It's two thousand and thirteen all across the galaxy*

End of Year Meme ( Read more... )

Media of 2013 ( Read more... )

Music of 2013 ( Read more... )

Fanfic of 2013 ( Read more... )

Look I Made Stuff in 2013 ( Read more... )

And there you have it. That's what 2013 was for me. I'm particularly proud of starting the Kiwiland project (still ongoing), the Frailty fanmix, and the Russian prison tattoo post, which I think I'll stick on here (along with the Hobbit review).

* Arctic Monkeys, "2013"

Do I look okay?!*

Movie review: I watched The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (HOLD ME): ( Read more... )

* Common expression

They all mean something.*

In the summer of 2013 I spend a week researching Russian criminal tattoos and writing this post. I talk about the history, methods, and symbology of Russian prison tattoos and attempt to interpret the tattoos of the Lucas North character in the British television drama series Spooks. One day I'd like to do the same for the Nikolai character in the movie Easter Promises. So, if your interested in tattoos, prison culture, or symbols, this is for you. (I'm damn proud of this post, too.)

Tattooing’s part of the culture in there. You don’t do it, you don’t belong, you don’t belong, you’re dead. They all mean something. There’s a specific iconography. Fascinating, really. - Lucas North, Spooks (7x01)

"A group of convicts imprisoned for drug-related crimes. Convict (left) on both arms: ‘I live in sin / I die laughing’. Images of demons and monsters are intended to intimidate other inmates and give significance to the bearer within his circle. Convict (centre) German text below the neck: ‘God with us’; on the left arm: ‘Hurry up and live’. The sailing ship on the forearm signifies a lust for freedom and that the bearer is a potential escapee. Convict (right) on upper arm: ‘Keep love’; on forearm: ‘KRAB’: Klyanus Rezat Aktivistov i Blyadey (I swear to kill activists and sluts). The rose on the shoulder means that the bearer turned eighteen in prison.” [x]

( Read more... )

Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.*

And here is an actual proper post. *waves* Not dead. Not much has changed, either.

Last you heard, I was slowly making my way through a research proposal. I wrote a fuckton in November, all the way to some twelve or thirteen pages, which was stupid considering the thing isn't actually a proposal and more a statement of interest and only has to be like two to three pages. (November was pretty productive. Mainly because we have friends and family fly over to visit and I'd be left alone in the house while everyone went galavanting around.)

Anyway. I've got it down to that, more or less, except for the methods, which I'm working on, and the aims and objectives which I'm pretty sure I done fucked up. But. Almost done. I would've been done sooner but I lost half of December to the flu and the other half to the holidays. But now it's January and the day my folks are going to be leaving the country is kinda sorta close (in that it's not even half a year away I think) and I need to get my shit together.

In other news, I've got a friend who is actually in the same country as I am, and we go out for dinners and movies and things, and that's nice.

In other, other news, I'm writing again, which is nice. Mostly self-indulgent crap, but I like it. I might even share it. Maybe.

And that's basically it. Still truckin', basically.


* American Horror Story: Coven