justira

And here we are with a little FFVII post to follow from the FF Tactics recs! We're starting off with a vid by the same vidder that closed out that post, so let's go!

Don't ask me how so much Aerith/Cloud ended up here; I have no idea ._.

( Final Fantasy VII: 8 arts, 2 cosplays, 1 vid, 1 craft )

Guess what! seventhe and I have a teaser to celebrate renay being awesome and having a birthday and GRADUATING COLLEGE! There is a SURPRISE inside the teaser!

Teaser is over here! It is over six thousand words long, whoops!

Exclamation marks!

♥ renay. We hope you like it =D

Two things I ran across on tumblr in quick succession that I feel go nicely together and made a better day for me. This is not the post I wanted to make — there's important other stuff I wanted to post about — but I have been mega sick and basically I just want something feelgood.

So.

Item A: Two Men Tango; Follower in High Heels

I basically don't have words for how hot and awesome this is. I love dancing; I love ballroom dancing; I love gender fuckery and subversion; I freaking love how hot tango is. Anyone have more awesome tango videos to share?


(on tumblr, with source and talk from source)


Item B: First Sailor off the Ship Kisses Her Girlfriend

It’s a time-honored tradition at Navy homecomings — one lucky sailor is chosen to be first off the ship for the long-awaited kiss with a loved one.
Today, for the first time, the happily reunited couple was gay.

The dock landing ship Oak Hill has been gone for nearly three months, training with military allies in Central America.

As the homecoming drew near, the crew and ship’s family readiness group sold $1 raffle tickets for the first kiss. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50 - which is actually fewer than many people buy, she said, so she was surprised Monday to find out she’d won.

Her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the brow.

They kissed. The crowd cheered. And with that, another vestige of the policy that forced gays to serve in secrecy vanished.

By Corinne Reilly
The Virginian-Pilot
© December 21, 2011

(on tumblr with source, etc.)


Speaking of tumblr, anyone know any themes that display things as... tiles, I guess, rather than in a long vertical column? The theme I have now ( http://justira.tumblr.com/ ) used to do that, but then got an "upgrade" so now it's all broken and only has two columns. seventhe has something close ( http://sevdrag.tumblr.com/ ), but I like how on my layout things are different dimensions and text stuff is actually there, not just a preview (or it should be; layout is borked...). Any help? =\

First:

A kitty in California needs a new home (willing to drive 12 hours): Itai's new home: In which I beg for my best friend's life (another signal boost with summary )

OccupyEverywhere: Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi (from a faculty member concerning the use of pepper spray on students at UC Davis)


Announcement!

So. My host, dreamhost, has decided to shut down all dreamhost.com subdomains and keep all hosted stuff on dreamhosters.com subdomains instead. They haven't given out dreamhost.com subdomains in ages, so this affects a small number of people. But those people are their oldest and most loyal customers. And now, as far as I've been able to tell and their support department has been able to tell me, that's it. My long stay with them is rewarded by having all pointers to my art — of which there are in the area of a thousand spread across several sites — be dead on December 1. That's it. Not even a redirect after that date. Just gone. The files will still exist, but will only be FTP-accessible, not web accessible.

I am not best pleased. I'm trying to see if they can do anything better for me, at all. But for the foreseeable future:

All links/references to my art will break in about a week.

I'll be trying to go back and fix links as I can, or whatever other solution I come up with. But that could take a while and I am pretty low on energy just now. Some but not all of my art is available on deviantart under justira.deviantart.com — I haven't updated that in a while though. I'll be doing what I can; I the meantime, my apologies :(

(dear AO3: y u no host my art :( )


And now, because I need something nice after all of the above:

(1)

FINAL FANTASY FRIENDING MEME


(2)
Speaking of DOINK! it's Small Fandom Appreciation Month at the Chocobo Races! Join in and create something! ( DW | LJ ) Don't forget to check out the prompt-a-thon, too! ( DW | LJ )

(3)
A poem: "The Trees" by Philip Larkin

(4)
A vid rec in the form of a chat transcript:

justira: oh my god I just watched a clark/lex vid where
justira: clark
justira: gave birth to a kitten
justira: what did I just watch
owlmoose: dot. dot. dot.
justira: it's a crack vid and
justira: I
justira: I can't
justira: what
owlmoose: i think. maybe not at work.
owlmoose: sould i look for it later?
justira: also there were kryptonite unicorns?
justira: uhhhh
justira: I
justira: I don't know how or why the unicorns come in
owlmoose: well, do you need a reason for unicorns, really
justira: I
justira: it's
justira: it's actually pretty worksafe?
justira: possibly not brainsafe
justira: what did I just watch
owlmoose: at least it sounds like it was not dull ;)
justira: no it wasn't
justira: I don't know what to do with my life anymore
justira: CATBABY

I know I'm like the last person to catch wind of these things but:

dualbunny: I Swear (Smallville - Clark/Lex)

Hey, any artists out there who want to take part in an awesome project?

Claiming for megaflare_ff is almost over, and they need more artists! Come on, look at these TOTALLY AWESOME SUMMARIES! They are so tempting ._.

Claiming ends this Sunday, October 2, so hurry over! All you need to do is create one drawing for the story you select, and it's all very low-pressure ♥

Story Selection Post

Artist Signup Form

My mom is having a crisis day. Really, there's nothing else to say. I just... wanted to vent into the void apparently.

Everyone who has helped me with my family situation: thank you so much, and I'm sorry my contact has been so sporadic — I am really, truly grateful for your help and your well-wishes, I just do not have much energy with which to express that. You've really made a difference.

I don't really know what to do with myself.

My mom is having a psychological collapse. My dad is part of the cause, so he's no help; my mom's girlfriend has been trying to help for two years. This pretty much leaves me, and I spent over three hours talking to her monday night, driving down to her place and trying to work out some kind of plan. My family's still half a million dollars in debt and their cash flow is still negative. My mom is terrified of declaring bankruptcy because she'd lose her security clearance and have to look for work, plus all the energy of settling into a new place if she even manages to find one. My dad's flaking out on everything from childcare to his part of the debt to helping my mom. I'm trying to find her doctors she agreed to one day and balks at the next; the lake house that's the primary money-suck has been on the market for ages without even a walk-through. Three whole adults have utterly failed at getting their life in order and now it's my turn to try, again; what am I supposed to do here?

I'm almost as depressed as I've ever been, and that was before my mom. The grave's medication is maybe making a sliver of difference -- I wouldn't know; every time I get a little space to breathe from one thing, something else awful happens. The job opportunity I was really hoping for isn't materializing and now I'm on the hunt again. The economy's collapsing again right when I'm quitting my current job -- you know, the one that made me so depressed? And the economy continues to be infuriating, I am so angry and violently saddened by the garbage coming out of DC.

I feel like I've flaked out on everything this year. I've accomplished nothing creative, I've failed so many people, I'm so far behind on org work. On the one hand, how was I supposed to know that 2011 would suck so much more than 2010 for me? When I ran for board, things were looking up. I was secure and moderately content. I didn't know my family would implode, I didn't know that I would get so sick, I didn't know I'd be quitting my job. But I somehow should have shouldered everything and soldiered on, right? I'm trying to cling to some shred of something for me -- something outside work, commuting, chores, and the sleep mandated by my sickness. But there's nothing left. I gave up all my hobbies, all things fun, months and months ago. All that's left is the org and all that does is make me feel guilty for falling further behind. But if I take a leave there, a real leave of absence, I will just feel like I had failed everything.

I don't know what to do with myself.

Well. Here we finally are I guess. I have a diagnosis and a scrip for pills and we're gonna start treatment and hopefully I will feel less like shit.

I don't often do this, but:

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) calls for Obama to end tax breaks for the wealthy and tax loopholes that benefit huge corporations, saying that enough is enough and that deficit reduction cannot be built on the backs of the poor and the vanishing middle class.

He made a 90-minute speech on the floor of the Senate today and has put up a letter to Obama on his official website.

Please sign the letter and spread the word. As of this posting, there were 67,897 signatures. Let's raise that number.

Excerpt from the letter:

Mr. President, please listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe that deficit reduction must be about shared sacrifice. The wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations in this country must pay their fair share. At least 50 percent of any deficit reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street financial institutions. A sensible deficit reduction package must also include significant cuts to unnecessary and wasteful Pentagon spending.

Excerpt from his speech with video embed ( behind the cut )

Senator Sanders, thank you so much for doing your job.

Please sign the letter and tell others about it. The Twitter tag is #SharedSacrifice. Make it big, make it loud.

I'm pretty cynical and my hopes are pretty low. But any chance to change things...

[Hat tip: Shakesville]

my mom's getting an ovarian cancer biopsy this week because previous tests have been inconclusive.

is there someone out there for whom the past year or two hasn't sucked? =|

at least it's not a done deal yet. we'll know one way or another soon =|