Inspired by someone else's fantastic art of Spock and Kirk and tribbles.



My sincere and humble apologies to this person for attempting their style!

This is either her Banshee Shriek Face or her "WTF" Face.

This is the weirdest most hilarious thing ever.

We're going to keep this short and sweet (Frank and birthday vgifts will be back next week). You've probably seen the updates to our main menu. Don't be alarmed. You'll find everything you need, just in slightly shifted format. Just so you know, we based these changes on input from both experienced and new users who were not familiar with LiveJournal. Our goal was to reduce barriers to usability and make LiveJournal more accessible and easy to navigate. Please note that this is a work in progress. We welcome your detailed suggestions in feedback. We thank you, in advance, for helping us improve your LiveJournal experience.

We've updated the global navigation menu:

Here's a quick breakdown of what you'll find where:

• Scrapbook can now be found under Profile (thanks for your feedback, btw), along with Settings, Stats, and Edit Profile.
• You'll find all the tools you need to post and update entries under Journal, which includes posting and editing entries, managing comments and tags, and customizing your journal's style.
• Friends contains all of your friend settings, from filtering your Friends page to adding, removing, and finding new and existing friends on LiveJournal.
• Under Communities, you'll find links to manage your communities, accept community invites, and create new communities.
• Explore includes search features, RSS feeds, Question of the Day, and FRNK radio.
• Under Shop, you'll find links to upgrade or give a paid account, buy virtual gifts, purchase LiveJournal merchandise (like T-shirts), and view your payment history.

LiveJournal Mobile update:

We've enhanced LiveJournal's mobile site to improve usability and load times. We've made more of LiveJournal's features accessible via mobile, including posting comments, uploading photos, reading and commenting on friends' posts, finding and messaging friends, and more. We look forward to reviewing your feedback and recommendations for future improvements.

Other important changes:

• You can lock comments to prevent further commenting on a post, while leaving existing comments visible.
• We replaced the "Tell a friend" link with a new "Share This" widget that lets you share LiveJournal posts on other social media sites, including Facebook, Digg, Twitter, etc.
• We changed some of the icons on entries (you can hover over the icons to view descriptions).
• You'll see a Tag count on your Tag management page.
• You'll now see the 10 most recent vgifts on your profile page. To remove vgifts, left-click on the vgift and choose whether you want to remove the vgift from your profile or delete it entirely.
• We've added options to help you control receipt of vgifts, which you'll find in My Stuff under Edit Profile. You can now enable vgifts from friends or everyone and disable anonymous vgifts.

We've got your fix:

• UPDATE: Rolling several updates into one listing here -- 1) Scrapbook should be back and working again. 2) The problem with the Update Journal page in IE6 and IE7 should be fixed now. 3) The problem with the userpic add-on package pricing has been fixed and refunds issued to anyone who was overcharged while the erroneous prices were in place.
• Non-conforming images will now be automatically resized for custom mood themes.
• Line breaks no longer count as two characters against your entry's character limit.
• We fixed a bug on the Manage Tags page so you can clear all tags and add new tags.
• We corrected the UI for the update.bml page so it displays properly in IE8.

Thanks again for joining us. Frank and company will be back next week!

Hates me. Makes everything I do on my tablet blend together, with the pen reacting before it touches the tablet. Stupid Java. (Working just fine with Photoshop, too. Blah.)

Re-watched that episode today. And hell, it makes me cry so much . . . I positively sob (bawl?) on the couch every time I have to see the scene where Amber is dying and Wilson has to pull the plug, and the scene where Wilson finds the letter on the pillow . . . it's by far the most touching, utterly moving episode in that entire series, and such a finale to what happened before . . . and poor House, through it all, too. There's even a little hint at Cuddy and House being together in the episode, too, what with her coming to stay with him, though the main focus is on Amber and Wilson and House and Wilson.

. . . And yes, as a note, unlike what seems like most House fans, I do think House and Cuddy should be together, and that Wilson did belong with Amber while she was alive. But. Anyway. Very, very sad episode.

Awww . . . /sniffle more.

H'okay. I'm trying to practice writing from first person, because I'm awful at that, so I decided I'd strike up something from shortly after Trell became a banshee -- a really dark time for her, because she hadn't managed to regain the Light yet. So, uh, no, she's not depressed right now. Neither am I. Don't hate this!

--

It has been a long time since I've known who I am.

Just now, I'm a gray, hollow-eyed figure seated in the darkened corner of the tavern, so close to being soulless that almost no one realizes I'm there. Those that have seen me have started calling me the Wayfarer: a husk that drowns her sorrow there, day after day, lining the tavern keepers' pockets with gold of which the origin is unknown.

My eyes don't glow anymore, not the way they used to: they're almost gray now, no longer sapphire blue . . . they are like my skin, and my robes, and my only emotion. I am dead: why should I feel any other way? I am a mockery of life, not its continuation.

I haven't spoken to anyone in days. No . . . weeks. Not a word, except to order something strong and sit over it in unthinking silence. The Light is gone from me, cut off, severed as abruptly as a string being torn by a cat's paw. All that I have worked for, everything I have struggled to do for thousands of years, means nothing, now: I have been Forsaken by life, and Light. The magic that fills me now, keeps me alive, is the spawn of the nether, the mother of hatred, and terror, and strife. It is corruption itself.

When this first happened to me, I had maddening spurts of rage that drove me out of myself, left me wanting to maim and kill -- that's gone, now, leaving me empty, disgusted, despising what I have become, what keeps me bound here. It was almost better to lash out, to hurt people, because it was some proof that I still lived. That I still existed. That I wasn't what people see when they glance at me now: that I wasn't an empty carapace, abandoned by some magnificent insect and left to lie.

Everything seems to shift into shades of gray -- the people I see, all faceless, all with minuscule, mundane troubles, not realizing how they should treasure living. The tavern's garish colors, faded into the many hues of a rainy day. I do not know who I am anymore: I have almost forgotten my name. That name belonged to a priestess: not an abomination of shadow magic and unholy energy. That name no longer describes me.

I am nameless, and I do not know who I am.

The Light has forsaken me.

I am Forsaken.

I am buggered awful at writing, but have it anyway. Argh.

---

It had been raining for hours. Not the drizzling, light kind of rain, but the driving, heavy kind that turned mud and covered everything -- even objects that would seem out of reach -- with a sort of sheen. The morass road was sunken and rutted, and, in some places, Trell's booted feet would sink for several inches before hitting solid earth again. In such cases, she would pause, drag her feet forcibly out of the mire, and trudge on. It was a slow journey to Menethil.

The heavy cloth of her cloak was not enough protection against this onslaught of the heavens, and she was, by now, thoroughly soaked. The graying white fabric stuck to the exposed skin on her arms, and picked up blades of grass and shrubbery along the ground; Trell was almost lead to wonder why she bothered wearing the covering at all.

Of course, it also served as something to augment her disguise. She had cast a weak, rarely-practiced illusion upon herself, brightening her skin and turning her dull eyes a bluer hue; and the clothes she wore, hopefully, would suggest her to be a priestess of the Stormwind Chapel. Trell pleaded vehemently that the disguise would hold: but, looking at the weather and the lateness of the hour, she imagined the dwarves guarding the gates into the port town would let pass an orc in full Horde battle armor, if it meant that their shift was coming to an end.

Eventually, as she ran out of mental grievances to make about her surroundings and the journey, her thoughts traveled back to the reason she was here, the reason she was making her way, by foot, through miles and miles of wetland on a rainy night. The reason was stowed safely in a hidden pocket just inside her vest; a fang, sown with faded and frayed string to a feather.

Well, that was not strictly true. Though the small object was the only physical thing driving this trek, more of the errand lay within Trell's head, a message to convey to a member of the Alliance. Many would have called the action traitorous, or insisted upon reporting such a courier to the ever-vigilant Kor'kron; Trell simply didn't care, or was too stupid, or too determined to allow a foolish king and a brazen young orc drive different peoples away from each other and then back to war. She generally left no one too certain, but with one of the three impressions.

The message, at that, was short, but nonetheless requiring such secrecy that it could not be placed down upon paper. It was just this: "Stay out of Northrend, and the hell away from the Dragons." The missive was to make its way to a Kal'dorei within the walls of Stormwind, and warn not against the great and noble -- or the great and scheming -- dragons of the flights, but of the Dragons that were currently aiding the onslaught on the Icecrown Citadel, men and women of the Horde. It was, in fact, a member of them, and one of Trell's few regularly-seen friends, that had sent her with this missive, making for a twisted web.

As she understood it, the Kal'dorei in question was a close friend -- or perhaps more -- to the orc, Yaran. It was a strange combination, and she did not intend to guess at how or where they had met, but Yaran was more worried about this being's safety than, well . . . anything Trell had ever seen him worry about before. It was unlike Yaran to show much emotion at all, or speak many words at one time, but he'd done just that the night that he had given her the tooth and the message to deliver. He truly cared for this person, and Trell, having thought, then, of the unspoken debts she owed to the old orc, had readily agreed to be convenient messenger. Yaran had shown doubt as to whether his warnings would be heeded, but, nonetheless, felt that the Kal'dorei had to hear them.

What she understood somewhat less was this Kal'dorei's involvement with the Dragons, but it seemed that, due to some missive sent and intercepted by the wrong people during some hostile encounter some time back, most of them would likely as not attack the woman on sight. When Trell had seen the Dragons last, the night before she departed, they had hit Yaran with a barrage of inquiries on where this Kal'dorei, Lene, was, and when he would take them to see her. He'd met them, she thought, with the same flat look and dry tone as ever, and with the word tomorrow. She imagined Yaran would lead them astray, but, even so, had wished to take no chances, and set out immediately.

She was the perfect person to choose for handing such a message along, truly. It was Trell's one advantage in the mad world that she knew people: a great many of them, be they Horde or Alliance, orcs or humans, elves or dwarves, ethereals or draenei. With some legwork, and a large pouch of gold, and a few favors or words called in or spoken here and there, she could pull information from almost anywhere -- and deliver it, as well. She knew a number of trustworthy humans and dwarves in Stormwind, and trusted that they would help her in this task. One, particularly, she would give the fang-and-feather to: an elderly human that owed her for saving his life from the Scourge, what seemed like an epoch ago.

All this revolved about and about inside Trell's skull as she made her way onward, battered by gusts of wind and by ever-pouring rain, through the mud and bog and what-have-you. Fate, she decided, only chose such poor weather for important nights and summits between enemies.

---

This is absolutely epic with headphones.

We're finishing up a few odds and ends before our next major release. Our mighty Ops guys continue to slay spambots and balance load times on a highwire without a safety net (which is kind of tough dressed in full ninja gear). Down on solid ground, we're celebrating this week's virtual birthday party with a warm toast to pants. If you can rearrange the letters of your favorite city, state, and/or country (feel free to combine these elements) to spell one of Frank's favorite treats (e.g., pants, wire, paper, etc.), he'll send you over a can of whipped cream to top it all off (provided you return the empty can for his midnight snack)! And, with that, let the word scrambling commence!

Stuff you should know:

We're still working on the delayed/missing notifications issue. Sorry, we're frustrated too. We'll keep you posted. Last week, we became aware that a recently-implemented script was overwriting affiliate referral fees for some of our users. Once we confirmed this, our Ops team quickly removed the script. Please be aware that, while we may beta-test other affiliate scripts down the line, we will take greater measures to ensure that no existing user-referral arrangements are impacted in any way. While we plan to stick to a weekly news schedule, if we have a release in between regular newsletters, we'll post here to keep you informed. You can also check lj_releases for current release information.

To our paid users, we send squirrels in love!

If you have a paid or permanent account, you can send five free Squirrels in love vgifts through Monday, March 15th at 4pm, PST! You'll see both the free and the $0.99 squirrels displayed until they've scurried off to their new homes. Please send only one vgift at a time. In other words, you'll need to complete check-out and start a new order for each vgift you send. If you're not receiving vgifts (from friends and/or Frank), you may have disabled them. To enable vgifts, visit Edit profile (under Profile), scroll down to the bottom of the page, and select 'Do not disable' from the drop-down menu. Have fun!

Help is on the way!

We're pleased to announce the winner of our first charitable vgift poll, Doctors without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières, which provides critical medical care to under-served populations around the world. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of the proceeds we raise from the sale of this vgift (we'll cover credit card fees). We invite you to start recommending nonprofits for our next fundraising drive at ljnewscontests. We'll take suggestions through the month and post a poll in the news during the first week of April to let you choose the recipient. We thank you, again, for your passion and generosity.

We've crowned a header

Congratulations to ohterlus for submitting the winning header, which will go live next week and keep us leafy through mid-April! You can submit designs for our next header contest at ljnewscontests now until March 31st. We'll post a poll in the news to let you decide which header will sit at the top of LiveJournal from mid-April to mid-May. All artistic interpretations are welcome. The winner will get a $25 LiveJournal gift certificate. All other contributors will receive $5 gift certificates. Our heartfelt appreciation for sharing your talent and creativity!

For this week's winning photo and more adventures with Frank & Meme, we'll catch you under the cut!

( Read more... )

. . . In France! Because.

Cooking to Ratatouille music is really quite heavenly.

I'd like to cook more often . . . (I have to admit, that little dream of being a chef in France still lingers in the back of my mind, though obviously I need to be of some other profession.) Better find more recepies in Furiel's books and make dinner once in a while . . . it'd be good variation, too.

Made a quick scribble of Kabii's Sonic-character-thing and me. I'm not very imaginative, so I came up with some odd-looking rat creature for myself, haha.

Saw Monday's House episode today! It was really funny, and generally pretty good compared to a lot of the ones that have been in this season. House, Wilson, and Chase Speed Dating was absolutely hilarious.

The fire crackling within the tent nowhere near made up for the chill enroaching upon the space, but it made it bearable. Weapons were leaned against racks along the edges, and a stout wooden table had been set up in the very center. Several figures, wearing thick furs and bulky armor, sat about it, pouring over a half a dozen maps of the Citadel's innards spread out upon the surface.

Outside of the tent, the warriors and strategists knew, the Icecrown Citadel loomed endlessly on into the sky, the large skull design near the top glaring down upon the Argent Crusade's encampment. The tent, though only cloth, provided a false sense of security: not having to see what was outside felt far safer.

There was a rustle, and the cloth of the tent's door parted -- or, rather, was flung to the sides. In one fluid, decisive motion, the Bashee Queen, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, stepped within, flanked by silent Royal Dreadguards.

She was tall, with skin of a blue hue, and a massive black bow hanging upon her back, matched only by her twin swords, which gave off a oscllinating purple glow. Her eyes shone a piercing red in the relative darkness of the tent, defiant and commanding. All eyes turned to her: two of the orcs that had been seated stood and saluted. The Dark Lady offered only a nod in return.

Her two bodyguards were no less impressive: rotted warriors decked out in blood-red plate, with tabards of the same color hanging down over their armor, they carried themselves with an eerie, unspoken silence. Black designs, the Forsaken insignia mixed with other symbols, crawled over the tabards' surfaces, seeming to flicker to another image every time one looked. Upon entering, the Dreadguards fanned out about the table, and stood at opposite sides of the chamber.

A figure seated farthest from the door at rose and bowed deeply. "Dark Lady." This one was a robed Forsaken, a gas mask mask upon his face: one of the Undercity's deadly Apothecarium, an organization that specialized in brewing potions and creating artificial disease. "Welcome. This is Commander Gro'zuk--" the Forsaken motioned at the brown-skinned orc warrior to his right, and then to the rather more green one upon his left, "and Sub-Commander Groshek. I am Apothecary Peter Izomnir."

Sylvanas gave each a short, piercing glare, aloof, but ever searching, vigilant. Finally, she spoke, her resonant voice seeming to bounce off even the cloth walls and dirt floor. "I know your names, Apothecary Izomnir. Be seated, all of you. I bring to you the plan of attack drawn up by myself and the rest of the high command, Ebon Blade and Argent Crusaders alike." She made a short pause as the three about the table seated themselves, with a clanking and the scraping of metal against metal. "While the main forces beseige the Citadel by way of the front gate, small attack groups of individuals shall attack several of the inner areas of the Citadel by way of a side passage that has recently been discovered and quietly taken."

Izomnir waited for the Dark Lady to finish speaking, then rasped, "And I assume you have come to us with this information because we are to be one of the parties to enter the Citadel in such a manner and strike at Arthas where he does not expect it . . . ?" The Apothecary clasped his pale hands upon the table. The skinless, sharpened white bones of his fingers clicked as he did so, like the gears of a clock settling into their proper places. Emotionless eyes stared ahead.

The Dark Lady inclined her head and held out a scroll tied with a brown ribbon towards the three at the table. "These are the detailed instructions. You will accompany me to the entrance into Arthas' own private chambers, where we have heard reports of Frostmourne itself lying hidden. The rest of our fodder shall be busy elsewhere, but I will send one of my Dark Rangers for an airship, as we are bound to need all -- and any -- backup we can find when we make this incursion." The Lady's blackened lips thinned as she spoke of the dreaded weapon that had slain and kept the souls of so many. "We shall begin tomorrow, shortly before nightfall. That is all."

With that, the Lady spun about, tattered black cloak nearly catching upon the table's edge, and strode back towards the exit of the tent, pausing only to say, "And one more thing, Commanders and Apothecaries: find yourselves an acceptable healer from one of the Argent Crusade before this incursion begins, or we shall surely fail."

The golden orbs that were Izomnir's eyes fell upon a long list clipped to the side of one of the maps. "That, I think," he mused, "Should be no challenge."

* * *

Arctic winds blew the snow over the icy earth that lay far below it. Standing on a platform nor far from the Argent Crusade's staging area, a short figure, clad in layers of white to protect against the cold, beheld the chaos that was preparation for seige. Frantic messengers ran back and forth between groups of soldiers and magi. A small contingent of gnomes and dwarves worked off to the side, perfecting some machine to be used in the battle and small against the overwhelming backdrop of humans and Death Knights. Paladins rode by upon their steeds by the dozen, completing the final practices of their battle formations before the actual attack should begin.

The grayed priestess pondered whether she felt what other soldiers claimed to feel, the sense of the day before combat: something that was described as a tension in the air, as if the atmosphere itself was crackling with electricity, and everything reached a fevered pitch. She fancied she did: no one, save for perhaps herself, seemed to be standing still, but rather bursting with impatience, adding the "finishing touches" to their strategy or batallion.

A tap against Trell's shoulder distracted her from pondering this scene, and she turned to find another, similarly clad human priestess behind her. The young woman told her, "A messenger from the commanding tents just sent word that they want you there as soon as possible. You've been selected -- rather arbitrarily, by the sound of it -- for some special operation. Can't say I envy you, dead one." The voice of the human held disdain, none too well masked: another ignorant Alliance drone that held no knowledge of what had truly occurred all those months ago at Angro'thar, the Wrathgate.

Trell moved a clump gray-black strands out of her face, and scowled darkly at the condescending blond human: "Indeed. That is unfortunate." Without another word, nor awaiting an answer from this fellow priestess, she started her way down the forged metal balcony and towards the massive saronite stairs leading to the cluster of tents that contained the commanding officers.

Why she had allowed herself to be pulled into this battle, she was not certain, but for knowing that did any arms not add to the forces of the Horde and the Alliance, they should certainly fall against the might of the Scourge. It was a marvel, truly, that Azeroth had not been annihilated as it were.

She joined the bustle. Perhaps there was something in what the soldiers said.

My favorite quote of this week . . .

"And we got onto the topic of blowing up trees . . . but, you know, what I'd really like to blow up a boat. Out on the water, that's the important part . . . get a mid-sized boat stuffed full of dynamite, and sail it out there . . ."

Spoken by a perfectly sane -- sleep deprived, but sane -- man over forty years of age. Ah, tangents.

On another tangential topic -- why does somewhere this far inland with no significant bodies of water have so many seagulls haunting their parking lots? I've had one squawk at me and one land in my path this weekend, and they're always soaring around the lampposts.