(no subject)

Cordelia had a volleyball game yesterday at 11:20. Her team was playing pretty well. They won two of the three games. The girls are convinced that one side of the gym is cursed because they never win when they're playing on that side. They don't always win on the other side, but they usually do. Cordelia served well, and there was one volley where she successfully returned the ball twice, even diving after it.

Scott's parents came to the game. I think they were pleased to realize that the girls have improved since last year. The games are more exciting to watch now that the kids can often return volleys.

After the game, we went to lunch at Applebee's. It wasn't at all crowded, so we had a nice leisurly
lunch. Scott returned a couple of thumb drives to his father, and I returned the two containers his mother had given us with Thanksgiving leftovers.

Scott bagged up all the clothes he's getting rid of. I'm having to get used to seeing him in shirts I don't recall seeing before because he's found some things that fit and are nice buried in his closet.

Scott also did the grocery shopping. I had him get some marshmallow creme. I'm going to have to experiment a little because I have the ingredients for the fudge that calls for regular marshmallows and not the ingredients for the fudge recipe on the container of marshmallow creme. The difference is sweetened condensed milk versus evaporated milk. I need to check the recipes, but I think they also have different amounts of added sugar (the one with sweetened condensed milk may not add any sugar-- I think that's butter, vanilla, chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk and marshmallows).

Around 5:30, we went to Value World, a used clothing store. We were looking for fancy dresses for our three year old niece who likes to play dress up. I remembered buying a lot of dresses there when Cordelia was about that age. She used them for years and wore some of them on special occasions in addition to playing with them.

There wasn't a great selection of dresses. I think January would be a better time to look. People actually want fancy dresses for small girls in December and don't have much use for them after that because they certainly won't fit the following year. We got five dresses. Three of them are size 6, so they'll be really big on our niece (who wears 3T). We think that won't matter. It will just mean that she can wear them longer.

Cordelia found a sweater she really likes (she put it on after we got home and hasn't taken it off since). Scott found three or four shirts that he thought were worth gambling on. Value World doesn't have any place for trying clothes on, so buying there is always a risk. Nothing costs more than about $4.50, however, so it's not a big risk.

We stopped at Plum Market after finishing at Value World. We got a cookie each, some sambuccol, some raspberry ginger ale, and a bottle of cold mocha coffee. Cordelia was really annoyed that I wouldn't let her try the coffee drink as soon as we got home. I did let her try it this morning, and she likes it a lot. I'm not entirely sure I do. I don't hate it, but it reminds me of an alcoholic drink in flavor without containing any alcohol, and I don't like the taste of alcohol.

Cordelia insisted on watching Revenge of the Sith last night. I couldn't help poking holes in the plot-- Palpatine takes some unbelievable risks for very little benefit, for one thing. I also cringed at Natalie Portman's scenes. I know she's a better actress than that. Scott thinks she was poorly directed.

I wrote about 400 words last night in spite of having Scott and Cordelia around. I need to focus in on writing over the next few days so that I can finish and get the dratted thing beta read. What I really want is someone to talk to about what I'm writing, but none of the people I'd usually turn to know the canon. I'll just muddle along somehow.

(no subject)

Who is your favorite character to write and why? (for tassosss)

Just judging by who I've written the most, my favorite character seems to be Kudoh Yohji from Weiss Kreuz. I always write him without taking Gluhen into account because I really don't like what they did with his character there. Plus, I entered the fandom before Gluhen came out, so I never really absorbed it as solidly canon. I know that it is, but it doesn't feel that way to me. (This leaves me out of step with a sizable chunk of the current fandom. Fortunately, I don't care particularly.)

I think part of it is that I have a solid head canon for Yohji, not necessarily in all the details of his past but rather in how I think he'll react in particular situations. Yohji was the first character I wrote when I started writing fanfic, and I found his voice comfortable. I didn't have to think very hard about what he'd do; it was just there.

I have a tendency to think of the characters I write as specific to the fics in which they appear-- Prodigal Nagi, for example, is not the same as Rheotaxis Nagi or the same as Once Was Lost Nagi. They have different reactions and back stories. In contrast, Yohji from one story often maps reasonably onto Yohji from another story. Rheotaxis Yohji, Snare Yohji and Under Saturn Yohji are fundamentally the same person reacting to different situations. There may be specific details that change, but there's a lot of the character that stays the same.

Of course, some of writing Yohji a lot is that I've gotten prompted to write him more frequently than I have other Weiss Kreuz characters (and I still write more Weiss Kreuz than any other fandom). He is-- or was-- a popular character in the fandom. There seems to be less interest in him these days, however, than there once was. I'm not sure how much of that is that there's less interest in Weiss Kreuz than there was, much is that taste in the fandom has changed, and how much is Gluhen changing how people see Yohji. There's not a lot of new fic for Weiss Kreuz these days, but my impression is that I'm seeing more about Schwarz without Weiss than I used to. Possibly psychic villains are more interesting than morally ambiguous, angsty, young men.