Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

The other night, I noticed that I had a tennen tate-roll (just one, on the right). This reminded me, I don't know where the stereotype that such a 'do is sported by rich ladies (as exemplified by the source for the subject line, which applies just as well to me as to Ms. Azumano; also includes three-point ellipses, which are somewhat half-assed according to the Yuri Dōjō in a recent issue) originated. The only support that comes to mind is Ms. Daitokuji from PROJECT "A" KO, which was itself a parody (in her case, of a character from the original Macross, if memory serves; I never saw it anyway).

Closer to my heart is the much more commonly obvious trope of the character with a lot of melanin in the skin but not in the hair. (I call it a trope because it doesn't seem to appear in real life, except where darker hair has gone gray/white or has been artificially changed. I've never encountered any accounts of such localized albinism. It's probably also popular because of the abstraction needed to differentiate characters when all but one human race in the real world seem to have the-same-colored hair, a point that the Japanese unsurprisingly have a tradition of stylistically avoiding. Incidentally, I also have found myself unable to find reference information about races' physical characteristics on Wikipedia, which makes it difficult for me to check the authenticity of my work. On example that I don't plan to use but that has bothered me for a while: I don't recall having ever seen a man of American descent with facial hair. Is this genetic or cultural?) As far back in time as I've traced it (through idle thought, not actual research, as I don't know any good places to look for such information on Japanese media), there are two main possibilities:

1. Ms. "Storm" Munroe of Ame-comi fame. As Watsuki's liner notes often illustrate, these are well known in Japan (although not enough that she influenced him to use a similar character design in Ruro-Ken, even though, despite the fact that all but five of the characters in the 28 books are native Japanese, he goes quite far in variety, including at least a 1,000% range in height of grown men; maybe he was just too lazy to cut all that tone). Unless we can find someone way back there who was so direct about his influences, it would be pretty impossible to pin this one down.

2. The Dark Elves from Lodoss-tō Senki (an island whose name, despite the official Romanization, is spelled exactly the same as "Rhodes"). In case you were living under a rock in the '80s as I was, this series was a thinly veiled retelling of a Basic D&D campaign, as illustrated by the fact that the starting lineup consisted of six of the seven classes from the original "blue box" (excluding only the one that was stolen entirely from Tolkien's creation). Even back in those days, there was already the policy that the dark-skinned subraces of the good peoples are the evil ones, but D&D avoided some flak by saying the drow were actually black-skinned, not a human skin tone. Whether it's because they hadn't made that point yet or because of creative differences, that safety was not present in Lodoss, so (other than the being evil part) it translates just fine to humans in versions of the real world. This one could be easily confirmed or denied by asking someone who's actually watched the major Japanese animation and read Japanese comics from before that whether or not there were any examples then, but I don't think I know any such person.

By the way, in one of the extra stories from Sapphism, Ms. Lee (Ley?) tries to talk Ms. Yang down by telling her that her loss would devastate all the dark-skin fetishists. Of the examples given, I recognized only Akamatsu (no doubt due to my lack of attention to mainstream stuff), but all were called "-Sensei," so I imagine the other two are of the same ilk. But from what I've read of Akamatsu's, he's less so than I am: no major character in his first work, one who starts ranking at fifth-most-important then is displaced further by new ones in his second. As if it's not maniac enough already, my taste is mostly restricted to the illustrated versions, as in real life I'm more narcissistic, preferring my own two races (now that I've been out of high school long enough to break down my prejudice against non-white blood). I feel as if I don't much like real-world African features, which is a hell of a generalization considering that they're thought to be the oldest and thus now most diverse human race. (The aforementioned Ms. Munroe looks good, particularly with the 'do in the third movie.) I don't seem to have any such preconception about ladies of South Asian or American descent, probably because I don't see as much of them in American TV and movies.

In terms of more general tropes, is there some name for the one where the hero thinks up a clever plan but keeps it a secret from his friends in order to maintain audience suspense? I'd look around on the eponymous wiki, but from what I've seen it just seems to be a bunch of people typing whatever they feel like typing, so I'm not bothering to learn how to find things there.

When I stop to think about my life, I can see that I've done nothing right with it. Each time, I actually think of one or two things that I've done wrong with it. Then I forget about it again. Here's one that comes to mind at the moment. I don't have anyone with whom I can share my problems, so I just bottle them up inside and try to forget about them. This morning, it suddenly seems like I should have sometime in my life imposed myself on some of my friends to get to know them, and maybe if they were willing, tell them enough about myself that they might have some idea whom I am. Instead, I come to a time when I don't have any real friends, I can't remember the last time I've talked with someone, including a friend, without starting a fight, and the one person who is willing to carry on conversations with me through IM walks away in the middle of the conversation without telling me more than half the time. So I have to keep my problems to myself to avoid starting fights and getting fired, so I end up exploding in front of people more and more often. I know I should call my social worker when these sorts of things happen, but I'm uncomfortable doing that with a stranger, particularly considering all the times (don't remember how many, guess a couple of dozen) I've cheated her out of ~$100 or an hour of her time because I was lazy or didn't feel like it. I am fully aware that this is a very disjointed paragraph, and I have missed a lot of things that I've been thinking of typing in the last 45 minutes. If anyone wants to ask for clarification on any of this or talk about pretty much anything else, I appreciate it. I'll be binging here for the next couple of hours until my drugs kick in.

On the topic of possible entries for the Ichijinsha Comic Taishō (YuriHime Bumon):

I forgot in the last paragraph that there's also one in S that has a drag queen (thus, the subject clipped from the same quote as before) as pretty much the most important character after the protagonist and heroine. I guess these guys are more palatable than big, hairy gits like the ones in "Spaghetti Western." There have been various men who've appeared in the numerous sad one-shots throughout the years, but those are the only two major ones whom I remember in serials.

Meanwhile, there may be another problem if I have to give up my ownership of the intellectual property as with the contest for my other half, which would mean that it would have to be thrown out if I couldn't get it published. If so, I'd want to make sure that I have the best chance I'll ever have of winning before I risk it. It would be better, of course, if I could instead become an established author/illustrator and thus be considered for publishing without having to take that risk in the first place. I'll have to take a closer look at the rules when I get back to those issues as part of my other stuff I'm supposedly doing. (I can also use that opportunity to look over the previous winning entry and the judges' comments for that and the runners-up to get a better idea of what they want.)

Another consideration is the problem of graphic novels. I've seen that Japanese author/illustrators often have problems getting one-shots that have been published in periodicals printed in more permanent form as they're not enough to make up a full compilation. A common solution is to put them in as extras in volumes of series by the same person, but that wouldn't work very well in my case, because these ones would read right-to-left, while my projects are left-to-right. YuriHime Comics dealt with that through Yuri-Hime Selection, but I don't know whether they'll do that again or how long it'll be in print. Authors sometimes publish sequels/spinoffs/side stories of their own works as dōjinshi, as you may have noticed (also mentioned here), but I don't imagine they're allowed to do that with the stuff that's been licensed by professional publishers.

Speaking of which, I hear that Zettai×Roman actually has quite a lot of stuff that wasn't published in the mooks, including a short from a long-out-of-print anthology, two from another magazine, and further explanation on the one from YuriHime whose details I found quite incomprehensible (also, incidentally, the only one I remember where one of the main characters is anywhere near as promiscuous as in mine). I haven't been bothering to buy the graphic novels as I already have all of the serials, but I suppose I should be checking their introductions to see whether the extras are worth it.

By the by, as I was grabbing links for this post, I found there was a tachi-yomi (reading without buying) page in case you want to try any of the publications.

I probably know the answer, but considering that the second-to-last item has been listed, it's time for me to ask again: anyone want anything? It should ship on 2008.07.18 or soon after (UTC+9).

I was going to the store and saw a big display for the latest MY OTOME series, which caught me off guard, since I normally would have heard of it through my usual sources much earlier (if I even encountered it in America at all, which I haven't for these series). I also overheard someone talking about how Ms. Armitage has her own TV show accompanying every episode (although it was only a DVD extra for one disc in the original series), as well as her own HP you can visit and her own phone number you can call to get her telling you she can't talk now because she's busy having guts and stuff.

We had an alliance of kami-tsukai from the two R.O.Ds, like in THE TV. I was Ms. Readman, which meant it was a pain in the ass because I had to speak in a high-pitched voice and always use polite forms.

Of course, from what little I remember, I was talking to Ms. King, which means that I'd be using even politer forms if I were myself. Also, if I were really Ms. Readman, neither of those things would be difficult. . . .

For some reason, the Waffen-SS of the Last Battalion were not a military group but an urban gang, and it was up to us Ninja Turtles to deal with them. The Hauptsturmführer's work was easy to identify, as there weren't many others running around with Broomhandle Mausers these days.† Oddly enough, Dok‡ wasn't actually doing anything evil, just researching at a local library.

†It had been replaced as a service pistol even by WWII, although some officers (such as him) still had personal ones. As the only confirmed Werwolfes are him and Ms. Rip-Van, we don't know anything about how they're spawned, so for all we know he may have been a soldier for decades before that. Interestingly enough, the powers they are seen to have seem to relate to firearms: Ms. Rip-Van's dancing musket ball and the Hauptsturmführer's ability to make two long-barreled Mausers look like one normal piece when holstered （笑）. (Speaking of extensible barrels, DM had to make a similar excuse so that typical slugthrower rifles (exemplified by the Czerka Adventurer) can double as BAW E-5 Droid Blaster Carbines due to the changes he's made to the plot.) Tangentially, I'm also amused by the fact that humans like Walter can chop up people with mono-wire, while vampires (there's one who shows up later on, not to spoil anything by saying where) can chop up skyscrapers. There's also the fact that Walter is a gunsmith, yet he fights exclusively with mono-wire. (I've thought of a logical reason for that, but that's ( a spoiler for Book 9. ))

Admittedly, there are Mauser variants chambered in modern calibers, so his work might not be identifiable by the ammo and brass left at the scene if he uses one of those. However, each firearm has a distinct pattern of marks that it leaves on each bullet from the rifling in the barrel. I think I may have heard that it's possible to determine the model as well, but I failed to find confirmation on that; still, they would be able to tell that all of the rounds came from the same two weapons, making it easier to link it to a specific person.

‡Since they're German, I assumed it was an abbreviation of the German word. I don't know whether they use such an affectionate term in German, but I don't imagine Hirano does either. (The dwarf is known as "Chef.") Using German words can lead to some odd things; this one is the same as an Ork word, and "Death Korps" is a bit of a false friend. . . .

As was the case with Spanish back when I thought I knew it, I'm planning also to publish official Japanese versions of my projects. (Of course, as I've noted here, my first one might be a bit heavy on the English even in the Japanese version.) I'm far from fluent, of course, but this way I can provide translations that are much truer to the author's intent than most. The expanded exposure this should provide would also give me a chance to come into contact with people who are fluent, which means I could have a chance to actually learn the language, and perhaps impose on someone to correct my work. (I think I'd have more trouble bothering to make the rest of the appropriate site bilingual to cater to these people.)

Another thing that I've pondered at times is that, since I'm going to have to learn to draw anyway, it would be really nifty if someday I could get one of my works published in my belovèd YuriHime S (not the main Comic YuriHime, as I don't imagine I'll ever manage to write works appropriately feminine or comedic for there—with Ms.? Natsuneko's work there, I might have hope, but it's nothing compared to Picard's, as I'll note later). If I did manage to achieve widespread popularity as noted above, they might let me do it cold turkey, but the more likely way is through the Ichijinsha Comic Taishō （「大正」ではなくて「大賞」） or other yomi-kiri (the comic equivalent of a pilot episode). The problem with that is that, as I've no doubt mentioned before, I don't think of many good one-shot ideas lately, as I'm so absorbed in crafting intricate webs of full-sized projects. (Even Project Cow Level, which was pre-planned to be a short, simple "practice" project, is expected to run to about one graphic novel's worth.)

And yet, oddly enough, I happened to think of an interesting one-shot idea yesterday. Although it relies on a lot of tropes, it has a major setting element that I haven't seen used for this before, and unlike some, the premise is distinctly yuri, not just a romance that happens to be between two ladies. (Oddly enough, the unusual setting for a yuri story may have caused me to have a dream last night about sleeping with a man (don't remember for sure). If so, at least I was the seme. . . .) Of course, as a short story, it doesn't have much to reveal without actually writing it, and I'd rather keep the good parts to myself just to avoid anyone else stealing them. (Yes, that's my delusions of grandeur talking again.)

If this somehow did come to pass, there's the problem that the format only allows 400 characters of commentary, much less than I'd normally use. I'd probably put most of it (and the official English translation) on the Web as a supplement to the published part, as Ms. Miyahara does. For the actual printed version, I'm thinking the essentials are along the lines of 「男で申し訳御座いません。いつか必ずレディーにもよろこんで頂けるまんがを描ける様になりますから、今は違った味でがまんして下さいませな。」 (although I haven't bothered to boot up Word to get a character count).

The "chigatta aji" bit overlaps with the question of how predisposed these Japanese folks will be to publishing stuff by some American git. I can't do much about that, but I might consider working in a more Japanese style than my own. For some reason, it seems to be coming out with a larger-than-usual proportion of pseudo-comical elements despite the fact that I don't have a sense of humor (perhaps to make up for the fact that romance is an alien concept to me), so it'll be an outlier in my portfolio in more ways than one (hey, more dovetailing with the post subject).

By the way, in the excessively megalomaniacal mōsō situation that I actually got to do a serial, Project AnthraXX seems at this point as if it would actually be palatable. Of course, it would be helluva Webcomic time in a quarterly mook. . . .

AZUMANGA is torrented. I'd download it myself while I had the chance, but I don't have enough disk space or a DVD-ROM burner. (There is, on the other hand, a DV-R, which we unsurprisingly never use.) Obviously, the category is incorrect, so it may not even be actual raws either, but whatever.

Continuing from before:

1. In a way, I've actually been following the mook for years before it was created. . . .

2. Ms. Hayashiya says that the first edition (?) of the latest dmara CD will contain bonus tracks, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to put one in next month—anyone else want in? Still, I haven't been able to find any information on this on the official site, amazon, or TORANOANA, so I don't know the details. I assume that I just have to buy it before the first production run runs out or something.

Meanwhile, we'll see if I ever get around to posting about the current order either. . . .

And the order's away. In similar news, I may be putting in the next order in May instead of June [July] depending on how the limited edition package for Aoi Shiro looks compared to the price. Hopefully, my exceptionally speedy source will be able to review the special contents before they run out.

Edit (2008.04.07): I've been following this magazine for its full more-than-two-year run, and I still can't remember when the issues come out. Bloody 'ell. It's fixed above.

As if I weren't busy enough with my application and more equipment training, apparently the stress caused my mind to wander, because I suddenly stumbled upon another really stupid coincidence (or Freudian slip?) that I should have noticed long ago. As you know, I have two projects that are set in a setting closely based upon the real world. You may not notice because of the omissions, but there are exactly three native Japanese characters among the many dozens of characters I'm currently developing for those two projects. And all three are lesbians.

「今さら何ほざいてんだてめえ」とは言われそうだから言っておくが・・・*

As noted in the first paragraph of the previous link, I don't write lesbian stories. I write yuri. Judging by the notes I'm keeping in my head, of those many dozens of characters, those are the only three lesbian-identified individuals I have planned. So how the hell did this happen? To tell the truth, in all three cases, I just made them Japanese because of the names I thought up for them. (It's not as much of a coincidence as it might have been, as the two from Project AnthraXX are connected in terms of their background.) As noted in the disclaimers, I don't have any intentions of perpetuating stupid stereotypes (even ones I accidentally made up myself), and I certainly didn't do this on purpose. It just goes to show that I don't pay much of any attention to how my projects end up looking, which means I'm just going to get even more flak as I release any of this stuff. I really need to look more carefully at these things before they are (hypothetically) published.

Meanwhile, as with the other night, I'm putting myself on a slippery slope trying to bring up half-remembered lines off the top of my head and using them as post subtitles. I've read both of those at least half a dozen times, but they're really dipping into the archives; I'm not sure if I've even opened either volume in several months, much less read those chapters. At least one of them I plan to check at some point to corroborate something else I vaguely remembered, so hopefully I'll use that opportunity to correct myself. Being obsessive-compulsive is rather dumb sometimes.

*Yeah, another line that I'm too lazy to try and figure out how to say in English. It's not terribly important to the so-called flow of my blabbing, so those of you who can't read it don't need to feel left out.

Edit (2008.05.03): Fixed vowel length and punctuation in the quote

Just for the hell of it, I feel like typing a bit about the ideas behind my PN.

מיכאל: This one comes, of course, from the name of the angel (one of only two named in the Old and New Testaments). He's often considered to be one of the big shots (as the meaning, "who is like god(?)," suggests), although his common title of "archangel" is second from the bottom in the nine-order hierarchy that's so popular (and used in Ten-Kin, significantly). I also like his common designation as commander of the celestial host, as well as how Ten-Kin and Shiharu Genesis portray her/him as a berserker type, which fits well with me. The spelling is to make it less generic and to differentiate between the common Anglicization that turns it to two syllables, thus blobbing together the two Hebrew words, and the (I believe) more accurate pronunciation. (Interestingly enough, in Japanese, they approximate each pronunciation separately （「マイケル」・「ミカエル」), despite spelling them both with the "ch" in English as everyone else does.)

One of these days I'll actually get around to memorizing how to write it, so I can actually sign things (in theory).

偉闇: In addition to legal names, it appears that Mother's family marks its children with Cantonese given names. This is mine, altered slightly for symbolic purposes. Any of you who know me can probably guess how (even if you don't know Chinese characters, since you can just look them up on Wiktionary). This is another way of making my name not just the same-old same-old, as the other two parts are so generic.

王: Chinese surnames are nothing if not straightforward. Again, you can see the meaning for yourselves. It's also really easy to write.

It is rather odd to have a name that is read partially right-to-left and partially left-to-right, but that doesn't really bother me.