Below are the most recent 3 friends' journal entries.

Monday, November 30th, 2009
pornish_pixies [ snegurochka_lee ]	8:29a	EXTRA LONG: Light as Iron, Singed as Pearl (H/D, NC-17) Title: Light as Iron, Singed as Pearl Author: snegurochka_lee Pairing: Harry/Draco Rating: NC-17 Word Count: ~13,800 Warnings: Dom/sub. Bondage. EWE. Summary: The owner of the elite BDSM club M. had not gained his reputation as the most coveted Dominant on the scene by taking on just any riff-raff submissive who asked. It would take an unexpected letter to convince him to accept a new client, but it might turn out to be the biggest mistake he ever made. Notes: Written for hd_career_fair last month for this prompt. "Thank you" does not begin to cover my gratitude to the divine marguerite_26, whose handholding, beta work and modly prodding went well beyond the call of duty. Light as Iron, Singed as Pearl (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
painless_j	10:08p	Anime rec: Piano no Mori The Piano Forest (Piano no Mori) (Perfect World of Kai) (2007) # Genres: drama, tournament. Themes: music, piano. Status: OVA (101 min) Anime Start/End Chapter: Starts at Vol 1, Chap 1. Ends at Vol 6, Chap 41. Director: Masayuki Kojima Summary: Amamiya Shuuhei transfers to Moriwaki elementary filled with hope and ambition. But it doesn't take long before he gets picked on by the class bullies, and gets involved in a dare to play the mysterious piano in the forest. Igniting his meeting with an equally enigmatic child that goes by the name of Ichinose Kai, who seems to be the only one capable getting sound out of the thought to be broken piano. Found: saw it shared in some anime comm and thought the summary looked intriguing. Manga BU page. Mangaka: Isshiki Makoto Genre: Comedy Drama Seinen Slice of Life Status: 17 Volumes (Ongoing), scanlation ongoing. Summary: from KEFI: A tranquil tale about two boys from very different upbringings. On one hand you have Kai, born as the son of a prostitute, who's been playing the abandoned piano in the forest near his home ever since he was young. And on the other you have Syuhei, practically breast-fed by the piano as the son of a family of prestigious pianists. Yet it is their common bond with the piano that eventually intertwines their paths in life. Download: I've watched it at Youtube. My notes: I must say it at the very beginning that contrary to my usual way of getting familiar with a new animanga, I haven't read the manga this time. I only watched the anime, so please take into account that everything I'll be saying is only about the anime. This is a pleasant story: while not action/adventure, it has enough plot to keep your attention, especially around the climax. The boys are likeable. Kai's pretty wild and brash but also kind and has this inner purity and honesty that sometimes accompany raw talent and that influence people around him. I liked his practical reasons for learning things. He can't read score; he plays what he has heard. Once he found that he couldn't reproduce a particular piece of Chopin's, he plays scales to learn to play this particular piece, not because one must learn scales first, nor to become a good pianist in general. And so on. I absolutely adored his literal-mindedness about Mozart. The crowd of Mozarts made me laugh every time they appeared. In other words, Kai is lovely and very refreshing. Shuuhei is a bit more boring because he's very straight-laced for a boy his age and he plays the piano for all the wrong reasons, but doesn't it often happen this way? The two boys meet and gradually change each other. The best about their relationship, as for me, was the ways it didn't go. I can't say much more here but I liked how the dramatic side of it was downplayed rather than milked for all it's worth. It makes Piano no Mori a soothing story. I think animation and drawing are good. I hear that the main problem people have with the manga is the drawing style. Am not able to say anything about that yet but I can't see what's not to like in the anime, if to speak of the visual side. It's neither cheap nor banal, and it's the only anime so far where a character playing the piano didn't make me cringe. This leads me to why I give it only one star if I like everything. Not quite everything, as it turns out. You see, it's piano this and piano that, piano this and piano that. In more coherent speak, the story is fine and lovely but, I don't know, very narrow. Not unlike Hikaru no Go. But HnG was much more emotionally affecting and the story was much bigger than just about Go in the end. It sort of turned me inside out, made me live it for months. Here somehow I didn't have the impression that the story is bigger than the main theme. Pleasant? Yes. Interesting? Yes, enough. Can I relate? Nope. Apart from that, I repeat, it's a lovely story. I doubt you'd regret spending 1.5 hours on it, so give it a try! *Sorry if you have seen some (a lot) of this post before. I accidentally posted the draft :/ (Comment on this)
painless_j	12:44a	Music: Japanese: J-Rock Part 3 of my Japanese music favourites. Today's topic is J-Rock. As usual, some songs are more rocky than others and the range is from Speed Metal to Pop-rock to anything I've found similar enough or fitting, with a generous dash of anime music and some hip-hop. It just means that on the whole, today's selection is gloomier and heavier than the two before it. I've shared three of these songs with you already but not the rest of them. Files are uploaded to Box.net, which means that you can listen to them before/as well as download(ing). Box.net tends to mess up the sequence of the uploaded files, so I've added links to each song as well as to the folder. I did make it with the proper sequence in mind, so that one song flows into the other smoothly. But in any case, hope you like a few of them! So, with thanks to lyssaphra and kyuuketsukirui for sharing music with me, on to the music! *Nitemare and Nightmare is the same band. I just kept the song tags as they were :) Song title Length Singer/Band Album (where it was already in the tags) Crucify My Love 4:36 X Japan Curtain Call 5:34 GLAY Beloved Wind 3:40 Akeboshi STONED TOWN Kenji 3:51 Fort Minor The Rising Tied I.V. 4:55 X Japan Saw IV OST Moshimo Piano ga Hiketa Nara 3:53 Plastic Tree Baka ni Nattanoni Jisatsu Ganbou 4:39 Due le quartz Best of Due le Quartz Eternally Beyond 4:25 Moi dix Mois Beyond the Gate Brave Love: Galaxy Express 999 5:16 The Alfee Dancing Yooderu Night (Leorio) 3:36 Gouda Hozumi Hunter X Hunter Singles Collection The World 3:47 Nightmare Death note anime soundtrack Haiiro no Hitomi 4:24 Shiina Ringo & Kusano Masamune Utahite myouri [disc 1] Shangri-La 4:37 Angela Soukyuu no Fafner OP/ED Single Again 4:15 YUI FMA:B 1st OP D-tecnoLife 3:53 UVERworld D-tecnoLife Monochrome no Kiss 4:00 SID Monochrome no Kiss (Kuroshitsuji OP) Coming Closer 5:14 L'Arc~en~Ciel Smile Kaze no Uta 3:40 Motoda Minako Hunter X Hunter Singles Collection Kasou 5:09 L'Arc~en~Ciel Bokutachi no Yukue 4:33 Takahashi Hitomi Bokutachi no Yukue Alumina (Tv size) 1:13 Nitemare Death note anime Soundtrack Desire 4:24 Luna Sea Style Hologram ANIME Ver. 1:41 NICO Touches the Walls Hologram (FMA:B OP) Talkin' 2 myself 4:53 Hamasaki Ayumi Talkin' 2 myself MY LONELY TOWN 3:38 B'z Drink It Down 2:51 L'Arc~en~Ciel Trailer Rip Blessing 4:34 FictionJunction YUUKA Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto Intro Theme - Koya Ruten OP/ED Still Doll 3:20 Kanon Wakeshima Vampire Knight Shinkai no Kodoku 3:58 Kuwashima Houko Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED DESTINY ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK II God Knows... 4:38 Hirano Aya, Goto Yuhiko Oricon 2006-07-03 Single Weekly Best 30 Rolling star 3:09 YUI Rolling star Kimi Dake wo 5:26 Spitz Crispy Ain't Afraid to Die 7:15 Dir en Grey Ain't Afraid to Die Kaze ni Fukarete 4:16 Elephant Kashimashi Ashita ni Mukatte Hashire -Tsukiyo no Uta- Separation 4:49 Angela Soukyuu no Fafner OP/ED Memorial Address 3:56 Hamasaki Ayumi Memorial Address Forever Love (Acoustic Version) 7:54 X Japan X ======= (Comment on this)