Friday, December 28, 2001

Scientists have proven that research causes cancer in lab rats.
Everything you eat, drink, smoke, inhale, or swallow will shorten your lifespan. Everything you fail to eat, drink, smoke, inhale, or swallow will also shorten your lifespan.
Everything that is considered good for you now will be considered bad for you in five years. The converse is also true.
The government can outlaw as much as it likes, and people will still find a way to injure and kill each other, sometimes in mass quantities.
You will never, ever truly be safe a single day in your life, no matter what you do.

The question is not and has never been 'what will make me safe?'. Nothing will make you safe. You can live in a padded bank vault eating nothing but organic vegetables all your life, and then accidentally kill yourself with a hundred-pound bag of granola. Granted, that would take some talent, but you're a talented person!
Face it. There is not a single thing that exists that cannot be used to injure a person in some way. You can hurt yourself or someone else with a feather, with a cotton ball, a piece of scotch tape, a boiled carrot, or a refrigerator magnet.
But no. The question is either 'what will give me the illusion of safety?' or 'what can I do to reduce the danger to an amount I consider acceptable?'. The first question is, in many cases, actively dangerous. The second question is less so.

Unfortunately, the government and most people are trying to answer both questions at once. It makes very little sense to have alcohol and tobacco be legal and still criminalize marijuana (and the rest of that immensely long and complicated argument will hereby be omitted), but we're much more likely to lose tobacco and alcohol than we are to legalize marijuana.
Under the first question fall such dubious activities as censorship, overly harsh drug laws, sodomy laws, and so on. Essentially, we remove what should be personal choices so that other people may be granted the illusion of safety.
(TANGENT: Take the sodomy laws, for example. In all honesty, is there any way that you, personally, could be hurt by two strangers having sex with each other? I mean, okay, maybe they could be really loud or something and keep you awake. But I think we all know that noise pollution really had nothing to do with the sodomy laws. No. These laws are, simply, oppressing largely harmless people to salve the baseless fears of others who neither care nor understand. They don't do anything to make you safer. In fact, they might make you less safe, if the public insists on demonizing one group of people and ignoring another.
Who does more damage, after all: the homosexual man, or the basher who gives him a black eye? Which one is more likely to turn around and give you a black eye?)
(TANGENT: Why do so many people get 'morality' mixed up with 'fear and hatred'? Why do so many bitter, terrified, bigoted, angry, narrow-minded little people appoint themselves the guardians of morality? I'll stop.)

The second is, mostly, just common sense. We all have different threshholds for safety. Some of us go skydiving. Some of us double-check the lock on the front door before we go to bed every night. It's a question of drawing a line between what is reasonably safe and what is not, and realizing that that line is a personal choice.
If you smoke, drink to excess, do every drug in sight, eat nothing but fatty beef, participate in extreme sports, and never sleep, well, you are probably not going to live quite as long as other people. If you find that acceptable, that is your personal choice, and god be with you, you'll need him.
If you don't, well, start making your decisions. We're pretty sure that tobacco is bad for you, overall, so maybe that's a good place to start cutting. Maybe you could eat more vegetables, or stop doing drugs, or sleep more.
But there's a line beyond which care turns into idiocy. If you wear a mask everywhere for fear of germs, if you refuse to eat anything but organic vegetables for fear of fat, if you refuse to leave the house for fear of other people, if you refuse to have an imagination for fear of your god, then, just possibly, you have taken it too far. However, it is still your personal choice, and as such, perfectly acceptable.
Basically, you just have to decide what you consider 'acceptable risk'. Would you rather live to a ripe old age, or would you rather pack as much riotous living as you can into fifty years? That decision has nothing to do with anyone else, and god help us, it should never be legislated onto the people as a whole. Personal choice. Personal. Not universal.
(TANGENT: And for god's sake people learn to accept some fucking blame. If you ignore the warnings on cigarette packs, smoke two packs a day, and get cancer, don't sue. If terrorists shoot up the McDonald's that you're happily eating at, don't sue McDonald's. If your child pulls a pot off the stove onto his head, don't sue the people who made the pot, okay? Accept the blame. Some things have to be your fault.
I cannot get a burger done less than medium anywhere in Columbus, Ohio. I do not know whether this is a law or simply a rule that many restaurants have adopted to protect themselves from lawsuits, but for god's sake, if I want a rare burger, that's my business. I'll sign a fucking disclaimer if you want me to, but for god's sake give me a big ol' slab of red meat. If I get salmonella, it's my own fault.)

Fear sucks. Do what you can to minimize fear in your life, and learn to stop fearing things like hamburgers and refined sugar. There are people in the world who won't hurt you, you know. In fact, they outnumber the other kind fairly heftily.
Come play with the rest of us, okay? We have chocolate! And smut! And rock music! And comic books! And, you know, any of that might kill you, but it's a fair trade-off, really.
It's worth it. It's worth it. It is.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 01:49 AM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Tuesday, December 25, 2001

... so good fortune to you, to your friends and neighbors too, and god bless you and send you a happy New Year, and god send you a happy New Year...

So, here we are, the closing of the year. And here I am, sitting at home with Boyfriend, a thousand miles away from every single relative either of us have, on the computer, with my online friends. Oh, and I have petit fours. It is proof of my true gender - geek - that I consider this an excellent, nay, an unparalleled way to spend Christmas.
Don't get me wrong. I love my family an awful lot. They're good people, all of them, and I got really lucky with the two families into which I was born. But, you know, as much as I love them, my own personal vision of hell involves airplanes in the middle of winter, and bless them, they understood that. Every few years I have to say 'fuck the holidays' and stay the hell home, and they understand that. More or less.

Heh. It's been one hell of a year, you know? Of course you know, you were there. Here, have a petit four. They have kirsch in 'em.

Beh. I can't decide whether I want to be funny, or pithy, or angry, or deep, or just plain sentimental, and as such I keep writing things and then deleting them. Screw it.
I love you. Yes, you.
I hate you. Yes, also you.
I wish you a merry whatever, and a happy whatever else.
Have a good one, and I hope you have exactly the holiday season that you deserve.
And I mean that.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 02:51 AM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Sunday, December 23, 2001

This edition of 'Things I Should Not Have To Say But End Up Having To Say Anyway' brought to you by: JAPANESE SUIKODEN FANART.

1). Flik, you are not a woman. Lose the cheongsam.
2). Viktor, since when is your hair green?
3). ... ... ... ... VEGETABLES DO NOT GO THERE, FLIK!
4). Tai Ho, stop trying to have sex with Yam Koo, he's your brother.
5). Flik, you are still not a woman. Lose the enormous breasts.
6). Miklotov, you are not balding. You just have short hair.
7). Camus, you are not twelve. And if you are, you should not be snuggling a twenty-something Miklotov. Make up your mind.
8). What is it with you and cheongsams anyway, Flik?
9). Viktor and Flik, you did not have a kid together dammit.
10). Nor did you, Camus and Miklotov. Cut that shit out.
11). Shu, you are not a big ugly scowling ogre.
12). Neither are you, Viktor, although you're closer.
13). Futch does not bend that way, Humphrey. Quit it.
14). Nina, let go of Flik. No, really, let go of Flik. Nina. Nina. Don't make me get the shotgun, Nina.
15). Flik, that is the most pathetic excuse for a horse I have ever seen.
16). Camus, you are not a woman. Lose the sailor suit. And, uh, stay away from Flik. He's obviously a bad influence.
17). Viktor, for god's sake, don't have sex with Futch, he'll explode.
18). Luc? Luc, where is your hand?... oh, I see. And did you ask Sasuke if you could put it there?
19). Jowy, make up your mind. Either you are blond, or you are silver-haired. Dyeing your hair back and forth will ruin it.
20). Pesmerga? Quit blushing and emitting little hearts. It's disturbing.
21). ... ... ... ... YOUR SWORD DOES NOT GO THERE, FLIK!
22). Nanami, quit hitting Shu with that xylophone. That's an expensive musical instrument!
23)... Flik? Is it just me, or does your headband have a hard-on?
24). Viktor? You are not a Charmander. Flik's not a Pikachu either. Although the elemental symbolism is cute.
25). While Flik looks good with angel wings, Viktor, you don't. Take those off.
26). Camus. Oh, Camus. Purple hot pants and matching thigh-high stockings, Camus? Going to see Rocky Horror? I hope?
27). ... ... ... ... please tell me you're not letting that flying squirrel give you a blowjob, Hero.
28). Viktor, you are not a werewolf, quit growing fur.
29). Camus, don't bleed on the flowers. You're welcome to leave your shirt hanging open, though.
30). Flik. For the last goddamn time, you are not a woman. Lose the bridal gown.

And the clear winner:

31). ... ... ... ... Miklotov, why do you have a tiny pink reindeer over your privates?

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 02:56 AM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Saturday, December 22, 2001

Rather than try to explain the complicated events that led up to this post, I'll just say this. If Mie (the mooncalf) wrote a country and western song, it would go something like this:

*twang*twang*twang*
Oh, I knew I had a problem
From the day that I was born
And I caught my baby blanket
On my tiny little horn

It just ain't fair, it just ain't right
I got a problem now
In a world of proud cowboys
I done got born a cow!

(Chorus)
Ohhhh, I ain't your filet mignon
So quit chewin' on my arm
I ain't your filet mignon
So don't you do me harm
I ain't your filet mignon
From fresh off the farm...
No, I ain't your filet mignon
So quit chewin' on my arm!

I didn't fit in Daddy's truck
By the time that I was three
And my brother's appetite
'Twould be the death of me!

It just ain't right, it just ain't fair
Someone give me a hand
My uncles were all cowboys
They done gave me a brand! Ow!

(Chorus)

etc. etc. etc. pedal-steel guitar solo

(Chorus)

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 02:22 AM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Friday, December 21, 2001

WARNING: Overly cute, pointless, and mostly uninteresting oversharing ahead.

I wrote the following when I was nine, for my fourth grade English teacher. A framed copy of that essay hangs on my wall now (it was a graduation present from my aunt), and I typed it down exactly as written, twenty years ago.

=====
"How To Slay A Dragon"

The first thing you do is get a sharp sword, a suit of armor, and a good horse. Next, find out who you are rescuing, where you are going to rescue them, and when you are going to rescue them. Then find out how strong the dragon is and how brave.

Now you are ready! (I hope!) See what he looks like. Don't be nervous or panicky. It can lead to death if you get nervous. Panicky? I'd rather not say. Go slay it. You're ready!
=====

So. Just now I was sitting here staring idly at the essay and thinking about nothing. And all of a sudden, a little voice in the back of my brain pipes up.

"Dammit, Ashton. You see? That's how you slay a damn dragon!"

... you know, if I wanted snide SO2 comments from the peanut gallery, I'd ask.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 01:27 AM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

Noted:
Piracy is contagious, you know. If you're bitten by a pirate, you can catch it!

Faris says d'arr, matey.

Also noted:
The web entity known as fanfiction.net is a pit of voles. You heard me.

Thirdly noted:
Some of you may be familiar with the eighties song 'Turning Japanese', by the Vapors. A song which I love, and have loved for years. But did you know that the phrase 'turning Japanese' is 80s slang for 'having an orgasm'?
So, basically, depending on how twitchy you are, the song is either about a man staring at pictures of his beloved and jerking off... or about a stalker sitting in a room wallpapered with pictures of the person he's stalking, and jerking off.
I submit that this makes the song better.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 04:29 PM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Sunday, December 16, 2001

WARNING: Extremely cranky.

I believe in the following version of Six Degrees of Blog Separation: starting at any webjournal, it is possible to get to a webjournal in which the author claims to have some form of serious mental illness in six jumps or less. Usually it only takes two to four.
Some of those people are undoubtedly truly mentally ill. Psychiatrists estimate that approximately one percent of Americans are schizophrenic; in theory, that means that one out of every hundred blogs is, indeed, written by someone with serious mental problems. Furthermore, several other mental illnesses both mild and severe would in no way prevent their sufferers from having and posting in a weblog. Fine, accepted, understood. And if you're one of those people, hi and welcome, and please believe that none of this is aimed at you.

Now, to piss everybody else off.
Do you remember how, in high school or college, people would play the Pity Me Game? Here's how it works: you and a bunch of your friends sit around a table at lunch. One of you starts the game by saying:
I'm so overworked. I have two more tests this week and a paper due on Monday.
Two things happen. One, you get an outpouring of pity, which you bathe in. Two, someone else ups the ante.
You think that's bad? I have two tests tomorrow and I've had three hours sleep in the last two days...
More pity, and up the ante goes again.
I think I'm going to fail two classes, and I have a forty-page paper due tomorrow that I'm just so stuck on, so I'm going to have to ask for an extension which I won't get, and I haven't slept well in months...
And so on. It's all about impressing people with how bad your life is, and being the best at having it the worst.

My point?
Mental illnesses are just the current Pity Me Game, played on weblogs.

A few of those people undoubtedly have a mental illness. Many more of them probably sincerely believe that they do. And a lot of them are just exaggerating their more-or-less-normal personality traits to appear special. To garner praise and pity from overcoming their horrible obstacles, which are just oh so much worse than the obstacles that other people face. Because, you know, some people just cannot stand to lose at the Pity Me Game.

And of course, what's the first half of the Pity Me Game without the second half? Someone will up your ante.
(And unfortunately, that's not half as dirty as it sounds. 'Upping your ante' sounds like a great euphemism for buttsex. Er. Okay, going back to my point.)
It's sad to see mental illness trivialized like this. So many people suffer so badly at the claws of the very mental disorders that angsty teens affect in order to Win Pity. By playing the Pity Me Game with mental illness, by affecting serious fucked-up-ness in order to make yourself special, by transforming yourself into an MPD sufferer just to compete with other bloggers, you have turned a serious problem into just another fucking blogmeme.
When the blogmeme is multiple personality tests, it's nifty and fun and harmless.
When the blogmeme is multiple personality disorder, it's not.

You know what? If you feign having a mental disorder on your blog, if you slavishly categorize the drugs that you pretend to be on, if you know that you're healthy but merely want the cachet of Pity to cloak your blog, if you are a sheep and give in to that blogmeme, you are admitting to every single one of us who reads your blog that you are nothing special at all.
But you know what? By giving in to that blogmeme, you have proven that you have at least one mental disorder. You suffer from SID. Not to be confused with SIDS, thank you.

SID. It stands for Self-Importance Disorder.
Wear it like a badge of dishonor, blogsheep.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 03:50 AM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Friday, December 14, 2001

Hey, you!

Yeah, you!

... I'm not talking about you. Not this time.

You're starting to live your life for your blog, you know. You've already mined your past, and now you're starting to mine every day as it unrolls. You're viewing every event through a blogscreen, looking for that perfect nugget of information to share with your readers, trying to convert every experience into text and HTML.
And there's nothing wrong with that, really, except that you seem to be somehow less alive when there's nothing blogworthy going on. You've been bitten by fame, haven't you? That little bit of fame that the Internet affords you has gotten into your bloodstream, and now you only seem truly alive when viewed through the window of your blog.

I worry about you, sometimes. All right, I worry about you a lot. I can't help it.

Not everything can be reduced to words and pictures, although you're sure giving it a try. I worry that you're missing out on the indescribable by trying to share the describable with everyone.
It's supposed to be fun, keeping a blog. You're not supposed to fret when you miss a day. I worry that your priorities are out of order.
You've stopped talking about a lot of things. If I asked why, you'd tell me it was because you'd already blogged about that event, and so retelling it felt superfluous; by writing it down you'd crystallized the event, frozen it in virtual amber, and somehow insulated yourself from it. I worry that every blog entry you write is somehow cut from your flesh, making you something less than you were before.
By sharing your life with everyone there's somehow less of it for me. I worry that I'm selfish.

You know that I love you. We've been through a lot together in the past three years. You and I, we know each other, and if anyone has the right to be worried about you, it's me.
And I am worried.
But I'm not going to ask you to talk to me.
I'm going to ask you not to talk to me. Go out and have an experience solely for the experience, and then keep it to yourself. All your readers will live happily ever after without ever knowing that you did such a thing, and even if, in the future, you should break down entirely into text and pictures, you'll still have that one single shining moment that's all yours.

Please. Be selfish. ... for my sake.
How ironic.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 08:44 AM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Tuesday, December 11, 2001

The Ballad Of The World Wide Web, Or Why I Went To Where I Went

It was late and I was tired.
It was there and I was bored.
It was new and I was trendy.
It was the Illuminati. Fnord.

It was neat and I was geeky.
It was lame and so I sneered.
It was scary, I was a witness.
It was scarier. And I feared.

It 404ed and I was thwarted.
It was a classic. I was new.
It was slashdot, and I trolled it.
It got too big and now it's through.

It had a store and I spent money.
It had archives, so I spent time.
It had a point. I paid attention.
It was this blog. Here, have a rhyme.

(Ahem. All apologies as necessary to Technomancy for the theft of their official motto.)

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 11:50 PM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Monday, December 10, 2001

Boyfriend and I are going to be replacing our car soon, because our old one made a serious one-way trip into Beaterdom. (Knock thunk ping rattle.)
And so, of course, we've been doing an immense amount of research into new cars, and talking about what kind of car we want. Tonight, on the way to dinner, we had the following conversation:

ME: Of course, we could always get a Lamborghini.
BOYFRIEND: Aren't those, like, $120,000?
ME: Details!
BOYFRIEND: (long pause) I dunno. I don't think I want a Lamborghini unless it transforms into a robot. After all, all my other Lamborghinis do!

... reason number #23412 why I love Boyfriend: random Transformers references.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 07:38 PM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Because I have nothing better to write about at this time, I thought I would share my impression of what having sex with a nineteen-year-old boy is like. Not that I'd, uh, know.

"I'm hard!" "I'm done!" "I'm hard!" "I'm done!" "I'm hard!" "I'm done!" "I'm hard!" "I'm done!" "Guess what?"

... thank you, drive through.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 03:43 PM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Wednesday, December 5, 2001

Once upon a time there was a handsome rugged RPG character who was going to live happily ever after with his friends and then the credits rolled.
Or so it seemed.

You see, the handsome rugged RPG character (hereinafter referred to as 'He') suddenly found himself living in a cliche'. Maybe it was an ancient castle. Or maybe it was a beautiful mansion set deep in the romantic woods. Or maybe it was the afterlife, a lovely garden filled with all of His friends that had ever died. Maybe it was His airship, fitting out lovingly with a brand-new canopy bed and drifting silken curtains.

And somehow, even though He had a lovely girlfriend before the credits rolled, she's missing. Oh, perhaps suddenly she ran away with someone else, or died in a blizzard of angst and cherry blossoms, or decided she didn't love Him any more. Or perhaps she just vanished mysteriously and no one dares to mention her existence. But whatever happened to her, it pales in comparison to what's happening to Him now.

You see, even though He might have been strong or interesting or standoffish before the credits rolled, now He's overwhelmed with these longings. All He can think about is the day when some woman will make His life complete, and He can whisk her away to His cliche' and mistily break her hymen and give her 2.3 orgasms (one of them simultaneous with His, oh His, it will be an orgasm like none He has ever had) and then they can get married and have children and be so so very happy forever and ever, complete in each other. And that's all He can think about any more.

And of course, any personality problems that He had have somehow been ironed out. Whoever He is, He is kind and loyal and generous and loving and tender. But only deep in His heart. He aches for the day when the woman of his dreams will catch Him crying and comfort Him against her capacious bosom, and then He can reveal Himself to her as the paragon of sensitive-yet-manly maleness that He yearns to be. Until then, He must sensitively lean on his friends, who have also undergone these strange personality ironings. They are only too happy to coo over His angst and hug Him and assure Him that the right woman will come along. And He waits. Yearning. Longing. Crying. Anachronizing.

And then one day... She arrives.

And Her name is Mary Sue.

Perhaps She has hair the color of chocolate, or of honey, or hair like black silk that cascades to mid-back. Perhaps Her eyes are crafted from sapphire, or emerald, or amethyst, or jet, or tiger's eye; perhaps Her eyes are cerulean, or viridian, or ebony, or violet. Perhaps Her skin is fair and unblemished, or tanned yet delicate, or dusky and sensuous. It matters not.
This beautiful teenaged virgin from another world, She whose cruel parents and schoolmates did not understand Her sensitive soul (and how they will Pay), has arrived. And She will not rest until His soul is complete. She will use Her nubile young body to bring His soul rest. She will use Her innocent love of chocolate and boybands and kittens to perfect Herself for Him; little did He know that He longed for a woman who loved things He has never heard of. But oh, as soon as He sees Her, He will know.

She is the One.

Perhaps Their eyes meet across a crowded room and a wineglass shatters in His fist as recognition hits Him like a sledgehammer. Perhaps, lonely and afraid, She appears at His doorstep, begging for help. Perhaps He is the one who needs help, after being attacked. Perhaps He rescues Her from certain death/imprisonment/boredom and whisks Her away to protect Her. Perhaps one of His friends introduces Them, smiling to himself about how, perhaps, She can save Him. Perhaps She merely happens upon Him with crystalline tears running down His face, and somehow understands His pain. Still, it matters not.

The courtship is swift and magical, the proposal certain and romantic, the joy bottomless, the passion overwhelming. He is complete, and She is jubilant. Together, They have Bliss. Every one of Her beautiful teenaged dreams has come true; here indeed there is romance and passion to glut Her starved soul. Whatever strange world She is from, She fits here like a hand in a glove, and everyone loves Her. But none so much as He.

Perhaps He must now take up arms and fight for Her, to keep Her safe and by His side. This is optional. Their love needs no test. Their love is deep and true and right, and nothing will part Them.

The wedding is beautiful, and all His friends are there to witness this most perfect union, and they weep with joy to see Him so happy and Her so beautiful. And then, meaningful vows exchanged, He sweeps Her up in His manly arms and bears Her off to the most romantic location that has ever existed, and there...

Oh, there...

There is now the Deflowering. Swathed in silken trails of euphemism They achieve physical union. It is the first time for Her, and yet She is effortlessly brought to orgasm by His tender attentions. Again and again She achieves blissful climax, whispering His name, until finally She is Taken. And together They achieve climax once more. Perfectly. Of course. And then They fall asleep in each other's arms, happier than it is possible to be unless you are an RPG character and His Mary Sue.

Shortly, She discovers that She is carrying his child. And He is ecstatic, overjoyed, brimming with love for Her and Her child. Their child. He sweeps Her gently into His arms. Perhaps He cries again.

The child is swiftly and painlessly born, and given a beautiful name that, perhaps, does not mean in Japanese what Mary Sue thinks it means in Japanese. But this is of little moment. If They were complete before, now They are Whole.

And this joy shall last forever and a day, or until Mary Sue discovers some other rugged handsome RPG character who seeks solace in Her arms. And She, being lovely and perfect and teenaged, shall magically regain Her virginity and Her innocence and fly on, to bring Wholeness to another world.

And then He and their children shall be deserted, to pine in their beautiful cliche', and ask themselves, "Where has our Mary Sue gone?" And perhaps they shall never know. Pity Him, and His deserted children. Pity them, for perhaps in five years their beloved Mary Sue will look back and say, "My God, what was I thinking when I wrote this?!" and consign them to oblivion forevermore.

Truly He has given Her power over Him indeed.

And all for the sake of $49.95 plus Tax.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 11:23 PM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

You!

Yeah, you!

I hate you!

You write little script-style musefics in your LiveJournal! I hate you!
You have an imaginary mansion inside your head for your muses to all live in together and react to each other! I hate you!
You make your male muses marry each other and have babies! I hate you!
You use cute little terms like 'soulbond', 'musespace', and 'mpreg' to describe what's happening and exclude non-fangirls! I hate you!
You have created an entire world in your fever-dreams and stuffed it full of random characters ripped screaming and bloody from their respective games and animes! I hate you!
You make those random characters engage in a neverending histrionic orgy of a soap opera for the amusement of yourself and your friends, like you were the Emperor Nero and his degenerate court! I hate you!
You have an intimate knowledge of what 'miscegenation' means even if you've never heard the word, because your muses have sex all willy-nilly with each other regardless of canon, fanon, or indeed series! I hate you!
You write masturbatory little musefics in which gorgeous male character muses coo and snuggle over you yourself personally to satisfy your sick little lusts! I hate you!
You feel the need to keep me informed of every little twitch in the overpopulated muse-stuffed warzone of your feverish little obsessed brain and I hate you hate you hate you!

*gasp*gasp*wheeze*twitch*

Okay. It's not that what you are doing is wrong, or bad, or evil. As I've said before, if you want to do something in your own personal webspace, and it doesn't violate the laws of your country of origin or the laws of physics, then go for it and I will gladly support your right to do exactly that, while I equally gladly support my right to not read it!
But this is my own personal webspace and I am allowed to say whatever I want here, and you know what? Right here, right now?

You blog about your muses and/or soulbonds endlessly and I HATE YOU!

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 12:39 AM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Monday, December 3, 2001

WARNING: Highly random.

Randomly:
Did you know that American women were provably writing slash fanfic in 'zines as far back as 1975? I sure didn't, until I read about it in one of my encyclopedias of pop culture. Furthermore, it was Star Trek slash. Spock/Kirk. A concept which makes large many-footed bugs crawl up my spine.

Even more randomly:
Boyfriend read the same book, and we ended up getting into a discussion of slash fanfic at dinner. Boyfriend postulates that the concept of yaoi/slash as entertainment for women probably developed in the 60s, since it was then that both the women's lib and the gay rights movements first got underway. I thought about that for a minute, then agreed. It sounds plausible.

Odd, really. That's a facet of yaoi fandom I'd never stopped to consider: the history thereof.
I've only really been a yaoi fangirl for about a year. Furthermore, I've restricted my fangirlish leanings to Japanese offerings: anime, manga, and RPGs. So if I'd ever stopped to think about it, and I didn't, I would have assumed that it was a relatively recent development, and one that grew concurrently with the rise of the internet and the importation of Japanese pop culture... how wrong I would have been.
I have no doubts that those two things contributed greatly to the massive growth of the fandom in recent years. But... man. 1975. Goes to show you that there's nothing new under the sun, I guess.

I don't know about you guys, but I'd love to read some of the earliest slash fanfics. Talk about impossible to get your hands on, but...

Hell, now I'm curious about the history of fanfic in general. I'm assuming that it's linked to the post-war rise of American pop culture, but I could be wrong... were there people in the twenties writing Lovecraft fanfic?
Well, hey! That's one way to look at August Derleth, right? But back then, it wasn't fanfic, it was considered actual legitimate publishable writing...

Now I have this mental image of the medieval Japanese writing fanfic about the Tale of Genji... grargh. Someone stop me, please. Stop me before I decide to try to write a dissertation on the history of fanfic.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 05:53 PM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Sunday, December 2, 2001

I had this crack-assed dream last night. It was really really realistic, and while I won't bore you with the details, the gist of the dream was this: a certain friend of mine, who would never in a million years do such a thing, had written a Dias x Ashton yaoific that ended with the suggestion that Ashton was pregnant.
(Yeah, that's right, I had a dream about sitting at my computer and reading yaoific. So?)

And you know, this dream came hard on the heels of an online discussion about things we did and didn't like about yaoi fandom in general. One of my personal hatreds is yaoific writers who happily make boys get married and have babies together. I'll accept a lot in my yaoi, but not pregnant guys. And, well, you already know about my parodic streak. So...

From the pages of Li'l Miss Mooncalfie's LiveJournal!!!
Hot News From The Soulbond Mansion!!!
We're all SO excited over here because Ashton has just announced that he's PREGNANT!! Looks like we'll have to build another wing for the little bundle of joy!!!
Rumor has it that Dias, the thrilled father, has been spotted wandering around the grounds looking dazed!!!!!! Everyone be sure to watch out for him and say congratulations, and make sure he remembers to eat, okee~?!??!!? *g* XD XD :D XDDDD...

... this parody will now be abruptly cancelled, because Mooncalf needs to run throw up. There are some places parodists should just not go.
(And dear god, after well over a year, I've finally broken that promise I made to myself. There are now emoticons in my blog. I'm just glad they occurred mid-parody or I would never forgive myself.)

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 08:08 PM EST
[link this entry and its comments]

Saturday, December 1, 2001

And now for something completely fuckin' different:

DUMB THINGS I'VE DONE LATELY:
Going to Mall-Wart, at 8pm, on Saturday, December 1st.

What in the fuck was I thinking? Nothing destroys your day more than being smothered to death by crap-crazed Christmas consumers, unless it's having to listen to Snoozac carols being played at a volume somewhere between 'somnolent' and 'piercing'.
Every year I hate it more and more, seeing people waste money on, say, those cheap-looking but pre-wrapped 'gift packs' of crappy bargain-basement cosmetics. You know, the sort of thing you buy because you feel obligated to present something to a person you neither know very well nor like very much, but because the Machine is currently chewing on your head, you get them that cheesy 4-pack of moisturizer in the lame plastic zipper-bag and feel not happiness but relief.
One less goddamn present I gotta buy, and boy do my feet hurt, and if I have to spend one more minute listening to some boyband sing 'Up On The Housetop' I'm gonna puke...
Oh yes! All hail the true spirit of Christmas! Well, after you're about, oh, twelve.

Sigh. I'm not exactly trying to rant against consumerism here, because I know from experience that the money made off the Christmas season is how a lot of little shops manage to stay open. And I like buying truly appropriate presents, for people that I truly love. As opposed to, say, co-workers and distant relatives and so forth.
And boy howdy am I not going to rant about how we're 'missing the true spirit of Christmas'. I hate that shit. And there's nothing I could possibly say about the subject that hasn't been said a million times, except perhaps 'nyar blah weeeeoop mayonnaise', so I just won't.

No, it's the frenzy that disturbs and exhausts me. Unfortunately, we were out of toilet paper, and I kind of like being able to wipe my ass when I need to. I know, I'm funny that way. So it was either off to Mall-Wart with me or learn to use leaves, and I may be a grouchy Scroogey bitch but I'm also a thoroughly civilized grouchy Scroogey bitch. So.

Some of you who read this blog will be getting a Christmas present from me, in all probability. (Hi Dad!) I can promise you two things, though. One, I really really must like you if I bothered to get my shit together enough to select something for you. And two, whatever I do buy you? It's damn well not coming from Mall-Wart.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 06:50 PM EST
[link this entry and its comments]