In the course of said recent musings, however, I realized something interesting about the way I view people, which I have tentatively termed “friendship tiers”. It’s… not really a very accurate term.

Essentially, what happens is that I will talk to people to get to know them, and when whatever part of me that runs these things decides I know them well enough, they get filed into a tier. This tier level describes how much I value that person’s existence.

Yes, I do mean existence. Not their opinion, not their company, not their happiness. It describes how much continued interest I have in that person’s very existence in the world.

The bottom “level” of this tier system is not really a level so much as a pool below the shelves. This is where the bulk of my “social contacts” reside, and is what I term “acquaintances”. My acquaintances are people who I have spoken with on at least one occasion and who I have not forgotten about. They float around in the big jumbled pool, waiting for me to learn new bits of data about them and add it to their… profile, I suppose.

The vast majority of real-life acquaintances don’t even have data for “name”, or hardly even “face”. They’re identified by connections to tiered people and the chances of my recognizing them if I crossed paths with them are extremely slim. This commonly occurs with people who remember me quite clearly, which is a bit awkward for me.

Online acquaintances generally have a screenname and a connection to one or more tiered people, at minimum.

Once an acquaintance has been floating around in that pool long enough to collect a thorough enough quantity of data, they get moved up to a tier.

It isn’t a progressive tier – you don’t start at the bottom and move your way up. Once I put you on a tier, you are there pretty much forever unless 1) we stop talking for a few years and you drop back into the pool, or 2) I learn something about you that totally alters/breaks my previous analysis of your character.

So then, the tiers. I think it will be easier for me to describe from the top down.

The very top tier has room for one person, and is, to use a fairly cliche but relatively accurate term, the “love of my life”. The single person whose existence I value over everyone else’s, including my own. Fairly self-explanatory.

Second is what I suppose is most analogous to “close friend” tier. The reason the friendship thing is a bad way to describe it is that friendship is two-way, while my tier system is completely uninfluenced by how other people view me. This tier is people who I value very highly but who don’t supersede myself. These are the people for whom I will go well out of my way. I highly respect these people, consider their opinions and thoughts of great value, and am easily upset by seeing them upset. I am prone to feeling defensive of these people against others, and I put a large amount of thought into phrasing disagreement with them (if I even bring up said disagreement at all). Being disregarded or brushed off by these people is highly upsetting.

The third tier is the “friend” tier. This tier is not as important as the above tier. The interests of third-tier people will always lose to the interests of second-tier if in conflict with them. I respect these people and value their opinions as points of consideration, but give said opinions no extra weight beyond their intrinsic interest or what validity I find in them after analysis. I will easily voice a disagreement with these people in an attempt to, in my mind, improve their understanding of a subject. I dislike conflict with these people and will get very upset by it, but simply being brushed off or disregarded is a point of irritation instead of crushing. I’ll voluntarily aid third-tier people if I feel they need it, but I won’t go particularly out of my way to do so.

The fourth and I think last tier is the “friendly acquaintance” tier. Despite the title, this is very different from the pool of acquaintances. I consider these people to be interesting individuals and worth continuing conversations with, but I give no particular weight to their views or opinions. I’m extremely prone to pointing out disagreements with these people for the same reason as the third tier, but I’m less likely to pursue the point if they don’t seem to be “getting it” or are not engaged in the discussion. A fourth tier’s lack of interest or disregard for my views is merely exasperating, and conflict is irritating more than upsetting. I will only attempt to aid these people if requested.

Let’s do this in an organized fashion.

A Study in Pink

This was marvellous. Masterful. Amazing. Wonderful. The absolute best first episode for the series that could possibly have existed. It had a perfect balance of reference to the original story and unique twists. Maybe a little heavy on the reference side, but it was after all the introductory episode. The characterization was (for the most part) brilliant. Watson was genius. The way they set it so that it was virtually always from Watson’s PoV, keeping faithful to the feel of the original stories as being about Holmes but not led by Holmes.

There were a few bits/aspects I didn’t like, of course. The bit at the beginning with the cell phones, for example. Blech. It was just so very juvenile. Not much like Holmes at all. (Like the sibling rivalry, too, but let’s not go into that yet.)

While I was watching it, however, I was absolutely outraged by their portrayal of Moriarty. (Wait, just wait.) I was like, this is far too melodramatic. It isn’t in character for Moriarty at all! And abducting Watson, dragging him off to a secret place, offering money to spy on Holmes… terrible.

And then I found out it was Mycroft. BRILLIANT. ABSOLUTELY FRICKING FANTASTICALLY BRILLIANT. Because it was perfectly Mycroft. Every bit down to the last bitty bit of characterization was Mycroft. All the Holmes drama. The setup. All of it. Perfect. Beautiful. And I never saw it coming. I value that highly in a show.

Now then. The nicotine patches, while amusing, were kind of silly. Specifically, the three-at-once. Holmes didn’t smoke three pipes at the same bloody time, now did he? No, the question of how many “pipes” it would take to solve a problem was a measure of how difficult the problem was, not because of the quantity of nicotine, but because of the length of time. So while I appreciate the pun, I still think it was kind of stupid.

What else, what else… Oh yes. I really didn’t like the font they used for the popup text things. I dunno. It felt too modern-clean-round. Too… commercial. It was a nice font, I admit, but it felt inappropriate for the situation.

The bit at the end with the shock and the blanket? Awesomely hilarious.

Oh! Another minor sticking point was the bit where Holmes is asking Watson about his analysis and he’s like ‘there’s always something wrong’. That’s sooooo not Holmes. Holmes is nothing if not supremely confident. Arrogant, even. He makes mistakes, but he rarely expects himself to do so.

On to the next.

The Blind Banker

The first ten minutes of this were an absolute bore. The focus on the Chinese woman at the beginning made it feel like the opening to any other crime drama, which I mildly resented. Too much focus on the setup, not enough on Holmes and Watson. I don’t want to know things until either Sherlock or Watson figures it out!

Not to mention the whole thing with Watson at the grocery store was a waste of time, unnecessary to characterization or plot. They could have gotten all the information and characterization they needed in a fraction of the screen time. Lazy writing. Annoying. Made Watson much, much too angry a person. Watson isn’t angry. He’s bitter and jaded at the beginning, but never angry.

It picked up again at around 13 minutes in, which was good as I gave the episode an ultimatum: catch my attention by 15 minutes in or I don’t watch you. If the first episode hadn’t been so great, I wouldn’t have even lasted that long. But I digress. There were bits of references to things, mostly the Valley of Fear, which I didn’t really connect until nearish the end (the part where he says “A book that everybody owns” or whatever the quote was). I only read the Valley of Fear once. I’m not as fond of the novels. Too much non-Holmes expositional backstory.

ANYWAY. I thoroughly enjoyed it after that. The characterization of Holmes was fantastic (Watson was still a bit too angry), and the murders were interesting enough, and the interpersonal stuff was good. The bit with going to the Chinese circus, not so much, not after Holmes went into the back room. Too dramatic. Holmesian drama and suspense stems from him, not from the events. Well, occasionally the suspense draws from the events.

The scene in the tunnel? AWESOME. I loved it.

The Great Game

This… was disappointing. There were, I think, too many references. The whole “game”, the puzzles, were so contrived and silly. And public. And out of character for Moriarty. Or at least, that’s what I thought, until I discovered that they made Moriarty a raving lunatic. Brilliant, but a lunatic nonetheless. Which is just totally, utterly wrong. I could have forgiven them for shaving decades off of his life (which makes him setting up such an elaborate crime ring unlikely, but I could go with it) but he was totally out of character! Nothing like Moriarty! It was the most depressing moment ever, the sinking feeling as I heard those mad singsong tones and realized, this is Moriarty.

Horrible.

The rest of the episode was only decent. There was too much, too quickly, none of it in depth enough, not enough process. Too much tension. Too many other people. Too many references. Not enough original content. I felt like it was both dependent on and hindered by my intimate knowledge of canon Holmes. Quotes and exchanges directly from the stories scattered throughout the episode, waiting there for us to come across and recognize.

But the mysteries… half of the ‘puzzles’ were rather heavily derivative. And the Parkington plans. They took it almost straight from the story. And then kept running it by us, again and again and again, dragging us away from Holmes to have Watson bumble about, no clue what he’s doing, slowly coming to a conclusion that I, having already read the story, already knew. They didn’t even have the decency to put a cunning twist in it to surprise people like me. And I know they expected us. There were far, far too many other references to possibly believe they didn’t.

I shan’t go into the solar system thing, because… well because a) that delves into my personal interpretations of canon, and b) the planetarium thing was so silly and contrived.

SPEAKING OF. Good lord. That fight scene. It was beyond ridiculous, it was just embarrassing. Embarrassing and confusing. Mostly embarrassing. Really. That was awful. Simply awful.

But I have to admit, they did my favourite thing. They put Watson in mortal danger so that Sherlock could show just how much he really cares about him and it was adorable the way he just completely dropped the whole cool facade and ripped the bomb off and flung it away. See, that’s the kind of way to work events in the canon in. Change it up! Instead of Watson being shot in the leg, he gets used as a tool with a bomb strapped to his chest. Fantastic!

Oh and the ending? Yeah, cliffhanger, blah blah. You know what would have appealed to my little fangirl heart? If somehow Watson got out of the building and then it blew up, Moriarty and Holmes still inside. (To the best of our knowledge.) That would have been a beauuuuuuuutiful analogue to Reichenbach Falls. And an absolutely smashingly fantastic end to the thing. I suppose they didn’t want to do away with Moriarty yet, though, which is silly as he didn’t show his face to Holmes until he was basically declaring “it is time for you to die”, at which point the whole long race etc. and Holmes took him out and then faked his death and you know.

Anyway.

Overall

I can’t decide. The high points were so very high, the mediocre points were so very mediocre, and the oh-so-few lows were so very, very low. I think overall it’s a plus.

I am still enraged by Moriarty.

It’s actually really stressful. I think the worst part is watching it happen and knowing that if I tried to mediate or anything, I would just make it bucketloads worse. Because I am the queen of putting my foot in my mouth and saying things in exactly the right phrasing to be miss-taken the exact worst way. And then other related things (involving this RP I’m in having accidentally ran ahead of one player timeline-wise) that I keep wanting to be helpful about, and I just have to keep reminding myself “No, the two in charge are much more experienced at this sort of thing than I am, let them handle it! Don’t butt in!”

Which leads me to the conclusion that I am a meddler! Meddlesome meddler of meddling. I see problems and want to be helpful and useful so I poke my nose in to try and fix things. Unfortunately, a lot of the time I seem to just make things worse. So I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut but it’s so very difficult and just sitting back and watching all these things is stressful. And I can’t take stress very well. But there’s nothing I can do about it! Arrrgh!

It’s like when a friend is upset about something and you can’t cheer them up, except like ten times worse. Because not only is said friend upset, but said friend continues to be upset by a thing while you watch and can’t do anything to eliminate the upsetting effects of said thing. And you know the conflict is probably upsetting more of your friends and it’s like when one person gets the chicken pox and you know everyone else is going to get it too now because it’s contagious and they probably already have it except you can’t tell because it doesn’t break out in spots right away.

And with that inauspicious introduction began one of the greatest experiences of my life. I was hooked almost from the very beginning. I laughed at Edward’s exaggerated antics. I cried over their mother. I cried over Nina. I laughed at Roy’s snark. I was devastated when Hughes died. I talked about it incessantly to anyone who knew of it. I dreamt about it. I daydreamed about it.

I started watching the raws as soon as they were released about when they infiltrated the Fifth Laboratory because, even though I hardly understand Japanese, I couldn’t wait the extra three days for the fansubber to release theirs to see what happens next.

The first series ended, amazing yet unsatisfying. I agonized over that ending, over how little it resolved and how it broke the most crucial aspect – the Elric brothers being together. The movie came out, somewhat disappointingly.

I slowly started to read the manga, but about this time my life was getting really busy and I had much less time and money. Time moved on, and I stopped discussing Fullmetal Alchemist with people. It wasn’t a current enough topic.

Then a new series was announced – not a sequel, but a retelling. A retelling that remained faithful to the manga, the whole way through. With the same animators, the same voice actors, everything. I was ecstatic. But there was a… hitch, I suppose. I was going to watch it with my boyfriend, which meant that my normal practice of stalking the release and watching it the moment it came out was out. (On the bright side, there are such things as decent speedsubbers nowadays.)

The first eleven or twelve episodes were familiar territory. The desert, Trisha, Nina, Hughes, the armors… And then it started splitting off into the manga story – the real story. Ling Yao and his ninjas show up. We see more of the homunculi, of Marcoh, of Scar. Of Father. The plot thickens, as they say.

And as the episodes rolled into the fifties, the stakes and the tension and the plotting rose. I fretted, and speculated, and waited impatiently for what happens next.

And then, finally, yesterday I saw the last two episodes. And with that… the story is over. It is a perfect ending. There are no strands left dangling, no orphaned segments, no wondering “but WHY” or “but THEN what do they do”. The story is closed.

It was interesting, last night. I was sort of in a daze afterwards, until about two-thirds of the way home when all of the emotions started bubbling back up. I believe it was what has been referred to as “a whirlpool of emotions”. I keep thinking about it, replaying those scenes over and over, letting it really sink in that it’s actually over.

I feel as though re-reading it or re-watching it won’t have the same impact, now, because I know what happens. I’m glad I know what happens, of course. But I don’t want it to be over.

It is over, though. Seven years after that first October evening, it’s over. And it remains one of the greatest stories – experiences – I have ever seen. If I could call anything a perfect story… this would have to be it.

They are alphabetical and categorized by how much of the series I have seen.

Italics mean I would not recommend that you watch it.

The Whole Thing

08th MS Team
Ayashi no Ceres
Azumanga Daioh
Big O
Cowboy Bebop
Digimon Adventure 02
Dragonball
Dragonball Z
Elfen Lied
Escaflowne
Evangelion
Fate/Stay Night
FLCL
Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist (2)
Genesis of Aquarion
Gundam Wing
Haibane Renmei
Kare Kano
Last Exile
Mai HiME
Nightwalker
Night Wizard!
Onegai Twins
Outlaw Star
Pandora Hearts
Phantom Quest Corp.
Ronin Warriors
Rozen Maiden
Rurouni Kenshin
Saber Marionette J
Saikano
Samurai Deeper Kyo
Sky Girls
Tactics
Tenchi Muyo
Trinity Blood
Tsukihime
Virus Buster Serge
Witch Hunter Robin

Some or Most

Card Captor Sakura
Descendents of Darkness
Digimon Adventure
Digimon Tamers
Digimon Xros Wars
G Gundam
Hayate no Gotoku!
Honey & Clover
Inu Yasha
Mars Daybreak
Monster Rancher
Naruto
Orphen
Ouran High School Host Club
Pokemon
Pokemon: Johto
Sailor Moon
Shinzo
Slayers NEXT
X
Xam’d
Yu-Gi-Oh!
Zoids: New Century

Only a Couple of Episodes

Berserk
Chrome Shelled Regios
Code Geass
Darker than Black
Eureka Seven
Gurren Lagann
Medabots
Mobile Suit Gundam
Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei
s-CRY-ed
Soul Eater
Tenchi in Tokyo
Tenchi Universe
Tsubasa Chronicles
xxxHolic

Movies

Aa! My Goddess
The Cat Returns
The End of Evangelion
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Howl’s Moving Castle
Metropolis
Mononoke Hime
Pom Poko
Porco Rosso
Spirited Away
Steam Boy
Totoro

Stupid fricking internet.

My first knee-jerk reaction (and that of any of you who happen to be chronic procrastinators, I bet) was, of course, “That’s what YOU think! It’s not that simple!” And I dismissed the topic from my mind.

Later, however – earlier today, in fact – I was writing. Working on my novel. Shocking, I know. I happen to be home for an entire three-day weekend with no one else around and I have previously set the end of June as the deadline for me finishing this manuscript, so at about 4:30pm I finally sat down and started writing.

After two hours of that with a longish break in the middle, I’d written 1,500 words. That’s about one and a half standard single-spaced size-12-font pages, for the curious. And I felt really embarrassed.

Why? Because it means if I sat down and wrote for an hour – just one hour – every single day, I would have finished this book a long time ago. A year ago. And the other one I’m working on, too. They would both be done.

So, why aren’t they done? Because I procrastinate. Because instead of spending the few hours of free, unoccupied time I have at home every night writing, I chat online. Because instead of spending one of those few free hours of unoccupied time I have at home every night writing, I chat online.

What’s keeping me from writing, then? I say that writing is important, that it’s what I want to do, that I want to be a published author and maybe even someday make a living from writing. Why don’t I do it, then? What is the drive for my procrastination? Fear of failure? Distaste for the task? Am I intimidated by the size of the project?

The answer, I realized, is none of those. In fact, the answer is there is no reason. I’ve gotten any actual reasons out of the way long ago. All that’s left is just… the habit. I have made a habit of procrastinating, and it is long overdue to be broken.

So that’s what I’m going to do. And it is going to be hard. But I can do it. And I will do it.

Because if I don’t, I’ll never be a writer.

P.S. Anyone who feels inclined to make a snarky remark about how I was writing this blog post instead of writing, I’ll have you know I was writing it while my bread dough was rising. None of that, now!

It is basically a webcomic about being a writer of fiction which I execute with close to minimal drawing effort. It has slowly improved over the first, uh, five updates and I expect that to continue for a couple more posts as I get the hang of the most efficient/effective method/style for doing this.

Things like remembering to flatten the layers before I resize the image down. And brush sizes. …Yeah.

Anyway, someone commented on the URL and was like “oh hey I thought it was spelled imperfect” and I responded “it is” and he was like “wait, so why is your website inperfect?” I pointed him at the name of the actual comic and informed him that it is all an ELABORATE PUN.

Since I have a fondness for explaining things outright, I shall now thoroughly explain how the pun works. That’s the rest of this post, so if you’re not interested or you already get it then feel free to stop reading now and just go to the comic page linked above.

The title was prompted by my semi-facetious commenting on how all artist-types have an “inescapable perfectionist” which leads them to always dislike their own work because they can see all of the flaws. So that became the title of the comic.

Now, the first level of irony/pun is in the site URL itself. Not only is it an abbreviation of the title (INescapable PERFECTionist), but it is a misspelling of the word “imperfect”. Not only is imperfect the opposite of that which a perfectionist would desire, but it is an imperfect imperfect and the impact is thus doubled.

Added to the double-layered URL/title is the title/content contradiction. The comic itself is executed with an intentional ignorance of perfection, care, attention to detail, and all that nonsense. It is literally just me doodling things on my tablet. This adds a second area of pun/irony to the already double-layered title/URL pun/irony.

(This post has entirely too many slashes.)

She bobbed quietly on the waves, breaking the sea into sparkling fragments around her blue-and-white paint. A stray breeze caressed her, futilely brushing at her furled sails as she wandered slowly, aimlessly.

The puddle at the bottom of the boat sloshed back and forth with every rise and fall of the sea, nibbling at the rim of a white frosting, undisturbed by the tramping of feet.

Far, far in the distance, only visible with keenest of eyes, a little white ring floated on the waves. It bobbed up and down atop the vacant waters, alone, belying its purpose.

The little white boat drifted on, slowly, aimlessly.

Which begs the question: what do I want in an e-book reader?

Full-color e-ink

Why full-color?
I would want to be able to read any books; comic books, novels, cookbooks, whatever. Some of those (especially comic books) need full color. And I do mean need

Why e-ink?
Reading back-lit text sucks. It just does. It’s harder on your eyes, it’s less aesthetically pleasing, it changes the texture and feeling and colors of the text and the art. If it doesn’t have the same look as a printed page, then I don’t want it. Otherwise I might as well just read from my computer.

No Internet Connectivity

But why?!
If I am reading a book, then I am not browsing the internet. I do not need an internet connection to read a book. Having an internet connection leads to things like Amazon pulling books from your library, the potential for the company who made your reader to monitor your reading habits, easily slipping in verification-based DRM like iTunes, blah blah blah.

How would you get books for it, then?
How do you buy music? Unless you buy all your music from iTunes, in which case never mind, you won’t get it. Which leads to…

A USB connection port

Why?
So I can move books onto it from my computer. Because I would buy the books on my computer. Because my computer is what I use for doing things online. Not an e-book reader.

Isn’t that inconvenient?
Not any more inconvenient than buying printed books. Less, in fact, as I don’t have to a) go out to a store, or b) wait for a shipment to arrive. Find, pay, download, bam. You’ve got a new book! It’s like buying music online. Moving books onto your e-book reader should be like moving music onto your mp3 player.

Support for all relatively common e-book formats

I guess that’s pretty self-explanatory.

Random Book!

…Huh?
This is more a something-I-would-like-to-see than a make-or-break-the-sale. A little button thing that you can push and that will grab a random book in your library and bring it up. For those days when you want to read something but aren’t sure what.

And there you have it. If you find an e-book reader that has all of these things, do let me know.