two links

I have discovered a new way to totally lose time - check out the omegle tag on tumblr. (though prepare yourself for sherlock spoilers).

Also, has anybody actually used Omegle to talk to people? I had an entirely boring conversation with a highschooler (I think). I may have to pretend to be a character just to make things more entertaining if I ever go on again.

Aaaand, if you're interested in the Tale of Genji, there's this lovely piece of meta in the Fireflies chapter that basically makes a connection (in my mind) about 'romances' (which are basically court tales like the Tale of Genji) and fanfiction. The relevant convo:

Tamakazura was the most avid reader of all. She quite lost herself in pictures and stories and would spend whole days with them. Several of her young women were well informed in literary matters. She came upon all sorts of interesting and shocking incidents (she could not be sure whether they were true or not), but she found little that resembled her own unfortunate career. There was _The Tale of Sumiyoshi_, popular in its day, of course, and still well thought of. She compared the plight of the heroine, within a hairbreadth of being taken by the chief accountant, with her own escape from the Higo person.

Genji could not help noticing the clutter of pictures and manuscripts. "What a nuisance this all is," he said one day. "Women seem to have been born to be cheerfully deceived. They know perfectly well that in all these old stories there is scarcely a shred of truth, and yet they are captured and made sport of by the whole range of trivialities and go on scribbling them down, quite unaware that in these warm rains their hair is all dank and knotted."

( here's where it gets interesting )

[ from Tale of Genji online, Fireflies chapter ]