Cleolinda everywhere

So "let's take a day to livetweet Surprise Gender Swap Twilight" (yes, this is a real, official Stephenie Meyer book. This is not a drill) turned into a comparative-gender-studies week-long ordeal and I haven't even gotten to Vampire Baseball yet. (I'm over on my secondary Twitter account, @cleolindajones, for all this.) I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I definitely needed to take yesterday off, catch up on my sleep, and work on an Aromaleigh post. (Extras from the sold-out Primavera box will be available in the next few days? Don't let Kristen know I let you see this.) (I think Luciferus is the one I talked her into doing as an open edition? I didn't let you see this either.)

Anyway, if you'd like to catch up, here are the collected livetweets by day:

https://storify.com/cleolinda/sparkletime
https://storify.com/cleolinda/sparkletime2
https://storify.com/cleolinda/sparkletime3
https://storify.com/cleolinda/sparkletime4

Also, the other week I posted a multimedia Dragon Con writeup detailing my adventures, including meeting Scott Thompson and Aaron Abrams, aka the "darling boy" story (*facepalm*), plus two different podcasts I was on to discuss it if you've ever wanted to hear me shout "FUCK A FUCKING DUCK," whee.

ONE MORE TIME: Breaking Dawn in Fifteen Minutes.

@made_of_fail: Episode Forty-Eight: And Then the Werewolf Fell In Love With the WAIT WHAT

@NoelCT: Want to hear me kinda sorta somewhat defend the Breaking Dawn and the Twilight series?

@NoelCT: Want to hear my impression of Edward Cullen as played by Christopher Walken? 

@NoelCT: Want to hear about all the tasty treats one can make from a strawberry flavored uterus? 

@NoelCT: Want to hear me explain the mechanics of male wet dreams to three women? Check out Made of Fail!

@cleolinda: I am also on it. RT @queenanthai: HEY GUESS WHAT episode is up http://made-of-fail-pc.livejournal.com/25442.html

Oh, this is also the one where I have a very controversial answer to the "Edward vs. Dracula" question. "IT'S NOT FAIR, BUT SHE WROTE IT THAT WAY!" Also, in the last ten minutes: how the Eggward story one of y'all told me explains why I still like the first movie more than any of the others.

Also, I remembered the "dirty question" someone asked poor Chris Weitz. Bonus: My turn on the Meet the Failcrew Q&A. Also-also: what happens when y'all don't write in for Mailbag Mondays.


@alliancesjr: THE FRIENDSHIP IS OVER. OOOOOVAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

@cleolinda: OVER 9000?


Cleolinda Industries provides solutions.



 (the Cleolinda Industries tip jar)

Breaking Dawn in Fifteen Minutes.

I feel like I should check in, this being Sparklemas. I have spent the entire month being really, severely, physically depressed--I can't remember if this time of year is always like this for me. It feels worse than usual, but then I remember how raw everything feels right around my birthday mid-December, so... it's probably just a seasonal downward spike. It's just so hard to explain, because you're not depressed "about" anything--it's like you've got the flu, influenza of the soul, and someone comes in and goes, "Where's the blood? It's not like anyone stabbed you or anything, walk it off." There's no easily recognized focal point--it's just there, draining you. Specific wounds take time to heal, yes, but you have something to focus on--change the bandages, take out the stitches; a specific event-driven depression, an emotional wound, might be a break-up or a job loss or the death of a loved one. You might not be able to do anything about it, but you have an idea of why you feel so horrible. I don't know--this emotional flu seems to have no real beginning and, you fear, no end. You can't explain it, you don't know what else to do, after the antidepressants and the vitamins and the full-spectrum lamp and everything else you've been recommended. It's just... haunting you.

However, it is also Sparklemas.






Indeed, sir. Indeed.

So, my Breaking Dawn schedule looks like this: ( Read more... )

Harry Potter is the Biggest Worldwide Debut Ever with $476M. That is to say, nearly half a billion dollars, blowing through the Eclipse midnight record, the New Moon opening day record, and the Dark Knight weekend record. From what I've seen of Comments on the Interwebs, Twilight fans and Batman fans are united in shouting YEAH WELL WAIT TILL OUR LAST MOVIE COMES OUT, and then they realize they're on the same side and run away to wash that icky fanboy/girl off. Whatever helps you sleep at night, kids.

Guillermo Del Toro and Emma Watson for Beauty and the Beast?; David Yates reveals his next project PP (post-Potter) (whoa, The Stand?); How Harry Potter Changed Publishing (three words: midnight release parties); 10 great, and 10 no-so-great, things about Harry Potter. And here's our discussion post, with a--well, not a defense, but an alternate take on the epilogue. Also:

@bestforfilm: We're opening a bar called Harry Shotters. Drinks include Margaritaskeeters, Cedric Daquiris, Mojicho Changs... #harrypotterdrinks

Concoctions include Pinot Gringotts, Episkey Sours, Mudbloody Marys, Blast Ended Skrewtdriver, Hex on the Beach, Ginny and Tonic, Ron and Coke, Creme De Menter, and my favorite, Madame Hooch.

Since y'all have waited ever so patiently, let's skip straight to TheOneRing.net Exclusive: Behold! Thorin Oakenshield and Orcrist! ( BEHOLD! )

The CafePress store is live, as mentioned yesterday at ridiculous length. I have tweaked all the description problems, half of which were caused by me fixing the original problems.

To summarize: Marc Vuletich, bless him, did some artwork for Team Sparklepire and Team Fursplode designs:




And I did some text-based designs for "I Drive Like a Cullen (I Speed with a Whiny Teen)"; "Talk to Your Kids About Vampires (And Drugs If You Have the Time)," a general vampire comment I once made; and "Vampire control is a serious problem that affects us all...," a paragraph from one of the Varney recaps. ( Read more... )

This is what I have spent the last, I don't know, five days or so working on, and for once in my life (or at least a very long while), I feel somewhat accomplished. I'm still trying to get writing-type work done, but I'm also going to start looking into other designs to put up next month. (The current designs aren't going anywhere.) I want to get some non-Twilight-parody designs up, so I think I'm going to try to work on something with cousins, Romans, matches, polar bears, and/or ponies next. A My Hideous Repast/Furious Kitten concert t-shirt is probably going to be a major design project, so that'll be a while. Also, my mother has given me the all-clear to use pictures of Sam, if y'all would be interested in some Petite Lap Bear magnets or something.

No, I don't have anything better to do on a Friday night than sit at home, listen to really old Bryan Adams, and fuck around on Twitter. We've already taken my mother out for her birthday dinner and come back, I don't know what else you want from me.


@Salome: @cleolinda So OF COURSE they have these personalize-your-own vampire books... http://www.bookbyyou.com/teen/default.asp




( Oh my God, this is mortifying. I am totally going to fill it out now )

I fully encourage you to mess around with the other book generators, which include but are not limited to Fierce Moon, Pirates of Desire, and Click for Love. Obviously, you have to report back afterwards.

From Saturday: New Secret Life of Dolls, in which a sparklepire finds out exactly for whom the bell tolls. Looking at my calendar, I'm thinking we'll have the next installment on Saturday (as usual), and then we'll skip the next week, because that's Harry Potter and I have a podcast to do on Saturday and I don't think anyone will be paying attention to anything else anyway. Unless there are unexpectedly high number of Potter non-fans here who want counter-programming?

Meanwhile, I fell into a gigantic plot hole over the weekend and realized that the central premise of the first half of the novel (the first Black Ribbon novel) doesn't make any sense. I won't get into specifics, but it came down to an anguished writer-wail of "Wait--but--why wouldn't he tell her? OH, FFFFFFFFF--"

The thing is, I'd been sitting there trying to jam together puzzle pieces that didn't fit for--I don't know, months, probably. I just kept telling myself that I had all these nice, shiny scenes I had created--some of them independent of the others--and that if I just thought about it hard enough, my Powers of Logic would force them into place. And then I finally ran into the one failure of logic that made the whole thing collapse. So I'm opening a fresh Word document (I save every variation of everything, so it's not like I lose anything by experimenting) and just talking it out. So far, it's... actually going really well. I got something like 4000 words done today, and about 2000 on Saturday. It's kind of liberating, in fact, to just be like, "Fuck it, I'll just start over." I mean, there are older bits that will get absorbed into the new as I go. But at least I'm not trying to pound the same square pegs into round plot holes anymore. So... I've got that going for me, I guess.

Linkspam! ( Read more... )

1) snowcoma says her mother made it through surgery all right (which is a relief), but that she will (as expected) be in recovery for several weeks, so keep the good thoughts coming.

2) As a side note/follow-up to the "I can't drive and thus I am ashamed" entry: two things here. ( Read more... )

3) I specifically held this entry until the new Deathly Hallows trailer went up, so: huzzah! Also: ( SPOILERS )

4) Given the privacy issues we've talked about: you're going to want to read this. @griner: Wow, that subtle Facebook "not now" button change has a pretty big side effect.

MOAR LINKSPAM ( Read more... ) 

So I had to go to the DMV to renew my driver's license today, except that it's not a driver's license, it's a driver's permit (it looks exactly the same, except there are two "exception" codes on the back. A: Corrective lenses and Y: Not a license. Oh. You know. That), because I can't drive, because I get panic attacks, because I'm a neurotic loser, so on and so forth. For the last fifteen years, the Alabama Department of Motor Vehicles has peaceably taken my money and renewed it without question. Except... this time. And somehow, going in, I knew they wouldn't renew it. Somehow, I knew.

And it was, in fact, exactly as humiliating as I expected. ( Read more... )

Later this week: bloodwork. I'm afraid of what's going to show up in it, although it's on the order of my psych doctor, basically to rule out a few things, not omg you have all the cancers. I'm still afraid of what might turn up. Like, you know, full-blown diabetes, which runs in the family and I'm at risk for. I mean, obviously, whatever turns up is something I already have, not something the bloodwork bestows upon me, so just refusing to find out isn't going to help. However, I also have a deep fear of needles--( this may squick you out, depending on your own issues )

So. Bloodwork. Later this week.

P.S. No one can ever find my veins.

But so help me God, I have a state ID, which is good because I need a drink.


Meanwhile: The weekend's discussion of character deaths and your feelings thereunto was very good, and our querent wishes me to pass on to y'all that it helped a lot. Also, my inbox is on fire.

Linkspam! ( In which I get... a little riled up )