![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaToday I set up the thirty gallon and moved my three baby goldfish. I taped tinfoil over one side to protect them from sunlight and made two caves out of rocks I collected from the beach.
I also put out the small bowl tank the larger beta used to be in. I filled it with chlorinated water because it had held elodea that was kept with wild pond fish and plants, to try to kill any diseases that might be lurking there.
The two other goldfish in the tall outside tank seem to have reached the limit of their growth. One of them is a great deal larger than the other, even though it was only a bit bigger when I put them both in. It chases the smaller one around when they eat, and I think that's why the smaller one isn't growing as fast. Once I move them all to a tank together, they should get along better.
I went with my mother to visit her friends at her old workplace, a college. Right before we left, we went into the greenhouse and got some duckweed and two water lettuce. I managed to get about a half gallon of duckweed, enough to completely cover the surface of the thirty-gallon tank with enough left to add a bit to the tall tank and keep some in reserve in case the goldfish eat it all. It'll clean the water, protect them from light and prevent them from jumping out, something I was worried about because we don't have a lid for that tank.
The larger beta seems to be enjoying having his tank all to himself. The blister, unfortunately, has gotten bigger. I don't know what it is – it could be anything from a mild infection to cancer, and without knowing what it is, the only way to get rid of it would be to just cut it all off. Since it's at the base of his top fin, that might make him bleed to death. He's very old (at least three), so I'm not sure if I should just ignore it and hope he dies of something else before it becomes a problem. Which makes me feel bad because I'm ignoring something and for all I know it's really painful and he'd want me to cut it off/buy expensive medication/cart him off to the vet who wouldn't know or care because he's a fish.
Fish are stressful. I can handle goldfish, for some reason, but all the others are just too much. I can never figure out how much they should eat or if they're sick or unhappy. At least my swordtails and guppies have died, and so they'd shifted to mild guilt instead of gnawing, persistent worry.
At least the little beta seems fine. He's started to flare at me, which I find inexplicably cute but makes me worry he's really bored. I'm going to change the plants in his tank. My earlier beta really loved playing with the plastic goldfish plants, and we've just unearthed those, so I'll add that. One of those completely covers the bottom of the tank, and my last one would swim around through it constantly.
(I don't know why people always say fish are stupid. If you were stuck in a featureless glass room, you probably wouldn't do much either.)
I wrote up yet another review for a story. Giving reviews takes forever and it's a mostly thankless task, plus I don't feel any accomplishment in doing all that because most of the stories are deleted by the next day. I don't even know why I do it. Procrastination, maybe. It's easier than writing something right now. Same goes for writing this. I really have to get going on all the shorts and fragments I have written (four notebooks full at least), but the one story I do want to type right now requires my black notebook, which I left somewhere (I tend to forget my notebooks somewhere about two to three times a year) and can't find because they cleaned the whole place but I can't replace it yet because it's unlikely it was thrown away.
I have to go review someone else's story who asked me to a few days ago (in a review, which I really wish people would stop doing, but it was on Unoriginality, and I don't mind quite so much people making comments not related to the story there. It was an OT story, so I understand why she did it, even if it's a bit irritating). The problem is, I got the distinct impression she wanted me to just give her story some sort of stamp that saying 'Not what Farla complains about'. I got the impression it was really more of an advertising thing than really wanting my opinion. Of course, I could be wrong, but since she does some (okay, many) of the more unneeded things I dislike (random name, starts with waking up, parents yell up the stairs about breakfast, etc, and she's got purple hair) and her story, from the first chapter, is just the standard OT plot, I wonder. Plus it's part humor, and anyone who's seen a few OT stories with a humor subgenre knows that means slightly stupid and very over the top, both of which makes me want to strangle people. (I skimmed the story already, just didn't feel up to giving it an in-depth read that I need to do for the review)
I actually managed to write up the basics of two more Unoriginality chapters, but one I need to flesh out better (it's a group of stories like I did on injured wild pokemon, but centered around a trainer's first battle) and another about the misguided efforts of an author to create an anti-sue. I was prompted to do so after reading Seven Reasons to Live by kitcub, not because that's what I feel the author's reasoning was but just because having a character whine and wail about how horrible their life is often is also used when authors are trying to give the character a flaw so no one will say it's a sue. The story this time is about Raven Moonbeam, a friend of Catherine Summerstorm, as she makes a character by following all the advice people leave in reviews. (And dear reviewers, for the love of Mew, stop telling them that if they have the character lose once it magically won't be a sue. You're making my life harder.)
I also have, right next to my computer right now, an opening to my short on absol. It's not written well (I was just trying to get the idea down so it'd get out of my head) so it'll take a lot of work to try to form it into what I want to say. The story is half based on an idea I got on absol and half from reading those 'woe is me for I am absol and I'm really nice and totally don't have anything to do with causing disasters but the humans keep killing me and let's totally demonize those humans with infuriating biased narration and whine whine whine' like Irony of Fate by Dragonfree. And all those other stories about pokemon in general by authors in general. (One of the problems with being a semi-popular author is when you see things you think might be based on your own writing…and you also think they suck. You'd be surprised how many times I get a flurry of reviews from some new author and then see the next day that they've written an angst fic or five about pokemon. (Although you might also be surprised by the number of emotionally remote, dark-haired girl trainers dressed in black, often with dark types, who showed up after Pokemon Revolution was written. And the number of similar with ice types.))
Look, I know I write pokemon POVs and yes, I know I have the humans killing pokemon and doing bad things. The thing people always forget is that in very few of them do I add in the narration that the humans are just jerks. And the pokemon tend not to be doing the whole 'superior to humans because we aren't hateful and prejudiced' noble savage act. Sometimes the pokemon are confused, sometimes they're at fault as well, sometimes they agree. I understand why the people are doing these things. I don't feel the need to force this on the readers or try to justify it any more than I feel the need to try to force you in the narration to think the human is just evil. I also hate it so much because it makes what's happening unreal, like the only reason people could do bad things is after the author completely dehumanizes them. The worst part is that if everyone would just listen for a moment, they'd hear the same things I do. But they can't, because most of them are the ones doing the talking.
And now I shall get offline, give my little beta the plant, and then type up my absol story.
I also put out the small bowl tank the larger beta used to be in. I filled it with chlorinated water because it had held elodea that was kept with wild pond fish and plants, to try to kill any diseases that might be lurking there.
The two other goldfish in the tall outside tank seem to have reached the limit of their growth. One of them is a great deal larger than the other, even though it was only a bit bigger when I put them both in. It chases the smaller one around when they eat, and I think that's why the smaller one isn't growing as fast. Once I move them all to a tank together, they should get along better.
I went with my mother to visit her friends at her old workplace, a college. Right before we left, we went into the greenhouse and got some duckweed and two water lettuce. I managed to get about a half gallon of duckweed, enough to completely cover the surface of the thirty-gallon tank with enough left to add a bit to the tall tank and keep some in reserve in case the goldfish eat it all. It'll clean the water, protect them from light and prevent them from jumping out, something I was worried about because we don't have a lid for that tank.
The larger beta seems to be enjoying having his tank all to himself. The blister, unfortunately, has gotten bigger. I don't know what it is – it could be anything from a mild infection to cancer, and without knowing what it is, the only way to get rid of it would be to just cut it all off. Since it's at the base of his top fin, that might make him bleed to death. He's very old (at least three), so I'm not sure if I should just ignore it and hope he dies of something else before it becomes a problem. Which makes me feel bad because I'm ignoring something and for all I know it's really painful and he'd want me to cut it off/buy expensive medication/cart him off to the vet who wouldn't know or care because he's a fish.
Fish are stressful. I can handle goldfish, for some reason, but all the others are just too much. I can never figure out how much they should eat or if they're sick or unhappy. At least my swordtails and guppies have died, and so they'd shifted to mild guilt instead of gnawing, persistent worry.
At least the little beta seems fine. He's started to flare at me, which I find inexplicably cute but makes me worry he's really bored. I'm going to change the plants in his tank. My earlier beta really loved playing with the plastic goldfish plants, and we've just unearthed those, so I'll add that. One of those completely covers the bottom of the tank, and my last one would swim around through it constantly.
(I don't know why people always say fish are stupid. If you were stuck in a featureless glass room, you probably wouldn't do much either.)
I wrote up yet another review for a story. Giving reviews takes forever and it's a mostly thankless task, plus I don't feel any accomplishment in doing all that because most of the stories are deleted by the next day. I don't even know why I do it. Procrastination, maybe. It's easier than writing something right now. Same goes for writing this. I really have to get going on all the shorts and fragments I have written (four notebooks full at least), but the one story I do want to type right now requires my black notebook, which I left somewhere (I tend to forget my notebooks somewhere about two to three times a year) and can't find because they cleaned the whole place but I can't replace it yet because it's unlikely it was thrown away.
I have to go review someone else's story who asked me to a few days ago (in a review, which I really wish people would stop doing, but it was on Unoriginality, and I don't mind quite so much people making comments not related to the story there. It was an OT story, so I understand why she did it, even if it's a bit irritating). The problem is, I got the distinct impression she wanted me to just give her story some sort of stamp that saying 'Not what Farla complains about'. I got the impression it was really more of an advertising thing than really wanting my opinion. Of course, I could be wrong, but since she does some (okay, many) of the more unneeded things I dislike (random name, starts with waking up, parents yell up the stairs about breakfast, etc, and she's got purple hair) and her story, from the first chapter, is just the standard OT plot, I wonder. Plus it's part humor, and anyone who's seen a few OT stories with a humor subgenre knows that means slightly stupid and very over the top, both of which makes me want to strangle people. (I skimmed the story already, just didn't feel up to giving it an in-depth read that I need to do for the review)
I actually managed to write up the basics of two more Unoriginality chapters, but one I need to flesh out better (it's a group of stories like I did on injured wild pokemon, but centered around a trainer's first battle) and another about the misguided efforts of an author to create an anti-sue. I was prompted to do so after reading Seven Reasons to Live by kitcub, not because that's what I feel the author's reasoning was but just because having a character whine and wail about how horrible their life is often is also used when authors are trying to give the character a flaw so no one will say it's a sue. The story this time is about Raven Moonbeam, a friend of Catherine Summerstorm, as she makes a character by following all the advice people leave in reviews. (And dear reviewers, for the love of Mew, stop telling them that if they have the character lose once it magically won't be a sue. You're making my life harder.)
I also have, right next to my computer right now, an opening to my short on absol. It's not written well (I was just trying to get the idea down so it'd get out of my head) so it'll take a lot of work to try to form it into what I want to say. The story is half based on an idea I got on absol and half from reading those 'woe is me for I am absol and I'm really nice and totally don't have anything to do with causing disasters but the humans keep killing me and let's totally demonize those humans with infuriating biased narration and whine whine whine' like Irony of Fate by Dragonfree. And all those other stories about pokemon in general by authors in general. (One of the problems with being a semi-popular author is when you see things you think might be based on your own writing…and you also think they suck. You'd be surprised how many times I get a flurry of reviews from some new author and then see the next day that they've written an angst fic or five about pokemon. (Although you might also be surprised by the number of emotionally remote, dark-haired girl trainers dressed in black, often with dark types, who showed up after Pokemon Revolution was written. And the number of similar with ice types.))
Look, I know I write pokemon POVs and yes, I know I have the humans killing pokemon and doing bad things. The thing people always forget is that in very few of them do I add in the narration that the humans are just jerks. And the pokemon tend not to be doing the whole 'superior to humans because we aren't hateful and prejudiced' noble savage act. Sometimes the pokemon are confused, sometimes they're at fault as well, sometimes they agree. I understand why the people are doing these things. I don't feel the need to force this on the readers or try to justify it any more than I feel the need to try to force you in the narration to think the human is just evil. I also hate it so much because it makes what's happening unreal, like the only reason people could do bad things is after the author completely dehumanizes them. The worst part is that if everyone would just listen for a moment, they'd hear the same things I do. But they can't, because most of them are the ones doing the talking.
And now I shall get offline, give my little beta the plant, and then type up my absol story.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 06:15 am (UTC)Heh. You should be flattered. Having the approval of the infamous Farla in that section is like a seal of approval: that this fic is actually worth reading. :) You're by far the most well known in that section; I've actually seen fanfics *dedicated* to you, probably so you would be less inclined to give them an unflattering review. At any rate, you have a ton of influence in that entire section, and I like how you're utilizing it.
I dunno. Maybe if you see a half-decent fanfic or two around you can give it a good review. (That is, IF.) Then writers might have something for an example and quit writing those horrible angsty fics. If you're the standard and people want to write like you, they're going to copy off what you've written.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 11:13 pm (UTC)I know, I look for the decent fanfic. But even when I find something that's decently written, there are always, always plot and characterization problems, often to the point where I don't actually like the story. Another story I'm currently following and think is very well done in nearly every way has grammar problems.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 12:37 am (UTC)You have good grammar. It's nice to see someone not doing (grammatical error).
Character X is behaving OOC. I noticed this when you said (quote) and (quote). Character X does not act that way, Character X acts (description of character's actual personality). In (situation of first quote) they might act like (option) or (option) because (reason and explanation), and in (situation of second quote) they might act like (option) or (option) because (reason and explanation).
If the author is doing something right, I don't need to go through each bit part by part, so my review will inevitably be longer when talking about I don't like. Thus making my reviews still seem largely negative.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 03:12 am (UTC)To counter the dangerous sues
Date: 2004-08-13 09:30 am (UTC)The creation of a well balanced character does seem beyond the majority of us.
Re: To counter the dangerous sues
Date: 2004-08-13 11:15 pm (UTC)Dragonfree here.
Date: 2004-09-25 10:47 pm (UTC)I can't help wondering... are you positive you aren't a little bit biased against other people? Because at the very least, you managed to absolutely misinterpret Irony of Fate.
First off, don't worry because it was definitely not inspired by your fanfiction. I wrote it before I ever went on Fanfiction.Net. You won't need to have that on your conscience, because it had nothing to do with anything you wrote. Not your fault at all.
Second... the narration is biased exactly because that's what it's supposed to be. I'm not saying "humans are evil", I'm saying that the Absol has prejudice against humans (and not even against all humans, because she does say there are nice ones). She also *thinks* she's all nice and has nothing to do with disaster, but starts to reconsider that in the end. I'll try to make it a bit less annoying and whiny-sounding, though, because I do see your point.
I'm not telling you to like the fic, I'm just telling you that 'woe is me for I am absol and I'm really nice and totally don't have anything to do with causing disasters but the humans keep killing me and let's totally demonize those humans with infuriating biased narration and whine whine whine' hardly describes it. Apart from the 'infuriating narration' part, which I'll try to improve on, as I already said. *gets the urge to revise it*
Thanks for the mini-review, and have a nice day.
Re: Dragonfree here.
Date: 2004-09-27 01:55 am (UTC)And no, I'm pretty sure I got it. Humans are demonized in that they kill several absol and have dialogue reminiscent of generic mobs. ('their screams of "Get the Absol!" and "Kill the bringer of misfortune!" slowly but steadily growing louder'). Their objective actions demonify them, not the subjective reports of the absol, so you can't say you solely meant the absol to be seeing things skewed. The bit about pokemon being superior can be passed off as the absol's personal beliefs, but the actions of the humans the absol was not causing or misinterpreting can't be. The human's actions are also made worse than would be reasonable, another sign of demonifying them, as there is no reason to chase and try to kill the absol once it runs away.
Re: Dragonfree here.
Date: 2004-10-03 05:58 pm (UTC)Re: Dragonfree here.
Date: 2004-10-03 11:30 pm (UTC)If the point of the story is what you say it was, it would have been better not to have so much extra. Just a random absol being chased and caught, no backstory about guns and a dead mate and humans saying they were going to kill her. You don't even need to make her hate humans. She's running because they're chasing her, she's caught, she's sent out in a battle and causes a disaster. Simple.
Re: Dragonfree here.
Date: 2004-10-14 09:24 pm (UTC)The humans were definitely aiming the guns at the Absol when they shot her mate, that's clear, whether they were aiming to try to kill them all or just shoot at them mainly to scare them off but also killing a few. But meh, I keep finding the original story more and more rushed and slapped together.
The reason I did make her hate humans is that I like writing biased. I find it interesting. I'm also currently working on rewriting it completely, improving on these things.
I may not agree with everything you say, but the reason I'm reading your journal in the first place is that I learn from it. I love reading through your reviews of other fics, just to see the points you bring up. Sure, I don't agree with them all, but all is taken into consideration and weighed, I think about whether I've done something similar and how to fix it, and it all helps. Basically, don't take it like I'm just coming here to stand up for my fic and say you're wrong.
Re: Dragonfree here.
Date: 2004-10-21 02:00 am (UTC)"...their screams of "Get the Absol!" and "Kill the bringer of misfortune!" slowly but..." = literal.
"...their yells - 'kill the absol', no doubt - slowly but..." = subjective.
There's also the issue that the absol doesn't even hate humans to properly give a sign she's honestly biased. The story jumps from reporting the death of her mate and children to 'humans nice', 'trainers good', and 'I am a pathetic little lapdog who thinks it would be the best thing ever to be trained', then right back to humans are stupid and evil for the rest of the story. (One of those 'eating your cake and having it too' things. Next time, don't take a break to talk about how unbelievably wonderful trainers are, it's really jarring and it's just as bad to make them angels as it is demons.)
The humans were definitely aiming the guns at the Absol when they shot her mate, that's clear, whether they were aiming to try to kill them all or just shoot at them mainly to scare them off but also killing a few.
See, you're either trying to kill them or you're not. If you mean to say they were shooting to kill but didn't care if some of them ran off, then the text contradicts that by having them follow her (and if there was only her, her mate and her children, there are only two who even could run, and they shoot one right off). If they were shooting for the purpose of scaring them away, they would have been shooting into the air - even if they don't care about the well-being of the absol improperly aimed shots could have injured but not killed the absol, meaning they would not have left and defeating the purpose. See, this is what I mean by demonizing humans. Their actions don't make any sense from any perspective, they're just generically 'bad'.
But there's bias and then there's bias. The absol has control only over herself. If objective events in the story match the absol's beliefs, the absol isn't biased, the story is. If you do establish the absol is an unreliable narrator - say, talking about how the humans were unable to shoot them and how incompetent they were, in a way that makes it clear the humans were deliberately missing (The humans were too stupid to even manage to point the gun adequately - the muzzles of the guns aimed well over my head when they fired.)- that's character bias. If you don't, then it's assumed the absol is a reliable narrator, and if the text also gives additional evidence to support this, then it is, from a literary perspective, not open to interpretation (there being, in the literal sense, nothing there to interpret otherwise).
This all hinges on the idea I didn't overlook suggestions in the text that she is reporting events unreliably, so if there are some I've missed, feel free point them out and I will apologize for not paying enough attention.
I don't mind disagreement, you're welcome to your opinion and if you can back it up with reasoning, all the better. And I don't mind if you do feel like just defending your story - it is yours, after all.
Re: Dragonfree here.
Date: 2004-10-31 02:44 am (UTC)*off to write*