Thoughts

[J. T./Jessica]

*Throws his arms over his head*

Please don't kill me, math never was my strong point.

*Drops his arms down*

On another note; how hard can it be for someone to understand that you can get away with writing things as fanfiction that you wouldn't necessarily be able to have published? Answer; appearantly quite hard in at least one case...

[J. T./Jessica]

It's been a month and I still don't know which is worse;

The cochon that - after ten years - told me 'we're eliminating your position, your last paycheck is in the mail'...

or the resulting job-hunt that I'm undertaking...

[J. T./Jessica]

Hey, Amanda, cleaning house and came across a couple books on Ireland and Scotland - you want?

[J. T./Jessica]

I don't know why you do this to me, Johnnie... Junon preparing for the WEAPON attack is not them 'transforming Autobot City'.

[J. T./Jessica]

Does anyone even come here anymore?

[J. T./Jessica]

www.uncannyxmen.net/showarticle.asp?fldAuto=2849

Y'know, as a fan and a fanfic writer, it's a strangely good feeling when you learn that some of the minds behind it all have similiar opinions to characters and events to your own.

Yeah, the whole 'Jean's alive-must abandon family and run off to New York to be with her' thing killed Cyke for me, turned him from a stick-up-his-six boy scout that you could at least respect even if you didn't like him to a hypocrite that you wonder why the hell Jean got back with him since he just proved he couldn't be trusted to keep a promise...

[J. T./Jessica]

PS3's still KIA due to that little hardware problem, but I'm back in the gaming again! Managed to get a new PS2 controller to replace the one where I'm missing the wireless piece and so I've hooked my old PS2 back up. Far more limited in games - mostly Final Fantasys and a couple others - because I had mostly PS3 games, but still enough options to have fun with.

[J. T./Jessica]

Huh. Fascinating.

I was watching A-Team on Hulu and I noticed something. I don't know how many of you know this, but Dirk Benedict didn't play Lt. Templeton 'Face' Peck in the pilot two-parter; an actor named Tim Dunigan did.

What's fascinating is that during the credits where it displayed Dunigan's face and name, I was struck by a strong sense of familiarity and it occurred to me where I might have seen him before. I went to YouTube and pulled up the intro to the old TV series 'Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future'...

(Great show, died by being trapped between having to sell kids merchandise and having a more adult-oriented storyline. Personally, I always liked it because it wasn't so kiddy, even when I was a kid. I actually understand there's talk going around about a remake... Considering the recent quality of remakes in recent years, I'm ambivalent. Maybe if JMS comes back to produce the remake... anyway...)

I had known that the name and face was familar and I was right; I had seen him every time I watched Captain Power since he played the title character Captain Jonathan Power (From a Lieutenant to a Captain. At least he got a promotion... though as near as I've ever been able to tell, excluding Major Matthew 'Hawk' Masterson and possibly Sergeant Michael 'Tank' Ellis, the Power Team's ranks seem to be honorary and arbitrary more than anything else).

[J. T./Jessica]

Playing Star Trek Online doesn't mean you went to school in San Francisco, even if Starfleet Academy is there, Johnnie, it's not a good reason to support the 49ers.

Baltimore is in Maryland, Love, that's reason enough for me to pull for the opposing team. The fact that I can joke about 'attending school in San Fran' because I can visit the Academy in STO is just a bonus.

[J. T./Jessica]

Amanda;

If I were to say that I was writing a story involving a psychiatrist named Milton Sydney, what would your first thought be?

[J. T./Jessica]

*Groans, rolls his eyes and rubs his temples*

Gor-blimey, I really do hate it sometimes when people want to send me unsolicited story ideas...

[BloodAngel]

Re, Sidney: Best psych name *ever*.

Re, unasked for ideas: How band's this one?

[J. T./Jessica]

*Grins* Based on Sidney Freedman's official name and the fact that his first appearance he was called 'Milton' Freedman; hence, Milton Sydney. But you already knew that.

*Groans*
Hard to sum up, so bare with me.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, familiar with it? Good.
There's also an anime called Love Hina. Shojo-manga/anime, to be exact. It's about a guy named Keitaro who made a promise to meet up with a girl from his childhood at Tokyo University. Only two problems; when the story starts, he's already failed the entrance exams twice (Something that his parents aren't happy about and think he should just give up on Tokyo U and either go to another university or work in the family bakery)... and he can't remember anything about the girl. The exact details vary from Manga to Anime, but he ends up at the family inn, the Hinata House... herein lies a third problem. His grandmother who owns the Hinata turned it from an inn into a girl's only dormitory and never told her children or grandchildren... and now she's left on a round-the-world trip and since he's there anyway she puts Keitaro in charge as Manager. Uh-oh. If you're familiar with Tenchi and Ranma, you've probably got an idea where this is roughly going. That's right - one guy, six girls, wackiness ensues (painful wackiness that's like that scene from "Super Troopers" about the shenanigans...).

The first difference between Manga and Anime; in the manga, Keitaro shows up at the Hinata uninvited and unannounced while everyone else is out. In the Anime, however, he's actually summoned to the Hinata by a letter from Granny Hina.

One of the girls who appears in the series (but isn't a regular cast member) is Kanako, a girl that Keitaro's parents adopted which while that technically makes her his sister, this is a shojo-anime/manga, so of course she focuses more on the 'adopted' part than the 'sister' part because she 'loves' her 'big brother'.

That's the source material backstory. Now comes the fanfiction backstory. I took two of the basic elements - Kanako's actions regarding Keitaro and his parent's general disapproval towards him - and pushed them to the extreme where he gets blamed for an action she takes towards him and he gets throw out and disowned for it. Out on the streets, he's found by the Foot Clan and ends up becoming part of the Foot, reaching the point where he's actually married to Oroku Saki/The Shredder's adopted daughter. Then, as in the Anime, Keitaro receives a letter from his former-Grandmother telling him to come to the Inn. When he does, things diverge further as instead of accepting, he takes the deed that's already in his name, puts it in his pocket and tells the tenants they have one week to get out. When his aunt who's there confronts him, he tells her that they may choose to ignore the past, but he doesn't.

Then the fanfic ends with an open ending. I like open endings, they make you think. Still with me? Good, because now we come to the actual series of events leading to my frustration.

They're not a bad author, let me say that up front. One of their own stories is actually on my favorites and alerts, in fact. I just don't like other people saying how I should write my stories. (It's different with you and Jessica, Daniel, Gibb and Yolanda regarding PRL since I may write the stories but it's still a group project, even with half the group MIA...)

Anyway - they leave a review asking for more to the story and I respond that I've been considering it and even started writing an expanded version, but have no idea if it's actually going to go anywhere and or even be posted.

I then end up getting the following PM;

If you do write a companion piece that happens before your fic, will Karai know Keitaro before or after Oroko Saki appears?

If it was me, I'd be tempted to have the two know each other before Saki appears. Probably as Kids trying to survive on the streets.

But going by their ages of when you suggested when Keitaro was thrown out of his family and when Karai is usually found by Saki, It wouldn't be possible.

Then again, I wonder who would notice Keitaro.... Would it be Karai or Saki?

If it was Saki, there's a part of me that would like to have Saki somehow realize that Keitaro is the grandson of Hina Urashima and have Saki go with a Xanatos Gambit of taking in Keitaro and training him.

The plan being that of acquiring the Hinata Inn,

Here's the example of the Xanatos gambit from Saki's perspective,
---
If the plan succeeds and Hina accepted Keitaro, One of two things happen
1.) Hina will try to tempt Keitaro into re-joining the family by giving him the inn,
2.) Keitaro fakes entering the family, but slowly starts a scheme where the Inn is sold to Oroko Saki.

If the plans fails and Hina rejects Keitaro, then Oroko Saki still has a well-trained bodyguard that has the Urashima blood running through their veins and thus would be far more durable than any other bodyguard or some other reason.

Either way, it's a win-win for Oroko Saki.
----
Of course we all know how the situation went down.

If it was Karai that found Keitaro, She'd probably feel a bit of pity for him and give him a room for the night. If there are enemy ninja about in the area and she is on a mission, she might use him as a distraction by pretending to date him for a few days, only for her act of pretending to have a crush on him starts to become real after awhile.

And I'm just groaning and thinking; 'Who the hell's writing this, me or you?'

I haven't been able to reply to the PM yet because every time I re-read it, I end up making like Rita Repulsa with 'Oh, I've got such a headache!'

[BloodAngel]

...Dude I am so fucking sorry.

[J. T./Jessica]

May 20, 2006 14:43:44 GMT -5 J. T./Jessica said:

You gotta love Robin Williams...... Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect Plan. What we need now is for our
UN Ambassador to stand up and Repeat this message.

Robin Williams's plan...
(Hard to Argue with this logic!)

"I see a lot of people yelling for peace, But I have not heard of a plan for Peace. So, here's one plan.

1) "The US will apologize to the world for our 'interference' in their affairs, past & present. You know: Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those 'good ole boys;' we will never 'interfere' again.

2) "We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany , South Korea , the Middle East, and the Philippines . They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) "All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days, the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. They're ill egal!! France will welcome them.

4) "All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5) "No foreign 'students' over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a D, and it's back home, baby.

6) "The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy-wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy, but will require temporary drilling for oil in the Alaska wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while .

7) "Offer Sa udi Arabia and other oil-producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8) "If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not 'interfere.' They can pray to Allah, or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement, or whatever they need. Besides, most of what we give them is stolen or given
To the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) "Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair-weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) "All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us 'Ugly Americans' any longer. The language we speak is ENGLISH...learn it...or LEAVE."
"Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?"

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer Saying, 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat, and she's yelling, 'You want a piece of me?' "

I had forgotten this...