quietprofanity

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

*Mr. A
Mr. A's just fascinated me ever since I've heard of him, which I think was when papajoemambo put up some splash pages, and the more I hear the more I love in an inappropriately ironic way. His status as one of the inspirations for Rorschach -- my favorite character in Watchmen -- is a part of it. That he's basically the Gary Stu mouthpiece for the second, lesser-known half of the team that created Spider-Man is another. It also helps that his stories are fucking insane but also TOTALLY SINCERE and convinced they are THE BEST THING EVER. I mean, that's actually kind of cute. The fact that Ditko's id unleashed is still quality enough that creators who think Objectivism is a big fat turd nevertheless draw inspiration from his work I think is testament to how oddly likable these stories are.

*Pink! (The color, not the...uh, singer)
I actually kind of like the singer. Not the early stuff, but "So What?" is fun to blare in the car. And I picked my color layouts for the purple, but since I was asked ... I actually quite like pink. I went through a phase where I was all, "Eww! Pink is for wussy girls, I'm not a wussy girl" but I grew out of it. I have a couple of pink shirts and I think I look good in the darker shades. Pink can be fun to kind of own in a semi-ironic way, too. This is why I have a pink Nintendo DS, a big pink carrying case, and a pink PURSE for my DS. Laugh all you want, the guy who sold me the last one was totally jealous. (This is true.)

*Lum!
Urusei Yatsura isn't something I watch all the time. (Mostly because it is EXPENSIVE and semi-out of print.) But I've always loved Lum. She's sexy, she's funny, she's mostly nice but she can kick your ass WITH FUCKING ELECTRIC SHOCKS. She's awesome! I like her so much I've showed UY stuff to my cousins who were probably not old enough for it and they loved her too. Yeah, she can play into the bimbo/sexy alien girl stereotype sometimes, but I think she subverts enough that you can just watch in joy. As my cousin (who later named one of her stuffed animals after Lum, DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THAR?) said, "She's pretty and she flies and she has a neat outfit and she has powers." She does indeed.

*Writing
I like to write a lot. It was part of the profession I had up until ... oh, two days ago. (Shit.) I remember wanting to be a writer from when I was REALLY LITTLE because I liked stories so much, even if I never had the discipline to finish my stories until I started writing fanfic (which is kind of sad). While I've had my blocked periods, I can't imagine a life without writing, and when I can write, especially for fun, I feel a lot better in body and mind overall. It's just ... yeah. I don't want to say it's MY LIFE, because that is silly and too reductive and not what makes you a good writer anyway, but it's a major part of my life.

*Comic book meta
... Can I be meta about comic book meta? I feel like my brain might explode ... I don't know. I remember when I really got into the Internet fandom I always really liked reading people expounding on Spider-Man or whatever, even if it was goofy stuff like which Green Goblin was their favorite or something like that, so I guess I'm just sort of doing the same thing and adding my own spin. I spent a lot of time writing for Sequential Tart at one point, too. I don't know if I did a great job there, but it exposed me to a lot. Anyway, it's fun to expound on these things and figure out why characters do what they do and what creators might have been thinking. Kind of like fanfic, only more straightforward and the fetishes aren't as sexy.

So, I took this undergrad Chaucer class in Spring 2004 because that was my idea of fun back then. Chaucer was basically The Canterbury Tales and we didn't even finish them but whatever. It was unique in that 1.) the teacher insisted we read pure Middle English. This was a pain in the ass at the time, but now whenever I see Modern English translations I'm like, "But ... but this is for BABIES!" 2.) I was sort of the "token Jew" in the class, and the teacher would encourage me to kind of give the Jewish perspective on stuff.

At the end of the class, we had a big party where we were encouraged to cook Medieval food and stuff. Since I lived in a dorm at that time, I offered to just bring cups, BUT the teacher said she would also like us to do readings. And even though I wasn't writing for pleasure very much, at the 11th hour (either the day before or the day of the party, I can't really remember) the idea for a re-telling of "The Prioress' Tale" a.k.a. "The One with the Anti-Semitism" struck me and I wrote this thing called "The Banker's Prologue and Tale." With the exception of a few couplets, I didn't bother to make it rhyme, but I tried to keep the general structure and how the Tales "sounded" in my head.

You may think differently, but ... I don't know, I really like this one.

( The Banker's Prologue and The Banker's Tale )

Oh and, yes, despite the "We're taking back our oppression!" flavor of it, the banker isn't a fully reliable narrator. I was trying to keep with the characterization of the tales, too. :)

Finished my first writing-for-myself in years yesterday when I finished quirky-memoir-essay-I-hope-someone-gives-me-a-book-deal. I'm going to re-read it tomorrow, send it off to Chris to betaread, and then start collecting my first rejection slips.

... I'm not sure what to do next. Maybe that nonfiction "Classic books are awesome!" idea. I really let that shit sit, though ... I hope it didn't rot.

Here's a long overdue announcement, too: 47nite, thanks a lot for the PsychoNauts game you randomly sent to me. It's awesome! ... I wonder if my computer can run it. Maybe I should buy some add-on RAM. (It would led me use the RiffTrax syncher, at the very least.

Oh, it seems that letting the kosher wine sit forgotten for a year was a good idea, because now it is actually DRINKABLE. Yay!

Progress on the Long Trek of Neverending Boredom, a.k.a. Lirael: page 452