Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

"Your lawyer?"

"His pastor."

( Frank discussion of sexuality )

Also, when I was looking up details for the post subject (as you can see, I couldn't find one of the names, so I kept it from the misquoted source), I happened to read a bunch of complaints about that episode on the site. People were outraged that NBC was willing to depict a fictional Christian sect as extremist fanatics. At least one registered user said that he was going to boycott the show because of it. In the 18th season, you're boycotting a show because of portrayal of guest charas in one episode? Is it so offensive to suggest that it's possible for self-proclaimed Christians to be zealots? (I guess that means that—just like the Holocaust—the Spanish Inquisition, the KKK, and so on are only myths.) But it's all right to have an episode where a Muslim guy beats an ADA within an inch of her life to prevent her from prosecuting the man who raped his sister?

I wouldn't be surprised if it's true that the Bible doesn't specifically state that you must kill those who sleep with Muslims. (Apparently the prophets didn't predict that part. I think Sean was actually talking about how adultery is against one of the Ten Commandments.) As far as I've heard, nor does it specifically say that you have to lynch black guys, or prevent gays from practicing their beliefs, or persecute any other innocents.

On that subject, I was surprised by this (coincidentally, also at NBC, since that was the first hit that seemed to have the more common wording). However, it sounds as if the people who are willing to admit that they're not on the only path are the more casual practitioners, not choir boys and ordained clergy.

Just for the hell of it, I signed this petition since it had freedom of religion mentioned briefly. It's less trouble than typing one's own letter, so perhaps some of you might be interested in helping.

When I first saw this, I assumed from the single star and the color scheme that he was drawing a comparison to other red republics, such as Union of Soviet Socialist and People's of China (in which case I'd point out that communism sounds good to me if it's what it takes to have freedom of religion), but it turns out that it's actually the California state flag. Now I don't see if he's actually saying anything, other than fact. Still, this did lead me to read a couple of other things that I had missed before on the same page (locally):

1. The First Amendment was quoted directly. Other than the fact that it's a crudely written run-on sentence, it brought to my attention the fact that I'm not clear on how the wording works. It says that "Congress shall" not do these things, but does that protect us from laws on regional levels, or regulations for individual institutions (like public schools) as well? Obviously, it should, but there are plenty of people who claim that we should always follow what the Constitution says, regardless of whether it's right or wrong.

2. Good point. It's important to be able to see who the bigots are.

On the original topic again, I noticed something not quite accurate about Ms. Morishima's comments in her first Yuri-Yuri Kembunroku about YURICON, where she was excited thinking "if ○○ and ×× went to America, they could get married!?" or some such. The problem is that such a marriage would only be valid in the place where it's legalized. According to my research, the only place where they say it's valid globally is Canada, and I don't see what difference it makes, since it would be odd if a place where it was illegal would recognize marriages granted by some other country. Of course, the point is rather moot, since Ms. Morishima is (as usual) talking about yuri; fictional characters don't need real-life legal status. I can only assume that no First-World country will stop you from having ceremonies and vows, although some people there will grumble about them.

It was somewhat ironic that the two letters to the editor that were printed in the hard copy of the J&C for the 1st (the two at the bottom here) were both in praise of bigotry because Jesus says so (?). I decided to hurry up and type this one once I found out that they actually don't allow you to view articles for free after a week has passed (thus showing that my job isn't quite as pointless as I thought). This factor means that I have no way of looking up exactly the context of the latter letter, but the former provides much material for me.

( For reference purposes )

Admittedly, the writer is not hateful in any way, and in a way, this makes it even more disturbing. She believes that she is right, and that her policies are for the good of the people involved. She doesn't say anything about religion, instead citing that it's "unnatural" and that the solution is to develop new artificial drugs to make the "patients" natural again, and that it is the right way of the world to be horrified and devastated when someone you know turns out to be gay. However, her assertion that something outside the norm is unnatural makes it difficult for me to think that she believes in evolution, which narrows the field somewhat. (I just heard on TV a few hours ago that 39% of Americans surveyed claimed to be Creationists, and that was somewhat disconcerting to me.)

These beliefs that you are right based on faith are a sticky subject. By definition, you believe that your beliefs are correct, and in the case of many Christian denominations, that means you believe that anyone who disagrees is going to hell unless you save her. This means that it is only morally right to make other beliefs illegal. The remark about usurping the Constitution above is related to the popular opinion that the Founding Fathers only intended freedom of religion to include Christianity (despite many of them being Deists), a claim that is obviously impossible to prove either way at this point. Personally, I believe that rights apply to everyone except those who harm others, not just those who are believed to be harming others by certain people, and that if the letter of the Declaration and Constitution doesn't mean that (which I think it does), it should be amended so.

Another difficult question is the problem of how people come to have faith in the first place. By definition, it cannot be based on any physical evidence, which is also the argument against attempts to disprove religion. Consequently, the primary way people develop their beliefs is through what they experience, mostly through following what they're told by the people they respect during their developmental years. I'm not a scientist, so if I had been born one generation earlier on my father's side, I would probably be a Christian. My staunch atheism is based perhaps entirely on the fact that I was raised among people who relied on physical logic rather than spiritual things. This has of course been a problem ever since the first two religions encountered each other, so unsurprisingly, I don't have a solution for it just yet.

I also take issue with the assertion that an individual's coming out will always destroy those close to her. I can't see why this would be the case except if the kith and kin in question believe there is something wrong with it, which many do not. This thus ends up being another claim that other beliefs are wrong. I know I can't say much from personal experience, but in my narrow-diametered circle of acquaintances, I have seen half a dozen homes wrecked, including my own. In all but one case, this was because the straight man of the house had a different idea of fidelity than anyone else. (People weren't too straightforward about the exception, but I gather that it was already a same-sex couple.) I think that denying and suppressing what one is only leads to things getting worse, as I imagine is much of the problem with all those Catholic priests and Ms. Winfrey's school in South Africa.

As I've had in my notes for many moons and never gotten around to fleshing out into a post, it would really be nice if I could find a secular state somewhere to live. I know that wouldn't solve anyone else's problems, but at least I wouldn't have to deal with them. That's my answer to most of life, after all.

On a somewhat darker (or at least neutral) note, Ms. mizuno_youko just posted an interesting link.

The other two were a broken link and one I'd already done, so, while I'm at it, I may as well post this one as well. For those who weren't already on the 13-name list to whom I chained the email, this is my vain attempt to kill all the world's rapists on Saturday.

( Result spoilers )

For some reason, my brother has become curious about gaming again recently, so I had him send me a link to some memes he'd found so I could take them (as usual). Remember, I'm neutral evil and have ability scores as noted.

The first one is rather interesting, as the descriptions of alignment are almost identical to those used in D&D v.3.5 (the only current major RPG that uses such a system), except that the words "moral" and "ethical" are reversed. It also appears that it may use the real-world definition of "sentient" rather than the galaxy-far-far-away version.

"You are 55.6% Good.
You are 25.6% Lawful.
Alignment: Neutral Good

You do the best good that a person could be expected to do. You are devoted to helping others. You are willing to work with authority figures, but you do not feel any particular allegiance to them.

You are the stereotypical “Benefactor.” You believe in doing good without any particular bias for or against order.

Examples of characters[ ]and people who fit into the same alignment as you include Mother Theresa, Ghand[h]i, Gandalf, Indiana Jones, O-B[b]i-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, and the Dalai Lama.

Description[s] of alignments are adapted from the Revised (v[.]3.5) System Reference Document, and are presented in accordance with the Open Gaming License v1.0a."

Unusually enough for me, Project Cow Level has no sex in it, as I didn't have any interest in having such content in a story about tauren and dwarves. While I'm at it, I'm considering keeping the violence to (MPAA) PG as well. That may be difficult for one of my adventure-based (type B) projects, but we'll see.

Meanwhile, as I've mentioned before, Projects Umbra and Homuncupunk are coming to have more and more sex, while Project AnthraXX is coming to have more and more story, thus blurring the gap between A and B. Consequently, AnthraXX is probably the most ready of my original projects, owing primarily to the fact that its setting is heavily based on the real world, thus preventing me from needing to create mecha designs from scratch. Of course, it's still quite controversial, but at least there's plot to thin out the sex and I don't portray YHWH in quite such a bad light. I also think that the witches' and demons' subplot doesn't overpower the main story about the protagonist and heroine, but it's still tangential enough that I haven't completely thrown out the idea of making it a separate project.

In other previews, I've thought about vague subtitles for the three story arcs of Project Homuncupunk:

Part One: The Bounty Hunter
Part Two: The Prodigal Son
Part Three: The Emissary

I chopped the first two down to one word each for better parallelism. The subtitles reflect Jūzaburō's role in the story. ("So, what's with the second one if he turns coat at the beginning?" you might ask. Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?) Riku's backstory relates mostly to the first story arc, but the second half of it has a spoiler for something in the middle of "The Hunter," so where I include that will depend on how long each volume runs. I'm also not quite sure about the wording for the third part (and can't explain without spoiling it), but there's plenty of time to think about that.

I'm thinking of also making Project AnthraXX in three parts, corresponding with the three trimesters of Ms. Brown's freshman year. These would likely be short enough that one volume of the hard copies could be devoted to each, with one extra story as an extra for each. I don't have subtitles for the trimesters, as I don't know quite where the breaks will be, but the first two extras are currently known as "Time-Gilded Paradise Lost" and "The Dark of Gomorrah"; I'm not so sure about the third, as it doesn't really seem to add anything to the series.

Japan has almost no devoutly religious people, but they love ceremonies, so they take the best holidays from wherever they can get them (mostly Shintō, Zen, and Catholicism). One example that I find amusing is that they go to Shintō shrines to celebrate the Chinese zodiac's changing of the guard on the Gregorian New Year. Of course, I don't follow any of those, so I'm more interested in entertaining traditions such as the hatsu-yume. For those of you who didn't watch AZUMANGA, there's apparently something significant about a dream that you remember on the night of the new year, often something to do with hawks and eggplants.

I was reminded of this by the extra booklet included with the January issue (despite amazon's numbering scheme) of Comic YuriHime, which included a lot of supernumerary stories with new-year themes. (The previous issues of it and S haven't arrived yet, so I decided to save those for later, but I'm not buying Wildrose, so I read the ones related to that. Only one of them had sex in it.) Unfortunately, I hadn't remembered at the actual time, so I've missed it this year as well. The night after Chinese New Year, I just had something about a bunch of humans traveling to an arboreal land of monsters.

Meanwhile, another benefit of this, as well as the fact that they don't have this weird Western idea that comics are supposed to be commentary on real life, is that they can write stories were organized religion is the bad guys without getting in trouble. Oddly, I don't seem to remember many that would be well known on this side of the pond, just FINAL FANTASY TACTICS and ~X, but my bookcase alone has a good half-dozen or so.

My readership appears to be at an all-time high (apparently at least two regulars!), but I've accumulated quite a lot of stuff during its absence, to say nothing of my sloth and the fact that I've built up a lot of new things due to year's-end-and-beginning splurging. So, I'd like to see if you have any requests or suggestions. What I've got in the works is as follows:

( Ridiculously long notes )

On the twelfth day of Christmas, archlords sent to me...

Twelve ladybronwyns drumming

Eleven comics piping

Ten ethics a-leaping

Nine shadows dancing

Eight wargames a-milking

Seven cats a-swimming

Six headbutts a-teetotaling

Five bu-u-u-usiness suits

Four video games

Three cryptic interests

Two long coats

...and a cyberpunk in a fantasy.

Get your own Twelve Days:

Hmm, I must have a lot more interests and less friends than aseop_ does—as if I didn't know that already.

In 2008, archlords resolves to...

Drink four glasses of night every day.
Give up long coats.
Ask my boss for a honor.
Overcome my secret fear of business suits.
Connect with my inner logic.
Go to the comics every month.

Get your own New Year's Resolutions:

As you can see, it's based on interests and friends, and doesn't know whether a word is pronounced starting with a vowel or a consonant sound.

Superhero Team Quiz LiveJournal Username Your Primary Super Power Energy Control (ex. Fire, Cold, Electricity, etc)High Tech Devices / ArmorIntangibilityKung FuMagicMatter Manipulation/TransmutationProbability Control/ LuckPsionics(Mental Powers)Shape shiftingSuper Human Intellect/DeductionSuper SpeedSuperhuman Physical AbilityTantric YogaWeather ControlZapping (eye beams, sonic scream, etc) Cape? CapeHalf CapeCape AND Cowl/HoodFeather BoaNO CAPES!! Identitiy Public, my real identity is commonly known.I have no identity other than my superheroic one.I keep my real identity hidden from most.No one but I knows my real identity. Origin Accident Involving Blowup DollAlien Abduction/ExperimentationAlien HeredityBitten by Radioactive CreatureBlessed by / Champion of Divine Power(s)Constructed (Robot, Replicant, etc)CursedGovernment/Military ProjectGranted Item/Weapon of Cosmic PowerIntense TrainingMassive Amounts of Lethal RadiationMutantSelf ExperimentationSheer Inner Badass NatureToxic Chemical AccidentYou’re just that wealthy/influential Location of Head Quarters “School” For the GiftedArtificial IslandCrystalline Fortress in the ArcticFashionable Hair SalonFloating CitadelGovernment FacilityHippie Co-OpMoonbaseNight ClubNo permanent HQ, We’re organized in cellsOrbiting SatelliteOstentatious Complex DowntownRefurbished House or BrownstoneRental in a Trailer ParkSecret CaveStarshipTempleUndersea ComplexYour Mom’s Basement Primary Costume/Uniform Colors Why are you a Superhero? BoredCommanded/Ordained by the DivineDestinyDutyFlip of the CoinI can get away with beating people upI can get away with wearing this outfitI get sooo much tail being a SuperheroI prefer ‘Vigilante’I’m paid a sh*tload of cashIt beats the hell out of Tech SupportIt’s my fetishIt’s my way of defying my dark destinyIt’s the right thing to doMerchandizingMy deeply messed up backgroundMy friends wouldn’t go for being villainsSuperhero? I’m a spy for the badguys!With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility Your Superheroic Codename The veteran grim member of the team caelia The sexist and crass but annoyingly effective one yimbly The bright-eyed novice or sidekick caelia The teammate that will eventually go evil or insan arifyn The inept yet determined/reoccurring supervillain mizuno_youko The sinister Arch-Villain and team's greatest foe dmmaus The perky civilian that keeps getting kidnapped blitzcon How often does your team actually 'save the day'? 91% This Fun Quiz created by Shannon at BlogQuiz.Net

Weight Loss Tips and Diet Advice from WeightLossTips.TV

This one had so many choices, there were some where I actually had more than one good one. For instance, as some of you may remember, the Fortress of Perpetual Midnight is also an orbiting satellite (is there any other kind of satellite?), but since it's down in the atmosphere, I chose "Floating Citadel" instead.

I also find it amusing that both of the supervillains were among the three people on my friends list whom I've never met, and none of the others were. Also, Ms. caelia seems to have a dual personality.

This time I had a small batch, so I'm trying to drop them all down here before I get the next one and end up being distracted again. But if I always use the same number of items for good luck, why is this one smaller than usual?

説明しよう！†

I did indeed pick 13 items in my original order. However, due to the fact that the release of one of the items kept being postponed, I had a chance to trim out some mistakes I had made: one that I had bought elsewhere (and posted kansō here‡), one that I had accidentally put in the cart twice and ordered elsewhere, and one where my suspicions were confirmed, resulting in its removal as per my policy. When I heard that Yuri Michelin (?) was pushed back again to February, I finally gave up on having it in this order, so the survivors finally shipped.

Anyway, the actual kansō:

「Comic YuriHime VOL.9」 (Anthology): I don't remember too much of these, no doubt due to the difficulty of keeping track of multiple series with multi-month gaps in-between episodes. Nonetheless, it's all good. (Actually, I haven't gotten around to reading the solid blocks of text yet. I'm somewhat curious about an entire article on the Himitsu no Kaidan series, which I found very disappointing from a yuri standpoint—but, then again, I'm a man.) I found it amusing that, unlike Ms. Kiryū, Futami saw the good side of not being blood-related to one's sibling. There's also a second one-shot from the person who did the one about the yakuza heiress earlier. Apparently she/he likes "bad girl" protagonists—and sex, although the latter is pretty ubiquitous in this mook lately.

「MY OTOME Zwei」 (Higuchi Tatsuto/Abeno Chaco): Fortunately, this one follows the chronology from the Ein animation rather than the comics (although there is an allusion to the latter), yet has just as much nudity as Yoshino/Satō's works. (Incidentally, I can't seem to find that post on one of my sources that describes exactly how much you see of which characters in Episode 3.) The chief things I like about it over the OVAs are the increased focus on the relationships between Ms. Kruger and Ms. Viola (although still not much) and Ms. Chrysant and Ms. Armitage (the latter because the author admits that she's her? favorite character), and the complete lack of appearance from Ms. Marguerite (which is better than seeing the depths to which she'd sunk in the show).

「Gakuen Utopia MANABI STRAIGHT! Massugu Go!! Amamiya Manami 3A NO.45526 SEIOH GAKUEN 1」 (ufotable/Tartan Check): The title refers to the punch visible on the cover, which is one of Ms. Amamiya's trademarks. In any case, the primary heroine is quite cheerful and provides lots of skinship, mostly with the secondary heroine; there's some hint of admiration for a character who shows up later on, as well. A standard sports lady and an assiduous tsun-dere (hmm, seem to remember one just like that from Na*na*ki!) round out the cast. I have some difficulty telling the four heroines apart visually, as they're all the same size and shape, and all have short hair other than the fourth.

「Shiharu Genesis 1」 (Kondō Rururu): There are plenty of stories about reincarnation of demons, but it's unusual to use that as a premise for a honobono girls' school life comedy. . . . Like X and Ten-Kin, this follows the 1999-based chronology, but in this case, that's only the birth of the Devil, so it's set in the near future, before her awakening (thus avoiding the continuity problem the other two had, in that they were not finished by the time 1999 passed and the world didn't end). You may notice that I said "she," which fits in with my description of the series in the first sentence. It's not clearly stated, but I assume that this follows the standard in Japanese secular sources that demons (and possibly angels) do have gender, so this would probably fall under the heading of "transexual yuri"—although in a fantastic manner, like KA・SHI・MA・SHI. Anyway, it's mostly about the friendship between the two major heroines, but there are hints that Lilith is looking for a bit more (unsurprisingly, considering that she's often described as the bride of Satan, despite the fact that she is also commonly called the first human woman). Stating the presence of any given reincarnatee is not much of a spoiler, as all are identified by their names (e.g. ルシファー → るしはあ → しはる).

Speaking of names, this work also follows the Japanese convention of "Lucifer" being the demon name of the Enemy, as compared to his Latin angel name. In Ten-Kin and DEVIL & DEVIL, his angel name was Lucifel, a fabrication using the Hebrew "el," which is found in many angel and human names. In the former, "Satan" is a title applied to his seven lieutenants (and not him), while the latter has "Satan" as the hereditary title for the ruler of hell.

Like CHRNO CRUSADE and Project AnthraXX, a running gag is that the chief demon is actually a very nice person. And like Ten-Kin, there is also an angel who is reincarnated in parallel to the fallen—although this time they reversed the missed opportunity by making them both ladies. Personally, I'm glad I wasn't actually reincarnated as a Japanese lady in 1999. I appear to be the most popular angel in Japanese media; in Earthian, DEVIL & DEVIL, and this, it looks like I'm the only one taken from Abrahamic scriptures and apocrypha. At least in this and Ten-Kin, I get to fight, instead of being in what appears to be a purely administrative post. . . .

「Neko Mokoro 1」 (Otokasa Aki): Another one set in a magic school for ladies, although this one is in some sort of space opera setting. The heroine's feelings originate in the fact that the object was the first other person she ever saw who looked human, but she remains loyal even after meeting various other beauties. An amusing running gag is that, although the heroine spends most of the first volume only being able to see her admiree from afar, she has many fantasies about what would happen when they meet, all following the same pattern, including that what they're doing towards the end of the dream is always censored (or perhaps left to the reader's imagination, but I like the sound of the first one better). The heroine's reaction when they finally do meet face to face is also quite nice. Of course, it's hard to say they have good prospects for a relationship if they don't even know one another, but I'm confident (as is the cover to Volume 2). Incidentally, this series is also the first I've seen to portray the difficulties of mermaids living on land.

「PENGUINMUSUME 1」 (Takahashi Tetsu): On the inside pages, this is called "PENGUINGIRL 14," where the "14" means (numerically, not phonetically) the same thing as in 14; the exploitative nature and the overly developed figures of the two chief heroines are other parallels. Sadly, this one loses out in the key point, as the athletic lady and her suitor (suitress?) are Heroines #2 and #5 rather than #1 and #2, and the former doesn't seem to have a huge following of underclass fans. (I told you the "boku" was an important selling point!) Still, there are several good prospects—I think the hime-sama dakko was a nice touch. (Incidentally, that's the one point that punk Zidane wins over Squall. It might have something to do that Ms. Til Alexandros was actually a real princess, though.) Heroine #1 has been related to the term 「ミーハー」, but unlike Ms. Kuremi, she's interested in men, too. Heroine #2 also knows a hunk when she sees one, but then again, so did Meg (too lazy to look up her surname).

Other points of interest include the fact that, for some reason, the ladies' uniform has a slit skirt with a fake petticoat doohickey. Meanwhile (not much of a spoiler), like in Ruro-Ken and Iono the fanatics, the drag queen guest (hopefully)-chara feels the need to show concrete proof. (Is it a coincidence that all of these were written and drawn by men?) Also, the Japanese heiress has a head butler named "Sebastian" (contrary to most old geezer butlers I've seen, who are called "Jī" or "Jīya" by their masters), while the American? one ("Marie Chupacabra W. Whitebear" sounds quite multicultural, but since the "W." is pronounced "Double-U," English has as many points as French and Spanish put together, and we all know how English speakers love giving their kids names from other languages, as anyone who knows my family can attest) has a head maid named "Maguro." Takahashi beat me to the punch with his badass eyepatched maid, but her personality is completely different from mine's, and the world still has room for plenty of gantai moe. There's also the same misunderstanding about the term 「メイド」 as in HAYA-BLA, but this time it's because she's Chinese, not because she's had an unusual upbringing.

「Kyōkan Astro 1」 (BannoNegi): From the title, I thought this was going to be set on an educational starship or something, but apparently the "ASTRO" is just the name of the athletics wear company that the main heroine patronizes. (I haven't the foggiest idea where they got the 「艦」.) Anyway, this is something of an unusual series, as it's set in a high school, yet the main characters are the teachers. (There was a student with good taste and a name who appeared, but only for one strip. Perhaps she was hospitalized after the heroine's hug.) Still, they are mostly in their 20s, as is to be expected from a society where female sex appeal is supposed to peak in the teens or earlier and ladies are ostracized for not marrying and retiring by the age of 25.

Anyway, the chief heroine inadvertently provides a lot of good scenes, mostly with the other who fell for her on the third page, but also with the other two main heroines and several lesser characters. (The story starts out focusing on a small group of individuals, but later adds some others, likely when it was clear that the serial was going to continue. Kubo did a similar thing with BLEACH, I imagine due to the fact that he wasn't told until the last chapter that his previous series was being cut.) I believe that falls under the heading of "tennen." The other characters are disappointing, but on the whole, I think this is my favorite of the new ones.

「HAYATE CROSS BLADE DRAMA CD Vol.2」 (Hayashiya Shizuru): Since this one has audio, I haven't gotten around to listening to it yet, but I do notice that they've skipped ahead to the Gakuensai part. Obviously they don't have the demand to adapt the entire series, so they're just doing the favorites.

Conclusion: Apparently the loss of luck wasn't terribly significant, as these are all worthy of continuing to read (with the exception of the one that was only one volume).

P.S. I was going to discuss a few new vocab words from this batch, but I've already spent my computer sessions for three days typing this, so I'll follow that up later. So much to type, so little time and readership . . .

†I first remember hearing this element used by Seki Tomokazu (played by Seki Tomokazu) in Love Pheromone (half of Love-Ge), but I can only assume it's more prevalent in pop culture than I've noticed. It's also used commonly in PENGUINMUSUME.

‡I know that you can't access this if you're not a member of daily_yuri. However, if you actually care, it's no trouble to join. You don't even have to have it on your friends page. The only risk I see is that someone might see your membership on your userinfo and think you're weird. You can also join whenever you want to read a post, then immediately quit again when you're done.