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.

1. You get three strikes, but you're not out. What do you call this phenomenon?


2. What size is the engine in this kart?




3. THE SIMPSONS : FUTURAMA :: LEGO : LEGO

In what way?


4. What fictional character seems to have a penchant for four-letter words that begin with "lan"?

I was playing a game starring Mario, Luigi, and Koopa, set in a house that was much too big for them (like the stage in SUPER MARIO LAND 2, only 3-D). Bowser [Koopa]'s goal was apparently to jump up and down on tables to punch holes in them so they'd sink. A female player or character also questioned why Luigi, despite being the younger brother, had a larger and bushier mustache.

I was Sano from Ruro-Ken, and I was staying at a modern gym for training. For some reason, I couldn't find the men's locker room, until I realized that it was one of the places through which I'd rampaged looking for it.

Edit (2008.06.25): Apparently old habits die hard. I haven't been interested in such video games since before I grew a brain, after all. I don't know where they would've gotten the idea to give a generic dog name to a turtle—perhaps he's supposed to be a rock star (as his courses' BGMs in MARIO KART games suggest). Of course, even in countries where they voice the "é" as in the original French, it wouldn't be that way, but we all know that American translators are crazy Germans.

Edit (2008.06.26): Maybe it wasn't all because of that crazy American video game I bought from arifyn; this may also have contributed.

What cartoon character greets people two-thirds as enthusiastically as Fat Albert?

PayPal™ just informed me that my account has been hacked. I've been pooh-poohing the CMs (see subject line) because I didn't think such a thing was too dangerous since you can see any transactions on your bank statement. I also didn't expect the perpetrator would be stupid enough to buy something from somewhere that sends you automatic email confirmation. Still, the fact that I don't seem to have any way of prosecuting the culprit or getting my money back is somewhat irksome.

In the American version of BRAIN AGE², one of Ryūta's (I'm on first-name basis with him just so I can use an accent mark) suggestions for keeping your mind sharp is to imagine fictional objects. His example is a "cat ladder," and he asks, "Was it furry?" Apparently, in the case of someone at Privateer Press, it was not.

Fortunately, I managed to find my MARIO KARTridge. Unfortunately, I was munching on my old Skaven miniatures.

It's too bad I lost that Game Pak; it's pretty pointless, but can be entertaining (more so than METROID) for a moment every once in a while. I probably wouldn't have lost it if the purpose-made DS case had a place to put DS cartridges in it. . . .

They were going to visit the mystical hermit, who lived in the forest just beyond the chain-link fence at the edge of the abandoned playground. Fortunately, he was willing to meet them halfway, but he didn't look particularly mystical in the synthetic-material winter jacket. He also spotted me spying on them from above.

For some reason, when I fly, I can hover just fine, but when I move I have to swoop, like the annoying cape-flying in SUPER MARIO WORLD. Apparently that's the wrong kind, which explains why I haven't manifested dragon disciple powers (or even sorcery) so far.

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.

I was Martin the Warrior, and on my travels, I had come to Paris, where I was fighting against Insp. Richard. (Apparently, he had managed to kill off Liu, so I was the best we had left.) Sadly, Paris is a big place for a mouse, no matter how heroic, so I had to get around town by going through internal spaces such as air ducts, which for some reason appeared as MARIO-64-like dungeons requiring jumping from platform to platform. After spending quite a long time on this, I was somewhat chagrined to find that my destination building was actually right next door to the one where I started. In any case, I defeated my enemy in an anticlimactic off-screen battle, and then realized that the last chapter didn't require a wedding or re-coronation (the wrong word, I know) of the Abbot because the story didn't take place anywhere near the Abbey.

JEOPARDY! often has category titles that play off titles or quotes from other things yet have nothing to do with them. In an example from last night's episode, "THE 'L' WORLD" was a category about things that start with "L."

Apparently the part that I forgot was about his claim that mushrooms did not affect whether or not I could break blocks. He's a young whippersnapper with no respect for the old ways, after all. The night after that was about Lord Carnarvon (or perhaps Indiana Jones) suffering the Curse of King Tut, as well as something about TRANSFORMERS.

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 )