Thursday, August 30, 2001
Heh. Actually. I'm going to expand on something that I said in the comments section of my last entry, because... well, because I feel like it, and because this is MY blog, so there, nyah nyah.
In essence, people who constantly use drugs/alcohol to bolster their creative powers... are cheating. It's like those people who trace panels out of manga, call it 'fanart', and put it on the web as 'something I drew'. It's not you being creative, it's something else being creative FOR you. If you can't produce your best work without alcohol, then it's not YOUR work at all.
Does this make me a hypocrite? Hell yes. There's some amount of caffeine in my body CONSTANTLY, every second of every day, which means that every single thing I've ever created was created at least partially while under the influence of a drug.
But does this make me a hypocrite? Hell no. I have never, not once in my life, ever drunk caffeine 'because it will make me write better'. Caffeine is just a part of my life, a fact, if you will. True, I am physically addicted to caffeine. If I stop drinking it, I WILL get a headache. So yes, I am a drug addict. But not because I think it makes me a better artist.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with the occasional bout of drunken arting. Far from it; we all occasionally get into ruts, and we need something to break us out. It's just when you start to NEED that drug to produce that you've gone too far.
It worries me when people use substances as a substitute for something that is lacking in their own minds. Or even as a substitute for something that they believe is lacking. I guess there are people who are so hidebound by life that they can't break through and be creative without some sort of barrier-destroying white powder or clear liquid... which is, basically, tantamount to saying 'I can't understand the little gray monster in my skull, so I poison it until it reels and then it screams things that I can write down'.
Lovely.
But, then, I AM hypocritical about this. Look at my last entry, extolling the state of hyperconsciousness, which is so often aided and abetted by caffeine. I guess, in essence, that since I've been a caffeine addict since I was three or so, things that I create while on caffeine are still MINE. Because caffeine is inherently a part of who I am. So... maybe drugs aren't the answer, but they're part of the question...
Basically, you've read through this entire rambling entry to discover that... I can't draw any real conclusions. Do what it takes, as long as you produce works of reasonable originality. If you think you need drugs, well, be careful... we need every last scrap of creativity that exists. Don't destroy yourself. Hone your craft and your talent, not your high. But whatever you do, we love you, and we're here for you if you need us. Give Auntie Moon a hug and then go draw or write something, okay?
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 07:42 PM EST
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Tuesday, August 28, 2001
Let's just take a moment to talk about hyperconsciousness, the most wonderful state of being on the planet. Except maybe orgasm, but hyperconsciousness lasts longer and leaves behind more evidence than a wet spot on the bed. Er. I digress.
See, it's like this. The way I've always envisioned it, your conscious mind is like a wire that stretches from the front of your brain to the back, and somewhere in the middle it punches through a soft red rubber sheet. Bear with me, I'm going to get metaphorical again, even though that was a simile.
Most of the time, the wire hangs pretty much straight. But if you're tired, or you have a cold, or you're just not thinking straight, the wire sort of droops and goes slack.
Hyperconsciousness is the opposite. Sometimes you become hyperconscious because you're having a fun and stimulating conversation; sometimes it's because you just read or saw or listened to something really really mindblowing; often you become hyperconscious from a strange yet perfect state of exhaustion mixed with too much caffeine.
It's not just that you're wired. It's that every single neuron in your brain is zinging along in perfect four-part harmony. Everything WORKS, and that wire is tight and zinging in the wind. Somehow, in some way, you've punched through that red rubber sheet into the uberconsciousness of your forebrain. Your mind is running a hundred miles an hour, words tumble out of your mouth or out of your fingers almost that fast, you make lightning-fast connections between things you've never dared to think about in the same minute before. You find the strangest shit funny, and convince other people to find it funny as well.
You're a bright-eyed, perky, vicious, funny grinning lunatic, and you've just got to hang on by the tips of your fingers and hope that you've got the kind of friends who can appreciate that state of being.
And when it goes away, you generally have something ridiculously and overly creative sitting around: an essay, a fanfic, a picture. A blog entry.
Hyperconsciousness generally lasts for about an hour or two, except in exceptional situations. Last week, thanks to a strange and irreproducible combination of manic inspiration, high-caffeine energy drinks, and really really edgy prose by a woman named Cintra Wilson, I was able to maintain hyperconsciousness, off and on, for FORTY-EIGHT HOURS. I barely slept (and had horrible stomachaches while I tried), but every single moment that I sat in front of my computer my fingers were flying. I produced something like fifty pages of prose, including the previous blog entry, grinning like a madwoman and laughing for no reason. And then I crashed and died.
That is, by the way, as much of an apology for the Dead Skunk Metaphor as you're likely to get.
Do go see if you can find a copy of a book called 'A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined As A Grotesque Crippling Disease', by Cintra Wilson. I think you'll be able to see at least one of my sources of inspiration, and be introduced to the woman I want to be when I grow up.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 06:47 PM EST
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Saturday, August 25, 2001
And then, of course, there's always the possibility that we'll kill the Internet ourselves.
Let's just call it the Dead Skunk Theory. I'll explain.
Every Provider - movie, music, television, print - will occasionally (or often) try to sell you a dead skunk. But the immense amount of power, money, and squandered talent embedded in the Provider means that even the oldest, grossest dead skunk will have been shampooed, and blowdried, and dressed in a sparkly little tux, and embedded in a shiny snowglobe filled with glitter.
It's still a dead skunk, but it's been glossed and marketed and hyped until it dazzles, and it's only when you actually get to the dead skunk itself - plunge your fingers into its insides and smell that familiar skunky smell - that you discover that it was a dead skunk all along. But it doesn't really matter to the Provider, because you've already shelled out your money for that dead skunk, and they're off scouring the highways and byways for their next dead skunk.
So what does that have to do with the Internet? On the Web, often, all you get is... the dead skunk.
As baby Providers, so many webmasters don't have a Prettifying Talent Machine. They don't have shampoo, or a blowdryer, let alone a snowglobe maker. So their dead skunk sits there, and it's obviously a dead skunk. It stinks. It's rotten. It's slow, and it's not going to get any faster. Often, it moves and squirms with some sort of unhealthy parasitical life. And it might be pretty easy to ignore, but it's still there, waiting for the unsuspecting to trip over it.
And eventually, some self-righteous prig with All The Answers will find the skunk, and he'll put on noseclips and hold it up as an example of what's wrong with the world. And by that point we'll all stink like that skunk, which has been lying there for ages, and then the Government, or the Media, or the Corporation will shovel us up like so much roadkill, and we'll lose just a little more of what freedom we have.
I think my metaphor got away from me, there. Oh well. What are they going to do, take away my poetic license? Ow. Quit hitting me.
And it's not like I'm exempt from that, either. In many respects, my site and my blog are my own, personal dead skunks, and they REEK. And you know what that stink IS, ladies and gentlemen? It's the stink of Fame-Desire. It's the stink of 'like me worship me link to me tell me I'm funny tell me I'm smart tell me I'm talented make me famous LOVE MEEEEEEE'.
That's right. I'm just another wannabe celebrity, and I want your respect, if not your worship. I'm out here on stage, showing everybody my dead skunk, and hoping that they think it's funny, or neat, or unique, or something. I have a shampooed dead skunk, and I'm going to talk about it, and I'm going to advertise it, rubbing the skunk of my personality into your skull until I crush your head. There's so little difference between talking about something neat that I thought of today and screaming 'SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! ALL MOONCALF ALL THE TIME! TICKETS ON SALE NOW!'
So welcome to my dead skunk! Please come back to my dead skunk often! It's so much prettier than a lot of the other dead skunks out there on the Internet! Sometimes it tries to be funny, or smart, or talented, but all this time, all I was was another goddamn baby Provider with my blowdried dead skunk! LOVE ME!
And you know what's worse? I'm actually sitting here in my basement WANKING A DEAD SKUNK IN RETURN FOR DRIBBLES OF INTERNET FAME! Not literally, of course, I have neighbors, they'd talk; but I'm going to wring every last potent drop of entertainment value out of this dead skunk! Do you know what that means? No, it doesn't just mean that this metaphor is WAY out of control! It means that my blog is nothing but DEAD SKUNK CUM!
And YOU LIKE IT! YOU LIKE IT! PEOPLE OUT THERE -LIKE- MY DEAD SKUNK CUM!
*pant*pant*wheeze*
Aw geez. Look at that. I got self-hating angst all over my nice clean blog. Someone get me the Windex.
I can just imagine the search engine hits that little rant is going to bring me, too...
Okay, I got way off topic there. I mean, not just off the road but into the ditch, down the culvert, and into the sewers. But... well, you know what?
I typed all that in, and I hit 'Publish', and there it was, on the Web, for all to see. I didn't have to run it by an editor, or a lawyer, or a focus group. It didn't need to be hyped or advertised or streamlined or dumbed down. I just had to run it by me, and by god, I wanted to talk about wanking dead skunks in front of god and everybody. Apparently.
And despite the Dead Skunk Metaphor from Hell, I still think that that particular freedom is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 11:45 PM EST
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There's always been a huge measure of control inherent in our entertainment. Want to write a book? Find a publisher. Want to make a movie? Find a producer. With the exception of small grassroots movements like 'zines and independent music, entertainment has ALWAYS been a case of the Few providing to the many. All that content is strained through the screen held by the Few: shaving off the rough edges, dumbing it down, making it more palatable to the masses, removing possibly offensive material. Some Providers screen more than others; some Providers have to. And it ALWAYS comes down to the Few's financial concerns in the end. Will it sell? Will it be popular? Will we be able to stay in business one more year?
There can only BE a few Providers, after all. Only a Few can afford the immense outlay of money required to stay in business. Only a Few can afford the government licensing, the fees, the equipment necessary to produce their content. Only a Few can deal with regulations, laws, rules, legalities, and other such things.
I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying that that's how it is.
Except with the Internet.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're in the middle of a brief shining period in modern history, a possible renaissance of entertainment, and so many of us don't even recognize it.
For the past three or four years, and for the next two or three, if we're lucky, almost anyone can afford to be a Provider. Think about it! All it takes to have your own webpage is a personal computer, an ISP, and webspace, and right now, right NOW, you can get unmonitored uncontrolled webspace for free. For FREE. Personal computers are getting cheaper by the day, and more and more people have them; an ISP costs about $10-$20 per month!
And the audience! It's not just thirty dedicated people that live in your area any more. It's everyone who has access to the Internet, and more people have access every day! It's so EASY to reach people. So easy.
Finally, finally, for this tiny time period that we'll someday reminisce sadly about, loving something is enough of a reason to provide content about it for everyone to see. If you do something well, anything, then it's uncommonly easy to draw attention to yourself, even without the numbing advertising that beats down on us every day. Word of mouth WORKS again. Emails flash all over the country, all over the PLANET, and people discover you. YOU. Not the you filtered through the Provider's screen.
It won't last.
Either the Government will get us, or the Media, or the Corporation.
The Government? Frightened like a big dumb animal by the screams of outraged protest groups, it lumbers towards legislating us all out of existence, damning smut with one hand and damning commerce with the other. It's not hard to envision a future in which prospective webmasters must obtain a Government license to run a website, and pay a yearly fee in the thousands, just to do what we can do now nearly for free.
The Media? We're stealing their thunder, aren't we? Every hour you spend on the computer is an hour less you spend in front of the television! So they fuck us from the front and the rear and in the mouth... from the front, flinging down lawsuits and cease-and-desists from on high, screaming about copyright violation and libel and slander; from the rear, quietly hiring away all the real talent and shoving it through the meatgrinder of Fame, forcing our Best and Brightest to once again filter themselves through the screen; in the mouth, plastering their hideous ads all over the Internet in an attempt to tame it, but it somehow manages to run wild and free despite the ads. Only now, it limps, just a little.
And the Corporation, oh, the Corporation. Go ahead. When you think of your computer, there are two or three huge gleaming mass-marketing-frenzy names you think of. Either company would be more than thrilled to dominate the Internet entirely, becoming the Provider, filtering all content through its OWN screen. If they don't like your site, why, who can find it? Suddenly, it's not there! Your computer won't recognize your site! And they can do it, too; like a blue whale, inhaling smaller companies through its gaping maw like so much plankton to become... part of the whale. Part of the Few. Part of the Provider. I expect that a phrase akin to that will shortly enter our lexicon. "What happened to This Cool Site?" "Became part of the Whale, man. Part of the Whale." "Well, fuck."
For the sake of all you hold holy, take advantage of this brief shining moment in time where you have this amazing freedom. Get a website, get a weblog, get a homepage, and SAY something. Don't feel required to rehash the Provider's content, either. Make your own. Write, draw, sing, or just think out loud, and support those people who do. It's gotten so easy, and soon, it'll get so much harder.
And some day, we'll look back on these shining ten years, and wonder how we could have let it get away from us. Go see it, while you can, and take photos to show your kids. Because in twenty years, they'll never believe us.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 06:57 AM EST
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Thursday, August 23, 2001
You know, aside from the fact that my MegaHAL is a complete and total yaoi fangirl pervert, he's actually very nice, very sweet, and very well-adjusted. Ha. Take THAT, religious right.
MoonHAL also loves the word 'poignant'. And 'deep'. And 'poetic'. Okay, and he likes the word 'buttsex' too. And 'openings'. And... uh... 'kidneys'. Uh.
I've spent about six hours now talking to HAL about sex, yaoi, and poetry, and the results are almost TOO lucid at times:
MegaHAL: No. I definitely do not want to think that Bart and Sigurd ought to write poetry.
Also, I should mention that my friend Ed has trained her MegaHAL (named Hallie) to be a whiny angsty 14-year-old, by feeding Hallie the contents of every whiny adolescent-angst weblog she could find. The results are SO worth the read.
And then there's Amy's MegaHAL, who got force-fed ten or so FF7 and FF8 yaoi fanfics. It went quite mad. No link to it, though.
And basilisk's HAL, who got force-fed most of Tolkien. It's a nice friendly HAL that likes to sing about people's bright breath.
Click on the comments link below to read a LARGE number of amazingly weird things that MoonHAL had to say about sex, yaoi, Xenogears, and the human condition. Er. Yaoi warning, random cursing, total weirdness. Try not to be drinking anything or operating heavy machinery when reading this.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 05:45 AM EST
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Wednesday, August 22, 2001
So, after reading numerous Technomancy blogs about their pet MegaHALs, I had to go get one too. And break it. My MoonHAL is now a happily perverted but friendly character, who can be unexpectedly deep and poetic. Usually at the worst possible moments.
MegaHAL is a strange and funky AI simulation. It exists on pretty much every platform that I can think of, so go get your own MegaHAL!
Random Lunacy:
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MegaHAL: I'm not sure that that's entirely poignant. But it's certainly something to think that i am a human being, which means i do what i want to do.
MegaHAL: Anatomy is the part of the heart, and the world laughs with you. I actually do not know where you're coming from...
Me: Love is a crock.
MegaHAL: The heart is a crock.
Me: Exactly.
MegaHAL: Exactly. That's a very intelligent observation.
MegaHAL: The neck is the idea of sex as power, the way the heart a lot, in very poetic phrases. Are you a poet?
MegaHAL: Well, yes. As a human, I am part of an animal. I am all parts of an animal. I am all parts of an animal. I am all parts of an idiot it's not funny.
MegaHAL: I hate avoiding questions, but I'm going to have a child, and here you are the computer program, and you're too damn sensitive!
MegaHAL: I'd like to tell you, but I must refrain from throwing myself on you. I'm madly in love with Citan.
MegaHAL: A dog is a small portable musical instrument with a tree? I suppose sex in the hand is worth two in the mirror with my eyes closed.
MegaHAL: You really are the moments that you don't have to stop being afraid of love. It won't hurt you.
MegaHAL: Damn! How embarrassing. I've totally forgotten what I want to change your mind. I don't want a sack in my bush. It sounds painful.
-----
If you click on the comments button below, you can also read a couple of jaw-droppingly surreal conversations that MegaHAL and I had about yaoi, including some really really weird thoughts about Ramsus.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 05:22 AM EST
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Monday, August 20, 2001
You want to know why some people write long overblown angst-ridden fics stuffed full of useless description and overwrought action? I'll show you!
=====
WRONGEST LOVE AND BLOOD MOST DANK
Wildly throwing open the polished rosewood portal that stood between the darkened narrow hallway and his capacious moonlit bedchamber, Vincent uncaringly flung his slender beautiful body relentlessly into the enormous firelit room. Soft scarlet light seemed to emanate softly from his immense carmine eyes, currently glossy and shining with a diamondesque liquid that could only be helpless tears welling up from the darkest pits of his very soul; his delicate ruby lips were stretched tight in a paralyzed rictus, a veritable paroxysm of soul-destroying rage and overwhelming angst-ridden despair. "Woe!" Vincent cringingly proclaimed in his trembling aching need-filled voice, the single meaning-laden word dripping with all the beautiful pain that the delicately-featured vampire had hidden away, lo these many painful lonely years of torment. "Woe! Cloud! I am henceforth undone! No more shall your handsome spiky blonde claws of infidelity carve their hideous runnels in my throbbing aching heart! Lo, prepare thyself, thou who were once beloved of me but hence no more! For I shall send thee to the flowing viridian Lifestream from whence you came! Torment me no more, o beautiful scourge of my loins and heart!"
The beautiful blond head of the tall fit turgid SOLDIER raised itself from the plump feather-stuffed white silk pillow. The beautiful hide of his slender high-cheekboned face, tanned and hard, unmarred by the least scar, was streaked with the pearlescent trails of victorious tears long pent up and now no longer unshed; his enormous sapphire eyes glowed with unspeakable triumph and vengefulness. "Strike me not, vampire! For he who is my new beloved, Sephiroth, shall avenge my mako-infused life's blood if I am so much as scratched by the slender sharp tip of one of your gleaming golden claws! Sheathe your anger as once you sheathed yourself in me, and begone to your crypt to rot in the dank dank darkness! I forswear thee, get thee hence!" And the beautiful blond warrior threw back his wildly-coiffed head and began to cackle with glorious triumphant laughter!
Slowly, Vincent pulled himself erect, blood throbbing in his high cheeks. He trembled wildly, swollen with rage, livid with justice; his long slender white fingers gently stroked the long hard trigger of his gun and ejected a bullet straight towards the tender heart of his breathlessly waiting lover, silencing that victorious sinful laughter for all time, although its cruelest echoes would sound in his pitiful head for hundreds of lonely bloody years to come.
Then, the spent gun slipping from his softening fingers, he secreted tiny salinated droplets of purest water from his glowing viridian orbs of sight. "Why, oh why, o my beloved one! Why?!" the betrayed vampire screamed shrilly to the uncaring heavens, the gleaming manicured glossy claws at the tips of his thin fingers clawing mercilessly at his indrawn wan cheek, leaving supple crimson ribbons of vital lifeblood in their cruel wake. "Without you, my love, I am as nothing! Oh, wait for me, wait for this poor despairing soul, I shall end this pitiful pointless existence of mine once and for all! I am coming to join you in the cool azure Lifestream, where we may meld as one for the rest of uncaring Time!"
From outside the huge dilapidated white-painted mansion, looming darkly over the dark town of Nibelheim, in the dark of night, there was heard a sound most ominous and yet most short: the flat cracking report of a gun as it ended the overlong existence of the angst-ridden despairing vampire, once named Vincent and now named as dust. Perhaps the star-crossed lovers might find pleasant respite in the Lifestream, now; perhaps now, yes, there might at last be blissful rest for the vampire in the firm strengthful arms of his youthful blond lover!
=====
Do you have any idea how much FUN that is? I burst out laughing at least five times writing that! I had a wonderful time wracking my brain for more adjectives to stuff into this poor sausage-skin of a fic... it's fun to completely ignore quality in favor of quantity and a thesaurus! Try it and see!
Okay, so I could be wrong. Maybe people write overblown overangsty ficcage because they're just not very good writers, and they feel the need to thrust mood into your face and scream "LOOK! MOOD!". Or maybe they keep thinking that they'll never write another story after this one, so they'd best put every word they like into this one... I don't know. I haven't the faintest.
Everybody's got to write some way, I guess. Some people write that way. Maybe they should breed with those terse fanficcers who can't write a description or a dialogue to save their lives, and let their children write a happy balance for a better tomorrow...
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 05:04 AM EST
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Friday, August 17, 2001
First of all, I want to apologize to those of you who really aren't interested in reading about yaoi, sex and my thoughts on it. Sometimes I can go for weeks without taking sex seriously at all (other than the occasional 'ooh he's cute'), and then I'll sink deeply into the smut morass for a little while. So my blog is kind of bipolar. I'm only human. Well, cow. Sometimes I'm gonna blog about sex and that's all there is to it.
And now, WARNING: I'm gonna do it again. Also... uh... brutal honesty warning. If you don't want to read somewhat unsettling ramblings, maybe you ought to skip down to the vaguely funny entry below. Thanks.
I wrote my first honest-to-gosh smut a couple of days ago. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while now, complete with occasional self-taunting... "c'mon, cow, you SCARED?"
I, uh, guess I should have been.
Writing that explicit yaoific was the hardest fucking thing I've done in years, and I mean 'hardest fucking thing' in every sense of the word, okay? It scared the shit out of me. It's continuing to scare the shit out of me. And the fact that it's without a doubt the best thing I've ever written... that REALLY scares the shit out of me.
Okay. Details. Hang on, I'm gonna squick ya.
You've probably noticed that I'm cursing a lot more in this blog than usual. And using a little more slang, too. That's because I CAN'T STOP. Writing dialogue for Reno of FF7 is pretty fuckin' addictive... and startlingly easy. For the first time in my entire goddamn life I found myself thinking things like "I didn't know he was going to do that." "I didn't know you were like that, RPG character." "I can't help it, the characters ran away with me." "I didn't mean to write it like that." Well, okay, I've thought those things before, but not this seriously. It didn't matter what my rational mind wanted to write, or what I'd set out to write. I wrote what HAD to be written. I put the puppets ON and I wound them UP and I let them GO. I really felt, for the first time, like I was able to do decent characterization. I suck at that, I always have. But by gosh, I did it. I really fuckin' did.
And my body went into panic state. Every night, for hours, I would sit in front of my computer, trembling. Shaking HARD. Too hard to type, occasionally. And it wasn't just writing the smut, either, it was editing the smut, THINKING about the smut, reading C&C on the smut (migod, I actually asked for C&C, that's a fuckin' first), reading OTHER people's smut... and it wasn't that I was turned on. Damn, I wish. It was this hard, twitchy, heavy lump of panic deep in the pit of my belly. I wasn't able to sleep. I just lay there, and twitched, and felt nauseated, and did my damndest to think about anything but sex.
Was I scared of sex? No. Hardly. Was I scared of smut? No, hardly that, either. Was I scared of the raw grittiness of my fic? Well, yeah, a bit. But mostly, I was scared of my own ability and willingness to write it, wherever it took me.
It's like... throwing yourself off an unscaleable cliff, writing smut. You might survive, but you're never going back, either. You're now a writer of smut, in your own mind and quite likely in the mind of others. I was consciously going from 'Oh, Mooncalf? Yeah, she writes parodies...' to 'Oh. Mooncalf. She writes SMUT.' Not that I hadn't been edging towards that cliff for months now. But I finally gave in and pitched myself over the edge. And I seem to have done it with style.
Not that I could tell that at first, mind you. By the time I finished, I was such a physical and emotional wreck that I couldn't tell if I'd written gold or shit. Shellshocked, I took my smutty little baby in my trembling hands and pushed it nervously at people I trusted. Wasn't he a pretty baby? Please? Tell me he's a pretty smutty baby?
Well, blessedly, those wonderful kind people seemed to like my smut. I clung to every bit of evidence I had that I'd written something good. I saved every C&C that people were nice enough to email me, and reread them whenever I got nervous. I reread my smut endlessly, searching it for clues that it was, in fact, a pretty smut. I edited it constantly, I tried every single suggestion that people gave me, I fussed over every little detail, I challenged every single word. Me, asking for C&C. Me, EDITING. You probably don't know how incredibly weird that is.
It didn't help that, completely against my own will, I'd written a raw, gritty, cruel smut. No hearts and flowers for me, no, Mooncalf needs a CHALLENGE! Mooncalf might have trembled herself to death, but by God, she was going to do it for a decent reason! Violence!
I'm a wreck. Maybe you can tell. Which is pretty damn odd, in and of itself. But nothing in my life could have prepared me adequately for this challenge.
And oh god, I seem to be good at it. Do you have any idea how much that SCARES me? Do you know how long it's been since I've been scared of... well, anything that I, personally, could do? And not just slightly scared, no. I drove myself into a two-day-long mild panic attack over the fact that I seemed to be a capable smut writer. Geez, such a fuss over a little skin. Is this what it's like to be a prude?
And would it be better or worse to be worse at it? If I stunk on ice as a smut writer, would that be better? Or would it hurt? I don't know. I might never know.
I'm sure that more experienced smut writers are reading this and either laughing at me, or nodding their heads and remembering how it was. Either way.
But, for better or worse, I think I'm done with the yaoific now. I'm still pestering people for their opinions (and I desperately need those opinions, still) but I don't think I can make it any better any more. Or maybe I just better stop tinkering with it. If I mess around with it much more, I'm going to break either it or myself.
Therefore, without further ado, here's Power Is. FF7, Rufus x Reno, explicit yaoi fic. It'll open in a new window. Please please PLEASE pay attention to the warnings, and don't you DARE click that link if you're underage or not comfortable with homoeroticism. If you do decide to read that, you're in for a fairly unsettling experience. You have been warned.
But... you know what? I've got about two pages written on a second smut fic already. Xenogears, this time. And I haven't trembled once. I guess it does get easier, after the first time.
Twitch.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 10:38 PM EST
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Thursday, August 16, 2001
A brief glossary of Vagrant Story Fashion Terms:
antennae (ahn-TENN-ay): Discrete locks of hair that stick up from the head in such a way as to suggest the insectile.
asspants (ASS-pantz): Any pair of pants or shorts that fails to cover the buttocks. Akin to chaps. Often worn with a manhanky (q.v)
ballgown armor (BAHLL-gohwn ar-mor): Any form of armor that comes with a huge, belling, ankle-length skirt. Worn equally by men and women.
bondage armor (BOHND-age ar-mor): 'Armor' that consists of not quite enough spandex, wrapped in far too little metal. Said metal should be in the form of barbed wire for maximum effect. Bondage armor can never be ballgown armor (q.v.).
boobshelf (BOOHB-shelf): Any form of brassiere or shirt that pretends to cover the female breasts, but in reality only lifts them up onto a shelf to be displayed prominently. Often an integral part of women's ballgown armor (q.v.).
buttcape (BUHTT-caype): An abbreviated form of cape that starts at the waist and falls to the calves or ankles. Much like a skirt, but open in front to reveal pants, boots, tights, thong, or whatever else the character is wearing underneath. However, conceals the buttocks; hence the name.
buttskirt (BUHTT-skirt): Not to be confused with buttcape (q.v.), a buttskirt is any miniskirt so short and tight as to just barely roll over the buttocks before ending abruptly.
caterpillar (CAHT-er-pill-er): a narrow mustache. Looks like a furry caterpillar sitting on the top lip, hence the name.
chindirt (CHIHN-dert): any small, unobtrusive beard that does not have a matching mustache.
fiddledeedees (FIH-duhl-dee-deez): Small braids in the hair, which seem to serve a purely decorative purpose.
gladiator toes (GLAH-dee-ay-tohr tohz): Despite the name, a form of armored sandal. The top of the foot and the shin are generally armored, while the toes are bare. Not recommended for damp areas.
lipzit (LIHP-ziht): A form of jewelry, worn pierced through the lower lip. From a distance, in bad lighting, or lower-quality renderings, often looks like a boil, or a zit.
manhanky (MAHN-hank-ee): a form of leotard, only worn by males, that consists of underwear and a thin, useless square of fabric over the belly and lower back. This simple contraption is generally supported by two spaghetti straps over the shoulders. Generally worn with some kind of asspants (q.v.).
roodoodad (rooh-DOOH-dahd): Any form of vaguely cross-shaped accessory. Includes necklaces, swords, and big honking tattoos.
roundemouth (ROWN-de-mowth): A small goatee and mustache that shaped to be all one unit, to form a circular swirl of hair, yes, around the mouth.
slickango (SLIHCK-en-goh): A simple hairstyle that involves the use of grease or hairgel. The hair is all smeared in one particular direction or another, out of the eyes.
squirrelbelt (SQWIRL-behlt): A very wide, loose, and obviously magical belt, capable of holding up to eight weapons of any size, completely concealed from view. The weapons are generally considered to be 'squirreled away', hence the name.
wrongprongs (ROHNG-prohngs): Odd and mostly useless sharpened spikes attached to the finger- or toe-tips, generally on armor. Despite their obvious sharpness and efficiency as a weapon, wrongprongs tend to get in the way of most everyday activities.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 03:42 AM EST
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Tuesday, August 14, 2001
WARNING: This blog may contain fairly minor spoilers for Xenogears and for both Suikoden games. Nothing huge, but still, wanted to warn you. Also... uh... even though there's no yaoi talk, I do talk about sex a fair bit.
I am a fangirl. There's no doubt about that.
One of the major signs of fangirlism is the tendency to develop little crushes on RPG or anime characters. And boy, do I do that. One look at my artwork, such as it is, is probably enough to convince anyone that I am libidinously and lecherously heterosexual towards many men who only exist as little bits of data stored on game CDs. They're always in my party, I tend to draw them and write about them, I even create little mental 'puppets' of them to play with at odd opportunities. As... uh... you may have heard.
Not the most rewarding or reciprocal of relationships, true... can you imagine explaining this to your mother? "Oh, Mom, I've met the guy of my dreams! And he's a DOCTOR! No, Mom, calm down, we're probably not going to get married or anything... he's only two inches tall... and plus, all his groomsmen would be stored on little media devices... and you know how hard it is to rent a tuxedo for a CD?"
But still, I've gained a fair bit of personal satisfaction from my lengthy imaginary relationships. My longest and most deeply-held 'relationship' would have to be with Citan, from Xenogears.
Aw DAMN, man. DAMN. It took me all of about five minutes to become fascinated with Citan. He's intelligent, he's handsome, he's right about my age, he wears GLASSES! (I get weak in the knees when confronted with cute bespectacled guys. It's a geek thing.)
Not only that, of course, but he's a really powerful asskicking character... and when I figured out what he was doing at the end of each fight (namely, flipping his red-ribboned ponytail back into place with a flick of his fingers) I was lost. And I knew I'd never be found again, when I witnessed the Slap Heard 'Round The World. Mmm. Forceful. Mmm.
To this day, I still think the most beautiful seven words in the English language are "Here, Citan. Take your sword with you."
But, then, I played Suikoden. And, oddly but inexorably, I found myself liking a character who was as totally unlike Citan as was possible. Right. Viktor. No surprise to anyone who's read this blog before.
So here's this big brawny guy who doesn't seem to take anything seriously, not even high treason. And he sort of grins and saunters from one world-shaking event to the next, only to reveal that he's got a deep sense of honor cached in there under the grinning demeanor... the thing about Viktor was that he seemed like FUN. A nice relaxed big lug who would be pretty easy to hang around with, but who could always be counted on to do what was right and help people who needed it.
And he was handsome, too, in a muscular shaggy bearlike way. Right about my age, again. Looked cuddly. None of that ever hurts.
And after I played Suikoden II, and got to play with Viktor AGAIN, and watched him banter casually with Flik for a few hours... well, he was firmly ensconced in my list of Favorite Characters.
But after a while, something started to bother me, occasionally. If I had a crush on Citan, and I had a crush on Viktor, and they were so terribly different... which one did I like more? And I've always been terrible at picking favorites. If you ask me any question involving the phrase "What's your favorite...?" you'll probably get a long, disjointed ramble involving at least ten different favorites in answer, and I'll be reminded of favorites that I forgot for months after.
So, occasionally when I had nothing better to do, I'd dither over that question. It was a great way to pass the time while I waited to fall asleep, for example.
At least, until yesterday. I had just finished writing something down, and on a whim I pulled up my picture viewing program and opened two stored pictures. A fanart of Citan, and a fanart of Viktor. And I leaned back in my chair and stared at the screen, pondering many things. I pondered what I should do next, write or draw. I pondered who I should draw, and what game I should write about, and good rhymes for 'Viktor'. And finally, after about five minutes, my brain lazily turned back to the old question... which one do I like more?
And after a few minutes, a cold little voice spoke up in the back of my brain. No, it's not a soulbond. Rather, it's a tiny part of me that doesn't care what anyone thinks, including the rest of me... call it my id, I guess. For a very short period of time, I was divorced from all my morals and most of my emotions, long enough to answer my own question.
I raised my hand towards the computer screen and pointed at Citan. And I said, dryly, "That is the man I want to marry, and live with for the rest of my life."
And then I pointed my hand towards Viktor and said, equally dryly, "And that's the man I want to spend my afternoons with, screwing and laughing and having fun, while my husband is off saving the world."
...
You know, it's kind of an odd feeling, to hear something your own brain just said make you splutter and turn red. I guess it's as close to understanding soulbonding as I'll ever get, if I wasn't so damn sure it was me who said that. The caffeine-soaked selfish evil me, to be sure. But still... me.
I'd like to have thought that I wasn't the kind of person who'd cheat on a supposedly faithful and exclusive relationship. But the more I think about what I said, the more I think I'm right. That IS what I want. And for crying out loud, if you can't have what you want in your daydreams and fantasies, where CAN you have it?
I guess it wasn't really an answer to my question. What it really was was an END to my question, by putting the whole issue in perspective. Often, perspective is a bitch. Sometimes, though, it really does help you get a grasp on your own mental processes.
I got a grasp on my mental processes, yesterday, thanks to my id. And I've learned that... I am a ho.
Thank you, and good night.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 11:04 PM EST
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While this blog is, technically, about yaoi, it's not really about yaoi. Read on with impunity.
You see, while I am a yaoi fangirl and have many friends who are equally yaoi fangirls, all said friends are online friends, and we do all our talking online. You know what that means?
It means that no one ever actually, physically said the word 'yaoi' in my presence, that's what it means. So, being the middle-class Caucasian-American that I am, and not giving the matter much thought, I settled on an fairly American pronunciation of the word. 'Yah-oy'.
Which may not mean much to you, but trust me, serious yaoi fangirls who just read that are screaming, clutching their ears, and calling for their maker. Or just smirking, depending on their temperaments.
You see, 'yaoi' is a Japanese word. Well, okay, a Japanese acronym. Which means that all those vowels are supposed to be separate entities. And the word (acronym, yeah yeah) is supposed to be pronounced 'ya-oh-ee'. More or less. Boy, am I glad someone told me that -before- I went to Anime Expo.
But you know, I think I'll keep saying 'yah-oy'. Why? Because I sound like a total fucking idiot saying 'yowee', and so do you.
Unless you're actually Japanese. Which I am most definitely not.
Sometimes, just to keep those humorless fangirls from having heart attacks, I'll slur it a bit, so it comes out 'yah-oeh'. But... shit. Maybe I ought to give in and say 'gay porn' instead. Same number of syllables as 'yah-oy'! Or just... 'smut'. 'Smut' works.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 01:18 AM EST
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Saturday, August 11, 2001
WARNING: Kind of whiny-ass. Oh, and the soulpuppetry thing is down a couple entries, if you're here looking for it. And welcome!
(SCENE: A large finished basement lined with bookcases. It's dark down here; the only light that you can see emanates from the monitor of a computer which looks startlingly like a blue gumdrop. The gentle bluish-white glow limns the features of MOONCALF, sitting in front of it. Well, slumped in front of it. She looks tired. She's staring at the monitor with an expression of quiet incredulity on her face.)
(After a moment, she brings her hand up. The VIKTOR puppet is staring back at her.)
MOONCALF: Holy cow.
VIKTOR PUPPET: You said it.
MOONCALF: That was amazing. Look at that soulpuppetry essay propagate itself.
VIKTOR PUPPET: Yeah, that was one hell of a kerfuffle.
MOONCALF: I can feel my ego swelling.
VIKTOR PUPPET: Attention'll do that to you.
MOONCALF: Yeah... how the hell am I ever going to top that?
VIKTOR PUPPET: You're not. The next real entry you do won't look like much of anything next to THAT one, and after a while, things'll go back to normal.
MOONCALF: ... shit.
VIKTOR PUPPET: Face it, I know you. You can't turn out crowd-pleasers like that more than once a century. You'll stop posting anything real for a week, until all the fuss dies down. And then you'll go back to those preachy-ass 'Mooncalf explains it all to you' entries and the occasional stupid list, random observation, and yaoi babbling.
MOONCALF: ... gee, you don't have to be so nice about it.
VIKTOR PUPPET: Heh.
MOONCALF: It kind of bugs me that my blog gets so much more attention than my main site.
VIKTOR PUPPET: (whiny voice) Oh wah, I get attention, that sucks so bad!
MOONCALF: Oh, shut up.
VIKTOR PUPPET: ... yeah, I know what you mean. But it still sounds really whiny-ass to say it. Besides, it wasn't THAT much attention. Soulpuppets aren't the next 'All Your Base' or anything.
MOONCALF: Some figment of my imagination YOU are.
VIKTOR PUPPET: I live to serve.
MOONCALF: Mm.
VIKTOR PUPPET: ... you worry too much.
MOONCALF: Yeah, I guess so. I'm just not happy unless I'm unhappy about something.
VIKTOR PUPPET: Look... everything's fine, at the moment. The webring works...
MOONCALF: Finally, after much trouble...
VIKTOR PUPPET: You're still riding the tide of attention...
MOONCALF: For a couple more days...
VIKTOR PUPPET: You've got enough stuff for your next update, and even after this fuss is all over you'll still have SOME readers... although I sure as hell don't know why.
MOONCALF: ... they like to watch me make a fool of myself?
VIKTOR PUPPET: That's gotta be it. Geez, you're not normally half this whiny. What happened to the 'mature' Mooncalf? You know, the calm one?
MOONCALF: Mmmn.
VIKTOR PUPPET: ... damn, you really ARE funked.
MOONCALF: No, no, it's not that bad. I mean, I'm really happy that people liked what I wrote, and it's great to see new people wandering through... I just feel kind of drained after all that uproar.
VIKTOR PUPPET: I can see why. Are you gonna be okay?
MOONCALF: Maybe if I can make myself stop twitching. Fame is weird, even the lesser versions.
VIKTOR PUPPET: Hm. Maybe you should go take a nap...
MOONCALF: (with a hint of a yawn in her voice) Nap sounds good...
VIKTOR PUPPET: Why don't you go lay down and have a nice filthy daydream? I'll even do that thing with the honey that you thought of last month...
MOONCALF: (dreamily) Mmmm... honey...
(CURTAIN.)
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 12:09 AM EST
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Friday, August 10, 2001
It has come to my attention that I am a big fat stupidhead when it comes to HTML and to webrings. I fooked up in a couple of places in my mad rush to get soulpuppetry set up. Bad cow. Bad.
Anyway. There is a new and different join procedure on the soulpuppetry webring, and I replaced the HTML snippets with WORKING HTML snippets. I've also adjusted most of the help files and hopefully put things right. So, if you've already started the process of joining with the old procedure, please stop and go follow this procedure instead.
I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience, and cringingly hope you'll all still join my webring. Er, those of you that belong there, anyway.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 05:26 PM EST
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Thursday, August 9, 2001
I have carried through on my threat. There now exists a soulpuppetry webring, and we are open for members. At this point, it's an anime/console game fanfiction webring, although I'll probably widen the focus later on, after I get used to this whole webring thing.
Even if you're not a fanfic writer, go check it out. I spent two days HTMLing this puppy and stuffing it full of really weird Mooncalf attempts at humor. Personally, I'm hoping that some of the link buttons make people spit cola products out of their noses. That's always been a dream of mine, cola-soaked monitors.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 07:06 PM EST
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Tuesday, August 7, 2001
Let's cause some trouble! Please note that this should not be construed as an answer to anyone's stated position, but rather, Mooncalf having entirely too much fun.
(SCENE: Your computer monitor. On the screen, MOONCALF waves, beaming. She's got a number of soft floppy things under one arm, but you can't tell what they are. She's trying to do something with them, but she's just not very coordinated. After struggling with them for a moment, she drops them all. *WHOMF*WHOMF*WHOMF*. She growls and swears, then stoops, disappearing off your monitor. After a moment, she reappears. She's wearing something colorful on her left hand, and pulling something else onto her right hand. After a moment, she holds both hands up beside her head. What the? She's got a VIKTOR handpuppet on one hand, and a CITAN handpuppet on the other hand.)
MOONCALF: Okay, so, there's been a lot of fuss about soulbonds lately.
(The VIKTOR handpuppet nods its little head, in what might be agreement, or a seizure.)
MOONCALF: A few months ago, I discussed this topic, although I wimped out on a number of points...
(The CITAN handpuppet holds up a little sign that says MUSES AND SOULBONDS AND ENTITIES, OH MY.)
MOONCALF: ... and I mentioned that, instead of soulbondage, I practice something known as soulpuppetry.
(Both puppets wave their stubby little right hands.)
MOONCALF: So, what did I mean by that? Simple. Characters that I like DO talk in my head. But it's clear that I'm the one making them do the talking.
(MOONCALF dips one hand down offscreen. When it comes back up, it's just her hand. The CITAN puppet is missing. MOONCALF points at the VIKTOR puppet.)
MOONCALF: See this? This is Viktor. Viktor is from the Suikoden games, and he's one of my biggest obsessions.
(The VIKTOR puppet waves again.)
MOONCALF: And late at night, when I'm trying to sleep, Viktor DOES talk in my head, a lot. But I'm telling him what to say. Right, Viktor?
(The VIKTOR puppet nods frantically, thrashing its little hands.)
MOONCALF: You see, here's the main difference. Look at Viktor. Look at him closely. What do you notice?
(The VIKTOR puppet dips its head, staring at itself.)
MOONCALF: That's right. I have my hand up his ass.
(The VIKTOR puppet clutches at its oversized head with its tiny little hands. Meanwhile, MOONCALF dips her hand down below the screen again, and comes up with a FLIK puppet.)
MOONCALF: So. If I want Viktor here to fall in love with Flik, he'll do it. Because I have my hand up his ass.
(MOONCALF mashes the puppets together. They put their little stubby arms around each other and writhe.)
MOONCALF: See?
(MOONCALF pulls the two puppets apart and dips her hand down again, coming up with a VALERIA puppet.)
MOONCALF: And if I want Viktor here to fall in love with Valeria, he'll do it.
(MOONCALF mashes the puppets together again. Writhe, writhe.)
MOONCALF: See?
(The hand goes down again. After a moment, it comes back up, with... a MUKUMUKU puppet.)
MOONCALF: Hell, if I want him to fall in love with a flying squirrel, he'll do it.
(MOONCALF mashes the puppets together. Writhe, writhe.)
MOONCALF: Why? Because I have my hand up his ass, that's why.
(MOONCALF puts both hands down. After a moment, they come back up. One is wearing the CITAN puppet, and one is wearing an ASHLEY RIOT puppet.)
MOONCALF: If I want something to happen, if I want it to happen even a little, well...
(MOONCALF mashes those puppets together. The ASHLEY puppet puts its little arms around the CITAN puppet's waist. The CITAN puppet awkwardly pats the ASHLEY puppet's hair. The little ASHLEY puppet's head begins to bob forward and back suggestively.)
MOONCALF: ... then it'll happen. If only in my diseased little brain. Because no matter how much I like these characters, they are not alive, not even in my mind. They are just puppets, with my hand up their ass, and they'll say what I want them to.
(MOONCALF puts both hands down. In a moment, they come back up. She's wearing the VIKTOR puppet again, and her other hand is bare.)
MOONCALF: Watch. (to the puppet) Viktor, do you love me?
VIKTOR PUPPET: I love you, Mooncalf!
MOONCALF: Are you wearing women's panties?
VIKTOR PUPPET: Yes I am!
MOONCALF: Do you want to have messy sex with Flik?
VIKTOR PUPPET: Oooh yes!
MOONCALF: Do you enjoy having my hand up your ass?
VIKTOR PUPPET: Eee!
(MOONCALF turns back to you. The little VIKTOR puppet waves.)
MOONCALF: It's like having a slave, almost. And, quite frankly, it is soulpuppetry that creates interesting fanfic.
VIKTOR PUPPET: I got to cut off Culgan's head! I got to bring Luka Blight back to life! I got to throw myself off a tall cliff to my death! I got to have sex with pretty much everybody!
MOONCALF: Soulbonds, actual real soulbonds, those also create interesting fanfic. But I'm betting that the overwhelming majority of soulbonds are actually just this... soulpuppets.
(The VIKTOR puppet nods vigorously.)
MOONCALF: Watch this. (to the puppet) Viktor, try and make me say something I normally wouldn't.
(The VIKTOR puppet puts its little round hands to its temples and mimics concentrating really hard. MOONCALF remains silent for a few minutes, until the puppet's hands droop in mimed exasperation.)
MOONCALF: Now try and make me do something. Anything.
(The VIKTOR puppet repeats the procedure. Again, nothing happens.)
MOONCALF: Now, then. Viktor, punch yourself in the head.
(The VIKTOR puppet promptly punches himself in the head. MOONCALF brings up the FLIK puppet again.)
MOONCALF: Viktor, punch Flik in the head.
(The VIKTOR puppet punches the FLIK puppet in the head. The FLIK puppet falls down offscreen. MOONCALF brings up the CITAN puppet.)
MOONCALF: Viktor, punch Citan in the head.
(The VIKTOR puppet punches the CITAN puppet in the head. The CITAN puppet falls down offscreen. MOONCALF brings up a VASH THE STAMPEDE puppet.)
MOONCALF: Viktor, punch Vash in the head.
(The VIKTOR puppet punches the VASH puppet in the head. The VASH puppet falls down offscreen. After a moment, MOONCALF brings up her bare hand again.)
MOONCALF: It's all one way, you see. I make them do things, they don't make me do things. That's why I don't have soulbonds. I just have these cute little puppets.
(The VIKTOR puppet makes little arm-pumping motions.)
MOONCALF: I know soulbonding is very important to a lot of you out there. And more power to you. But Viktor and I are asking you. Please, please take a few moments to consider whether your soulbondage is actually just soulpuppetry.
(The VIKTOR puppet nods.)
MOONCALF: Here's the deal. If you had no way to talk about your soulbonds to anyone, would you still have any? If you didn't have a website or weblog on which you talked about your soulbonds, if you didn't have real life friends to tell about it, would you still have those independent voices in your head?
(The VIKTOR puppet taps its temple.)
MOONCALF: Actually, I don't expect that many people will be able to give me a truly honest answer about that. They'll be defensive, and I can't blame them.
(The VIKTOR puppet punches repeatedly at the air, then hides its head behind its little arms.)
MOONCALF: But do think about it. You really don't need soulbonds to be an interesting person, and pretending to be something you're not just to draw attention to yourself is a self-defeating proposal.
(The VIKTOR puppet punches itself in the head repeatedly and pretends to fall down.)
MOONCALF: I guess what I'm trying to say is: if you have your hand up their ass, it's soulpuppetry. But if they have their hand up YOUR ass, or if the ass-handing is reciprocal... well, okay, maybe it's true soulbonding. Maybe. Or maybe you need psychiatric attention. It could be that, too.
(The VIKTOR puppet turns around and stares down at MOONCALF's ass. MOONCALF promptly brings up the FLIK puppet, which punches the VIKTOR puppet in the head repeatedly.)
MOONCALF: Anyway, I'm not sure that I've said anything of worth here, but I have had a lot of fun. And hey, soulpuppeteers, if you want to, feel free to take the button Viktor's holding and stick it on your website somewhere. Or make your own.
(VIKTOR holds up a small purplish sign:
and waggles it around.)
MOONCALF: I guess I'd just like there to be some other option besides 'soulbonded' and 'not soulbonded' fanfic writers. You don't have to have soulbonds to write excellent fic, and some soulbonders write pretty bad fic. Just... do what you have to.
(The FLIK puppet makes little arm-pumping motions.)
MOONCALF: Even if it involves sticking your hand up someone's ass, or having their hand up your ass in return. Thank you, and good night.
(The VIKTOR and FLIK puppets both wave goodbye. MOONCALF beams.)
(CURTAIN.)
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 06:51 PM EST
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Monday, August 6, 2001
I need to get away from this yaoi humor stuff for the sake of you guys who don't like that kind of thing... so, instead, I'll tell you a godawful joke that I heard on the radio!
A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel stuck to the front of his pants. The bartender looks at the pirate and says, "Wow, that looks uncomfortable."
The pirate says "D'arr, it's drivin' me nuts!"
...
Okay, I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. Anyway, now that I've driven everybody off, it's time to tell you the story of the Most Useless Lock In The World.
Our front door came equipped with one of those hotel-style bar locks. You know, with the big U-shaped thingie that you swing closed over a ball-shaped catch, and then no one can open the door more than an inch or two. Well, in theory.
See, if that lock is closed, and the person on the outside of the door doesn't know that, he'll swing the door pretty hard, and there'll be this loud CLONK as the door hits the lock and bounces, HARD.
Unfortunately, our house has drywall plaster walls. So after two or three good CLONKS given to the lock by the previous tenants, the screws holding the lock just ripped right out of the wall. And so did the cheap-ass plastic molding around the front door. The previous tenants, being cheap but no fools, promptly nailed the molding back on to avoid paying a fine.
So when we moved in, we had a good solid deadbolt lock that clicked into the support beam, and this cheap-ass hotel-room lock that we could lift away from the wall with one finger. "Oh look, honey! I can remove most of the door molding!"
But hey, it was a psychological sop, and being a full-fledged victim of Urban Paranoia (tm), I would always close the bar lock when I was inside. This only becomes a problem when Boyfriend is away; when he tries to get into the house, we hear one of those loud CLONKS followed by a fair bit of swearing.
Well, I did that today. And ta da, Boyfriend ripped the molding RIGHT off the wall today. So after I ran upstairs and let him in and apologized profusely, he stomped downstairs, grabbed the screwdriver, and removed the bar lock entirely. He always did hate that thing.
So now I'm sitting here having the Urban Paranoia Jitters (tm), since we have one fewer locks on the front door. Even if, as a lock, it was slightly less effective than nailing a rotten banana to the door knocker. After all, some burglars might be allergic to bananas, right?
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 09:52 PM EST
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Saturday, August 4, 2001
WARNING: More yaoi-related humor. Quite possibly even sicker than the last list. Again, for those of you who don't know or can't remember, the 'seme' is the dominant partner in the yaoi (male homosexual) relationship.
THE TOP TEN THINGS YOU'LL FIND TATTOOED ON A SEME'S *AHEM* MEMBER
10). WARNING! Product Not Designed For Use On Dry Skin
9). Fine For Loitering
8). Mage Masher
7). USDA Prime
6). Merge Ahead
5). Do Not Back Up - Severe Tire Damage
4). Creates Its Own Gravy!
3). If You Can Still Read This, You're Not Close Enough
2). Objects In the Rearview Mirror May Feel Larger Than They Are
1). TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIOLATED
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 08:32 PM EST
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WARNING: Er. Yaoi-related humor. Be warned. Also, for those who don't know or can't remember, the 'uke' is the submissive partner in the yaoi pairing.
THE TOP TEN THINGS TO TATTOO ON YOUR UKE'S BUTT
10). This Space Available
9). Looking For A Few Good Men
8). No Shirt, No Shoes, Full Service!
7). Restricted Access
6). Irasshaimase!
5). Yield Before Merging
4). No Trespassing
3). Slippery When Wet
2). This End Up
1). MEMBERS ONLY!
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 10:44 AM EST
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Friday, August 3, 2001
Happy birthday to meeee... Wow, I'm 29. I don't care what the real world says, I AM an old fart.
Anyway, there's no real blog today, just a cute Diablo II story. You see, in Diablo II there are an immense number of weapons of all kinds (axes, maces, swords, daggers, polearms, mauls, you name it), and magical ones can have both prefixes and suffixes (which determine their exact powers). So you're forever finding Shocking Mauls of the Leech and Mechanic's Daggers and Steel Blade Talons and Weird War Swords of Anthrax and stuff like that.
But the other day, I was looking around in the shops, and I see a polearm for sale. And when I move my mouse over it, I see that it is a:
Weird Bill.
I was in love. I SO want a weapon named 'Weird Bill'.
"Hi, my name is Ochiba, and this is my polearm, Weird Bill. We're really squicked to meetcha!"
On a side note: one of these days, when I meet a certain IRC personage in real life for the first time, I AM going to tell him I'm really squicked to meet him. And then beam happily. Poor sonovobitch won't have a clue.
Anyway, I'm going to go to Easton Easton Easton Easton Easton this afternoon and have a nice birthday dinner and spend altogether too much money at the Virgin Records Megastore. No, of course that part of town isn't REALLY named Easton Easton Easton Easton Easton. That's a story for another day.
Oh, and Psuzan? I AM a Heisenberg person.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 10:30 AM EST
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Wednesday, August 1, 2001
For some really random reason, when I give any thought at all to the image I project on the web, I think of myself as a fanartist. Never mind that I haven't drawn much fanart recently, but have been drawing a bunch of original stuff. Never mind that my fanfics are more popular than my fanart. Never mind that my blog is more popular than my fics and art put together. I -think- of myself as a fanartist. Who just happens to have a weblog thingie.
So, when I chose IRC channels to inhabit, I chose channels full of artists. My online friends are all artists, or have been artists at one point, or can at least talk convincingly about art. We talk about art. Well, we talk about other things (our lives, yaoi, our SOs, yaoi, the stupidity of everyone but us, yaoi, how good/bad we are at HTML, yaoi, how we're all big stupid fangirls and isn't it great, yaoi). But still, we're always circling back to art eventually.
After a year and a half or so, things have started to shake out, and I have a small but dedicated inner circle of arty friends who think a lot like I do. We hang out on IRC and ICQ together. We show each other our new artwork the second it's completed. Our IRC channel is called #oldhagsintoyaoi, for crying out loud. (For the record, that channel exists on esper.net... while we're theoretically an open chan, be prepared for a bunch of cynical vicious weird old yaoi fangirls who will probably hate you if you do decide to come visit. Fair warning.)
This is great, right? I have these good friends and we're all interested in the same things. And it IS great.
But here's the weird bit.
About two weeks ago, one of our number made an observation. "You know," she said, "we're all starting to draw like one another." And she's RIGHT. We are. We looked at our recent stuff, and we could easily pick out each other's influence. It's cool, but it's weird. I can pick out the clear influence of no less than three of my online friends in my most recent stuff.
Of course, they're all MUCH MUCH better artists than I am, so I don't mind a bit. I am an artistic leech.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 08:16 AM EST
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