Dream with me

Links and Recs

Below you can find my Links and Recs. These are here to help guide you through the web as we know it. Or maybe just to help you all kill time.

B L O G S

Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Dish
- This is a daily and much updated blog by the well respected Journalist Andrew Sullivan. He focuses primarily on American politics but also on 'Gay Issues' quite a lot. I have a great amount of admiration for him and try to read his work every day. I suggest you all do the same!

Guy Fawkes Blog of Parliamentary Plots - A wonderful blog focusing on the workings of the British Parliament. Sounds dull on the surface but is extremely sarcastic, witty and generally amusing in all it does.

Daily Kos - Another blog that covers American politics although it is almost the polar opposite of Andrew Sullivan. Very Liberal and features a good number of scathing attacks on Bush. It's a well measured and well written site with a number of contributors including former Presidential Candidate, John Kerry. A must read for the 'Liberal Loons' amongst us

Eye of Smoog - A fellow Diarylander, Smoog is simply one of the best non-political bloggers I have ever found. She is cynical, sarcastic, witty and observant. There is nothing she will not pick at and just reading her work makes my day that little bit more bareable. A must read if ever there was one!

S C A N L A T I O N S

MangaNews.net - Manga News does exactly what it says in the tin. It provides you with a comprehensive list of manga titles that have been Scanlated as well as URL's to find them. If a series has been Licenced it will tell you by whom and give a brief summary.

SV Loyalty Forum - Strawberry Vanilla has shut down so all of the hosters and scanlators have moved here, to SV Loyalty. Pretty much still the same site with the same titles on offer but a new name. Still the best site online!.

Manga Downloads - Not a very pretty site but an extreamly good resource. The downloads avaliable rotate monthly but older chapters are avaliable in the 'Past Download' section.

Stop Tazmo - This site is great! It hosts a real plethora of exciting titles ranging from shojo to shonen to some of the biggest titles out there. It's a must visit!

Aku Tenshi - By far one of the best scanlation sites. It hosts some fantastic mangas such as Sequence, Dragon Drive, Puchimon and Gravitation 2 as well as a host of Doujinshi (unofficial mangas) for things like Harry Potter, Full Metal Alchemist and Final Fantasy. The only downside is you have to wait 10 mins between each HTTP download to prevent expiring bandwidth.

Game Over or Continue - WARNING: YAOI! This site features a whole host of primarily Yaoi and Shonen Ai manga (BoyxBoy manga) such as Bronze, Hoshi no Yakata and Loving You. Some titles are avaliable through HTTP but most through only IRC.

Mochi*Mochi - WARNING: YAOI This site also features only Yaoi titles and some pretty good ones at that. Loveholic, CUT and Rin! are particularly good. Again both HTTP and IRC downloads avaliable.

Tsuzuku Jinsei o - Because Manga is Life - A fantastic site which hosts a whole range of manga. I am particularly fond of Evangel, Mamotte! Lollipop and Vampire Juuji Kai. HTTP and IRC avaliable although what chapters are avaliable on HTTP varies so it's good to keep checking back. <-- Back from Hiatus!

Sacred Tear - I adore this site! It hosts loads of fantastic titles on http download. I highly recommend Milk Crown, Skip Beat and Samurai Baby to name but a few. To cap it all, she rotates some pretty great MP3's as well. This site really does have the whole package!

Keiichi Anime Forever - A fantastic and priceless resource. This website allows you to stream full episodes of anime, no time consuming downloading needed! A must must must visit tiste!

Side Note: With all of these sites I highly recommend checking out their Links pages when you are done downloading. All of them will point you towards hundreds of other great sites that I don't have time to list here. Enjoy!

M P ' 3 R O T A T I O N S

Strange.Fruits - Starange.Fruits focuses on more rock-type music from bands such as Janne Da Arc and X Japan, updates often.

Screw You Hippies - A fantastic Livejournal site which offeres both j-rock and English/American music. It's an eclectic mix and well worth a visit.

t0ne deaf - A good little site with a number of contributors. Mostly J-pop but a healthy dose of American music too.

Quietus - A great site for Asian-rock and PV's. A favorite of mine for sure.

Side Note: As with the Scanlation Rec's I highly recommend checking out the links and affiliates of all these sites. As with the Scans there are simply too many wonderful sites out there for me to link here. Check them out and know the Jpop love for yourself!

W E B C O M I C S

Read a Review of these Webcomics - This is a review of the comics I wrote a while back. It will tell you all about the content, characters and style of each comic.

General Protection Fault - GPF - GPF is a daily strip that has chronicled the lives of employee�s at a small software company called GPF Software, since November 1998. It's extremely funny and totally captivating, one of my all time favs. Much of the time, GPF revolves around the characters workplace relationships but with a healthy dose of secret cults, time travelling future counterparts, sentient slime moulds and evil organisations bent on world domination thrown in.

Sluggy Freelance - Without a shadow of doubt, one of the most popular webcomics around is the hysterically funny Sluggy Freelance. One of the first webcomics, Sluggy set the standards for all those that followed, with new daily comics since August 1997. Parodies are a staple part of the Sluggy diet, with cult icons like The Matrix, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Wars, all getting the Abrams treatment. These people have fallen into more alternate dimensions than the entire Star Trek cast combined.
From vampires, demons, aliens and a horde of strange curses, the cast of Sluggy have been there, done just about everything and bought the shoddily made T-shirts.

Penny Arcade - Penny Arcade is the quintessential gamers comic, running since November 1998 and taking the piss out of just about every game and gaming convention going. Story continuity is an alien concept to the creators of Penny Arcade, the writers� describing it as the �dreaded continuity�. Characters regularly die horrible, violent and above all graphic deaths only to return in the next strip.

Player Versus Player - PVP - Like many comics, PvP is heavy on the parody and just about anything is fair game, from Star Wars to It�s a Wonderful Life. The writing and art of PvP are always sharp and, above all, funny and Kurtz has yet to miss a strip since 2001, a feat well beyond most webcomics.
A lot of the humour is very fanboy orientated but that is not necessarily a bad thing as it has an uncanny ability to appeal both to fanboys and to those who love to mock them.

Melonpool - Melonpool follows the adventures of a couple of aliens, a telepathic dog and a 220-lb. hamster that crash-landed on Earth way back when the series began in 1996. Melonpool has parodied more than it�s fair share of cultural icons over the years, including Star Trek, The Jetsons, Back to the Future, Gilligans Island and Star Wars. Take the character of No-Da, for example, who is described as �Yoda's black sheep brother. Neither believing in the light or the dark side of the force, No-da operates in the grey side for such worthwhile pursuits as winning at casino games and picking up on women.�

A R T W O R K S

Accio Brain - Makani - Makani is one of the best Harry Potter Fanartists on the web. Her art ranges from hysterically funny to totally off-the-wall insane to utterly stunning. A lot of her work consists of mocking the Malfoy and Deatheaters. Come, join the Hood Hate!

Tealin - Tealin is a fantastic artist, one of the best. Primarily focusing on Harry Potter she also does art for things like the Diskworld book ad Dr. Who. Her website has not updated since October 2005 but her Live Journal - Contorted Pasta - Updates almost daily with new art and wierdness.

Amanda Grazini - Again, I love this girl for her Harry Potter art. Her site, Potter Shoes doesn't update often, but her live journal linked above) does.

Vernavulpes - Verna is by far and away one of my most beloved artists. Her Coffeed Off comic series is hysterical and her art is simply to die for. It's beautifully coloured and ranges from manga to cartoonish to 'serious' in style. Also, she has produced a few stunning HP fanarts as well.

Rimfrost - Rimfrost is the master of morbidly funny comics. Her RIP and McMorbid strips are laugh-out-loud funny and beautifully drawn in her own unique style. And not a HP fanart in sight!

Snapesnogger - Well, in case the name didn't give it away, this girl drawns a hell of a lot of HP art. Mostly - shockingly - of Snape. Her art is fantastic and ranges from beautifully atmospheric to the cutest little chibis, intersperesed with comics and random funy drawings. As well as her HP art, she draws fantasy creatures and other movie characters too.

Danime-chan - Danime is wonderful. There is no other word for her. Her art is fantastic in the same way Snapesnoggers is. Yes, she has done her fair share of HP art but I love her for her Syaoran obsession and her chibi's.

lberghol - Iberghol's art (which is almost all HP related) is stunning and plentiful. Check out her unofficial entry to the Fanart100 contest as well.

Ponderosa - Some stunning Gundam Wing art here. She focuses - wonderfully - on 1x2 art and she is one of the most talented artists I have ever seen. A wonder.

F I C T I O N

Rather than Rec-ing actual fic I am afraid I only have time to give you the URL's of some of the better archives. When I will have time, I will Rec individual Harry Potter and Gundam Wing fictions. Promise!

Fanfiction.net - As always, we start with the biggest and best archive site around. FF.Net will have exactly what you are looking for 9 times out of 10. Unless you are looking for anything rated above an R though, since the controversial new submission guidelines were instated a few years ago. Still, any fandom, almost any pairing and any genre, FF.Net will not be found wanting.

Media Miner - Media Minder hosts primarily Anime fanfiction in much the same was FF.Net does, although without the rating restrictions. Like FF.Net, however, it's pot luck as to the quality of what you find.

A Little Piece of Gundam Wing - This is a Duo-centric site maintained by the lovely Dacia. Almost all of the fiction hosted in Yaoi and - obviously - Duo related. She hosts works by the two biggest names in GW fanfiction, SunHawk and Kracken. Both are fantastic writers and must reads, especially Sunhawks Ion series.

GWYAOI.ORG - This is a comprehensive Gundam Wing Yaoi Rec site which Recs and links hundreds of outstanding fanfictions of all pairings across the web. It is easy to navigate by genre and an excellent portal.

Gundam Wing Addiction - I will risk the wrath of the Gundam Wing Fan Gods here when I say that GWA has gone downhill in recent years. It used to host only the best fics by the best authors by invitation only. Now, however, what you get is as pot-luck based as FF.Net or Media Miner. Still, there are some gems still here. Check out Dev-Aki Basaa and Tayla Firedancer.

Shinigami & Wing - As the title suggests, this site hosts the cream of the 1x2 fanfiction crop. Check out Dyna Dee and Akuma in particular.

The Sugar Quill - The Quill is a good and popular Harry Potter fanfiction site, however is too suffers from the pot-luck quality problem. Still, if you can bear to trudge through the extensive archives, it's a good site with a few well hidden gems.

Fiction Alley - Fiction Alley is, in my opinion, what the Quill wishes it was. Yes, it is open to all submissions so there is plenty of rubbish floating around, however it is much easier to search for fics by pairing, length and genre than at the Quill. As a bonus, the easy to navigate forums provide plenty of fic Recs for the reader in a hurry. Also, check out the fanart section for some real gems, and a few very funny comics as well.

Well, Those are all the links I have for you today. I hope they keep you occupied in times of boredom.