2010 is here! I shall make no resolutions, because I'm a boring person and don't really believe in stuff like that anyway. (I mean, I don't believe in me, being able to carry out those resolutions... >___>) 2009 is now behind, though it was a good year!

... Well, mostly. The beginning of the year was less good, thanks to my lil' slump there. I guess it was in April or May when I finally got my ass in the gear. But ever since, I've felt great! The best part is, even though it took months, I can now say with pride and total honestly that I'm SOOOO over that guy. So take that, you stupid man! Your loss!

But! 2009 gave birth to Chain! Which has been received so freakin' awesomely well that I still have a hard time understanding it! (And Chain's huge audience still sorta pisses me off. ;_; What's wrong with TT? Where is TT's huge audience? T_T Why is my baby so underestimated and underacknowledged? (not sure if that's an actual word, BUT IT SHOULD BE!)) At the moment on FF.net, Chain (13 chapters) has got 327 reviews! 227 people have favourited it, and 374 people have it on their alert list! Over at Dokuga, Chain has 86 reviews, which is just AWESOME.

As for TT (17 chapters), on FF.net it has 173 reviews (only 18 on Dokuga..). Favs are 119 and Alerts 164, so it has loooong way to go if it is to ever catch up with Chain - which it probably won't, since there won't be that many chapters left on TT, where as there will be several yet to come for Chain.

Still, it's amazing. The last two chapters of Chain have alone got as much as 41 and 37 reviews, which, for me, is insanely much!

2010 will then be my fifth year as a fanfiction writer! Yup! Though I'm not sure if 2008 counts much, since I barely updated that year... Oh well. It's all his fault, so blame the stoopid guy! (Just kidding. We get along, my ex and I. Well, we have grown quite distant, but still. We get along. :3) I sure feel like it's been ages since I started writing FM, but in the end, five years aren't that much, you know? Then again, I've gone through a lot since that January 2006, so it might explain why it feels to be in such a distant past to me. After all since then I've graduated high school, moved oud, lived on my own, started to study at the university, fallen in love, had my heart broken, all the while slowly maturing, and of course, kept on writing!

Nominations for Dokuga Awards' 4th Quarter 2009 are currently open. I admit to be arrogant enough to actually expect to be nominated, my fics have been nominated earlier too after all, Chain for Q3, TT for both Q2 & Q3. I am not, however, delunsional enough to expect that I would actually place! I don't think my name's all that well known enough for that. And as far as I've seen it, mostly it would seem that the same persons keep on winning those awards. But that just makes sense, we can't all be great, otherwise greatness would no longer be valued and become mundane. Balance!

Spring term will start next Monday (11th Jan) and I'm still in the wrong town, staying over at my parents. I won't be having any classes on Mondays anyway, so I'll be going back to school on Tuesday! The point being, I have less than a week of my holiday left, and I've done barely any fanfic-writing. :/ I just can't seem to get into the mood. Chain ch13 has about 1000 words at the moment and I have the whole chapter pretty well planned out, so that shouldn't be an issue. I'll try to get into the writing tonight.

I hope you all had a good New Year's celebration!

- Chie

Long time no see! I survived my evil deadlines successfully! Yay! The workload right before winterbreak started was astoundingly light. Just 2 exams. Nothing I needed to hand in. How baffling!

So, a week ago on Thursday, I had my last class and my last exam! Exactly a week ago, I cleaned up my apartment thoroughly and then hopped onto a bus. I arrived at the town my parents live in, delighted to see snow on the ground! It's stayed on the ground, we're having the coldest December in 7 years. Today when I walked the dog it was about - 11 C (12.2 F). My fingers got cold, 'cause I couldn't resist taking the camera with me, and small digicamera with small buttons is not really operable while wearing mittens.

You see, today it snowed. The kind of a perfect, romantic snow out of a movie: slowly falling big, powdery flakes! And it kept snowing all day long! I cheered up so much each time I glanced out of the window. I've been correctly spending my Christmas break by doing absolutely nothing! (Yes, I'm celebrating Christmas. If anyone cares to know, I'm a protestant, evangelic lutheran to be more spesific, like almost every Finn is. Our church though, I think, is rather secular, and not many Finns are that religious. Christmas is like the only holiday on which we might bother to go to the church for a mass.) Anyway, I've been doing just that - nothing - for this whole week. Although relaxing, it's kinda starting to irk me.

About my fics then! Chain I finally updated this week, and it took AGES to get the chapter written. >_< Lately I just hasn't been feeling like writing. At all. And by lately, I mean for the past month, really. The chapter I got out, of Sess and Kags being stuck in the future, was kind of a filler chapter aimed at just poking fun out of the situation. I seem to have failed at that, or at least one of my readers thought so. I got a very lenghty and anonymous review the other day. (Surprise. Why are the people who have something to criticise ALWAYS anonymous or at least not logged onto the site? Gahhh! 'cause most of the time I'd like to respond to them. At least I'd have more to say to THEM, than to those countless reviewers of "i like it, please update soon". Honestly, if the ones leaving critique are too afraid of leaving their contact information, they should just keep their opinion to themselves in the first place!) Anyway, here's the review:

2009-12-17 . chapter 13

What do you mean I always postpone everything till the last possible minute? D:

A week back I sent 10½ pages worth of course work to my teacher. On Monday, I uploaded my 6 page analysis. That means, I only have one school unfinished, the 6 page essay! The deadline of which, btw, is today. Yay. Truthfully, I haven't even started writing it before last night... ^^; So I stayed up a bit (meaning that I worked on writing the damn thing and taking notes on the source material for most of the night). In the end I only got 3 hours of sleep, from 6 AM to 9 AM. o/

Currently though, I have almost 5 pages written down, and I have a clear picture of what I will include on the final page. :3 My plan is to (hopefully) get this done by around 3 PM (currently it's 1:30 PM) after which I plan to prepare something to eat (I'm STARVING DDD:) and just relax by watching anime or something, for some hours, before I'll return to the essay to read it through as a whole and possibly edit and improve it, before sending it away.

It would be awesome if I could attain my freedom before 8 o'clock, so I'd have good time to drop in the local supermarket. There's hardly any food in this house, save for some macaroni and bread. (Not that I'd actually cook anyway.) Student life. <3

Please, be responsible students and DO NOT FOLLOW my example.

The current Shippuuden opening finally came out as a full version, so I'm playing it on loop. x3 I'm tired enough to try to sing along. I actually like singing, think that my voice is okay, and I used to be in a choir - but I don't really know the lyrics quite yet, and the pitch is at times too low for me. :D

But yeah, no more school work (that is, for NOW >_>) means that I can once again concentrate on writing my fanfics! ^__^

- Chie

It's been quite a week.

I still haven't progressed much in my school work. I just asked more time for my essay (sent an e-mail to my teacher where I admitted to be a bad and lazy student... xD) and got a reply today. The teacher grants me two more weeks but warns that if I keep on slacking off he just might have to come and give me a slap. (No, I'm not kidding you, he really did say that. With a winking smiley included!)

Both my on-going fics have been nominated for Dokuga Quarter Three 2009 Awards! TT has been nominated for Best AU, Chain for Best Romance! I don't think there is much chance for my fics to actually place, there are so many better known stories nominated that are written by so much better known authors. Still, it's an honour to be nominated. :3 I guess that means that my stories at least stand out!

I have had some very pleasant encounters with my readers this week. First on Dokuga there was a reader who actually bothered to leave a review on every chapter of Chain! Such readers are very rare, but I appreciate very much how they take time and bother to leave a comment on each chapter! Really remarkable and admirable. :3

You know, I'm a bit of a bitch myself. xD I only start to want to leave a comment if I find a mistake or such in the work. Or something to criticise.

Second pleasant surprise was that I actually got a PM over here at LJ from one of my Finnish readers. <3 It was the first time anyone had ever left a thank you - note regarding my stories in my native language, so it really made me feel accomplished! I've suspected for quite a while that there may be Finns among my readers as well, but so far every review has been in English so it's hard to tell. Though, I'm that kind of a person myself that I reply to English with English, even if I would know the other person to actually be a Finn. ^^;

Third, I got a long review on TT on FF.net, by a reader who had been following the story over at AFF before I pulled my fics out of the site. She found it on Dokuga too, but even asked her friend to help her find it, since the Dokuga posting is not up to date (because usually for me, it takes MONTHS to write a single chapter to TT, so it's better to post bit by bit than mass post all I've written till now and them make them wait ages for an update, don't you think? So she found it on FF.net, didn't seem to be too pleased about the cliffie. But she proceeded to compliment my writing, and well, it was one of those reviews that you get every once in a while that just make you feel so warm and fluffy inside. <3

I have amazing readers. :3

Happy Halloween everyone! I don't celebrate it myself, since it's not the custom of our culture, but you people might, so enjoy your holiday! :3


- Chie

I have too much school work to do. Guess have I been doing them? No. So I'm a bad student, don't follow my example.
I have 6 page essay due next Friday, 6 page comparative analysis on academic text AND a 5 page research, 5 page study journal and 1 pahe summary due the Friday after that (6th Nov.). I don't want to do those. DDDD: Especially the two first tasks. Major pain in the ass!

But my rant does not end here. Oh no. Today, I received possibly the weirdest review I've ever got.

I should be sleeping, but what the hell. (I've been having a head ache since yesterday evening, so I should really have gone to bed earlier.) But I wanted to share this with you now.

I've discovered something. Actually, I discovered this in essence already months ago, but I didn't care to find out more until recently, and now I love it.

I've discovered Kokia. ♥

I first encoountered her in the opening theme of Requiem for Phantom (which, by the way, is a good anime, or at least it was till the plot twist that threw the storyline onto a path I don't much care for.. :/). The opening song, Karma, is, well, unlike any anime opening theme song I've ever heard. Really. At first I wasn't sure if I even liked it, but now, I'm loving it.

So I've been downloading more Kokia's songs and briefly listened to some, and now I have just one thing to say.

I want her voice. Honestly. If not her voice, then at least the range of her voice, 'cause that's amazing. And it's the number one thing I dislike about my own singing voice, my range is painfully narrow. :/ I'd pretty much kill to have a voice like hers is. It's so unfair!

- Chie

So. It's the first of September. That date, to me, means two things: One, today is the first day of autumn. Two, today, I've turned 21. I don't feel much difference, to be honest. :D I've been consideruing myself as 21 years old already for a few months. I guess that's not uncommon for people born later in the year.

(Also on a side note, 21 is no significant age here in Finland. I've been allowed to drink alcohol since I turned 18.)

So. School started this week. For the first half of the semester, I'll be having 20 hours a week. The crappy thing of that is that half of those hours have piled up on Thursday. >_>
On Mondays I'll have one lecture from 2 pm to 4 pm. On Tuesday I'll have two lectures from 10 am to 2 pm, then I have two free periods till my Japanese course will start at 6 pm. (Honestly, try to be attentive when your class is from 6 pm to 7.30. >_>) On Wednesdays I have one lecture, from 10 am to noon. On Thursdays <3, I'll be having three lectures from 8 am to 2 pm, then on free period and two lectures from 4 pm to 7.30 pm. Pain.

Now when I once again have stuff to do (i.e. School <3 (Yes, I call the university a school.)) I might not write my fanfics as frequently as I did over summer (when I had nothing to do). Still, Chain's next chapter is 3/4 done, and I've made something as unbelievable as progress in TT yesterday. I only got like half a page written or so, but it was still progress, no? I'm havin trouble with TT again, 'cause I know how I want Kags to be found, but I don't want her to be found till next chapter, so for the time being, I'll have to stall. And stalling is the part giving me trouble and causing a block. It's annoying, when you know what you want to do soon, but don't want to do it quite yet in the story.

So yeah. That's all I had to rant this time. :D

Happy Autumn, everyone!

- Chie

Where did my summer go? How come it is already August? In a little more than a week I'll be going back to school! D;

I have few more pics of my animecon costume to bore you with, these my friend took for me in a post-con photoshoot on my parents' backyard. x3 Pic 1 , Pic 2 , Pic 3.

On the fanfiction front there is not much new. I finished the 7th chapter of Chain yesterday, and it's currently in the care of my beta for a spell-check. TT, I'm embarrassed to admit, has not progressed at all. I blame it onto the holiday. Well, to be honest, I'm just having a bit of a trouble with TT, I have few scenes visualised for this chapter, but I don't want to use them yet, so early on in the chapter, so I need to find a way to stall.
I don't know about other writers, probably the better ones are much better organised than I am, but this is a really common problem to me. I know some scenes I want to use, or what twist to throw into the plot next, but I don't want to do it quite yet and have to come up with some way to stall it all. And this stalling is the difficult part.

I've also patched up two new AMV's, other celebrating Kakashi Gaiden,and it is my first Naruto AMV ever, other, typically, Bleach, depicting the awesomeness of Shirayuki's real form in the zanpakutou mutiny fillers.

Animecon was one week ago. I enjoyed myself and for the first time I felt like I stood out, not because of the group I was in but because of my own costume. I was photographed quite a few times. :D (See? Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3)

I even got paparazzed! See? O_o! And that one ended to the official con pictures. >,>; (click the pic for full size...)

Here's a pic taken by the friend with whom I hung out with for most of the con: Dark!Rukia cosplay. <3

Also, I ended up in a Bleach group photoshoot! That was interesting, since I think not all Bleach cosplayers even recognised me. xD Well, maybe that's no wonder since the movie's not even out yet. Still, there's been pics of the Dark!Rukia costume and fanart and whatnot, I think a person who actively stalks around the fandom should have been able to recognise me. :x Oh wells, group piccies: Group 1, Group 2!

Animecon aside now...

I'm starting to get annoyed at my uninspired state. :/ It's not really a writer's block, not like the huge one I was having last year at least, since I can actually get something written, even if a few lines takes ages. It's just that I really am not in the mood, and while I CAN get stuff written, it sort of feels like I'd be forcing myself to it. It doesn't flow naturally to me. I last updated like two weeks back, when before July I was putting up one chapter weekly.

Guhhhh. I guess I'm just a lazy bastard?

- Chie

PS. I made this AMV a while back....

We're finally getting into the hawt action, to the long awaited Ichigo VS Ulq! <3
And what do the asshole executives do? They'll put the FILLERS rollin'. >____________<;;;

Pisses me off, big time. Bleach was the only anime I've been regularly watching anyway, since I haven't been following Naruto at all since they started rolling fillers months back. Guahh. >_<

The epi had some good stuff in in too. Seeing Ryuujinjakka in action is always awesome, Stark was even cooler than usual, they showed Rukia <3 and the beginnings of the above mentioned hawt action.

I managed to get myself an appointment for the hair dresser for a week from now, so I'll be able to get my hair in order for the con... It's so soon! :o

I should be writig both Chain and TT, but I don't feel like iiiitttt~ :x

- Chie