qualified comments so it's unlikely we'd have ever gotten along even with my best efforts.

I do feel bad for her as a person, I could see exactly why she's playing the character that way but...god, hate that character so incredibly much and the fact bits are getting into general fanon even more, and her defense of it just made it even worse.

Re: ^__________^

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of going through and (nicely!) reviewing Homestuck stuff once I finish other obligations, so soon maybe?

Yay!

And... yeah. Yeah, that pretty much covers it. I am really not proud of myself for a lot of reasons right now, and that's really all there is to say on the matter.

Re: ^__________^

[farla.livejournal.com]

Sorry.

Re: ^__________^

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

It's not your fault at all. I'd had my doubts from the beginning whether I could really be a proper friend to her. It's just as well the final straw was now and not another six months later when I'd have had even more to regret.

[wintersheir]

Yo dawg, how's school?

[farla.livejournal.com]

It's schooly! I'm taking a shitty English writing class about how if someone complains about your writing it's your ~style~ and a cool Biology writing class about writing coherently.

English class is moving to poetry, so I'm planning on writing something generic, running it through translation party, and claiming it's high art.

Or as my classmates will hear it, I made a poem out of English class, my translator, I must have been a common explanation in the classroom can be derived from innovation.

You?

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

You are amazing. Just thought you should know that.

[farla.livejournal.com]

^_^ My classmates may disagree, but that's what they get for saying proper critique is to find something the person's done right and encourage them to put more of that in.

[bay115.livejournal.com]

^_^ My classmates may disagree, but that's what they get for saying proper critique is to find something the person's done right and encourage them to put more of that in.

How about the teacher? Will she say the same thing? Or she just doesn't care about writing proper poetry anymore? D:

[farla.livejournal.com]

She's the one who started all the bullshit with her "if someone says something critical about a piece of your writing and you don't want to change it, that means it's your ~style~ and you should make it a centerpiece of your writing" introduction to concrit. Oh, and if people point out something they hated, that means you did a good job and should put more of it in the next thing you wrote because the most important thing is getting a ~reaction~.

Also she made us do this bullshit exercise where we basically played poetry mad libs for an hour then cooed over how "imaginative" the results were. I can write shitty nonsense fine by myself without spending an hour on it. It's a fucking writing course, we don't need to be doing intro exercises to get people over their fear of words on a paper, by fucking definition people signed up because they wanted to write shit. So if she wants to waste my time in class with what a computer could generate, she's getting computer generated poetry.

[bay115.livejournal.com]

Wow, just wow. :/

In short, if I ever had to deal with a writing teacher like that, I'll be doing computer generated writing too.

[farla.livejournal.com]

She's pretty young, I think she's trying to be encouraging and stuff. We're also reading short stories and they're all awful. You know that generic English class reading, the one about the randomness of life with some sex and death mixed in, and maybe a bit of people-acting-bizarre-and-not-like-people dabbed on top and called surreal? She keeps assigning those and acting like she expects it to blow our tiny minds.

It's a pretty easy course though, and she hasn't picked up on the fact that while yes, I'm writing as she talks, it's generally something else entirely.

[charizamdc.livejournal.com]

because the most important thing is getting a ~reaction~.

...So, when you say young, you mean she's about five, right?

[farla.livejournal.com]

It's a sadly common viewpoint among some groups that things like "reader enjoyment" or "plot" or "legibility" are irrelevant. It's sort of a thing where writing is all looked at from the perspective of the writer, who already knows what they meant to say and finds it more interesting to do weird stuff mutilating the story structure, and doesn't care about the reader beyond this an almost passive-aggressive trolling.

Also shows up all the time in comic interviews and with some TV writing, because people are under the impression it's better to be hated than for people not to have any strong feeling. It's stupid, but unfortunately it's not rare.

[wintersheir]

BAHAHAHAHAHAH. Oh man. That is comedy gold. You must share with us the fruits of your Babelfishing. I forget what you're doing, was it an english degree?

I miss your chikkins. :( Bawk bawk bawk.

I went crazy and moved across the country to do engineering. It's mildly difficult.

[farla.livejournal.com]

No, biology. Because bullshitting my way to an English degree might be easy, but then I'd have an English degree.

We're down to one chicken now, actually. Whole area's been reinforced with chicken wire so hopefully it's finally secure.

Engineering? Ack. Best of luck with that.

[actonthat.livejournal.com]

Because bullshitting my way to an English degree might be easy, but then I'd have an English degree.

I figured "I wouldn't mind being a teacher" was enough to convince me to go the easy route.

Your way was probably smarter.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Well, it'd have been more tempting if it wasn't that I hate children, or at least dealing with ones I'm not allowed to hit.

And if I was a upper grade teacher my coworkers would be other English teachers and then it's all "Let's talk about how awesome Charles Dickens is!!!!" and then I'm under investigation for arson.

[psychmoonshadow.livejournal.com]

And it's the little things like the above that make me realize how much I missed having you around.

Your teacher sounds absolutely...peachy, really. Please do tell of her reaction if/when you give her computer-generated poetry. :)

~Psychic

[negrek.livejournal.com]

Woo, biology represent! (And good to see you back, of course. I'd been wondering.)

[razorleaf.livejournal.com]

Good to see you're alive and kicking. (Authors, I hope?) Talking about things that aren't dead, people are still commenting to the capitalization thread and saying the exact same thing other people have been saying before them. Reading skills, dude, reading skills.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm thinking of making yet another capitalization thread with a list of banned arguments. I don't know what the hell is with the subject and people assuming that their personal feelings on the matter are completely unique and no one could possibly have mentioned them before.

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking of you whenever I've come across bad (now that's redundant) Halloween fic this month. Yay, Farla becoming undead would make a much better story. And poor you with that poetry class. People who use the word 'art' as an explanation just kill me.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Halloween fic meaning bad horror or "And then Ash went to the costume party!!!!"?

Well, the class isn't all bad. I'm getting in some quality fanfic writing time.

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

That's how I think of school too.