Blog revamp & new stuff in life

Tästä lähtien kaikki blogiotsikot on enkuksi, ja tekstit yleensä myös enkuksi. Sorry. (From now on posts will mostly be in English.)

I haven't blogged since Nov '13, bad me. Well, I won NaNo, lost April Camp, won July camp. That's about everything important on the writing front. Oh and there's Pretty Cure Safe Harbor!
On the life front: I started in college, dropped out, got half-diagnozed with depression, applied to University of Tampere AND GOT IN. On the first try, even. The entrance exam was pretty hard, and I had some 700 pages or so to read for it. (I applied to the infomation sciences and english programs, and the English is the one I was accepted into.)
Currently I'm waiting for an apartment so I could move to Tampere. I'm just hoping it'll happen sooner than later. Their new system has constant problems and currently it seems we can't edit our applications (= I can't add more locations to my appl.)

Oh yeah, and I graduated high school! It was so long ago (Dec 13) that I've already forgotten. Other than that, my life has been pretty uneventful. Well... I went partying a few times (college student life is active, you just gotta participate!) and was on a cruise in March. Then just last week I was in Cologne, Germany, with my family. It was fun, although I got terrible blisters and the tap water was horrible. At least I figured juice + carbonated water tastes a lot like Fanta or other fruit-flavored soda.

Speaking of Cologne, I need to make a post of all the stuff I bought. AND A PLANNER POST. And a few room posts. So my blog is moving away from fandom things and towards planning, organizing, studying and stuff like that. Probably also food.

So I've really got nothing to really talk about in this post, but I wanna show you some photos I've taken between Jan 13 and late Aug 13, which was when I purged my phone's pics to computer.

My room is right next to our front door and has a corner window. There's also a light over the door, which automatically goes on at night. So usually at around 3am at summer, when the Sun is rising but the light is still on, my window looks like this from the inside. It's such a pretty occurrence that I tend to take pics when I notice it. (Speaking of nights, it's supermoon again tonight!)

 Don't ask what I'm doing awake at that hour :'D Usually I've stayed up reading fanfics on my phone. I don't do it as often anymore, as I take melatonin to help me sleep so I'm out before 1am.

Summer 13 was a bit of a memory lane for me on some occasions. I didn't have anything to do, but I had stupid ideas, so I tried cycling for a few days. It didn't go too well in the end, but on the first day I cycled past the small grove of some sort I used to spend time in when I was younger, and decided to take a look around.
It was pretty much the same as I remembered, except it felt smaller than before. That was kinda expected, as I have grown a foot since then. (I was tiny in elementary years!) The grove has a fairytale feel to it despite being in the middle of a tightly built suburb's edge. One side has a sidewalk, and the other ends with people's backyards, so it's pretty much the shape of an american football ball. It's a rocky tiny hill, which is probably why it's still there: it would cost too much to move all the huge rocks away. The trees are mostly alders and birches, but I think there is a spruce or too in there, too.
In the upper pic there are really great rocks for sitting. It's hidden under those branches and is in the back of the grove, away from sight. So it's no surprise that the ground was littered with beer cans here. It's the perfect spot to indulge in some underage drinking without your parents noticing.
I don't know whether it would be braver to go there alone or with someone else for me. I'm terrified of nettles and this area had them in spades, so I can only go there in spring and early summer, when the plants are still fairly small. I'm afraid of really stupid things and get anxious too easily. It's something I should mention to my therapist / youth worker, but I don't keep a list of those things so I tend to forget it all the time. (I'm going to rant more about my issues in a later post. It's no use ranting about self-diagnosed problems before getting a professional opinion on them.)

Aditi in her Fire Nation -style clothes

Last November my NaNovel was "When Good Girls Go to War", which was a genderswapped version of Avatar: the Last Airbender with the old "fangirl ends up in story" plot. The fangirl in question was Amy Cherryclaw from RJO, who is my go-to char for any random projects. In PCSH, which is set in RJO universe, Amy is an alcoholic, PTSD suffering 37-year-old homemom with five kids and a former emperor for a husband. Sounds complicated when written like this, but she's not the center of that story. (Her youngest daughter and her friends are!)

So in GGW, a 19-year-old Amy finds herself in the Southern Air Temple at around the same time the Avatar's ice ball is broken. The genderswap was really limited, I only turned Zuko and Aang into girls and left everyone else as they were. I also made fem!Zuko a lesbian, and fem!Aang ace. (Amy is bi, if you wanted to know.)
Pretty much everyone was also age-lifted into middle to late teenage years, instead of being mostly tweens or early teens. Aditi and Toph are 15, and the oldest main character is Suki (or Amy, I'm not sure), who turns 19 before the end of the story. Jet is probably also 20 instead of 16, but the old guys can keep their vague ages. Katara and Sokka also swapped relations, and in GGW Katara is the older one (by three years!)

A wallaby at the Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki

GGW is also my h/c dump project as of right now. I used to have dozens of few-para h/c text files in Drive, but it's better when I can stick as many as possible into the same continuity. (I have an unfortunate habit of hurting Zuko/Zula in the most twisted ways.)

The problem is, I've only written less than a third of GGW! I only wrote the first three chaps of Book 1, some NTW and SotN business, something to go between books 1 and 2, and then jumped straight into the Western Air Temple time so I could write some more Zula h/c. I need to incorporate old Silver Lining into GGW but since the major chars know each other very early, the plot is going to change somewhat in the middle of Book 2.

 I think that was all for tonight. Cologne shopping, planner stuff and room cleaning posts to arrive before 15th. Uni will start on 18th, and I'll be bunking at a friend's until I get an apartment of my own.

~Amy

Arf arf

Ahem jos tännekin laittais taas vaihteeks jotain eloa. Edellinen posti kun on maaliskuulta. Noh, kuten tuosta oikealta näkee, päätin osallistua nanowrimoon, ja vaikka näyttääkin värit aika kurjilta, niin olen (vielä) aikataulussa. Nyt kun vaan saisin rykäistyä toisen kymppitonnipäivän niin pääsisin taas edelle. (HEI! Miks ton viikko alkaa sunnuntaista! Sen pitäis olla vaihtoehto eikä pakko.)
Tuhosin myös enkkublogini ja siirsin kaikki sen postaukset tänne. Ne on nyt sekasin tuolla suomipostinkien välissä. En nyt vielä tiedä teenkö tästä kaksikielistä blogia, todnäk en, sillä enhän mä tänne muutenkaan paljon mitään kirjota. (typot kuuseen)

Saan lakin nyt joulukuussa! Se on istunu hyllyn päällä mun huoneessa kohta vuoden (varmaan ylikin) ja nyt sen saa viimein oikein luvan kanssa laittaa päähänsä! Muttah sitten sen jälkeen... Huhhuh. Hain tänä syksynä Laureaan ja Haaga-Heliaan tietojenkäsittelyyn, ja tulokset (eli pääsenkö sinne vai en) tulee viimeistään 26. ja yo-kokeiden tulokset viimeistään 22. Sen jälkeen näen lähdenkö Espooseen opiskelemaan. Vaikka sinne pääsisinkin, niin haen sitten kevään yhteishaussa Tampereen yliopistoon lukemaan englantia ja/tai inf... mikä lienikään mistä valmistuu kirjastonhoitajia. Periaatteessa ajattelin lukea molempia, eli sitä minne en pääse niin sivuaineena, niin sitten saan kirjastonhoitajan/-virkailijan pätevyyden ja olisi kuitenkin tarpeeksi koulutusta ruhtyä ammattikääntäjäksi.

Takaisin blogin pariin, säädän noita tageja aika lailla nyt, ja osa niistä saattaa kylläkin jäädä enkunkielisiksi... Ihan vain koska joskus enkku on mielstäni helpompaa kuin suomi.

Okay WTF is going on with my stories

I have that old fanfic named Crashlanding, and it's WIP. I've written about 1,5 chapters, and the first one is published on FF.net. In July. Today I opened the file and checked what I had written as the second chapter.
To be quite honest, it's not pretty. It's my typical writing with way too many injuries, stupid dialogue and other oddities. When I wrote that, I still had a plot in my mind, but now I've dropped said plotline, I could probably finish this story... but seriously. Why did I even publish it in the first place?!

Fanfic in need of beta + other stuff

So, anyone familiar with my newest fanfic yet? I uploaded it to FF.net last Saturday, and so far I've gotten 6 reviews, 4 alerts and one fave on it. That's the best record I've done so far with any of my fanfics. All the reviews praised my fanfic. No, I'm not lying, they really did. Okay, one said I made awfully lot of grammar mistakes, but I know that I do. My first language is not English, and even though my writing program does proofreading, and I proofread my own texts, I have very much problems with prepositions and such. Finnish, my native language, uses suffixes when inflecting words, so of course I have troubles writing English.
I've been learning English for eight years, and I do exellently in the tests. Despite my A+ grades, I know I'm not perfect. We learn the written form; in real life, people talk with dialects, shorten words, use text talk and abbreviations. I'm not familiar with lots of idioms, so it makes me hard to express stuff. I do understand them, though.

This said, it's clear that I'd do better with a beta reader. Unfortunately, I'm way too shy to talk to people to get one. I know, a blog isn't the best place to say it, because I only have two readers and one of them is a Finn.

(And that definitely was not my original subject for this post...)

So, may I move to my purposed subject now? I was going to tell you that I've changed my plans a bit from what I originally designed Crashlanding to be. It was supposed to be a normal Hurt/Comfort story, but it may in fact turn into a really genius fic to get my OC Amy Whitespot into the Jedi Order. I'm not telling you more about that, but I must tell you that I was inspired by Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile. My mom was watching it when I was starting chapter two, and I'm not really sure how soon I'll get to write that part. I might also change the current chapter one to be part one of the first chapter, the second chapter being part two of first, and making third published chapter the official chapter two. Like this: 'Chapter one, part I: Steel, fuel and blood', 'Chapter one, part II' and 'Chapter two'.

Some quotes from my TCW S4 fanfic

I said in my last post that I'm writing one. And I like that fic very, very much. And now I'd like some feedback on it. I'm on sixth page, and first chapter isn't completed. Yeah, I like writing long stuff. Anyway, here are some of the best part so far:

“Is this the place?” Padmé asked, scaring Ahsoka slightly with her appearance.

“This is where Rex was shooting droids. Skyguy got hit probably... there!” Ahsoka pointed to the north-east after recognizing some of the trees that appeared also on Rex's recording.

“How far?” Padmé asked anxiously.

“Not far, around 50-100 meters. This vid wouldn't be as sharp if zoomed more.” Ahsoka said and looked ahead them. They were facing north-east, and the path droids had used was clearly visible in the long grass that few small trees spotted. The grass was now burned and trampled, still smoking in some places. Ahsoka noticed a medium-sized hole, created by an exploding grenade, in the ground right where her master could have been standing.

“This way!” Ahsoka shouted to the senator, who ran after her. Their feet blew ash and dirt off the ground, and Ahsoka found her eyes getting wet. I am not crying. I will NOT cry, she thought and ducked under a branch to reach the hole.

Her foot got stuck to the roots of the tree which branches she just ducked, and she stumbled down to the bomb crater. She quickly got up and spit out the dirt she had breathed in tumbling down the slope.

This one is from the first page. Honestly. Am I doing well, bad, or very bad? (joke would work in Finnish, where "well" and "very" can be the same word "hyvin")

Shouting. Shooting. Massive clanking of droids.”Sir, are you sure this is going to work?” Rex asked from Anakin who wasn't visible on screen.

“Have my plans ever failed, Rex?” Anakin said. The recording showed Anakin running towards the droids. He blocked and ducked most of the blaster bolts aimed at him, but just where Ahsoka was now standing, something hit him. He almost collapsed, but kept blocking the bolts with his lightsaber in one hand, the other clutching his stomach.

“SIR!!!” Rex shouted, even though Anakin had no chance of hearing it from that distance. Something flew in the air, landing behind and right from Anakin. It was a grenade. Anakin tried to jump away from it to escape the blast, but he was wounded and too slow: the exploding grenade caught him mid-air and sent him flying to the left, to the grass, away from the droids.

“Okay! Who blaster-kriffer threw that grenade?!” Rex shouted to his fellow troops as he turned briefly around. On another side of the path, a clone hesitantly lifted his gun to show he was to blame, but before Rex managed to shout anything to his brother, the clone was shot straight through his head.

“Oh for the love of Kamino...” Rex muttered under his breath and turned back to shoot the droids.

This one is right in the beginning of the second page. It's a holocam recording that Rex gave to Ahsoka. I think you'll now figure out what my fanfic is aiming for, and where it started from...

The grass twisted under their legs, moving away when Ahsoka pushed it. Her fingers were now full of scratches from the grass, and probably so was her back. She didn't care; she saw an opening in the grass and ran for it, expecting to see her master laying there motionless, maybe even dead.

She was shocked of what she saw. Nothing, absolutely nothing. “But... but this is the place where he must have landed!” Ahsoka whimpered and fell to her knees. Tears fell from her eyes, dropping from her cheeks to her thick shirt.

“Ahsoka. I'm sure we can still find him. Hope must never be fully lost.” Padmé said. Ahsoka heard even her voice was trembling, probably she was crying, too. She lifted her gaze from the grass under her legs, and she noticed something shiny in middle of the opening. She got up and walked to it.

“NO!” Ahsoka yelled as loud as she could as she recognized the object. It was a lightsaber. The one that belonged to her master, to be exact. She lifted it from ground, not thinking of any possible traps around. Nothing happened, for her luck. Ahsoka collapsed to her knees once again, now clutching Anakin's lightsaber in her hands. From her tears, she didn't notice a small datacard beside the lightsaber.

“Ahsoka.” Padmé said gently. Ahsoka wanted to refuse to listen; all had been lost. Her master was no longer here. The Chosen One was no longer here. Ahsoka let the tears pour from her eyes and she sobbed very loudly.

“Ahsoka. Listen to me.” Padmé said and knelt in front of Ahsoka. Her vision was so blurry from crying that she didn't see Padmé lift the datacard from ground. “Calm down.” Padmé said. Ahsoka shook her head and clutched her master's lightsaber ever more tightly. “Ahsoka, everything's going to turn alright. I know it.” Padmé said, hugging Ahsoka. Ahsoka was startled at this sudden expression of emotion, but then relaxed and let Padmé soothe her. Ahsoka couldn't stop herself from crying or sobbing, but eventually calmed down. Padmé wiped her eyes after she had stopped crying. She still was shaking, and now coughed a couple of times to clear her throat. She took a deep breath and looked up.

No, this fanfic doesn't have AhsokaxPadmé. I know it may look like that. And that datacard is important. I just love to write like this, don't I? :'D I don't know... I think this is one of the better-written parts, with narrator that know all. Usually my narrations are POV things: not 1st person, but not all-knowing. It only knows what going around in one persons head. That would be like... 3rd person 1st person narration? Anyway, more from the fic:

“But... But Anakin was s-s-so injured!” Padmé exclaimed and started crying herself. Ahsoka wanted to hug her, to thank from bringing her back to her senses, but knew it wouldn't do anything.

“You love him... don't you?” Ahsoka asked. She wanted to slap herself after she realized what she had said.

Padmé looked at her in deep shock, but then nodded carefully. “M-more than you r-realize.” she sobbed. Ahsoka suddenly got the whole picture. Her master and senator Amidala loved each other. More than Jedi Code allowed. They loved each other enough to risk others' lives to save each other.

“I think I understand. I love him too, Padmé.” Ahsoka said, trying to keep herself from crying again.

Padmé shot up. “You have no idea how love feels like! You're a Jedi!” she shouted, scaring Ahsoka for a moment. She retaliated quickly, though and got up herself.

“We are allowed to love just like other people. I love my master, more than I should or is allowed, and that's the only reason we still care for each other!” Ahsoka shouted back.

Padmé took a step back, then sat down to the ground. He eyes were red from all crying and shouting, and Ahsoka found herself panting again.

Who knows, maybe Padmé isn't so OoC here. I think this is how she'll be before starting Roaring Rampage of Revenge on Dooku for capturing Anakin. And THAT's canon. The datacard mentioned in the third quote is relevant, as it shows Anakin injured from that grenade blast mentioned in the second quote. And you can guess who else >D
Anyway, is this a good way to make Ashoka and Padme reveal their feelings for Anakin to each other? they're both girls, and I personally know that we all shout things we might have otherwise left unsaid when we're angry. But I think I took it to a bit extreme here...

“Actually... I think my master might already think I know. He talks of you differently when I'm the only one nearby as opposed to times when someone like Obi-Wan or a higher Jedi Master is present.”

“I think he just loves you back.” Padmé said. “Did you know that during the time you were lost, after your mission to Felucia, Anakin was completely broken. I caught him crying at least two times, and when he slept with me, he had nightmares about you and often woke up crying.” Padmé looked away sheepishly. “I don't think I should have told you that. I don't think even he knows I know.”

“I... I suspected something like that.” Ahsoka said and sighed. “He looks like that. He does nag to me sometimes, when I don't obey, but otherwise he acts like he'd protect me from anything.”

“Isn't that what Jedis are supposed to do? Protect others even if it meant risking one's own life?” Padmé asked.

I think you can all guess what just happened. And here I also probably made Anakin a bit OoC with that musing for Ahsoka. Those episodes are currently airing here, so I remember well what happened in the end of 3.21. 3.22 airs tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it, because I haven't watched it yet from internet.

She collapsed to her bed and started crying again. She hugged her pillow for comfort but she felt completely empty inside. She sobbed loudly and curled up in the corner, leaning to wall. She was shaking under her sobbing, and soon she drifted into restless sleep.

She was floating in the air, above her unconscious master. He looked alright, not counting in the bruises and slashes visible in his skin. He was laying on a cool floor of a cell, probably on board a Separatist spaceship.

His eyes slowly opened and Ahsoka saw one of them slightly twitching. He tried to get up, but collapsed shaking. He couched feebly, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. He turned to his side, and Ahsoka saw huge burns in his back. She gasped in shock: this was far worse than she had imagined. She lowered to the ground and tried to hug her master, but couldn't, as she was pulled back by something. Anakin seemed to have noticed her, and he turned his head to her direction. “Ahsoka... Please...” he seemed to say, even though Ahsoka couldn't make out the words. Suddenly, his master's body started to shiver and convulse, his eyes rolled backwards and he couched up more blood. When the convulsing eased, he started scratching his own arms, causing more bleeding. He drifted back to unconsciousness, but Ahsoka heard him say, “Please... K-kill me...”

“Master!” Ahsoka screamed as she woke up. She was panting heavily and she had to calm herself down before she got up. She hugged her pillow again and wiped her tears to it. For a long time, she just sat there, on the edge of her bed, clinging to her pillow for comfort she would never get from it.

Ahsoka was mentioned jsut in the last sentece before this quote, and I won't change these when I put them here.
And yeah... Very angsty Ahsoka, and very injured Anakin. Can anyone figure out yet what has happened? + Ahsoka technically saw to the future, Anakin isn't really in that bad shape at that moment. *got some ideas from Duel at Shattered Rock* <- I recommend that book, btw. It has clones IN LOVE!!!! I was like 'd'awwg' *heart melts* when I head it. + it has injured jedi, a Chiss, Mandalorians, and just general awesomeness.

And... I think that was about it. Rest of what I've written so far isn't really worth quoting, and besides, I like these parts way more than the rest. Please, tell me what you think of them!

A text waited too long and losted its point...

I've decided that I'm going to change the subject of this blog. It's not anymore just about Star Wars and fanfics, but also my other stories and ideas for them, most likely never going to be published. Like the ideas of Anakin being sick or what could have happened when Graystripe returned to ThunderClan during... was it The Sight? Anyway, those two are my latest ideas, but the latter is really odd. I could even write something about it here.

Well, I thought that when Graystripe brought Millie with him to the Gathering, shouldn't someone say something about "ThunderClan collecting kittypets"? It could even be someone from ThunderClan, but my point here is that maybe Blackstar could broke the Code and strike Firestar and blame him for turning Clans into kittypets. Or something like that... Anyway, maybe he would strike Firestar so hard that he loses one of his lives. I know, it sounds incredible, but from what I've learned, ShadowClan is ShadowClan and doesn't always do as StarClan wants.
And then Brambleclaw kinda gets mad at Blackstar, but Squirrelflight stops her mate from attacking ShadowClan's leader. And then Sandstorm hisses to Graystripe that she blames him for what happened but they have to get Firestar out from there. They(Sandstorm, Graystripe and Millie + maybe some other cats) drag Firestar away from the crowd to some more silent place and wait until he wakes up. Well, except that he doesn't wake up. He's fallen into some sort of coma, because Blackstar hit him so hard.
And the situation almost gets out of hands/paws of cats, but StarClan then decides to intervene; it remembers too clearly what happened last time when cats started fighting in Gathering. (Okay, was it when Clans were formed or soon after it? I'm not sure... Anyway, the Gathering that turned into a slaughter between the cats) StarClan cowers the stars with clouds and everyone sees the same "dream". Four will split to five, and soon there will be no thunder at all in the forest.
And of course at this point readers realize that ThunderClan is in danger. Well, that's true. But the cats don't know it yet. Especially ShadowClan gets scared, and they flee quikly from the situation. Also River- and WindClan leave soon. So, only ThunderClan left, they decide to get Firestar back to their camp. It basically means dragging him from the island all the way up to their camp. And there they take him to medcat's den, where he stays few days after his awakening.
And during this Graystripe feels guilty, because he brought Millie with him to the Gathering and caused Blackstar to attack. Millie tries to comfort him, but makes no effort.
After Firestar wakes up, he decides to retire, saying: "I'm too old for this". So now Brambleclaw becomes leader.
After these, I thought that there could be some sort of battle between ThunderClan and ShadowClan, and it splits ThunderClan to two; Firestar's followers and Bramblestar's followers.
Add something radom... too lazy to write more....

Stories!

I'm starting to write AHGM: chapter XIX, which is the last chapter. I think I should congratulate myself; I've never finished any story of mine. Shadows of Family is stuck, but I know what I should write. Maybe I'll revise the whole story, because this version sucks. It's so... illogical! It has all sorts of stupidities, like Shaak Ti and Luminara Unduli alive during LotF(something like that, I'm not even sure where this story is on timeline). Anyway, it's totally AU, because Chewie, Anakin, Mara and Jacen are alive after this story. Well, I'm not sure about Chewie, but the others will be.
And my other stories...

• Ministory: one or two short chapters ready
• Ice & Water: nothing yet
• The Tunnel: half chapter
• End of One Era(EoOE): nothing but some lines in my notebook
• At the End of Everything(AtEoE): lots of stuff in my notebook

Doesn't look too good.

Oh, and btw. I changed my profilepicture. Now it's Ahsoka, as you can see.