So, hey, official statement because I get the question asked a lot and it’s come to my attention that people have misinterpreted my stupid Youtube videos on occasion.

I don’t ship. I’m not “Kataanger” or “Zutarian” or anything like that. Matter of fact, I’m poking fun at shipping, especially all of that season one to two shipping where everyone seemed to be taking every time two characters shared a glance as some kind of sign from on high that their ship had “won” or something. It was/is hilarious to me. Not that I didn’t have my predictions as to what would happen. I had a solid guess from episode one. Thing is, I never cared if I was right about it or not, and I certainly didn’t put on war-paint and lead a crusade against people who had a different guess. So when other people did that, I laughed, and when I made my stupid Youtube videos, I ship-baited to make fun of it all.

It’s not personal or anything, I just find ship wars hilarious. I have ever since I first discovered fandom, back when I was a big Yu Yu Hakusho fan. Man, the stuff that went down there would make Avatar ship warriors flee in terror. When even Yoshihiro Togashi can’t persuade his fandom, shit’s gone ten levels beyond loco.

Ah, but I ramble. Point is: anyone who is taking any sort of ammunition for ship wars from my vids, you should probably stop. It’s all defective anyway.

Okay, so, a while back when I released my video directing people to the whole Aang Aint White movement, I was asked to appear on an episode of Avatar Portal’s PortalCast to discuss the issue of the casting of The Last Airbender in light of its racial implications. Well, I did the podcast, but some technical things delayed it until Dev Patel was recast as Zuko instead of McCartney and so the podcast was shelved. Fortunately, I was recently able to get my hands on the raw audio and have it uploaded where people can check it out.

Please keep in mind that this was back when the cast members of The Last Airbender at the time of the podcast were: Jesse McCartney, Jackson Rathbone, Nicola Peltz, and Noah Ringer. Here it is

 

Link in case embed doesn’t work: http://www.4shared.com/file/102923437/a93b6680/portalcastfull.html

EDIT: I think they may be posting it themselves later, but I'm not sure. They were having technical issues but hopefully they'll be fixed soon.

So, hey, journal post.

If you've seen my friends list, you may have noticed that I RP a little, as in "role-play" (minds out of the gutter, people), and being a huge Avatar fan, naturally those two overlapped each other. Aside from the occasional MMO attempt at an Avatar RP, I also joined a great Avatar RP site, Feng Shui. It's a great site with high standards for character profiles and posting that I think sets it apart from a lot of RP communities. They have a really big emphasis on keeping to canon and making realistic characters that not only make it fun to RP, but make it good practice from a writing standpoint as well. Even when playing a kind of silly character like Sokka, it really enhances the experience. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm now one of the profile moderators.

Unfortunately, the site is in a bit of trouble. There was a big slowdown over the last couple months and now we're struggling to find players. If anyone who sees this is interested, head on over to the site ( http://fengshuirpg.proboards66.com/index.cgi ) and check it out. Lots of canon characters, including fan favorites like Jet, Ty Lee, Mai and Iroh, are all available, or you can just create your own character.

If you decide to make a character, post a comment here letting me know which character is yours and I'll try to get my hands on your profile (I'm the nice mod =D). If you don't, well, I appreciate your checking it out anyway. Thanks!

Ever start thinking when you can't really think and then put those non-thoughts on paper/internets paper? It's dumb. I shouldn't do it.

So, as some of you may or may not know, I’ve done a Brian Drummond impression (that’s Vegeta’s Ocean dub VA) in the past for my Nein Thousand video. When I made it, I didn’t think I’d be doing the voice ever again, but low and behold, the people involved in Team Four Star’s Dragonball Z Abridged asked me to do a line as him for their recent FAQ.

 

The trouble is that they wanted me to do a screaming line. Now, anyone familiar with the old Ocean dub of DBZ knows that Drummond had these amazing, berserk screams that just gave you that “Holy shit, whoever pissed that guy off is totally freakin dead” feeling. I knew from the start that I couldn’t equal that. I have a pretty decent impression for his normal speech, but for the screaming, to stand any chance at getting it right, I was going to have to go all out.

 

Unfortunately, I live in a college dorm with thin walls. We have some music rooms nearby, but they are not really all that sound proof. They can barely muffle a piano. Plus, the echo isn’t all that great. So, I had to find a place where 1) there were no people 2) I wouldn’t get an echo, and soon, because the entire video was waiting on me. So, I waited until 2 am...and went to a park. The city where I am currently in is small, and I’m near the outskirts. No one was around, and obviously there would be no echo. Still, if anyone had been around, I would have looked pretty insane screaming “YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE MY WRATH!” and “GALLICK GUN, FIRE!” for 11 minutes. And yes, I recorded 11 minutes of raw audio, some of which was warming up and such, but still…I didn’t speak very loudly today.

 

In the end, I’m a crazy person, but it was fun, even if I’m not all that satisfied with the results. I was better at the “wrath” lines than the “gallick gun” ones, in my opinion but I aint the boss. So, yeah. It was an experience.

No, seriously. Some guy from Mexico did a fandub of my first episode, and while my Spanish is a bit rusty (see: horrendous), he actually seems to do a damned fine job. GENTLEMEN, BEHOOOOOOLD!

Normally, when I make my silly little videos, they're about Avatar, but I decided to do something different for once. A while back, it occurred to me that not only are many of the 653 Gundam series pretty bad, but for the most part, they're all incredibly similar. So, I decided to save everyone some time with a handy dandy summary:


I figured I'd post it here in case anyone I know on LJ might like it. Anyway, I know it's bound to get way less views and stuff than normal, but it was really fun to make. And really, if I never made fun of G Gundam, my life might be incomplete.

So, there's this thing called the Organization for Transformative Works. They want to apparently archive and legitimize fan works. All right, fine. People have tried before, but that doesn't bug me. They also want to create a history of fandom. Again, no problem. However, from there, it gets odd. This is the second thing on their list of values (on their "About" page here):

2. We value our identity as a predominantly female community with a rich history of creativity and commentary.

Come again?

The OTW represents a practice of transformative fanwork historically rooted in a primarily female culture.

That so? Rooted in female culture? I find that odd, considering they view fan fiction, fan art and fan videos as "transformative works," which sounds pretty pretentious by the way. Like, Edith Wharton came up with that title pretentious. At any rate, I happen to have taken part in two of those aspects of fandom. I know a bit about it, particularly the fanvid part, and I can say with absolute confidence that a statement of it being "predominantly female" is ludicrous. There are as many male FMV makers as female. They've contributed as much to the history of fandom as females. For example, this little AMV, which gained fame before Youtube even existed, or of course the king of fandubs, LittleKuriboh, who blew open a whole new medium for fanworks.

Predominantly female? Rooted in female culture? Yeah, sure, if you exclude all parts of fandom outside of romantic fan fiction. Otherwise, the claim is ridiculous.

There, rant over. Continue with your regularly scheduled internets.

Doing this because I want to. Shut up.

Summarize 10 of your fandoms in one sentence, then see who on your friend's list can guess each fandom.

1. A punk, a pretty-boy, an angry midget and a big dumb goof defend the world from evil and call each other names.

2. Topically applied fluoride doesn't prevent tooth decay, but it does render teeth detectable by spy satellite.

3. A nation is torn apart by war for over a hundred years, and one guy that likes bells makes everyone else look stupid by being so awesome.

4. Giant robots blow shit up, and fangirls are convinced that every character is gay.

5. A schoolgirl and a killer fall in love, yell each other's names a whole lot, and  take an eternity to kill the bad guy.

6. A kid goes on a journey to find his father, makes some friends, and is assaulted multiple times by a psychotic clown guy.

7. During the span of this conversation, I could have groped you five times...or maybe four.

8. Samurai action and the greatest three letter word ever invented.

9. A Captain Planet wannabe saves the world from an emo kid and his old man.

10. In the end, everyone turns into orange juice, and not the good tasting kind.

See above.