Rin

My two best friends since high school (over a decade! WOW!) are going to get married sometime in the near future once Prop 8 is ground to dust, but they are pretty strapped for cash. Bonnie a.k.a. Madame Dei (check out her DeviantArt here and her website here) is drawing commissions to help raise money and her prices are pretty affordable (Pricing Guide) and any little bit will help them. Her professional work includes illustrations for Krewe of Harpocrates, a budding tabletop game company and while she does draw a lot of fantasy character and creature illustrations as well as anime and game fanart, she can draw pretty much anything. I can think of no other women who are happier than these two and they deserve to have a great ceremony.

X-posted to fandom_lounge

I’ve started reading a manga called “Hourou Musuko” or “The Wandering Son.” It’s well-written and explores gender identity and sexuality issues in high school in a sensitive manner which I haven’t seen in most literature or film. The main protagonists are a transgendered girl and a transgendered boy.

The thing is I started reading it on Mangafox at first. I was halfway through the archive before I realized that the main protagonist FTM (Takatsuki) was NOT a boy dressing like a girl though still gendered male as I thought (even though I briefly skimmed the manga summary before reading). I initially thought BOTH protagonists were born male. I double-checked Wikipedia and accessed that I was indeed wrong, but looking back at the archive I realized that with good reason (despite a few anvil sized hints) it wasn’t my fault.

A lot of chapters were missing, including volumes one through four. A lot of chapters which concerned the main plot for Takatsuki were missing and I believe it to be deliberate on someone’s part, primarily from the first half of the manga which would have made this clearer. I started reading it over at Mangareader.net which had a more complete archive. It should have been clear from the get go. In addition, the ones up on Mangafox portray two other female characters named Chiba (a girl who likes Shuichi, MTF character, but dislikes Takatsuki and is a bit cold-hearted and mean at times) and Maho (Shuichi’s sister who is disgusted by his cross-dressing and is mean to him on occasion) in a very unflattering light, though these characters are not always cruel or unsupportive as rereading a fuller archive has shown me. The ones that are up focus on Shuichi’s independent and main plot points entirely. Some chapters which concern Takatsuki’s independent plot ARE there, but not many. I could probably count them on one hand. The ones that concern Chiba’s are, but it seems clearly because they relate to Shuichi’s and due to shipping.

I don’t know who did this, but I am very, very disheartened and upset about the intentional misogynist and transphobia. Whoever is removing the chapters or not uploading them intentionally is OKAY with Shuichi’s exploration of her sexuality and her gender because she was born male, but not of Takatsuki’s self-exploration and it disgusts me. However, anime fandom is not without people who have LGBTphobia, are misogynists and have other isms and I already knew that.

This manga is INCREDIBLE. Even if you aren’t into manga, it is worth a read. I’m aware there is an anime series, but I’m a manga reader at heart and haven’t decided if I will watch it yet. I’ve barely begun to reread and I’ll update if I notice any other major things were left out at Mangafox. Apologies in advance if I have mussed terminology or pronouns anywhere.

ETA: And I got linked on animanga_news. Never been meta before. :)

I had an especially bad day yesterday. We went to a live tree farm to choose our Holiday tree for this year. My dad was in a VERY bad mood because we went going late and rushed choosing it. He was snappy when I asked how much he wanted the tree to cost because he thought I was acting like a car salesman. I was annoyed by this so I wandered off and they chose the tree without letting me look at it. This was supposed to be a family activity and I was the one looking most forward to it.

On the flip-side, I discovered Metalocalypse and I love it. Toki is seriously me in man form. I have a fuzzy exterior and rage like you wouldn't believe when crossed or triggered. Most people don't see this side.

I'm reading Jane Eyre again. I love Jane. She is such a bad ass and I wish that one day I can be like her. I discovered this book during a period when I had just started therapy and had a lot of problems with social anxiety. I discovered I was bipolar. I also was then a budding feminist and feeling a bit alienated over the fact that I hadn't read many women authors or artists as I had never been introduced to them during my schooling before college.

"Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags"
- Charlotte Brontë,Jane Eyre, Chapter 12

This passage means a lot to me and I tear up when I read it and other parts of the book still. It's one of the reasons I refer to this book as my "Band Aid book." How fucking awesome is this character. There's another film adaptation coming out in February. I'm a little anxious over that, but I hope its good.

I saw Deathly Hallows today!

( omgsogood )

I watched part of his "The Lion King" review which consisted of "I HATE SIMBA! I WAS NEVER THAT SPOILED." And now I watched his "Spirited Away" review. And all I can say is:

Fuck you.

( IT IS NOT YOUR CULTURE AND I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH F-WORDS )

At the "Mummies of the World" exhibit at The California Science Center last Sunday:

Friend and Me: *stare at a male Egyptian mummy who is intact then look at each other giggling*
Woman standing next to us: I guess you're thinking the same question I am. *giggle*
Me: What...Oh...OH! Yeah! Well, he had to have been!

Later:
Me: Imagine if you were a little girl going through this exhibit and that was the first one you ever saw.
Friend: D:


And last night, Steven Colbert was talking about how King Tut's got stolen in the 1960's. Coincidence? I think not!

I went up state to visit my grandma and aunt this weekend. Went to Fort Funston to walk my aunt's dog, vintage shopping at Haight and Ashbury, had a beer at the Beach Chalet Brewery, and had some Cuban food and tried pupusas in the Mission District where my aunt lives. When we were coming out of San Francisco on Sunday, we saw the crime scene and back up caused by this.

We then went to Lodi and saw my grandmother. I went through old photo albums as dad set up her wireless. The drive back today was hell, but it was a good trip.

Meme from meme via lab

How many songs total: 1661
Most recently played: Why Was I Born?" sung by Ella Fitzgerald
Most played: "Goodnight Moon (Remix)" sung by Shivaree -- This was my old room mate's fault. He didn't understand that my computer was my computer and would listen to this song on repeat while drunk. I'm surprised I haven't deleted it off yet.
Most recently added: Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More album and The Black Angels' Directions to See a Ghost and Passover albums

Sort by song title:
First Song: "AA XXX" by Peaches
Last Song: "99 Red Balloons" by Nena-- I've tried to find the German version off iTunes but WTF that isn't available for download?!

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: "Her Majesty" by The Beatles-- 24 seconds
Longest Song: "Carmen (F)" by George Bizet which is 2:24:00 long and technically the whole opera on file, so longest actual song is "Call to Arms" by The Black Angels (18:06)

Sort by album:
First album: Abbey Road by The Beatles
Last album: 20th Century Masters: The Millenium Collection- The Best of Billie Holiday

Sort by Artist:
First artist: A-ha!
Last artist: 3OH!3 -- Don't look at me! I have a weird taste in bad pop music!

First song that comes up on Shuffle: "I've Got Love to Keep Me Warm" sung by Billie Holiday-- Ella and Billie came up first and last and each covered BOTH songs. Weird, iTunes.

I went swing dancing tonight and I danced with a guy who was a marvelous swing dancer and looked JUST LIKE Tony Stark! RDJ. And he sang and smiled while he danced. :D

Also, BLUES BROTHERS IS ON!

I've been playing Cinderella all month, cleaning the downstairs and my room of twenty year old clutter and dust. I found some of my old poetry which is four years old and younger. Some of it's good. Most of it is emo, especially the stuff from high school. There's even some that are translated in Japanese when I could still write and read Japanese quite well.

I want to get back into writing. I'm out of school. I have the time now. I've never really been able to write anything more than two chapters or a short story in length. I'd really like to do a longer project, but I don't seem very good at planning things out or I get ideas for scenes I want to happen, but there are plenty of holes which I don't know how to fill up. I finished college. I want to prove to myself that I can finish something outside of college on my own. I know I'm good at writing, its just the momentum I have trouble with.

A year ago, I did plan out a story which I hoped I could turn into a novel, but now I'm a bit perturbed by the fact that it does involve vampires-- nasty ones, not the glittering type. Now I have an idea for something folklore based, but I don't know if I'll go in that direction.

ETA: Now that I think about it, I do write everyday with my rp partner on AIM, but its a little different writing your own original stuff.