It's my birthday today.

I chose this day to spend 24 hours on a bus heading to Idaho.

Sometimes I wonder....

Umm so I was moving out, and there was this guy who stopped me and we chatted. He was very fem and I made no bones about liking guys. He mentioned hitting on me, I mentioned that I like it when people hit on me. We parted amicably, he said he was sad that we talked so late. 'Wrong friends at the wrong time, you should stick around, just for tonight.' I mentioned it sounded better by the second but that I really did sound like an idea.

He came into my old apartment as I was sweeping with and stated. 'I want to strip off all of your clothes' I didn't say no to this idea.

Come to find out that people could see inside my apartment at night. The entire time. While I was naked. For months. And they had been oogling. Form months. I was intensely flattered. Then there was hot sweaty making out between men. I was rimmed, it was... exquisite.

I think he really REALLY likes me, despite my sex being... broken... which is good. However, he's older, not that I mind, but he's a widower... ish... his husband passed a number of years back. He says I talk like his husband, though he was extremely pleased to learn I was not a vegan. His husand was a philosophy professor... I shouldn't hesitate to mention I play one of those on taps.

He's cute and sweet, and... I kinda like him back.

The only issue is is from what I can tell... Imagine you look at this cute guy for months, you develop a fantasy, then at the last possible second it comes true. ~Then~ you find out he's just like your ex-husband who passed, except twenty years younger, addicted to physical fitness, and loves steak. Oh and this time instead of you being the poor one and him being the rich one it's the other way around.

I worry that I'm fulfilling a little too many fantasies all at once and unreasonable expectations might occur.

Current Mood: quixotic

I had a dream last night.

Marvel superheroes in tanks and mecha.

Fantastic Force versus Mecha Nightnare

Shit was so pure and cash.

     SO! I took a break from LJ for just a bit, or should I say it took a break from me. Really the fear and the anxiety combined with how I have learned to channel these things (Rather constructively, it breaks my mental process down into emergency problem solving mode, the only problem being recursive patterns and a tendency to try and brute force my problems away) threw me into an utter black frenzy, mood, not my skin tone.The results are... Interesting.

     I have a full time job now, but they aren't paying me a cent till the middle of next month, that means I have to wait an entire month just to get my first paycheck. This does not save me from losing my appartment, but bodes well for the fututre.The job itself is emminently bearable, though they want to cut my pay after 14 days of working there and have a crap comission system, mostly it's decent because of the people who work there and the music. They play a lot of rock, punk, some metal, and some parody/comedy songs with just enough volume that I can't remember anything after I've left, just that I was there and the day was bearable. You can get lost in a job like that... I could but I need something that will pay better so I'm still looking.

     I have found a new place to live for half of what I am paying here now for rent and a similar reduction in  utilities, howerver this includes air conditioning. It's only about three blocks away from my current location, meaning that I just tack on about 25 minutes (big blocks, you see) to my daily walks to and from work... and shave off a similar ammount from the trip to my FLGS every week I can afford it. Of course I don't have enough money to pay that rent either, hopefully one of my most wonderful people will come through and save me though. *Crosses fingers*

     I have to clean the house today, it's going to pretty much be my only chance... I don't want to deal with any of it really... Ah well.

Tags: surviving insanity

SO. There is this show out new this season, it's called NEEDLESS. That's right, in all capital letters. Everything about this show is Infernokrusher. The OP starts with heavy metal and a nuclear explosion and then ramps up from there taking stops at every visual trope they can think of shoving in our faces at a rapid fire pace like a triple barreled mini-gun to the cacophony of screaming guitar. This is instantly everything I want out of a show, it makes my blood pump faster. The animation style is rough in the OP, somewhere between TTGL and Dead Leaves for style. There are burly protagonists, bouncing tits, yuri schoolgirls, evil mahou shojou, top hats, kung fu fighting, and most of all explosions, tons and tons of explosions. And then the show starts.

And I go buuuu, because as awesome as this is the animation studio got a shit buget and can't animate anything. I rage, I rage hard, because it is so... good... and yet... animation... and it hurts inside. It is Infernokrusher! It uses explosions as an interruption of the viewer! Just when you think BOOOM, and it never lets up.

Why couldn't it have been pretty too? Well at least I'll have TM 8.0.

Tags: geekness

It gave.

I never expected it to but today, after my hot water heater was replaced but not turned on so I had to take a cold shower, after another full day gone mysteriously missing, after spiraling down into depression, after wondering at the psychological impact of being constantly bitten by bugs actually is, after finally understanding that yes, suicide -is- on my list of responses...

It gave.

I realized that yes, I'm more alone than I ever have been in my entire life.

I'm starving myself, malnutrition only barely held off, I couldn't eat too much if I tried right now.

I sleep way too much, this is probably related to the above malnutrition.

I'm not exercising even half as much as I should

I only get out in the sun about three times a week, total

I'm probably killing myself

And then for no reason, I was happy again.

I think though in the end it's because my entire life I've been circling around the fact that the only way to be free is to be in freefall

This is Grace in Gravity, mother fuckers.

Watch me shine.

Tags: surviving insanity

     So I have just completed watching the Shadow Skill television series and I have come to a realization, anime did not exist before the year 2000. Anything labeled 'anime' from before then is either dead to me or 'not really anime'. This is a rather harsh and bitter pill to swallow for someone who has seen their share of Urusei Yatsura, who cut their teeth (or lost their virginity depending on how you want to say it) on the X OVA, and this rules out such classics as Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, and Akira, classics from the halcyon days when anime was about tits and explosions. This also cuts Shadow Skill, both the OVA and the series out of my index. Believe it or not this is a good thing, much as I weep to let them go. In order to put this into perspective I need to give a little background on Shadow Skill and my relationship with it.

     Back in the day when I was younger, before DVDs and the majority of casual internets, I watched all the anime I could find. This was difficult because I was nine (possibly younger) and had no money. I had watched Guyver (fuck yeah, Guyver) thanks to my local video store and had watched the X OVA aaaand I think I had watced Ninja Scroll by then, but that was about it. So one summer I go to my father's house, which is stay up late and play video games watch whatever you want on TV party central. Oh and he had porn comics above the sink I'd kill someone to have scans of now, but I digress. He also had illegal cable, which was all the rage back in the nineties and is so much less feasable these days, and so I got the action channel or actually whatever it was before it became the action channel... Showtime... Maxx? Can't remember.

     Anywho, one night I'm up late and this anime comes on named Shadow Skill. It blows everything else I have seen before out of the water. If I could point to one OVA and say 'That, that right there sealed my lasting love of this medium.' it would be Shadow Skill. The character design wasn't something I had seen before and the martial arts action combined breathtaking fluidity and bone crunching viscerality in the same momment. I was young so I guess I didn't care that the plot was disjointed? Looking back on it (having read the manga and watched everything but an insanely crappy cgi outing) I'm amazed I got it at the time. But I got it.

     Kurudan Assassination Techniques arose from combating slavery. Eigi (the shadow arts) is generally considered to be the more deadly of the two. It focuses entirely on kicks, the fighter's arms treated as shackled together. Because that's how they kept the women. Hyougi on the other hand focuses on punches and small stable footwork, because the men's feet were shackled to prevent them from running away. Hyougi is taught, post rebellion naturally, in schools in Kuruda. Eigi is taught one on one, master to student, like any secret art of assassination should be. Gau Ban, arguably the main character, is trained in Eigi, you know, the more deadly female martial art, by his older sister Elle who is possibly the strongest human fighter in their world, period.

     Let's take a second and think about how cool it is that in the rather patriarchal society that is Japan this mangaka thought 'Traditional gender roles? I see nothing wrong with my female lead being demonstratably stronger than everyone else and punching through a meteor while everyone else has their thumbs up their bums.' Also it's a hotblooded martial art family. They get stronger by shouting out 'I am invincible! No one can defeat my Shadow Skill!' It's an assassination style... that teaches the power of being hotblooded... I'm probably not explaining this well enough. Teaches being hotblooded. It's only gotten more epic with age. This is me as a little kid:

"My Mind. Is Blown... ... ... I need to train NOW!" Then I'd go run in the sand and do jump kicks. Because when your nine, jump kicks, fuck yeah.

     Now I'm a bit older than eight, I'm done with my teens, and I've grown into a consumer of a lot more anime. I didn't even know there was a Shadow Skill television show untill a few days ago, so I watched it. It was obvious to me that at the time, they had spent a lot of money on this. It was dated. Oh sure, I still loved it, but if anyone wanted me to reccomend them a title to show them what anime was all about? This would be far far away from my list. This just isn't what anime is these days. It's grown up some, a lot like I have.

     2000 isn't an arbitrary date either. Specifically Hajime no Ippo came out in October of 2000, and it's the earliest example I'd give someone if asked, so there is the cut off point. Love Hina, may it rot in hell, blew the harem genre to shreds and gave it the vast majority of the shape it has today. Love Hina released April 2000, and I hate Ken Akamatsu. 1999 was a tempting year, seeing Mononoke Hime, the first Pokemon Movie, and Perfect Blue released theatrically statesides, but honestly... Those titles have been left behind. Mononoke Hime is a timeless classic, yes, and anything by Satoshi Kon is Relevant, they have been surpassed by their decendants, and us fans need to move on too.

     Too often the 'top anime' of a fan will include Bebop, Trigun, and Ranma, or Tenshi, or fucking... any of those seminal works really and they will recommend these titles to new potential viewers. I think in so doing we are doing a huge disservice to them. What we need to do is figure out what anime means Now. We need to suggest titles that will become classics in time, and only bring up the things from before with veterans. History is important, yes, but eventually you have to teach it like history and not like current events.

tl:dr version: Because I watched this one show the next time someone asks me to recommend an anime I'm going to steer them towards Toradora or something like To Aru Majutsu no Index... Okay I clearly need to figure out what shows I should use.

Tags: anime, geekness
Current Mood: calm

I haven't used your towel. It hangs in the bathroom waiting for your return.

I feel like if I use it you'll never come back. I wonder... I wonder if you would even want to.

I've been writing a bit more, that's good. The problem is I need a job, yesterday. The only way I can get to doing what I want is to wait here in fucking Arizona for more months so that I can get in-state tuition because I haven't lived here a year, so I can go to college, so I can join the military, so I can go to college.

I could have a job right now, I'm certain of it, but I just can't... be bothered... I don't do well alone.

I don't think I've ever been quite this alone before.

You should tell me you're coming home. I haven't been eating well since you've been gone. There is a hole in this house, the place you left when you went away...

I shouldn't need a reason, but you gave me one. Could you do it again for old time's sake? If I knew you would return I could do my best to make sure there is a place to return to.

     She was right on time, he saw her through the crowd on his right. He reacted without thinking, really it was second nature by now. He slammed his foot into the tiles beneath, showering debris into the air on the platform, shiny bit of fake stone glinting in the florecent lighting along with all the dust and concrete debris. He hadn't caught a support beam, lucky. People had just begun to register something was happening when he cut his hand through the explosion, propelling those fragments towards their target.
     The debris impacted into her form, pulling more with them in their wake. Her eyes went wide as she saw him, shock, recognition, fear, anticipation, they all burned in the look she was riddled with holes, picking up her body from the ground as the fragments blasted their way messily through her body. She was dead before she hit the ground. The crowd screamed and began to mill in chaos and confusion as the body of a seemingly natural woman began to bubble and evaporate.
     She gasped behind him, crying out in sensations he couldn't even begin to fathom but made his heart leap in his chest, clutching to him and rubbing her blind-folded face into his cheek, moaning "You killed me. Auuughh, god... didn't even have any warning..." That wet tongue licked at his ear, grinding herself to him and shivering. He pulled her back through the crowd and tucked between a bank of telephones and a photo booth. Greedy hands brought the fabric away from her black hair and looked into those nearly ice blue eyes which would soon fade into a color more suitable for blending in. He kissed her rapaciously and she yielded to him, his heart broke for that and he pulled the earbuds away.
     "I love you." He whispered now that she could hear him. Passion was her only reply.

-----------------------------------------------

     The old man crouched over his plants, tending to the soil with natural fertilizer, doing what small bit of pruning needed to be done. More he just did it to kill time, to let the day slip by him in work. He could feel the presence behind him without looking. "Ahh, you're early Ire." He said, not looking up or moving to stop his soothing work.
     The youth chuckled behind him, raising smooth hands to supple skin. Still, he envied not the young, save merely for their ignorance. "I just came by to see how the next generation was growing."
     "Getting impatient are we? It won't work. Humanity is not ready fo-"
     "Humanity is ready for us, needs us."
     "I hardly see how that can be possible. All we've ever done is wage wars and meddle in their affairs."
     "It's a brand new age. They've created their own gods and have forgotten the heroes of old. It won't hold."
     The old man snips a dying branch from its hold. "If there is one thing I have learned it's that the common world is resiliant. They will continue on without you, forget you, and never look back."
     Ire sniffs at this and turns to walk away. "I'll be back when they are ready, I can see I'm going to get no help out  of you."
     The geezer stands and shifts his glasses. "Of course you will always be."

Tags: story

This song kinda popped into my head while I was in Kansas. I imagine it sung by a female with an acoutstic guitar and perhaps light/jazz drums. Very indy, very sad, the song when sung should sound as sad as the lyrics.

We laugh at other's misfortunes
We laugh at everything
But our laughter is the tears of torture
Trying to hide our broken wings

And we go to work on Sunday
Cuz it's all we've ever known
But it's the diligence of the dying
As we watch our cold world burn

So give me back my generation
Give us back our hopes and dreams
Give me back my generation
You should have taught our hearts to sing

We live in a world that's broken
You say you gave all you could give
We don't blame your distraction
Just tell us how we can live

Our songs scream out our sorrow
You roll your eyes and grin
We can't tell you that we're not joking
And we're bleeding because of your sin

So give me back my generation
Give us back our bodies and minds
Give me back my generation
On our own, some hope we might find

We don't know how to be lovers
We can barely even be friends
We're not blind to our destined ending
And it makes some of us never begin

Give me back my generation
Give us back our chance at life
Give me back my generation
So we can try and finish your strife

Give me back my generation
Won't you give it back
Please give it back
Begging give it back
Give it back
Give it back
We need it back
I need it back so ba(hold note)dly

We laugh at other's misfortune
We laugh at everything
We're a tribe of faceless people
Listen to our fading scream

Tags: not a songwriter
Current Mood: Torn