My Passions
Manga: X, CCS, Basara, KKJ, Rurouni Kenshin
TV: Buffy, Smallville, Home & Garden Network,  Iron Chef
Reading: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Biography: Chyna
Biseinen:  Kusanagi (X), Fuuma (X), Touya (CCS), The Red King (Basara), Cho (RK), Bob (Husband)
Cat of the moment: Nabiki
Fanfic in progress: "The Other Woman" (X),  Untitled sequel to Wings of Desire (X), "Shinjuku" (X) RK story featuring Saito and Cho.

Where I go
Fortune's Fools
Dreams of Sakura
Sekai Seifuku
Elitist Bastards!
X Island
Anime on DVD
TheOneRing.net
Cyber Shrine
Vulpes.org
Cat-chi Cats (Japanese Bobtails)
Cyber Shrine
The Queen of Cups
Green Man Press (Charles Vess)
Kaluta Studios (Mike Kaluta)
Pitas.com

Who I know
Satsuki-chan +++ pointless +++
Lika Under Thlyali's Thrall
Ammie Castle of Briars
Alison Shinken
Kerianne The Space Between
Font of wisdom Subterfuge Archives
My Fanfiction Sedition

Subterfuge

Sorry, Lika, I'm sneaking online for a bit!

Thanks, ya'll, for your get-well wishes. That was so sweet! I'm feeling better after a few days of mainly sleeping. Breathing is easier, although I'm still coughing a lot, but not as badly as before. I may even go into work tomorrow! (Oh. Yay.) I was told I'd probably be very tired for awhile.

Kerianne, that link you had for Fanfic Deep Thoughts was absolutely hilarious.

More social blogging later. Am tired, will go back to bed now.

Wednesday, December 12, 2001 08:58 p.m.

Yippee

Great. I now have pnuemonia.

Monday, December 10, 2001 05:27 p.m.

Tea and Lemon

*hackhackwheezehack* After having a cold that's lasted about a month, I finally hauled my butt to the doctor. Turns out I have bronchitis. Luckily, it's not pnuemonia, although if I'd waited any longer, it would have been. So I got a week's worth of antibiotics and some codeine-laced cough medicine for my trouble. So I'm going to be kinda stoned this weekend, when I'm not sick to my stomach. Antibiotics unfortunately tend to upset my tummy big time, which is in fact why I'm awake right now, sipping ginger tea in the hopes that my stomach will have mercy on me.

As I promised you, I am now going to rant about lemons. Bob and I had an interesting coversation the other day about lemons. Turns out that he's never really read one. I was like "You've GOT to be kidding!", but he said it was true. Now, he's not into fanfic as much as I am, although I do forward anything that comes up on CFFML that has Suppi-chan in it (Bob LOVES Spinel Sun). Heck, he's never read MY stuff! Maybe I need to write a Suppi-chan fic...naaaah.

Anyway, the subject had come up because I was musing about trying to write a lemon and I figured Bob would be a good gage on whether it was effective or not. >^^< Men do have their uses. I'll leave it to your imaginations to figure out HOW I would know the lemon worked. >:D

No, it won't be Kusa/Yuzu (as much as I love those two, the world's just not ready for that), but suffice to say it WILL involve Karen. Provided I can actually write the thing.

The problem I'm having is not that I'm prudish (trust me, I'm not). It's more that, well, lemons are supposed to be graphic. However, most lemons tend to leave out some things about sex:

WARNING--I AM GOING TO BE GRAPHIC HERE--STOP NOW IF YOU ARE UNDERAGE OR JUST DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!!

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1. The sounds: No, I'm not talking about the squeeking of the bed, or grunting or sighing or "Go, baby, go!". Sex has it's own weird noises, some of which can never be presented in a romantic light, no matter how pretty you write.

2. The smell: humans in rut have a unique, kinda musky scent. After making love, you can smell the other person on your skin. No, I'm not kidding. And I've yet to see a lemon that talks about that phenomenon. Which could be sexy, in and of itself...

3. The splotch: I don't know if this applies to darker complexions, but fair-skinned people (blondes, red-heads, basically anybody who sunburns easily) get splotchy. I refer to that as the "freshly-f*cked look".

4. The spunk: I don't know who they think they're fooling...ain't nothing in the world gonna make that stuff taste good. It's really something you just kind of put up with. Not that I have anything against it, I rather li..err...getting too personal here. Uh, it tastes bad. Men have it easier, women taste better. Usually.

5. The soreness: No, I'm not necessarily referring to virgins. It's like any other strenuous exercise and if you're in an unfamiliar position, you're going to feel it the next day, trust me. Even if you're young and in shape. Actually, you'll feel it right after you're finished. Amazingly enough, you don't seem to mind DURING the act...^^;

6. The shock: Sex has an INCREDIBLE emotional kick, which is the REAL reason why it's better to wait until a)maturity and b)you know the person really well. (And if parents would just TRY to explain this part of it to their kids, and try to convey how messed up it can make you feel, I bet there might be less teenaged pregnancies!) This is the reason relationships get weird after sex. The high you get is (I think) why some people get addicted to sex. Guys get hit as hard as girls with this, but once you get used to it, it's not as strong. Still carries quite a jolt, though. Despite the physical release you get, it's this emotional jolt that makes the whole thing worthwhile. It's hard to explain...which may be why you rarely see it accurately depicted in lemons.

I guess in conclusion I'm trying to say that lemons, which are supposed to be graphic, often lack "texture". It may be because the author has little practical experience, or because, let's face it, the texture isn't very romantic sometimes. A gay friend of mine once remarked that he hated reading slash, because it bared very little resemblence to what sex between men was really like. The challange as a writer is how to add texture to a lemon without being cliche, clinical or crass!

I think what I need is some verbal flower petals!

Saturday, December 8, 2001 04:09 a.m.

Hot, hot, hot

And cool, too. We got our new furnace/ac unit installed today. Not that it's been cold enough to warrant the furnace running, but still! It's pretty nice (damn well better be for that price!) and will hopefully keep the utility bills lower. Which is a good thing, because we are freaking BROKE now.

Thank you for not thinking that I'm boring. I'm sorry, looking back at last night's blog, I'm sounding rather whiney. Didn't mean to be fishing for compliments! I think I was meaning that my life really ISN'T that interesting (right now, anyway). Maybe I'm just blue and am FEELING boring right now. I dunno.

For my Gryffindor roomie, if your folks don't keep the fire on for your Norwegian Ridgeback, you can always come over and put the egg in our new furnace. It would stay nice and warm, I'm sure! XD Sorry, no fireplace in this house. I AM going to keep looking for those scarves, though.

I want to everyone to know how virtuous I've been about studying my hiragana/katakana. You're looking at a gal who hasn't been the best about daily study before, but by golly, each and every day I'm copying those characters OVER and OVER and OVER. There is no school nearby that teaches Japanese, so I've been having to slog along on my own, with my trusty books and tapes. And I really suck at Japanese, but it's a lot of fun trying. I think I'm getting a little better. I don't want to be a linguistic genius or anything, I just want to be able to read and understand a little on my own, without the benefits of translation.

I think what is inspiring me is not so much the anime (I've been watching anime for years), but the shojo manga. I've loved comic books since I was a kid and as a girl, I would get really fed up with the lack of girl-stuff on the market.

Now I loved superheros as much as the next kid, but I wanted other kinds of stories, the kind that just didn't show up on the American market. The old DC horror comics (House of Mystery, House of Secrets, the Witching Hour) were among my favorites, along with anything with a woman hero (Supergirl, Ms. Marvel, Red Sonja). X-men, Teen Titans and Legion of SuperHeros got bonus points because of their many strong female characters. And I loved it when ElfQuest came out, and A Distant Soil, just raved when Alan Moore took over Swamp Thing, and worshipped Neil Gaiman when he started his run on Sandman. (All this really dates me, no?) But really, those bright moments were few and far between.

I've known about manga for awhile, and even religiously picked up the translated graphic novels for Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku. Bob has other preferences (read: girls with guns or mecha-chicks) which don't really coincide with mine (although I admit to a weakness for Gunsmith Cats, I don't know why.) But it wasn't until I got exposed to shojo manga that I became excited about comics again. Comics! FOR GIRLS!! With Romance!!! Without the male characters looking like football players from 1959!!! Now, I know some of the shojo manga is an insipid as the defunct Romance Comics here used to be. But the art is damn prettier and the stories, breaking from their panals with their never-ending flower petals, hit at a more emotional level.

The problem: most of it has never been (and probably will never be) translated into English. Now, although I come over as a professed art-junkie, the truth of the matter is that I am, and always have been, a story person. And although many fan-translators on the web have been very generous with their time (bless you all), I honestly like to hold a book in my own hands and read it and understand what I'm seeing. Which brings us back to why I'm trying to learn Japanese.

Now, I confess. Otaku-chica here wants to learn the language so she can read her manga. Not that I'm dissing the traditional culture of Japan (if we ever manage to get over there, I want to go and see a bunch of the temples, and the gardens, and eat some of the food which I hear is fantastic!), but really, I'm living in freaking Iowa. There's not much Japanese culture here EXCEPT manga and anime (and precious little of that). So, okay, studying Japanese in order to read comic books is maybe not the most noble reason to pursue the language, but the hell with it, that's why I'm doing this.

And in the long tradition of my rants, I've forgotten why I even wanted to rant about this. But thank you, I needed to get that off my chest. You may go back to your regularly scheduled activities.

Thursday, December 6, 2001 03:19 p.m.

Dead (wo)man Walking

Damn. I hate insomnia.

Been blog-hopping, since I'm so brain-dead right now that I can't do anything constructive. I jumped on Lika's blog and looked at all the people she had attached, then looked at some of the ones THEY had attached. And I have discovered a basic truth. I really am a boring person.

Otoh, it's interesting to see other people's opinions. I love it when someone starts ranting, especially. I really appreciate a well-written rant, as mine tend to come out rather incoherently. And it's very fun when they point you to good fanart, or fanfic, or a neat series likeNaruto! (I'm loving it!).

Ah, well. Time to grab the quilt, crash on the couch, and stick a chick-flick in the VCR. Lessee..Jane Austen? No, it's nearing X-mas. Little Women would be appropriate. Not as much romantic angst, but they do have hoop-skirts!

Thursday, December 6, 2001 03:01 a.m.

Being Social
Time for some social blogging:

I agree, university isn't all that it's made out to be. I spent 5 years in college myself and although I can say that the degree has given me an edge in being hired (useful considering how often I've moved), and a foot up on promotions, I can also say that I'm STILL making less money than my husband, who skipped the whole college thing and went straight into the military. But stick with it, chica. You've gone this far, so you might as well finish, right? (At least, that's what I was telling myself by the fourth year!)

Oh, that sucks. I'm so sorry you lost out on that job. I'll keep my fingers crossed that maybe that means you've got something better waiting in the wings. Oh, and I definitely want to see more of your fic!!!

Ammie-chan, is your brother's name really Rohan? Just wondered...that was on the short list of names we've give a boy if we ever had kids. Along with Kieran and Alexander. Girl would be named Autumn, Rose or Lily. (Bob's last name is Gilson, so any offspring would have to have a name that went with that). But we're not having kids so it's a moot point, I guess. ;-D

That is a very scary thought about Ginza. Now you've got me worried. Guess I need to haul ass on the Wings of Desire sequel before it becomes redundant, huh?

I'm halfway playing with the idea of challanging CFFML to write a fic on Kusanagi, Yuzuriha or both, but there are so many challanges out right now, I think I'll wait. What do ya'll think of that idea? I'm just wanting to read more fics with those two, and the pickings are slim...Or perhaps for the new year, a challange a month? Each month, a challange could be put out for one of the dragons (except Subaru and Seishiro, who are already heavily overrepresented)? Hmmmm....


Wednesday, December 5, 2001 03:39 p.m.

You like me, you really like me...
Looks like someone nominated Wings of Desire for the CFFML TB/X Awards. So that's one nomination for Wings of Desire (in series) and one for Smiles of a Summer Night (in WAFF). Takes two to get in, though...;-D

But really, I am very honored. Thank you, whoever did that! You made my day!

On manga shopping in Chicago, I picked up:

Tale of Genji (bilingual version): manga version of the classic tale. Pretty art, plus has English and Japanese for those of us still learning to read.

several Love Hina (bilingual version): this was for Bob, actually. He loves this series. It's very cute, although obviously written for the boys.

Survival in the Office (bilingual version): four-panal comics about office ladies. EXTREMELY funny, especially if you're an office slave like myself. Some things about corporate life are universal, no matter where you live...

the rest of Sensei!: I first saw a translation of the first part of this series here, and ordered a few volumes to check it out. And got hooked. This series is really good (now granted, we're talking lots of romance here--strictly het, but I'm a sucker for that sort of thing). Highly recommended.

And of course, I did the random shojo-manga grab of a few volumes that looked interesting on the cover, but I have no idea what they're about. Will report later on whether they're any good or not. I figure it's good practice.

Bob also picked up a couple of NewType magazines and a Nadesco artbook. My only disappointment was that we didn't have time to eat while we were there (we wanted to get home before dark). Dubuque doesn't have much in the way of ethnic restaurants! Maybe next time.


Tuesday, December 4, 2001 06:18 p.m.