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.

@cleolinda: #leavingthehouseomg #sparkledammerung

@cleolinda: These gifs express my feelings on the bittersweet ending of the Twilight movies.

@cleolinda: An hour early was not early enough. Line all the way through the building to the back door. Forgot one does not simply walk into Twilight.

@cleolinda: The line has now doubled all the way back around to the front. #sparkledammerung

@cleolinda: FRONT ROW RAILING SEAT ACHIEVED. ONLY MINOR CASUALTIES. IN TRENCHES WITH PRETEENS. #sparkledammerung

@osheamobile: RETURN WITH YOUR SCRAPBOOK OR ON IT

So I was actually planning to go see Skyfall with my mother Friday night (my grandmother had an unexpected surgery last week and we ended up not going last Friday), but then, on the spur of the moment, she decided that Skyfall was maybe too long for a 7:30 pm showing, so why don't we just go ahead and see Breaking Dawn, since it's only two hours, comes on half an hour earlier, and I have to write that thing anyway? Yeahhhhh the line was so long it went all the way to the back of the building, then snaked around and doubled back to the front. We happened to get there at six, when it was only at the back of the building still. My mother had never witnessed this kind of thing before (and this wasn't even a midnight showing, mind you), and immediately got Line Claustrophobic. Also, really pissed off at people breaking in and not respecting the lineness of the line. (I started telling her veteran war stories of the New Moon preview.)

( Mild spoilers )


SHORT VERSION:

@christylemire: My review of the shockingly entertaining TWILIGHT finale. We are all Renesmee Cullen:

This is by far the best film in the series. This does not necessarily mean it's good. But as it reaches its prolonged and wildly violent crescendo, it's at least entertaining in a totally nutso way.

That's about the way of it, yeah. I also chimed in for Christy's article on the lead actors' future (@AP: For Twilight actors, transition from beloved film series with fervent fan base can be tricky). The horse I chose to back should come as no surprise.

I want to leave my own share of discussion at that, but we usually have spoilers in the comments, so why the hell not: go for it. I don't want to talk very much about the movie myself, since I need to save it for That Of Which We Do Not Speak, which we will speak of because we all know I'm writing it. I actually knocked out a fairly solid outline at 3 am Saturday morning. (Also, we'll be recording a Made of Fail episode on Tuesday.) Don't know how long it'll take to write, but these things always take at least a few days, and both my grandmother and my sister are really, really sick; I know my immune system well enough to know that, particularly after going out and being around people omg, I am probably going to get sick (again) myself. I'm proactively warding it off the best I can, but I'm just saying: build some wait time into your expectations here. I don't think it'll take six weeks like The Avengers did, but bear with me here a while. Go ye and catch up on the first four Twilight in Fifteen Minuteses while you wait.


Meanwhile, this is going to be the Help I Cannot Remember Specifics thread, for all my HELP I CANNOT REMEMBER SPECIFICS needs.

So. Emily (foresthouse) came to visit for a few days and we ate our way through the restaurants of Homewood (the new Which Wich was hands down our favorite, although Dave's Pizza was also excellent) (although my favorite Chinese restaurant, the Dragon, CLOSED FOREVER the day after we had lunch there), and then we watched The Hunger Games while she sewed on her DragonCon costumes and OMG PROMETHEUS ON THE HOTEL TV BECAUSE THAT IS A THING THEY ACTUALLY DO

( YEAH IT IS )

I was mostly clappy-hands because now she can read Prometheus in Fifteen Minutes (I refrained from doing a live recitation of it) AND THEN THEY EVEN COMPED OUR RIDICULOUSLY PRICED MOVIES BECAUSE HOTEL ROOMS ARE THE BEST and we also saw The Bourne Legacy in an actual movie theater and slept a lot and also she taught me how to play pool. And then I went home, promptly came down with a terrible sore throat in the middle of last night which turned into a chest cold and a twisted knee because... somehow. However, I interrupt my death blarg because there is something you need to see.

@Tonnerdoll: The Fall Holiday Release is NOW LIVE!! Place your pre orders now and get FREE SHIPPING!!






( YOU GUYS. YOUUUU GUYYYYYS )


Then that thing happened where you are kind of run-on-sentence giddy and recovering from fun but then something serious happens and you are somewhat at sea with the record-needle-scratch suddenness of the tone change. My stepfather had had some health issues that I didn't mention, and spent a few days in the hospital several weeks ago. It's worse now, and he's going to have to have a fairly major surgery next week--stomach issues, not cancer or anything, but still a little scary. People usually give me the side-eye when they realize I don't live on my own, but at least I'll be here to help take care of him when he gets home. He's also just been laid off from work ("displaced" is the term they use nowadays) so... taking time off isn't an issue, at least...? I guess. I'm in "clinging to fun that was had in order to ward off anxiety" mode at this point. Things are not great, but we will be okay. I've had a lot of health and money issues to deal with for... well, a long time now. Several months, maybe a year or longer, honestly. Hence the infrequency of LJ entries, and why some of the ongoing series-type posts just... stopped. I'm going to try to post more, maybe start with more Varney the Vampire for the tip jar, put up an e-book of the Twilight book entries, annotate some more Fifteen Minutes(es), I don't know. We'll see. Also, I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to have to turn on ads here on LJ. It is what it is, I guess. You do what you can, and try to keep your chin up as you do it.


ETA: Ah, my stepfather's come back from the doctor; it looks like he'll have to have a CAT scan to be sure, but not surgery now. So we've got that going for us.

1) Bella Swan: vampiring better than you since *checks watch* 2008. This is the same teaser that ran in front of The Hunger Games, so you may have already seen it (stop poaching Katniss's deer, BELLA). ( Read more... )

2) Meanwhile, shit got real: The Hunger Games' box office crushes the Twilight movies. All of them.

3) I seem to have hit a hypomanic upswing; mine, as I've explained before, are pretty mild. The only thing someone would really notice from the outside is that I'm a bit more upbeat, enthusiastic, and talkative--but when a movie I've really been looking forward to comes out, that doesn't seem out of place. (Honestly, I've started wondering--as I've said before--if you can trigger manic moods. If nothing else, I think it suddenly being SUMMER IN THE MIDDLE OF MARCH gave me an overdose of natural light, and that may have caused it as well. As I recall, my most pronounced upswings are almost always in the spring and summer.) Otherwise, I'm outwardly calm, but as I've gotten older, I've been edging further and further into mild mania, and the happy creative bursts have been "evolving" into something less comfortable. The upside at the lower hypomanic end is that I feel happy and creative (verging on hypergraphic); at the high, verging-on-manic end, I feel overcaffeinated, impatient, and irritable, I have all these ideas but I can't concentrate or focus, I have a hard time sleeping, and I don't want to eat. I have a sample of BPAL's Safari blend, and a dab on the back of each hand (so I can smell it while I'm typing) seems to have centered me a bit. Once I was able to actually focus, I got 1600 words written in a couple of hours last night (there's your hypergraphia), but it took me all day to be able to concentrate that long.

On the other hand, you get wackadoo flights of fancy like the mandatory Panem TV schedule, and like this:

@cleolinda: WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING RT @NikkiFinke: Hugh Dancy To Star In NBC Series ‘Hannibal’

@cleolinda: Look, save some time. Modern-day Sherlock Holmes hunts Hannibal Lecter. In a dystopia. With a vampire. An alien vampire.

@cleolinda: The alien vampire is on the run from a beauty pageant to the death. Also, Sherlock is a werewolf. His brother is a steampunk faerie.

@writingfreak88: No alien ninja turtles?

( Read more... )

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... )

I have a ton of catching up to do, but I slipped into a research/rewrite/productivity rabbit hole and didn't want to come out for a few days. So, here is several days' worth of linkspam, although I tried to stick to the essentials: ( Read more... )

I cut several news items for time (space?), but I'll see if I can't work them into the next spam, assuming one happens in a timely fashion.

A linkspam that has been THREE DAYS IN THE MAKING.


@bathbomb: Also, today I did a little sketch of @cleolinda. This is what she looks like in my head.

@cleolinda: @bathbomb Other than the fact that I'm about twice as wide, it's actually pretty good.

@foresthouse: @cleolinda You look like that in my head too. Except there is a Pallas cat grumping over your shoulder.

@cleolinda: @foresthouse Considering that you've seen me in person, the likeness must be impressive.

@foresthouse: @cleolinda Well, okay, actually I confess that in my head you have purple hair, and no amount of seeing you IRL can change that. :P


Linkspam! ( Read more... )

@LiveJournal: Currently experiencing a DDoS attack for the past two days -- status.livejournal.org

@gildedbat: @LiveJournal  pity they're going to have to set that "days without a DDoS attack" sign back to 0.  They got all the way over 100.

@LJmysticowl: Russian news confirms, also says that paid accounts will be credited the time they lost due to downtime.

@chez_amanda: There's also this Time article about the attacks that I just read.

ETA: @LiveJournal: Please to say we are up and running again! Thank you, U.S. and Moscow teams, who have worked tirelessly to get things restored! Happy LJing!

So... that's what's up with that, then. I want to stay on LiveJournal, but in order to do that, I'm gonna have to have a LiveJournal to stay on. (This entry is posted on both LJ and DW. As long as I can crosspost, I will.)


As a reminder in case you didn't see it: the Made of Fail podcast with Kevin, sometimes Dayna, Mark, Rinna and me, "Mischief Managed"! If the LJ link doesn't work, this is the direct download (or you can subscribe in iTunes; it's free). You may also want to listen to the first Deathly Hallows review show ("In Conclusion, Alan Rickman" [download] ), which had just Kevin, Mark and me. Or even the Half-Blood Prince show further back that I was on! We have many wizard-based options for your aural entertainment.

Movie links! They are exceptionally organized tonight, in no small part because I have three days' worth, and this isn't even all of them. ( Read more... )