Icon love

[brigdh]

So, I have a terrible headache, but I don't want to take painkillers because it's of the special sort I get that center in my right eye (in which I am blind, o people who have friended me recently, and which occasionally fills with blood which causes the doctors to freak out and forbid me from getting out of bed for a week), and so I want to be able to feel if it gets better or worse instead of drugging it.

On the other hand, it could simply be from the fact that I didn't manage to eat anything until after 5 today. But I have no way of knowing! Fun.

Part of the reason I didn't have time to eat was because I ran a presentation for the Speaker's Bureau today. Within the last few hours, I've had already had two new people friend me as a result over on facebook, the mySpace of people who aren't interesting enough to write posts. This seems to inevitably happen when I run panels, but since I am in pain and resentful, it annoys me today. I'm only charismatic in front of an audience, people, in actual conversation I will bore you, and it will be sad. Don't force me to prove this.

But, despite all this, check out my new icon! Isn't it the coolest thing you've ever seen? It makes me very happy. When my parents tell stories about me as a child, they never revolve around my wanting to be a ballerina or a princess. Instead, I made up stories that inevitably featured the phrase, "at the 'toke of midnight..."

Also, for the people who are signed up for remix_redux: is anyone else having trouble deciding where the line is between rewriting a story, telling the exact same story with different words, and taking the basic idea and doing something completely different? Because, uh, if you'd like to talk to me about it, I'd be willing to listen. You know. For your sake.

Comments

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

EXCELLENT FUCKING ICON.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I KNOW!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You're blind in your right eye? And it occasionally fills with blood? And then your doctors freak out and won't let you get out of bed for a week?

The jig is up! You are a manga character!

seriously, I've had you friended for a while and that's the first I've heard about it. ...it fills up with blood!? Is this congenital? What would happen if you got out of bed?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I know! I'm fascinated by the prevalence of one-eyed characters in manga; it seems so much more common than in Western media.

I was born blind in that eye; it just didn't develop right. I had a series of surgeries in my first few weeks that attempted to peel off the outer layers to find a lens that could focus, but it didn't work. It is, apparently, indistinguishable from my other eye- I think that it looks slightly smaller and a lighter shade of green, but everyone I've ever asked has sworn that they don't see a difference. I don't know if they're lying because they think it'll make me feel better or if I'm genuinely just imagining the difference.

Anyway, when I was about twelve, the iris of the eye randomly filled with blood one day, and has happened about once a year ever since. It just looks as though I have one brown eye and one green one. It's technically called a hyphema and tends to be found in boxers, or other people who get severe head trauma, but since with me it never seems to associated with any kind of injury, the best guess is that it's some sort of leaking from the scars from the early surgeries. It's a blood clot, and too much movement could hypothetically shake it loose and cause a heart attack or stroke, thus the bed-confinement. I also once had a doctor tell me not to read, as even that eye-movement would be too much, but uh, if I'm going to be in bed for a week that's not going to happen. It's more annoying than anything else, since it's hard to force yourself to be still and careful when there's not any physical reason to do so, just a warning of what could happen.

And that's the story of my freaky eye condition, in probably way more detail than you wanted to know. Heh.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, it's cool! I mean, um, interesting! No, seriously, if you have to have a medical condition, it's nice to have an unusual one that makes a good story and isn't in an embarrassing location. (I always feel bad for people with things like hemorrhoids-- uncomfortable and also I imagine I would be rather reluctant to tell anyone exactly what it was that was making me uncomfortable.)

I guess the clot just dissolves harmlessly on its own after a week? The doctor's can't put in any drops to dissolve it earlier?

So-- I swear this is the last nosy question-- do you have depth perception?

I love the number of anime/manga characters who are blind in one eye. They are all sexy, angsty men, too. A preliminary list:

X/1999: Seishirou and Subaru-- this is actually a major plotline.

Fullmetal Alchemist: General Bradley and someone else who it's spoilery to state. This is also significant, but too spoilery to explain how.

Saiyuki: Hakkai, with an artificial eye that he can sort of see out of... Um, yeah. Anyway, it is the symbol of his Guilt and Dark Past and Lost Love and also how he was reborn a new man with a new name, new outfit, and new eye.

Fushigi Yuugi: Chichiri, with both a missing eye and horrible scar, of the sort that does not actually ruin his looks. Also symbolic of his Guilt and Dark Past and Lost Love.

Fruits Basket: Hattori has a blind eye, symbolic of his Tragic Past and Lost Love.

Yami no Matsuei: Muraki has a creepy mechanical eye, IIRC.

I feel like I'm missing some.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. See, I always thought it was frustrating, because it takes so long to explain, when it'd be much easier to be able to name a condition people would actually have heard of before.

Generally about a week, though it ranges around based on a million factors such as how much blood there is at the current time, my general state of health otherwise, how well I actually follow the motion-restrictions, etc. I do have to take drops that are supposed to reduce the pressure in the eye, which is a problem for some complex medical reason I don't entirely understand, but apparently it's better to let the blood be reabsorbed by the body naturally than to force it to do so sooner.

And I don't mind questions! I just figured that most people find in-depth discussions of medical problems fairly boring. I do have depth perception, though I don't know why. I was talking about this with someone a few months ago, and they said that the idea that we need two eyes for depth perception might be a myth, because a recent study tested it and proved that people can still perceive depth with one eye covered, though you have to leave it covered for a while in order for the brain to adjust. I never tracked down the study to read for myself though, so I can't explain it any more than that. I can't, however, do anything 3-D. Those glasses and special movies and books just don't work for me, and I never managed to see those Magic Eye things either.

I hear Spike from Cowboy Bebop has a false eye, but I'm not familiar with it myself, so I don't know if it is from A Tragic Past. Oh, and Kakashi from Naruto also has a Special Eye, with scar, from his own Tragic Past.

I need to make up a Tragic Past and tell people that's how I became blind.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

I was doing some research on the results of losing an eye a while back when I was working on a character, and all the pages I found suggested that whether people have had two eyes and lost one, or never had one of them, they do still have depth perception. There are a few websites around that act as support groups for people who've lost an eye through accident, and they all say "and I was really surprised that after I got used to only having one eye, my depth perception came back!!"

(I didn't know about the eye either! Have you checked whether it glows mysteriously under the full moon?)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

((No, though I should check that out. But it never gets red-eye in photographs, just my normal eye! So I look only half-possessed by a demon.))

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

It should involve violence, tragedy, guilt, and a Lost Love. Possibly also eyeball-switching. Taking your Lost Love's spare eyeball is always good.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Farfarello of Weiss Kreuz is the only other one I can think of, but my animanga base is rather limited. Nobody in Wild Adapter (I wonder if Tokitoh's hand would count as a similar trope), and nobody in Tactics.

[katsue_fox]

*Adds another character to the list*

Syaoran in Tsubasa Chronicle - he's blind in his right eye.

[katsue_fox]

It's really interesting to hear about this - although it's worrying that when your eye fills with blood it could potentially be dangerous to you if you move. *Hugs you*

And you definitely ought to invent some manga-esque mysterious and tragic past to explain the eye!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee, thank you. *hugs*

It'd be way more interesting that the actual story.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about the eye thing either. That's rather insanely cool, in a way only another medical freak could probably appreciate.

::is the medical freak in question::

Also, I resisted role-playing for years, despite all my friends being into it, because no GM would let me be a vampire. Imagine my glee when I first ran across World of Darkness. I did want to be a ballerina, though, mostly so I could kick people with pointed toes and pierce the skin.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It's been an unusually long time since the last occurrence, though I did have a minor issue with it when I was in Nevada, but unfortunately could not post to livejournal to whine about it at the time. *grins*

Not that I mind, since the last time it happened in a hospital-convenient location, they talked about possibly needing to take it out and replace it with a false eye. Which I don't really care about, since I'm not using it anyway, but it made my mom cry, and dude, that's not cool. Doctors aren't allowed to make my mom cry.

But, you know, there are so many people on livejournal with weird medical conditions that it's kind of neat. *loves the medical freaks*

Hee! Though I've never played it myself, I always thought Vampire: Teh Masquerade looked cool, with all the different clans.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I have no weird medical conditions at the moment, but I am double-jointed.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, that's cool, too! I'm double-jointed in one thumb and nowhere else, but I always wanted to be able to fold in half or put my foot behind my head.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I can't do any of those things, alas. But I can reach over my shoulder and clasp my hands behind my back, and bend my left thumb at a right angle (aka "hitch-hiker's thumb"), and do this really freaky-looking thing with both hands where every joint of every finger bends in opposite directions-- this is hard to describe, but the fingertips point away from the palms and the middle joints bend in the opposite direction from the joints above and below. Anyway, it makes my hands look like freaky claw-things, and is a sure-fire way to amuse children and appall adults.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know exactly what you mean; I used to know somebody who could do that. That is a terrifically cool thing to be able to do and, hey, much less messy than putting a foot behind your head.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

My medical freakishness diminishes with time, as I was apparently riding the front wave of several generations whose mass autoimmune issues are giving the complacency of the medical field a giant kick in the pants (and also giving the food industry fits, since sekrit recipes don't fly with us).

WoD is very cool with the right group, and an ideal game for online role-playing, since it's more about the storytelling than the dice rolling. I've done a few campaigns by email.

Another medical freak reporting for duty

[katsue_fox]

Besides baffling doctors because they know *something* is wrong with me but can't find out what it is, I seem to be the only person I know of with an intolerance to oats and on a much more bizarre note, I didn't stop growing in my late teens/early twenties - I'm still growing in height, albeit *very* slowly. I've grown something like 2 inches since I was at school. I've never heard of anyone else who is still growing gradually in height past the age of 40!!!!

Re: Another medical freak reporting for duty

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hey, I've heard of intolerance to oats before! It's pretty rare, but it must really suck because there're oats in almost everything. The other ones, though, you do win for most unique. *laughs* I've really never heard of someone still growing so late.

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

I'm only charismatic in front of an audience, people, in actual conversation I will bore you, and it will be sad. Don't force me to prove this.

Pshaw I say to this! Pshaw!

And I will not woo you with comments b/c you *know* I think you're hilarious s00per smart crazyintehhead quite capable of handling yourself in conversation. :P

What are you up to tonight? Partying as usual? :D

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ah, well. Okay, with a few select indivuals I can be interesting! But chances are low that these people will be lucky enough to be one of the chosen ones.

Uh, I dunno. I've got no plans! Someone said that Wallstreet is having no cover for OIC members tonight, but I don't think I feel like going clubbing.

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

Which makes me super lucky. ^^

I don't think I feel like going clubbing.

*puts hand on your head*

Do you feel sick?

Naw, I'm just teasing you. I think I'm just gonna go home and crash. I have one ep of Angel to watch and I haven't seen Buffy in a while. Also, FIC! :D Do you want to hang out?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oo, I wish I'd gotten this earlier, but yeah, if you still want to hang out, I'm up.

[penelope-z.livejournal.com]

On the remix problem, I'm also not entirely sure on the approach. I never wrote a remix before, though I've read tons of them. Most people usually change the POV, so it's more or less the same story retold with different words.

I'm switching an angst fic into comedy, trying to keep the storyline more or less the same, because I think it's more amusing to see how the exact same events can be amusing instead of tragic with only slight changes. But in general I think we tend to worry too much on the source material, and ending up unable to take up enough liberties to make the remix unique enough, so the new fics are just hybrids.

Re: Another medical freak reporting for duty

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That's a really neat idea for a remix! It lets most things stay very similar, while also changing them entirely.

You're probably right that we worry too much, but I think that's inevitable when you're writing a fic for someone; you always want them to like it.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I had similar issues with the remix question, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to punt: the rules allow you to remix a drabble, as long as you can make the final story 500 words or longer. In this particular case, there's one where there's all sorts of room to tell a story involving the same characters and the same situation, although my version won't be aimed at the same emotional point as the original. I'm assuming that making that last change -- that is, having the story not aiming at the same point -- is part of the idea behind remix, since somewhere in the intro post it said something like, "Ever read a story and think, 'this is totally cool, but if I were writing it I'd have done x?' Well, here's your chance!"

I think of it as punting because I'm reasonably sure that there's no possible way that what I'm contemplating could be construed as criticism of the original, or as having messed with the original writer's vision of characters or situations in a way that could risk anyone, including the original writer, feeling like what I'd done had tainted the original.

Not that I think my particular assignee, whom I know to be very cool, would react that way no matter what. But now that I'm signed up for the challenge and working on it, I am finding that my concerns about community and norms and people's sensitivities are affecting my approach more than I'd expected. So I also suspect that it's affecting other people's approaches too, and that we may get less adventurous results overall than we would if we could collectively get over being sensitive and caring and respectful.

Or maybe I'm wrong, and no one but me worries about this stuff.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

No, you're right: I keep worrying about what my recipient will think if I change too much. I hadn't thought of it as criticism (though you're right, there probably are people who might take it that way), but rather that every idea I come up with doesn't feel so much like a rewrite as an entirely different approach to the basic idea of the story.

I think part of my problem is that a lot of my author's pieces are just character introspection, which feels very hard to rewrite without just copying everything she's already said.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I think part of my problem is that a lot of my author's pieces are just character introspection, which feels very hard to rewrite without just copying everything she's already said.

Yeesh, that does make it tough. I suddenly feel fortunate that my worst problems have to do with my assignee tending to focus on characters I'm not sure I have a good sense of. And having said that, I can only hope that whoever got stuck with me, she's not one of the folks who hate Muraki and wish they could write him out of canon. Because if she is, she got a rotten deal, and I'm going to feel bad about it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I think I have been inspired, though, so hopefully things will work out!

It's interesting that you're doing a drabble. I was thinking about doing one myself, but probably won't now. It'll be very neat to see how the necessarily small confines translate to a larger story. Heh. I just hope my person really likes YnM, because she won't have much else to choose from.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

There wound up being more people signed up who listed YnM as one of the three fandoms they'd most like to write in than there were people who'd written more than three YnM stories, so I think it's a pretty safe guess that whoever was assigned to you is happy about it. (If they're not busy being intimidated by having been assigned to someone who's Too Good To Rewrite, that is.) I don't know how the matchups are done, and it's obviously a complex job, but I'd assume that the algorithim would at least try to match the people who only had significant output in one fandom with the people who listed that fandom highest in their what-to-write requests. Or else, with people who wound up having only one requested fandom that could be matched at all.

-- And this is me, carefully not going through the whole list of signups to see whether I can pull enough information to create a solveable equation set. Because that would be wrong. Wouldn't it?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. I think at least part of the assignments were based on random chance. I'd suspect the organizers of making parts of the selections themselves instead of entirely allowing it to be done by a program, though I could be wrong. Though I could be wrong- Yuletide is assigned entirely by algorithm.

It would be kind of neat if you could manage to figure it out, though I suppose it would spoil the surprise of trying to guess who wrote what once the stories go up.

IRONIC EMOTICON: o_O

[drmoonpants.livejournal.com]

...I am half-blind in my right eye due to a similar birth defect! Had laser surgery a while back and can now /kind of/ read things that are right in front of it without glasses, it's probably going to go lazy someday because my left eye is so much stronger and dominant and compensates for it, and the eye is slightly larger, slightly lower, and has a drooping lid. People also tell me they've never noticed this, although I am /certain/ they're just trying to make me feel better.

Well, obviously none of this is anywhere near as severe a problem (sympathetic auuuuugh, by the way, jesus), but this is still getting a little spooky.

Re: IRONIC EMOTICON: o_O

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

...Dude. That is really weird.

People also tell me they've never noticed this, although I am /certain/ they're just trying to make me feel better.

Yes! And I wish they would stop it, because it doesn't make me feel better, it makes me paranoid that I'm seeing things that aren't really there, and ARGH PEOPLE, don't make me think I have hallucinations, just tell me the truth! I can take it!

Re: IRONIC EMOTICON: o_O

[osumbhulk.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, I've known you for years and never noticed anything different about your eyes. Then again, I think we personally note our imperfections more than anyone else. I think of myself as Frankenstein's monster at times: four knee surgeries and random scars from years of working with my hands and being generally clumsy. Your imperfections are generally another person's vision of beauty.

Plus, you can always have a Tragic Past, if you really want it. I like the idea of swapping eyes. :)

Re: IRONIC EMOTICON: o_O

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's probably true. I think anything we spend a lot of time on we tend to notice that faults more than anyone else would, just because we've spent so long staring at it. I know that when I write something, I might notice a million tiny mistakes that no one else picks up on.

I totally will have a Tragic Past now. Maybe I should wear an eyepatch and say "Arrrr!" a lot, too.

Re: IRONIC EMOTICON: o_O

[drmoonpants.livejournal.com]

Well, I know that one thing that also affects my situation is that I am used to seeing my freak eye on one side in the mirror, and of course it is flipped to the /other/ side in photographs, which really draws my attention to it and makes me go yarrgh. So that's also a factor, and as people have said, it's probably not that noticeable in either/any of us. But. Insecurities are fun!!

And I would also like to declare my support for your new Tragic Shoujo Manga Pirate lifestyle. I think it is a field of virtually untapped potential.

Re: IRONIC EMOTICON: o_O

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, people's faces are asymmetrical. Almost nobody's eyes really match, and I'm only putting in that "almost" because with billions of people on the planet, odds favor there being somebody somewhere who breaks all the rules. So probably people do see what you see; it just doesn't register as outside the norm.

We see it in our own faces, I suspect, because we're taught to fret about the way we look. But in other people? Not so much. I didn't see normal asymmetries in faces at all until I started trying to draw them -- and then, of course, it was everywhere.

Re: IRONIC EMOTICON: o_O

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Good point. And it's probably not only the body image issues of our culture, but simple result of time spent: I've seen the same face in the mirror every day for my entire life. I doubt anyone else pays that much attention to how I look.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I found your medical issues fascinating. Alas, I'm not help with the Remix, because I think I'm just POV-changing-- there's a story that will be really interesting from a different perspective.

Odin's one-eyed. There are other Western gods with one eye, but I'm blanking on them at the moment.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I live to amuse! Or, you know, to get sympathy for my medical freak-ness terrible Tragic Past and Lost Love.

Good point. There's also the thousands of pirate characters who wear eye-patches.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

My husband has a deep scar on his hand from rockclimbing that someone jokingly explained to a co-worker as a mark from a wolf attack, and he's used the story ever since.

Oh, yes, them too.