JOURNAL: Arigatomina

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  • huh... 2007-02-02 12:44:09 I was thinking about taking part in an op exchange, so I went looking through my profile for a vid to use. And I just realized I got an op from Sammy. A very civilized unsolicited op. How could I forget that? I was sort of in disbelief when I saw his name on the 'opped' list so I went to read the review (I don't remember getting it). I actually replied to it and got a response to it back then. That's like major. How could I forget that? Now I'm curious about his reputation and ops in general.

    I had him pegged for a flamer sort. You know, the ones everyone complained about a few years back. There's so much circle-jerking these days that it's funny to look back on a supposed 'flamer' and find that his op was more polite and constructive than most of the "nice" ops I get in exchanges. Unsolicited, too.

    Considering which vid it is (Dark Half), I know why it fell under his raidar. I got quite a few complaints the month I released it because the announcement thread was too long for the video itself. He even said as much in the review - that he downloaded it expecting to find it highly overrated, so there'd be plenty to pick at. And it was, and there was, but he was so darn POLITE about it! I'm just sort of..."huh"... Not sure what to make of that.

    It makes me realize that I haven't gotten any actual flame ops in a really long time. I still get the QCs, sure, but not ops. It's as easy as ever to make a flame account for opping purposes, but it looks like people aren't doing that anymore. I think that's another plus on the QC side - gives them a place to vent where it doesn't affect anyone or anything, and nothing can (should) come from it since it's only read by the creator of the vid. I like that. I wish I'd noticed it sooner. My first few years here I took flame ops for granted and now I haven't gotten any since the QC option was started. Nice.

    I'm still not editing. I think I've isolated one of the problems. I keep trying to use YYH. After all the recent anime I've been watching, all the popular "new" anime people have been using in vids, YYH doesn't look pretty enough. It looks old. The colors are strange. The animation is cheap looking, the style is bland, and I can't see it "fitting" the songs. It's still fine for multi-anime vids, but I get...apathetic when I sit down and try to use just YYH. I think about the editing and I picture footage that's sharper, even from anime I dislike watching - just because it would look prettier.

    I don't like it. I want to edit for the characters. I can't edit for the editing itself. It's soul-less. Look at the timed flashes and sharp lines, but I don't know the names of any of the characters featured because I'm not interested in watching the anime. I don't know what to do to fix this. I make vids I want to watch, I want to watch vids with characters I love. But I can't make myself edit with those anime because they don't *look* right anymore. If I'm not using characters I know, anime I like, I might as well be editing with colored shapes and patterns. It means nothing.

    On a different note, I was reminded of my ego problem recently. I was writing a Tsubasa fic that I was really into. It has a strange storytelling pattern - it's not linear, it's...a lot of flashbacks told in past tense, lots of descriptions and only bits of present time dialogue. I was taking my time to set up things, trying something new and maybe more interesting than what I normally do. I was really into it. I liked it, I thought it was a big improvement - something I should have been trying a couple of years ago. And then I put up the fourth chapter and no one responded. I started wondering if I were wrong about it being 'better'. I looked around and compared the fic to ones that get immediate responses, good or bad, and noted that the lack of dialogue was the key. I started thinking about the old "show don't tell" and wondering if I had it backwards - to show a flashback do you need to write it as if it's happening now, or can retrospection work just as well?

    I wondered if it was the audience - I was writing the fic the way some of my favorite verbose authors do their stories, and that's not the sort of writing I see in fanfiction. I was limiting the dialogue because most people think more than they talk, and my favorite stories reflect that. I wondered if improving meant losing my fanfiction audience. Or was I completely backwards? I started looking at my recent fics and I realized I'd been doing that a lot lately - less dialogue, more reflection and setting up the backgrounds of the characters for the original universes I was putting them into. And I'd already come to the conclusion that the more chapters I write for a fic, the less people review each chapter. I'd passed that off as a resulf of the author/story alert - I don't review often at all, and if the author keeps updating without me pushing him, I may not say anything until the fic is finished. Now I wondered if it wasn't the 'alert = less reviews' but just a result of me changing my style.

    I actually hit the point where I got depressed. Not bothered, disappointed, frustrated - actually depressed. I know the feeling. I don't let it last long, but I recognize it immediately. I thought "I can't write anything." So I didn't. I didn't even want to read my own stories anymore, something I'd been doing a lot recently because I really like the way they're written - rereading it made me get into the story and it made me want to write more, right now. I did what I always do when I hit that bottom level - I switched hobbies and spent a few days organizing files on my computer, considering my complete lack of motivation to edit with my favorite anime, and doing my best to forget I was involved with fanfiction at all. And then I came back and there was feedback on the livejournal community where I'd linked the fic. I only did it because someone on ffnet reviewed an earlier chapter and said most of the KuroFay fans avoid ffnet like the plague. I already knew that because I've been lurking on that community for a while to read the stories that aren't posted anywhere else.

    One detailed response for that fic and all my doubts crumbled away. Just like that. Confidence back, enjoyment in reading my own fics back. And while I know that's the way I am, I don't really get it. I don't figure myself for an attention whore when it comes to feedback. I don't need a lot. Most of my favorite stories only have one or two readers because I let them sit for years until I get the urge to pick them up again. When I get too many immediate reviews for a fic, I stop updating it until half of them go away because I'm afraid I'll start catering to them instead of to me. I'm not nice enough to my readers because I don't want to become dependent on them. So I think, someone who purposely doesn't update ridiculously popular fics can't be an attention whore. I have a couple of HP crossover fics I may never update again because of all the kids reading them (kids who dislike yaoi - people who shouldn't even be *looking* at my fics, let alone asking for an update). I have an FF7 fic I dropped a few years ago because people were saying it was hilarious - when I'd never planned it to be a comedy to begin with and had no intention of maintaining that humor throughout (I like bits of humor to contrast with the angst, that was the plan). I still get reviews on that FF7 fic and I dropped it forever ago. If I were an attention whore I'd be pulling crack out just to keep them reviewing.

    But there I am, all of my confidence breaking down if I don't get at least one other person agreeing with me. I wonder, then I doubt, then I question is it just me, then I decide I must be wrong, and then I quit - until I get a late response and everything's back to normal all systems go. I do that bounce all the time. I *know* I'll get a late response and be back to normal within a day at most. But I can't stop that instant doubt and lack of confidence during the wait. I have the same problem with criticism. I can get a dozen lengthy reviews (rare things) and the one I focus on is the two sentence complaint. That's the one I'll remember later. And I'll be surprised when I look back over the reviews because I'll have convinced myself the majority disliked the fic - when really it was only one person.

    I think I might do that on purpose - focus on the negative so I can convince myself the story isn't popular. Because if it's popular I'm obligated to deliver and I'd sooner drop the fic than change it to feed the readers. I think that focusing on the complaints is my way to rationalize continuing the story - if they don't like it they'll stop reading and I can write whatever I want. How can you delude yourself when you know you're doing it?

    I don't know. I'm getting annoyed with this self-esteem thing. The fact that I know I do it, that it always happens the exact same way, and even when I'm at the bottom I know I'll be back up in a day or two but I can't help waiting at the bottom, it's frustrating. I know it's all in my head. I should be able to slap myself, remind myself it's all in my head, and get over it immediately. What's the point of wasting a few days wallowing? I don't enjoy being down there. It's not fun. I shouldn't have to wait for someone else to pull me out.

    That really hurts my ego. So much for being self-reliant. >.< 
  • why why why 2007-01-30 18:13:17 I had the urge to edit earlier. Naturally I couldn't since I'm limited to headphones only during the day and with headphones on I'd never hear mommy come knocking on the door for her kid. My new line is drawn at keeping toddlers overnight (already stepped over the diapers thing and the driving with carseats thing). So, no editing in the daytime.

    I realized that my new problem is it takes too long to rip footage. By the time I have all the footage ready, I'm bored and want to do a different project. I need to be able to just rip the dvds and edit as soon as they're ripped - no huge clip files necessary. This is feasible with short series, but not with long ones.

    Why not? Well, surprisingly it has nothing to do with disc space. I have lots of that now. It's because scanning through avisynth scripts is slow as fuck, and not nearly as frame accurate as scanning through huffyuv (or lagarith) clips. I could swear I'd skimmed threads about making Premiere read avisynth scripts faster, before the forum was cut into tiny specific little chunks. Now I can't find any of those threads. Not fair.

    How do people use premiere and avisynth scripts and have their vids come out looking so clean cut? They even do quick 'iron chef' vids with avisynth (no time to prepare clips in those speed races). How? It takes minutes just to narrow down a single scene when I'm using a script in Premiere 6.0. It's worse about having spare frames than WMM ever was. Isn't that just pathetic?

    I finally have the space to store vobs, I have a program that reads scripts (no need for huffyuv) and here I am still trying to get as many huffyuv/lagarith clip files on my computer at once because using scripts is innaccurate and slow. [can't remember how to spell innacurate/inacurate/etc]

    So not fair. Short attention span, too many long series, and fleeting inspiration. I'm gonna start ripping random series and storing them just on the off chance I get an idea so I can start editing immediately. 
  • personality disorders 2007-01-25 21:56:24 After reading the latest posts in that "disorders in america" thread, I'm once more convinced I could easily be diagnosed with a handful of disorders without telling a single lie or exaggeration. The biggest one, though, the one that makes me wish I could feel guilty, is that I could be diagnosed with...dun-dun-dun: Antisocial personality disorder! Yes, formerly known as a psychopath, then a sociopath, and now something that doesn't necessarily refer to a potential murderer, an antisociopath. ;p Okay, so my limited range of emotions does spread to spontaneous bursts of humor. I'm giggling as I write this. How innappropriate.

    Here's a link to a little thesaurus description of psycho/socio/antiosocio-paths:
    http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

    I have a complete lack of empathy for the suffering of human beings. My instinctive response (if any) is: That's stupid, how could anyone do that, you gotta be kidding, if that's common our race is doomed, I could do that to someone, they keep taking it - don't they know even brainwashed sheep bolt when they're being tortured, I wouldn't have gotten caught, etc.

    I don't get shocked. I don't feel sympathetic. I certainly can't relate. The only time I feel anything is if I try to apply myself to the situation - then I get angry and disgusted because I can't come to terms with the thought that there are people (humans, just like me) who would do that (or put up with that, or let that happen to them) and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would never. Sometimes I'm curious, I might be impressed at success stories, disturbed by horror stories (in a "wow, that's sadistic" way, not a "oh that poor person" way).

    Even when I read disaster reports (the tsunami, Katrina, the quake+landslide) I only get angry because the people in government positions aren't doing their jobs. I'm not fired up because people died due to them, I'm fired up because (just because) they were hired to do a job that they utterly failed to do. The resulting deathtoll just makes it easier to prosocute them for not doing their job. I'm still only caring about the lack of work ethic - because that's something I feel strongly about. Think about that for a moment. You're reading a magazine saying hundreds of people are dead, there are photographs of bodies rotting away in front of you, and your immediate response is "I can't believe my taxes pay that ass to do nothing while volunteers are flying from the other side of the country and doing his job for him." That's just a morally wrong way to react.

    Of course, as easily as I can imagine myself doing morally wrong things, I do have a fear of pain and punishment, so I'll never act out (if I think I'll be caught). So I'm not really a psychopath. So far. ;p

    Fun test to take - it's modelled for men since for some reason men are more prone to be sociopaths than women (or men are just *caught/discovered* more often than women) =

    The Psychopathy Checlist-Revised:
    http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist-Revised_%28PCL-R%29

    The items are as follows:

    1. Glibness/superficial charm
    My Score: 1
    2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
    My Score: 0
    3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
    My Score: 2
    4. Pathological lying
    My Score: 0
    5. Conning/manipulative
    My Score: 1
    6. Lack of remorse or guilt
    My Score: 1
    7. Shallow affect
    My Score: 2
    8. Callous/lack of empathy
    My Score: 2
    9. Parasitic lifestyle
    My Score: 1
    10. Poor behavioral controls
    My Score: 1
    11. Promiscuous sexual behavior
    My Score: 0
    12. Early behavioral problems
    My Score: 2
    13. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
    My Score: 2
    14. Impulsivity
    My Score: 2
    15. Irresponsibility
    My Score: 1
    16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
    My Score: 0
    17. Many short-term marital relationships
    My Score: 0
    18. Juvenile delinquency
    My Score: 1
    19. Revocation of conditional release
    My Score: 0
    20. Criminal versatility
    My Score: 1

    I hit 19. Maybe 23 if I'm a little more honest about my ego and the things I did as a kid. But either way I'm not a psychopath! Yay~!

    The items are summed in order to obtain a total score. The cutoff for psychopathy is 30 points or greater (25 in some studies).

    Still...I could probably be diagnosed with antosocial personality disorder. If I did get diagnosed, would that mean I don't have to feel embarrassed for not feeling empathy for the suffering of human beings?

    I'd feel sorry for them if I could, honestly. I wouldn't have to bite my tongue as often if I could feel sorry for them. Things would be a lot easier if I cried at funerals, or at least sympathized with the people crying at funerals (been to a lot of those). Being the only one sitting there wishing the funeral would hurry up and end already, because that woman beside me makes the most disgusting noises when she sniffs the snot back into her nose is very annoying. Pretending I wouldn't be fine with walking out in the middle of the eulogy if it wouldn't reflect on my mother is more annoying. And feeling like a criminal for not sobbing at the sight of poor suffering people (as if I'm not caring on purpose) is just frustrating.

    Maybe I just haven't sufered enough personally to relate. I expect to be blank-faced if my mother dies before me. I'll cry in the privacy of my home, but not at the funeral. I don't think I'll got the funeral. I dislike them. I find the sight of dead bodies done up in paint-makeup macabre and disrespectful. And I like to tell myself that the next time I'm molested as a child, abused by a relative, or married to a drunk, maybe I'll decide to lie back down and take it for a few years. Then I'll be able to relate with victims instead of being disgusted with the entire female population for being so pathetic. I need to learn to feel sorry and pathetic and broken about my own problems before I can relate to other broken people. My problem is I didn't break. I don't expect to. So I don't relate. Can't. Sorry about that. ^^; 
  • vcas 2007-01-25 14:34:50 I was scanning through the vca req section. I think last year I didn't post in there, but I got as many of the recommended vids as I could muster the slightest interest in watching. Anyway, I was skimming through the threads and the video names struck me first - there were only two (out of all those "best" threads) that I recognized. There were quite a few multi-editor projects I recognized, but only two "single-editor" videos. Feeling slightly disturbed, I started skimming the improved/new/best creator threads. Again, only two of the names I expected to see. Most of the names struck me as being average or new (based entirely on pre-2006 videos, mind you, since I obviously haven't seen any of the recommended vids from 2006). And I stared and felt more disturbed.

    I can't help but ask, where did everybody go? Have the average people from previous years really improved so much? How did I miss that? And why didn't I wonder why I very rarely downloaded videos last year?

    I must have been ignoring vids that used anime I disliked (most vids last year), ignoring vids that used new anime but didn't sound interesting (most vids last year), and only downloading when one of my very few favorite editors happened to pop up with something new (very rare last year). And I wondered why I was losing interest. If I don't take more chances downloading new stuff (whether it sounds interesting or not), I'll never download anything. It sucks, but that's the way it is, I guess. The few times I downloaded from new faces - because the vid description sounds interesting - the editing sucked and I didn't want to watch any vids for the rest of the day/week/month.

    Somewhere along the way I think I forgot to remember what I know. No one will make videos I want to be made. I know that. I do. None of the good editors will make videos with concepts that appeal to me. I know that, too. So if I'm going to be an amv-watcher, I have to be content taking whatever well-edited videos I can find, whether I like them personally or not.

    And, damn. It's no wonder I pretend to forget what I know. What I know sucks! Hard facts of life (amv-related life) suck.

    I'm gonna start downloading vids I'm not the least bit interested in now. At least then I'll have familiar titles to vote for. I can judge editing quality whether I like the videos or not. I looked forward the vca's last year as a chance to find videos I missed. I'll survive this year getting videos I purposely didn't get when they were released. Maybe I'll even get motivated to edit something if I see some really addictive editing styles. If nothing else, I'll have an excuse for browsing this forum two to three times every single day. I'm a bad amv fan. Bad, bad, bad. :( 
  • whoot 2007-01-19 22:40:40 Wierd (stupid) error gone. ^^
    I'm back to having 680mbs available of my 5gig site. I checked the "Service Announcement" page but there wasn't any news about the error. I'm afraid that means it's something that happens so often they don't bother to mention it. At least I've lucked out up to now - this is the first time I've seen it happen, after all.

    I'm off to delete some more files. I need to have 1.5 gigs of free space at all times or I start feeling claustrophobic. Rotation and sorting out the expired foodstuffs is good practice.

    I should try that with the wheels on my car. I would, but my mom wants me to buy a new one because she noticed (finally) that the paint has almost entirely chipped off the back (trunk) of the car. I thought she'd have noticed it months ago. The paint started flaking off right after I had that accident and they repainted the front passenger door. First the paint on that side started to bubble in places, then the paint on the driver's side, and finally the paint on the trunk. I guess they couldn't just repaint one door white - they had to repaint the entire car. So now I have chippy flaky paint over the entire car. Except the front and the roof. I'm not sure why. The sides are scratchy looking and the top of the trunk is mostly bald.

    My poor self-conscious (anal) mother thinks it's an eyesore and an embarrassment for my car to be sitting in the driveway my apartment shares with her office. I'd love to see what she'd say if someone else were renting this apartment, someone who didn't give a rat's ass if she were embarrassed by the state of his truck. At least I don't leave beer cans littering the backporch, or hooker-looking old women lounging on the back steps with joints in hand while they wave at her clients when they pull into the shared driveway. I know my mom has had worse neighbors than me. It's just that I'm family, I'm eager to please (her, no one else), and she'll get her way even if she has to pick out the new car herself (and pay for it, if I refuse to trade in my perfectly fine-running vehicle just so she won't have to look at the bald spot anymore). Stubborn woman. It's no wonder she's so poor all the time. Even with the kid who doesn't ask for things, she's still letting herself be used.

    Whatever, though. I don't want a new car, so I'm not paying for a new car. What I want is to get my car a checkup - oil change, replace the shift thingy so it'll stay in park without me having to use the emergency brake (I have a factory recall paper I got in the mail that I've been wanting to use free of charge, thank you), and maybe have them look at the wiring again because honestly I know the headlights will go out next - both turn signals have been working for weeks now, that can't be a good sign, and maybe have them fix my reverse lights so I can see when I back the car up at night.

    ...okay, so there are a few bugs in the car that would cost a good amount to get fixed, but see - I can *afford* that. I can't afford to buy a brand new car (pretty enough for mom's driveway) when the one I have still runs. My mom used to do that with her vehicles, driving them till they were absolutely dead before seeking a replacement. I think she's spent too much time with my brother and sister. Just because they get a new car any time they get so much as a flat tire, doesn't mean it's normal or a good idea or something rational people like she and I should be mimicking.

    I'm spending my tax refund on a new portable dvd player and that's that. ;p I had it specially ordered for me - should be in the day after the direct deposit. I'll use what's left to get my car fixed up - paint job, even, if it'll shut my mom up. See? I can be eager to please, rational, and still get what I want. I just have to wait a week. ^^ 
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