My love, I Hail you from a faraway place,
The words that I lay down are painful to write. And now I'm done,
I'll be leaving to a forsaken land... and my life will come to an end.

I've marched with my brothers for a long, long time, we carry the hope for those
Days to come. But still I long the embrace of the one I call mine
That's the only thing I'll miss when I die...

So far away from this place of mine, so long overdue is a kiss to my love
Feeling her skin under this roof of mine, I wish I had more time

I see the old days in the ripening fields, the joy to be with you and become as one
But now it's gone, though I'm sure we will meet again
In this world or the next

So far away from this place of mine, so long overdue is a kiss to my love
Feeling her skin under this roof of mine, I wish I had more time

To be with you, I'd give it all. To grow old with you, I'd give it all
Fate has decided otherwise, my sister of the Light

My love I Hail you from a faraway place.
"Remember by face"
Words that I lay down are painful to write.
"Don't fear, my love"
And now I'm done I'm entering a forsaken land...
"I will always be there"
My life will come to an end.

So far away from this place of mine, so long overdue is a kiss to my love
Feeling her skin under this roof of mine
I wish I had more time

Now as I stand on the battle field my hopes are all going to our only son
He shall be strong and never yield, he is what the future will bring...

I don't mind bad writing as long as there's a good story behind it. Really, I don't.

But J.K. Rowling really pressed my buttons not ten seconds ago in Order of the Phoenix.

So here I am, sitting on my chair, bored, a headache coming on, reading the book, and then suddenly, without warning, near the top of page 242, is this (don't worry, there's no spoiler):

"We're not going to use magic?" Ron ejaculated loudly.

"Ejaculated." That's the word Rowling uses. A simple "said" works just fine here, or maybe a "shouted," or, hell, an "exclaimed," but no, she went with "ejaculated." I did a double-take, put the book down, and began writing this blog post.

Now I can't get certain images of Rupert Grint out of my mind.

I try to run, I try to hide
From a voice I couldn't satisfy
That was me, always needing more
And letting go of all I had before
'Cause it feels like the end
A wound that I can't mend
I just can't fight any longer

You waited 'til I sobered
You came when you knew that the game was over
I didn't even want to be found


But you chased me down and broke in just when
I was done believing
Spun me 'round so close now
I can feel you breathing
Sunlight burns inside and
I feel so alive and
Help me now, tell me how
How can this last forever, forever?

I ignored the signs, opened every door
But I couldn't find what I searched for
I try to fight but I turn and run
Every move I make is the wrong one
You patiently wait for my next mistake
I know it won't be much longer

You waited 'til I sobered
You came when you knew that the game was over
I didn't even want to be found

But you chased me down and broke in just when
I was done believing
Spun me 'round so close now
I can feel you breathing
Sunlight burns inside and
I feel so alive and
Help me now, tell me how
How can this last forever, forever?

You gave me so much more than I could ever ask for
But I turned and followed a road that left me hollow
And still you waited for me to come back home
You brought me home...

You chased me down and broke in just when
I was done believing
Spun me 'round so close now
I can feel you breathing
Sunlight burns inside and
I feel so alive and
Help me now, tell me how
How can this last forever, forever?

I found a very interesting website, called Triond, where you can write about whatever you want and, if you get published, they'll pay you a tiny bit depending on your articles's traffic.

I also found StoryMash, which is the same thing, but with collaborative stories.

Also ReviewStream, which pays $2 for every published review and $.10 for every "liked" vote.

All I have published on Triond so far is this, so look at it, read it and hit "I like it." :x I have another article coming soon, which should be fun. All I wrote on StoryMash was this short continuation of a pre-existing story; again, read, rate and love (I don't think you need to be a member). :x

Also, my computer BSOD'd on me the other day, so I had to reset it and I lost everything. :cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

I picked up and read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy recently, and I noticed a couple things:

In the first chapter of the first book, Lyra (the main character) hides in a wardrobe, just like Lucy from The Chronicles of Narnia.

In the second book, Will Parry (another main character) gives himself the alias "Will Ransom" when asked his name. Ransom is the name of the main character in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy (his whole name is Elwin Ransom).

BIG-ASS SPOILERS AHEAD!!

The whole "death of God" thing is there, but it's so unbelievably anticlimatic, I had to read the scene twice. The first two books (and two thirds of the last) are all about how powerful and evil and egotistical and blah blah blah the Authority (who is explicitly identified as the God of Christianity in the third book, by they way; it's so explicit that there's no simply room for other interpretations) is that when we get to that point, we expect some sort of massive, super-powerful angel with a big booming voice saying "HAHAHA FOOLISH MORTALS I AM GOD YOU CAN'T HURT ME NOW BEGONE" and then the heroes to be like, "O RLY TAKE THIS HAAAAA *Stabs God with Subtle Knife*"

But that's not what happens. At all.

The kids find this crystal. . .pod. . .thing. . .and see God (who they don't know is God, by the way). So they open it up, and God's in the pod, scared to death, crying, extremely old and very feeble. The kids help God out of the pod (lol rhyme) and then God smiles, and the wind blows Him away. That's it. That's absolutely it. There's no more mention of God anywhere after that, because the characters have absolutely no idea what just happened, because if they did then it would **** everything up somehow. God has no lines whatsoever; He just cries, smiles, nods, sighs, dies, in that order, on one page. Sure, that wasn't the ending of the book, but you'd expect the death of the first and most powerful being in existence to be. . .well, epic.

END OF SPOILERS

The books aren't atheistic at all. They're completely Gnostic, except they invert the Gnostic principal that matter is evil; HDM asserts that matter is intrinsically good. In Gnosticism, there are two gods, and the one that created everything is the bad one.

There's no mention of Jesus or the Devil in any of the books, which I find weird; even if Pullman were to make him the good guy, you'd think Satan would show up somewhere, and seeing as Christianity is explicitly mentioned many, many times in all three books, you'd expect to see Jesus, too. But nope.

I didn't care for Pullman's writing styIe. It's third-person omniscient, which doesn't give us very much insight on what the characters feel in relation to everything around them. It also makes his story a bit jumpy, especially in the second book. The story was well-done, for what it was, and despite being anticlimatic, the scope is massive (two children being the only hope of killing a tyrannical dictator-god and saving every universe ever to exist while never knowing exactly what it is they are doing? That's epic).

You know what the funny thing is? These books'd probably be wonderful if The Authority wasn't explicitly identified as God in the third book; it completely ruins any allegorical or interpretive aspect of the story and turns it into a FFRF seminar. In Narnia, Aslan's never explicitly identified as Jesus. As much as Pullman criticises Narnia, he uses every single tool Lewis used, from talking animals to children being the main characters to the wardrobe to heavy religious themes; Lewis just did it better.

Out of 2,423 Amazon.com reviews, Crossroads of Twilight has 1,555 one-star ratings. :shock:

I've never seen any product with such bad reviews on any website, and I've seen reviews for books missing entire chapters.

When They Cry (also known as Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni) is a murder-mystery anime, and it is amazing. A fairly gory anime (nothing on the level of Elfen Lied, but there are some torture scenes and some gruesome deaths), but they keep it toned down enough for me to enjoy it while still being completely freaked out.

The story is played out in four-episode arcs; once one arc finishes, the story starts over with a different story arc from a different perspective.

And the characters! You have no freaking idea how to feel about these people! One minute everybody's cute and giggly and having fun, and the next somebody snaps and goes completely psychotic. And even when they do, you still can't help but like them somehow (with the exception of one certain character, who's pretty much a constant *****). They are so three-dimensional and amazingly developed it's like real people got animated and thrown into a world where you just watch them live.

The only thing I don't like about this anime: One of the main characters, Keishi, is a ****ing dumbass.

Seriously. He is the single dumbest character I have ever seen in any anime, ever. In one story arc, after he finds out a certain character has gone psycho and killed all his friends, what does he do?

Go for a walk with her. Alone. Where he lets her hug his arm. And then allows her to show him her underground torture chamber--he completely knows what she's done, the extent to which she has done it, and how she did it, and yet he ****ing LETS HER TAKE HIM WHERE IT HAPPENS ALL ALONE LIKE NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HER AT ALL.

And then, later that episode, he runs into her again. Rather than run (like she herself warns him to do), he walks up to her and gets his stupid ass stabbed.

He seriously, honest-to-God, is so stupid that I have yelled and screamed at my computer screen while watching his dumbassery unfold over and over again. His is the only bad character in the series; it's inconsistent, stupid, and badly voiced.

Other than him, though, the series is awesome and has become one of my most favorite anime ever. It is very disturbing--I've had nightmares. Episode 21 is the freakiest of all (anybody who's seen the series knows exactly what scene I'm talking about).

If you can handle a fair bit of blood and a little gore and a little torture in your anime (trust me, it's like Pokemon when compared to Elfen Lied), definitely see this anime. The English dub is called When They Cry, and the Japanese version is Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni.

I just noticed that. :lol:

But she is the best pop singer in. . .ever.

Okay, there seriously needs to be a "books" tag for blogs.

Anyway, I got my book two days sooner than the ETA (which I really love about Amazon), so here are a few hideously low-quality pics to show it off!

The back of the slip case:

The spine:

The back of the book:

(The fingers are there because this thing is so damn heavy that I couldn't steady it for the pic)

The front of the book:

And to give you an idea of how big the book is:

That whole picture is nothing but book, on its side.

This thing is HEAVY. Heavy, heavy, heavy.

I also got this, but none of you give a **** about that. :P

Don't deny it. You wanna dance.