so I will try not to tl;dr like I did when I was fangirling over Panzer Dragoon Saga. ALSO the linked images may be nsfw for naked people. this show loves its naked people.

Eden of the East is your standard boy meets girl story. only the boy is an amnesiac and shows up totally nude, armed only with a handgun and a cell phone charged with more than 8 billion yen. also he may or may not actually be a terrorist. this is a terrible synopsis that really doesn't describe how amazing this canon is, even if there's only one camper-applicable character in the whole show. but everyone is awesome so that's good at least.

( why exactly everyone is awesome! warning: large images )

basically, this show is a drama/social commentary/action/romance/mystery/psychological (according to wikipedia?) amalgam with an occasionally questionable but solid enough plot and amazing characters that totally deserve to be at camp. you can watch/download Eden of the East on veoh and at the getfansub wiki and by joining edenoftheeast. idk when the next counselor round is coming but there's plenty of time until then, or a little less if someone wants to app Micchon (please do so, Saki would love to have her snarky deadpan codingbuddy girlfriend around so much). there are only 11 episodes, a perfectly manageable size, plus it is just a funny and charming show besides

70+ missiles and 20,000+ naked people and who knows how many bizarre penis jokes later there is also a movie (and another one coming out in january march) which I expect is just everyone being awesome redux! but it is only out in japan so it's kinda more inaccessible, which something I emo over every day. w/e man I can wait, probably

Boredom calls for this.

Srs poll: rate your character by their "mom"ness.

FOR EXAMPLE: Stein and Naru are not mom. Kou is possible cougar. And Prussia is the derpy shounen mom... you know what I mean.

Oh, and for those who've missed it: hiatus-y for all four starting the 16th and lasting until I regain my sanity from Christmas, New Years, and moving times.

Last minute beta post~ apps open in less than 24 hours, have some copypasta:

Last-minute betas, please step up to the plate! Feel free to say a little about your crit style as you do, but mostly this is just so that appers know who's going to be able to turn around a beta today. Availability + email address = a++



Previous beta post was here.

Tweaks and enhancements

• As a number of you reported, a service interruption impaired sending and receiving notifications for a couple of days. This was due to an avalanche of snowflake cookies. We've removed the free snowflake cookie and unclogged the pipeline. Timely notifications should resume shortly. Please note that there's a backlog in our queues, so you'll be getting earlier notifications first. For more details, check out this post at lj_maintenance.
• In anticipation of the new year, we've embarked on a self-improvement kick to boost our backend (pun semi-intended). This will allow us to offer you a holiday promotion in the next few weeks (yes, we're listening and working very hard to make it happen). We sincerely appreciate your continued patience and support.

Holiday vgifts are here!

We've added some fantastic new vgifts to help you spread holiday cheer. We also hope you'll honor AIDS Awareness Month by purchasing virtual red ribbons. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Introducing: LJLimericks

We cordially here do invite you
To craft a fine limerick. Might you?
Each week, a new theme,
Then a poll, that's our dream
Winner posted on news to delight you!

In honor of all the brilliant writers on LiveJournal, we've created a brand new community: ljlimericks! Each week, we'll enter a handful of limericks into a poll (which we'll tuck snugly under an LJ-Cut). The winning poem will be published in the following newsletter. In addition, the author will receive a virtual blue ribbon! If you have the time, come drop us a rhyme. Please keep the "Nantucket" stuff on the downlow, since this is a youth-friendly community. Our first prompt is: Insomnia in winter.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible images from our global photography community. Congratulations to sempre_marseeya, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our second lj_photophile poll.

We hate to squelch your creativity, but, as a courtesy to other users, please post only one photo at a time and keep the main photo no larger than 350x350 (so images display properly via mobile and on friends pages). You can link to a larger image and/or post photos under a cut. Just so you know, we select photos for the poll blindly, based on user comments and staff feedback. Please continue to vote, comment, and, of course, enjoy. You can check out the week in pictures and view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay warm and safe out there!

doorwindowwall
A stunning collection of images sure to delight anyone with a penchant for architectural elements, this talented community, largely from New York, is hoping to attract new members from around the world. Featuring an eclectic variety of photos depicting doors, windows, and walls, there's an interesting balance of interior and exterior shots, many from urban streets, some from ramshackle rural farmhouses. Wonderful!

I've been awol with school stuff for the last weekish, work just got slammed and i'll probably be working 10-12 hours a day for a while, and I just got some news that I'm not sure how to deal with yet.

So, I'm going to go on hiatus for a little while, and maybe just stare at the wall for a bit. Sorry.

BABYCHAN'S FAULT.

SRS POLL: DO YOUR CHARACTERS ENJOY KILLING?

So, I've been thinking about having a BloodRayne event of some sort, and I'd like to see if people are interested in this kind of thing before I start polling for dates. It'll probably be sometime between the end of January and the beginning of March, though.

( Yay, a cut! There must be a list... )

So, uh... questions, comments, ideas? Throw rotten fruit?

SRS POLL

What's the worst topic your chan has had? I'm talking things that made your brain break.

Yay! 1000 comments get! As such, I finally started my massive headcanon/timeline/psychology thesis and you should totally read it. Well. Or not. It's super long.
My timeline! I fixed it! Take that Heroes writing staff!

Also, Sylar has managed to meet a decent number of people and so I'm offering relationship essays! Wanna know what he ACTUALLY thinks of you? Ask away here! Also, other essay prompts are welcome. I'm a little bored kids, let me talk about us ^^

Serious Poll
Do you have too much canon, or not enough? Do you find you have to work with an overabundance, or are you making up headcanon for huge portions of their lives?

Bonus: Does your canon even makes sense?

Bandaids, etc. Ishida Uryuu is going home (again) as well as Devin Wilshire. I love them both dearly, but let's face it: at this point, I'm just sitting on them. :( There will be drop posts ... soonish, depending on how much time and energy I have.

Thank you again for letting me be a derp Quincy and an amazing conspiracy theorist at you all. (Special thanks to Bean and Liet too for letting me play their baby ;o;)

LOL HAY GUYS I'M DROPPING




you a reminder


So last night I was like, man, it's December! I'll have to get Envy to send camp some horrible--WAIT! And then I remembered I hadn't organized that yet lol.

Not that it needs organization really, but. That's right kids, it's Dropped Characters Holiday Letter Time! A lot of you know the drill already, but here's how it works for those of you who don't. Every year on SOME DAY SUSPICIOUSLY NEAR CHRISTMAS, dropped characters can send the current denizens of camp a letter/letters/a package of reasonable proportions. This event is not limited to players still in the game! If you know a player who's dropped out entirely and might be interested in contacting camp for old times' sake, let them know about the event so they can write up a letter. :D

On whatever day we go with, a post will go up, and people will comment to the post with their letters. You can comment directly with your dropped journal, or playercest something (like Devit finding Envy's letter), or get a friend to do it (Roy finds Envy's letter), or if all else fails, you can contact me and I'll post it for you. Characters find the letters, reply to them, ARE GLADDENED OR HORRIFIED, possibly receive gifts! If you dropped a character who has since reapped, talk to that player; it's totally okay to have letters pop up from different "versions" as long as the current player agrees to that. BASICALLY JUST USE COMMON SENSE AND HAVE FUN, THIS ISN'T A BIG DEAL. \o/

So generally I make the post--which is open forever, btw, they tend to go on for more than 24 hours--the weekend before Christmas, but Christmas is on a Friday this year, which would set that a little earlier in the month than normal. So have a poll:

Poll #1496551
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43

When would you rather see the post go up?

It's just a little one-post event, but I like to pin down a date range in advance since it's one that requires preparation on the parts of the dropped characters. o>

p.s. acknowledgment that not everyone celebrates Christmas goes here, IT IS A GENERAL HOLIDAY ACTIVITY AND NO OFFENSE IS MEANT 8( your letters and so on do not have to be Christmas-themed or anything.

Vampires. Kinda sexy right? Sometimes.



( Dial-Up speeds are probably not recommended beyond this point )

Downloads (source: daughterofnyx1), and scan credits for this post go to Sagakure and OneManga. ETA: Vol 9 download is actually volume 10. I suggest Onemanga at this point :X

((Minor retcon? In CFUW I used the Firstname-Lastname order "Kaname Kuran"... but in camp (and until further notice) it's still Kuran Kaname. Thanks guys. /o\ I usually don't think much about name order, but VK is weird and we don't really know what country it's set in, not to mention the official spelling is apparently Kaname Clan...))

Hiatus for Mireille for exams until the 16th. D:

Also, dropping Dong-Young. Thanks for playing with her, guys.

Hiatus due to lack of computer. I have no idea how long this will last. If you need me, I can get e-mail and LJ on my phone, but won't be able to tag anything as it can't load posts over 50 comments. Sorry guys.

**FINAL EDIT Thu Dec 10 02:15:47 UTC 2009**

So there is the final update... Over the past day we have processed around 11 million jobs out of the 12 million that were in queue at that time. Please bear in mind that over this past day, more jobs for notifications are also created. So while the queue has been dropping, we are still not fully caught up at this point, due to backlog and new jobs. We have roughly 3 million jobs still pending that involve the notification system in some manner. We had hoped we could have fully cleared the queue in a day, but unfortunately we can't clear it too quickly, since we need the rest of the site to operate normally. From our current perspective on the amount of jobs that are left in queue, and how many it has processed thus far, we believe it will take around another 8 - 12 hours to process everything.

And finally some answers to some questions:

( Read More and Get Some Answers... )

REMINDER

The activity check is over here and is still open. If you do not comment to it, we will idle you (unless you've contacted us previously via e-mail or posted a hiatus notice on your journal or CFO. then you're cool). If you are not certain if you've commented to it yet or not, go double check and do it now.

freeskiers
While some of us long to escape the cold, dark stretch of winter for hot tropical beaches, for others, there's nothing quite like whoooooshing down those shimmering sugar alps. If you're fond of freestyle skiing, get ready to slide down the slippery slopes in good company. This passionate, international community shares travel/gear tips, anecdotes, photos, and videos for those who can't get enough of the sweet stuff.

seasonal_icons
Need some extra twinkle to decorate your place? Check out these dazzling holiday-themed icons. If you're an artist, you can post your own creations, provided you abide by the simple rules (which is to say, all cheer and no politicking). Be sure to comment and give credit if you wish to borrow a little spirit (no direct links, please). If you're feeling a touch of humbug this season, this is an instant shot of festivity.

handmade_gifts
High on creativity, but low on cash? You'll find tons of brilliant suggestions for do-it-yourself crafts sure to please everyone on your holiday gift list. Offering detailed instructions, photos, budgets, timelines, and active support, you'll soon turn spare remnants of fabric and time into cherished keepsakes. Be sure to search entries and read user guidelines before you post for help!