This site was originally made as a summer project, or rather, a summer ammusement. 'rakuen' is Japanese for paradise, but I knew of it from the third ending to Yu-Gi-Oh!, which is Rakuen. If for some reason you feel the desire to know more about me and/or what I'm up to these days, feel free to check out my LJ: For the Flight of Birds.

I've been writing for more than eight years. Wow. About seven years ago (wow!) I decided it was time to make a site to house my stuff, since it's nice to have somewhere that you have complete control of, and I enjoy making layouts. The two meshed perfectly! And because I'm a freak, I've been keeping track of old layouts here.

As a note, before we get into the layouts, they have been designed to be viewed on a variety of sizes as I went through computers. My current laptop has a freakish screen size which makes it difficult for me to predict how layouts will look on a more normal monitor, so if it looks bizarre, I'm sorry. I'm just not cool enough to make universally-compatible layouts.

Past Layouts

2002 Summer
This is the layout Rakuen started out with, a very Yuugiou-ish layout since the site got its title from there, and also because I was writing mostly Yuugiou fiction at that time (like it's changed a lot... ^^;;). I really liked the colours in this layout, although in this picture the title has been replaced, since the original one was really fuzzy and sucked. Yeah, I know, I'm a cheater. Anyway, the pictures come from the Yuugiou ending "Rakuen" (awesome song), which inspired the title of this site, so really it's only fitting that they were on the first layout ever...

2002 Fall
Um, I really liked this picture, and even though I don't write for Clamp Gakuen Tanteidan, I figured I'd use it anyway. 'Cause, you know, Nokoru is cool. Also, it was really bright. I liked that, 'cause (although you wouldn't know it to look at the early Rakuen layouts) most of my layouts tend to be really dark and gloomy. So, I was a big fan of the bright red, although everytime you opened the site it was a little "Whoa!" before you settled into it. Also, I liked the title graphic quite a bit. That underline took me a long time. ^^;;

2002 Winter
Yeah, at this point people were probably assuming I just used whatever pics I wanted to on the layout, rather than ones from shows I write for. But this picture is just so cute, how could you not use it? Everyone loves Hamel! Well, okay, not everyone, but, you know. Violinist of Hameln is probably my longterm favorite anime ever. Basically, while I'll like other anime quite a bit for a short time, I always like Hameln somewhere in the back of my mind. This layout was pretty spartan though. I was a fan of the type-writer- like title graphic. I don't think anyone but me really liked this layout though. *cry*

2003 Spring
This layout I liked for two reasons. 1. green's my favorite colour. 2. I screencapped that pic myself and was pretty darn proud of it. It's not very well focused, and you certainly can't tell what it is by looking at this little cap, but it's Kaiba and Mokuba walking along in the forest from when they were in Noa's virtual reality world. At the time I made this layout though, I didn't have a graphics programme (I forget why, actually), so I had no ability to make a title graphic (oh no!). Fortunately, my friend Sarah made this lovely one for me, so it was all okay in the end. Hoorah!

2003 Fall
Looking back on this now, I wonder why I didn't think anything about having two consecutive green Kaiba layouts. Apparently I didn't... I quite liked this picture, which is really why I made this layout. It's from a Yuugiou calender. I also really like this colour green, and it went so well, and yeah. I had a hard time deciding what to do about the part of the picture which Rakuen is written on, since a solid colour didn't look good attached to the Kaiba pic, and nothing else really did either. In the end, I stretched the bottom of the picture down really long, and that looked okay.

2003 Winter
One of my all time favourites. As I say that, though, I realise that really, I loved all my layouts. I think it's because I put so much time and effort into them, and in the end the only person they really have to please is me. But still. Pretear is another one of my big favourite animes, even though it's really short, and Kei is my favourite character. So, how could he not get a layout? He got this one in celebration of something to do with my Pretear fic (I think it's beginning, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't finished then). The lyrics come from Kei's image song, and read "Ore wa hikari, kimi no hikari" (I am light, your light). I love that song. Once I had it on my computer, and then it got deleted and I have never found it again. Yes. It is a very tragic story. Let's move on.

2004 Spring
I liked this layout for the title graphic and the line around Misao's picture. I thought that was a pretty sweet line. But really, can you beat that font? It's Scythed, from TypeNow a font database. This layout was the beginning of the dark layouts. The text reads "matteiru, matteiru" (I'm waiting), from Misao's image song Ice Blue Eyes. Geez, Aoshi, take a hint!

2004 Summer
I figured it'd be nice to have a layout with everyone in. I had soooo much trouble fitting them in those letters though, you wouldn't believe. Also, finding a good Sakura pic that was cut-out- able was really hard. You wouldn't think so, but it's true. That's why I never do Sakura layouts. They're a pain! I have to say, I really like this picture of Kei. ^^;; It's from the 3rd Pretear English DVD cover (Goh is in the other corner, but he's not cool enough for the layout!). Also, Yuugiou pictures, what happened there? There used to be tonnes of good ones, and now you'll spend all day trying to find 1. *sigh*

2005 Spring
I had had a bunch of layouts sitting around half-finished for a long time, a Gundam one, an Esca one, an Outlaw Star one. But geez, they were all so dark. Then the site crashed and I had to go back and re-write the summaries for all the past layouts and realized: there hasn't been a bright layout for so long! Remember the good old days of bright layouts? I do. Ahhh, when I was young. *dies*. Yeeees. Anyway, on a spur I ran out and found a Get Backers picture, slapped some text in, and here we are with a new bright layout in only a few hours. This layout came after I wrote the GB fics Emptiness and Forgiveness, so if you want, it can be in honour of them. Oh, it's all about you, isn't it?

2005 Fall
So, I watched FFVII Advent Children, and thought, 'hey, that's cool.' And then I watched it again. And again. And then, IT SUCKED OUT MY SOUL. Okay, Vincent was a large part of the soul- sucking. Anyway, Dirge of Cerberus, the FFVII game focused on him was coming out soon, and they had this wallpaper up, and it was just so cool that it needed to become a layout. And it matched Hallowe'en! Although, really, that was a fluke. Also, in this layout I finally got really tired of trying to fit the stupid guest book in, because for some stupid reason you can't move the links around the picture, so I took it out all together, and good riddens. It's now on this page. Also, thanks to Sarah for compressing the picture of Vincent and thus stopping me having to kill my image program. Also: I had really wanted to have some text somewhere reading "mou sukoshi de kizutsukeru" (a little more/further and you'll get hurt, from Dark of DN Angel's theme Groovy Blue) but my image program would have messed that up. So I stuck it in the title. Hohoho.

2007 Spring
My friend/roommate sucked me into Metal Gear Solid. Actually, he sucked me into MGS2, and then I sucked myself in the rest of the way. If I knew java/had time to look into things, this layout could potentially have been more cool. If I had had the idea of going with the chemical theme from the beginning, instead of sticking it in at the end, the picture of Snake could potentially have been more awesome as well, but I think it turned out okay. I hope to actually post some MGS fanfiction some day and so vindicate my use of Snake in this layout. Of course, I've said that in the past *cough*FFVII*cough* but hey, it might actually turn out to be true this time. I also discovered that I have a program which tells me the exact code for ANY COLOUR EVER so now I no longer have to suffer through the pain of either not matching the background exactly or making the background a picture, which sucks. Hoorah! Unfortunately when making this layout I didn't take the counter into account and had to randomly tack it in at the end. Sigh.

2007 Summer
In honour of Rakuen's 5th birthday, it got a multi-character layout. It was originally going to be multicoloured as well, but I just couldn't get that to work. This is the first layout I ever made which involved a fair amount of math, in order to get the lines and the cubes to line up properly, and I think it worked out pretty darn well. I also cunningly avoided the lack of good CCS/Yuugiou pics out there by sticking in tiny ones for them. Take that! I really like the way the text turned out. I was teetering between the one I used and a really elaborate cursive style, but I think this one is good, and gives an uplifting feel. Or something. MGS got its own page with this layout. Apparently after painstakingly screencapping and writing up the previous layout, I decided the counter was so ugly that that out-weighted its usefulness and finally canned it. So no more counter! I'm just out of control here (someone stop me!)

2008 Winter
Finally, an Escaflowne layout! I have only just realised that although Escaflowne was the first series I ever posted fic for, it has never had its own layout on Rakuen! The travesty! So, it finally lucked out and got a layout, mainly because the only good pics I had stored on my computer were Esca ones... This lovely example comes from Tsubasa no Kami, probably the best Escaflowne movie fan-site out there, and is of course from the movie. The graphics and music were lovely, even if it was weird as heck. I had a fun time trying to figure out a way for this to work on any size screen, but I'm pretty sure it should, and as such is one of the few complicated layouts I've ever made which can meet that claim. Aw, pride. ^^

2008 Summer
I had wanted to do a black layout for a while. And, possibly, a computer/matrix layout. MGS was perfect for that, and the imminent release of MGS4 provided a good opportunity, especially for the black. I had also wanted for a long time to find a chance to use the lyrics from L'Arc en Ciel's Spirits Inside, which is what the text above and below the image are, although you probably wouldn't have guessed it. The full verse, which fits even better in this case, being "hurry on, hurry on, time, it's going so fast. Hurry on, I can't save you, can't slow it down. You know it is your fate- are you feeling lonely?" Of course, after I was happy with that I was listening to my playlist and See You Space Cowboy came on, full on depression starting with 'subete wa mou owatta to,' which was also damn appropriate for MGS4. After warring with myself, it got its place in the title. I'm not too happy with the link text, whose colour got sapped out when transitioned to JPEG, nor could I find a place for the links which I was really happy with. But I will admit to being proud of the image, since I drew every one of those lines by hand. (it looks even more computer-like in the shrunken version!)

2008 Winter
So, I dragged myself into Detective Conan/Magic Kaitou. Of course, that eventually produced some fic, which forced me to post it on the Other FF page, which frankly is full of really horrible stuff I don't even want to think about. Anyway, I had been contemplating making a white layout for a while, since the last one was Hameln fifty billion years ago, and fgured making one now would be a good contrast to the previous one. I had also thought about matching the white of Kid's costume to the bg color. Of course it turned out that his suit is rarely actually white in frames and to make it so would look really horrible, so I blacked it out instead. I kind of think it looks pretty good, actually. ^^;; It also got around the problem of the screenshot not being incredibly high-quality. I'm quite pleased with the title image, as well. Anyway, this is the layout that debuted the Detective Conan FF page. (In other news, I have no idea why I seem to be unable to make these layout pictures be the same size...)

THE GREAT DIVIDE

2009 Winter/Spring
This layout marked the beginning of a new era for Rakuen. All the old shameful fics of my high school days were banished to Childish Things with this layout and Rakuen began again with a severly reduced number of pages. As MGS made up by far the greatest portion of fics remaining at Rakuen, and it was with MGS that I feel my writing has shown considerable improvement, it seemed only fair for MGS to have the layout. I had actually wanted to have the image be only black and white entirely with no shades of grey, but that proved impossible with my image program which is made of fail. Still not sure how I feel about it, and I really was a big fan of the Kid layout, but I'm sure it'll grow on me in time.

Spring 2009
I put this up together with the final chapter (although not installment) of Heavy Silences, the longest fanfic I've ever written. I figured in honour of that, Kid should get another layout, although two in three is pushing it a bit. I downloaded a trial version of photoshop (actually to make a different layout), and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. I made this from scratch; the only images taken is that of Kid and the silhouette of Tokyo Tower, the rest was put together in Photoshop. I think it turned out pretty well, considering my complete lack of ability in electronic mediums (or any, in fact). This also premiered on the day Detective Conan movie 13: The Raven Chaser came out, so clearly it was meant to be.

Summer 2009
This went up 2 days after coming home from Japan. I actually put it together in a hotel in Tokyo one evening with nothing else to do. It didn't come off quite as newspaper-y as I'd have liked: I originally planned to do something with a paper- edge design at the top and maybe more of a grey scale with black divides between columns, but the paper-edge would have required a big picture which in turn would have carried a long loading time and the problem of everyone having different sized screens these days. I just bailed out on the verticle lines due to laziness. ^^ But I'm pretty impressed with the rotating images, especially since if I get tired of these or want more variations I can just plug them in. A good way to get around deciding who to favour with a layout!

Spring 2010
This layout was posted right after the worst Easter of my life, having spent 32 hours with the same 4 people stuck in a tiny room writing a presentation I had no interest in. Finally having free time, I resolved to update Rakuen's layout. Fortunately, I had this Petshop of Horrors one hanging around from last year; I downloaded a trial version of Photoshop specifically to make it. This is PoH's first layout, partially because I don't write for it much, and partially because the manga doesn't produce a lot of images which would go well with layouts and with only 4 anime episodes there's not a lot of art to work with. But after the terrible links of last time, I quite like it despite all the free space. And I have to say, I'm a fan of the gold and violet colour scheme. XD

Summer 2010
I had planned to make a Hogan's Heroes layout, but that went down with all hands aboard, so I moved on to another composite layout. These are a lot of fun, and as I was at home when I made it I was able to use my old image program which gives me a lot more freedom than Paint.Net, although has a lot more quirks as well. I'm very pleased with the way the letters came out, and it's the first purple colour scheme for Rakuen. Each image has a quote from a related fic beneath it and uses the same image as the background, but the words were generally too small to be legible or for the picture to be recognizable. OH WELL. I have to admit, the reason I posted this so soon after the last layout was mostly because I had a big Saiyuki fic in the works which would require giving Saiyuki its own page, and I had no letters left for it!

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