Darklord Rooke

Boo! Hiss!

Not a fan of the term "donor" for the badge. "Benefactor" is cool. So is "patron," "backer", "supporter" etc

I stayed on XP until I was forced to upgrade a few years ago, and by George I'll be doing the same with Windows 7

I specialise in gloom. Apparently it's because I'm a "grump"

There was also more chatter, less discussion (less people,) and there was that thread in GD which housed paragraphs of anti-copyright material Aaeru found on the internet. More lolis. More moe. No OELVNs. No development going on on the forums. No Ren and his entertaining games and podcasts. It was pretty boring imo.

There are two schools of thought on this. One side state that there are many different kinds of love, and that the BF/GF thing needs at least a modicum of lust to qualify. Without this element of lust present, all you have is companionship? Affection? Is that really enough to justify sharing a life and building a future together? The other side states that lust is a destructive emotion not needed in relationships, that lust destroys relationships, and the purest love contains no lust. A person really needs to decide this sort of thing themselves though.

Murphy's Law is a beautiful thing Poor Nay..... I'd say "poor Tay" as well, but it's just funny when these things happen to him

As long as you're defining "good" to mean "good for me and a handful of other members," then I'm sure you raise a good point. Unfortunately the chatbox was really meant to benefit the community as a whole. The chatbox can be yet another tool to expand the community and bring them closer together. In a perfect world it wouldn't require a member to be logged in to be visible, and it would be moderated decently so it would remain a warm, casual place without decending into the behaviour which makes the FSG infamous. People who lurked on the forums would see what a fun place the Fuwa community can be, be encouraged to participate, which will lead to Fuwanovel having more members in the future. This is similar to the way the Unlimited Chat Thread managed to rope in new members for Fuwa, even though not everyone likes that thread. In addition to this, having a casual, fun, and chatty place to hang out which is plainly visible to everyone and fairly active (I.E. you're not just shouting into a dead chatbox,) may have encouraged participation and reduced the amount of random chatter on the forums. All clear benefits to the community which is why I kept asking for a chatbox to be tried and experimented. Unfortunately all Tay could do is put the Fuwachat where it ended up, which provides nearly zero benefits to the community other than keeping a small handful of people happy. And unfortunately this proposed incarnation of the Fuwachat will still require people to be logged in to see it, which will once again reduce its potential usefulness. But c'est la vie. All of us live only to make your life more difficult and exciting. Think of it as a public service

Erm… good storytelling is incredibly subjective, instead of reading only classics you should try and read everything you can get your hands on. The first piece of advice given to writers is "read everything."

This is what I'm wondering right now: "How close is her eye to that scope?" And "Will the recoil from that rifle send that scope of hers straight through her eye and into her brain..."

That picture of her looking down her scope is weird - one of the cons of anime style large eyes

My FIRST change of username request still hasn't been granted Sure. *Clears throat* Many months ago I made a request to change my username, unfortunately Tay (the big meanie) ignored it. I also requested that the Darth Vadar theme music be played whenever I log on and ...

As long as there's an option to minimise, imo it's a good idea and worth a try. Sometimes I think Tay put the Fuwachat where he did just to troll people "Yes I'll give you your beloved chat program. Please proceed past the treacherous and trap-infested tunnels, through the chambers filled with poisonous gas, down The-Hidden-Staircase-of-Balthazar ...:" It's a pain to use and it will probably die where it is, but it was brought in for a specific purpose. Which it's not really achieving in such an out-of-the-way place. But I recognise it's probably well down on the "Things to decide on" list.

I'm looking at a link which advertises the "Last Season" so maybe sooner than you think?

Erm... no comment

Nice! I was waiting for this to be fully translated. It will now go on my ginormous list of things to read once I get the time.

It's being worked on. There's a lot of work to be done with that and not as much help as Fuwa'd like, for example *points at advertisement for additional coders*

Everybody goes through this. Let me copy and paste the most useful piece of advice I've read... albeit targeted at a different profession: A friend of mine is going through a crisis of faith right now. Not a religious crisis. A writing one—though from where he’s standing, it probably feels much the same. He’s written several books and a slough of short stories, and he has prepared them professionally, and he has diligently and tirelessly sent them around in the correct manner. He’s done everything right, and he has a growing collection of rejection slips to show for it, and an upcoming publication in what he calls “the smallest paying market in existence.” And he’s starting to wonder why he’s doing all this; as he points out, he has a great job that he’s lucky enough to like, he’s happily married, he makes good money and has what he needs in life. He’s putting a lot of time into something that is feeling more and more like smacking himself in the forehead with a ballpeen hammer. Repeatedly. Is he wasting his time? I have no doubt at all that if he sticks with his writing long enough, he’ll start selling his work. He’s smart and talented and funny, and I think it would be impossible for him to keep writing without those qualities showing in an irresistible combination on the page eventually. Sooner or later, an editor is going to fall in love, and he is going to find a publishing home. If he is willing to pay the price. The price? Every dream has a price. You need to know this now, because the price can be enormous, and if you don’t know about in advance, you can wake up one day to find that you have paid with everything you ever loved, and what you have to show for all of that isn’t enough. How much will you have to pay to be a writer? There’s no way you can know in advance. How much might you have to pay? You might have to live in poverty. You might lose your job, your friends or family, your children or your spouse. Your dream might cost you your health. Your happiness. Your life. Perhaps you think I exaggerate, but writers suffer from depression and die of suicide far out of proportion to our numbers. We have high divorce rates, far too many substance abusers, and as a group we are pathetically poor. I’m not saying that if you want to be a writer, you need to run out and get a divorce and take up heavy drinking. Far from it. A strong, stable relationship can get you through some desperate times. And only fools look for inspiration in the bottom of a bottle. What I am saying is that if you pursue your dream, some other parts of your life will fall by the wayside. You can’t know what those parts will be yet. But if you persist, you will find out. How much is your dream worth to you? Could you be a writer? Yes. Should you be? That is a question that only you can answer … and you’ll have to answer it again every time you pay. But before you walk away, consider this: If writing is your hunger and your thirst, and if you choose not to follow your dream because you’re afraid, you’ll pay a price for that, too—you’ll pay with the progressive deadening of your soul, as time and your own disillusionment with yourself eat away at who you are. One day you’ll wake up and discover that the part of yourself that knew how to dream—and how to fly—has died, and that you are forever after bound to the ground, with only the memory that you once had wings. Every dreamer pays a price. But so does everyone who fears to dream. http://hollylisle.com/could-vs-should-and-the-price-of-your-dreams/

Interesting! This sounds brilliant to me but I have no idea what this plan would entail/how feasible it is.

It did? 0.0 I’m so behind on my anime viewing

Nothing in particular. The common folk copied the practices of the rich, like they tend to do. People do tend to enjoy the cake and presents that come with the day, though.

Ah. Balls. That's awkward. Well, going by what you're saying he's a little overweight. The only other option (I can think of) would be to try and get him to lose a few kilos? Tell him it's for his own benefit and well-being, and you're just worried about his health? So try and get him to eat healthier whenever you're around, and go for cycling rides together... up many hills.

This fundraiser probably won't do extremely well. None of the stuff he's worked on has been translated into english, so the only people who'd know of him are the few who reads VNs in Japanese. And asking the community to donate to this campaign is like saying "I know there's thousands of starving artists out there, but this one *insert name* in particular has been facing a really rough trot lately. Please donate generously to get this dude you've never heard of back on his feet, as opposed to the guy just up the street who lost his house in last weeks flood." I wish Sekai all the best, but my pessimism tells me the amount they raise will be a little low.

Sleep in different beds, and if you don't want to hurt his feelings then lie about the reason. An increasing number of couples (in Western countries) sleep in different beds these days, although there's no accurate figures out there. Some studies say 15% of couples never sleep in the same bed, others say it's closer to 30 or 40%. The reasons are many - snoring, too much tossing and turning, someone's a very light sleeper etc etc. Sleep's important. Heh, my parents no longer sleep in the same room let alone the same bed. Father snores... really loudly.....