anachred

Bethany Powell grew up with the marvelous and insidious opportunity to read books almost all day. Mealtimes would have been a hateful event if she weren't also rather fond of food. As her primary talents seem to be music, creating fake histories, and organizing parties she decided to pursue a career related to the only one she is consistently motivated to do: write fantasy

( In Case of Friending, Press [This]  )

Because it's always appropriate to judge a person by their bookshelves...

( Cut for Blatant Cover Images )

Etsy Buy Handmade gossamersong

Sesshoumaru - Sword of Resurrection

  



Maid Marian's Kirtle or Trysting in Sherwood...



Both up at GossamerSong...

Lessons from Shojo Manga 101:

Never let a hero think "Oh, well *she* was a psychopath. Time to move on..."

That way he cannot be Tragical.
Thus keeping the Heroine's small crush from fomenting into a Grand Passion.



~ This Week's Lesson Brought to You By: Pretear ~

which I am enjoying more than I quite understand and which I'm fairly sure is supposed to be a pun with Prettier?

I love reading comics where when it goes to a kiss-approach you think, "This can't possibly go well..."

Just because you know it *has* to be interrupted, usually disastrously.
Plus, also, I Approve of Gilgamesh growing fangs.



...BTW,
I'm having a free-shipping sale on my yarn.
Heat Wave Retail Therapy! @ GOSSAMERSONG

Tell your friends. Especially if they use yarn. ^_^



I sold my Raven King yarn, not a week after uploading. Which is AWESOME, but I will miss it. my post about it
I probably shouldn't be so loving toward these things.

My list of hopeful projects (geekiness ensues!) is also at that blog.
Sesshoumaru may be born as a batt tomorrow...

Also, Thornmallow, from this book par excellance:

I don't think I have much to contribute to the current debate on white-washing of covers or movies or Blog Against Racism Week.
But here's a collection of books I picked up because the person on the cover is *not* white.

Amusingly, Un Lun Dun's heroine is, as far as I can tell, Anglo--the cover fooled me. And I picked it up for that reason. So I'm telling on myself here...

(Above is fantasy, below is YA.)

At Tokyo in Tulsa [TnT] my friend found a *fabulous* Sesshoumaru tapestry. Genuinely beautiful. One of the girls in our roving band was saying something about how cool he was, though he lost an arm, and I went...

Me: !...!...!
Me: No, that is WHY he is cool!

This is one of those early-formed ideas that probably makes no sense to many people, I realized as my internal squee peaked out, leaving me incoherent. (I had forgotten about his arm, how do we forget these things?)

  It's the wounds that do it...

I killed off three likely young men in the space of five pages for that kind of glamour. (Annihilating a royal line while I was at it. Very tragic.) {This was a long time ago.}

As a child, I picked my scabs sneakily to try and acquire scars from my minor scratches. WOE, it is now revealed that this can facilitate regrowth without scar tissue.



Anyway, despite baiting as if I had a heady passion for Sesshoumaru, and a subsequent volunteered search for the other not-so-pretty tapestry of him, I had no desire to buy pictures of him. Like the Legolas poster hidden in my closet, there are some characters you just don't change in front of. (If you're silly like me.)

I did buy some Soot Sprite pins!



It must be that spirit of overcoming...

I, uh.
Uh.
Just fell in love with a comic that's completely ridiculous.

Of course, that's it's charm.

And if you're one of the people I've chatted with about:
Ouran
Sesshoumaru of Inuyasha
Skip-Beat
or any other things that have self-awareness of their silliness and work it...this may be something for you.

Watashi no Ookami-san is described thus:

Bored of sitting around holding a wine glass all day, the Demon Lord is looking for something new. Something cute. Someone like Komomo, the level 0 heroine who has just appeared before him, ready to vanquish him like all heroes (or heroines) do. Faced with a demon king who'd rather watch TV under a kotatsu and make out with her than spread evil over the land, what will Komomo do?




...in a completely related but mood-altering note
The real problem with shoujo romances is how often they have heroines rush headlong into a relationship that's supposedly problematic and refuse to address the actual issue.

Like, what happens when you fall out of love with your step-brother and still have to live with him?
(Crossroad is a story that doesn't take an easy out here.)

Skip-Beat is good because Kyoko can't put away her issues. She's working through them, and it's uphill.





So yeah, I had a good time at the TnT con today.

I've been working on my yarn business again lately.  This means time on Etsy,  (oh perilous place, and sly) and trying to network my way into sales.

I've discovered quite a few things to love along the way. Backfiring? I don't know... having things I want to buy, to motivate me to do better at selling isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Right?
Right?!


This is my latest listing: Under River Aracthus, titled after a scene in The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner.

I'd like to sell this so I can buy:
That Old Black Magic by ButterflyGirlDesigns
...even though I'm planning to create some very similar batts to make a Raven King yarn. (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell are neither of them the main interest in that book, you know.)

In tag surfing, to kind of see how my items are comparing, and who is doing similar things, I come across the greatest random geek stuff. (That tag is "geekery".)

Fawkes, fiery handspun by msfledermaus

Mallorn, which you can see here, by Authentic Fiction

This one's no longer available, but it's name/color combo was PERFECT.
Bert and Ernie by Ethical Threads



GuttersnipeYarn for sure does not need *my* press, but how awesome is she? Let me count the ways:

~ She does "Costume Flick" yarns. This means... Austen characters. She has a Wickham yarn. She has a Harriet Smith yarn.
Yes, this is fabulous, and my envy is part awe.
~ She also has a whole Sweeney Todd category, which is awesome because the color scheme of the movie was, from what I can tell without watching it. ^_^
~ She does Steampunk yarn with Stuff to put in.



Lydia Bennett, Violets Between the Cobblestones, and Glitzy Sweeney, respectively.



I think I'm going to have to postpone my non-yarn favorites sharing until another time, but look forward to it. There's photography, jewelry, and...Lego Wizard keychains.

So, I've just realized my writer's fantasy.
Okay, so the most potent one at this moment: it's a publishing-*unrelated fantasy.

To have someone whose opinion I respect sit down, and read through all of my short stories and tell me which ones are any good.
  I know. Beggarly. But there it is. The stuff of my dreams.



Since it's Thursday, and I don't know what to do with you, here, have a little flash fiction.
(You do know this will be bad, right?
And what if I tell you it's a complete rip-off, which is how all my tributes to things end up?
But at least it's short? 1147 words only!)
It no longer has even that recommendation. It is now only less bad. And much less than 2000 words.
Sorry, snoozers.


PS: this is not real fan-fiction. It is an example of how much I canNOT do fan-fiction. Because I have rename people and rework set-ups, and borrow lightly to expand in strange directions.


*just had an odd moment where the world "publishing" felt the same to me as it did before I got so inured to hearing it all the time, seeing it in everything I read. Funny.

So it's been precisely a month since Conestoga. I am putting up pictures of that, supplemented with some I took while figuring out my Asian cowpunk costume.



( A few more... )


Well, these photos aren't going to make my name as a photographer, and the costume looked about as undecided as it sounds, but...I have no regrets!



the composition of this photo was mostly accidental, but humorous all the same.

I'm psyched about Dull Boy, by Sarah Cross, even if I actually have to buy it, for many reasons.
Two, however, I shall list here:

1) It sounds like a great superhero teen story
2) It does not sound like my current superhero teen story.

I am doing my best to win it, however, while also hoping hard the library orders some. (Hey, the library can buy more copies than I can...)

Diana Peterfruend (of the scary unicorns, I believe? I also need to wish that into the library) is having a give-away of copies that involves a mandate to use this site's Prime Procrastination Device, to which we geeky writers say, "I'll take it!"



I am inordinately proud of this ensemble. (Click to see it in fine detail!)
Plus, I am actually surprisingly not-bad with firearms if I don't over think it.

Introducing Redd "Precise" Harmony, Sharpshooter At Large/Minister Without Portfolio/Supervillain Stepchild
While not determined to be genius or biological mutation, her mastery of firearms is only overshadowed by her taste for the bizarre and arcane. Rumor claims her stepmother/mad-scientist/Wise Old Mentor subjected her to mutative therapies as a child to create the UltraMinion. Redd has neither confirmed nor plausibly denied this story, maintaining that she just shoot things that she has to shoot.

With her modified crossbow.

Thousands of Hot Asian Chicks are Looking for a Guy Just like Me!

Sorry. Just thought I'd share that.





Okay, my Reprobate friends of sounis  were recommending this, as well as The Book Thief, and I think since they titles muddled in my head, I never gave it a second look. (The Book Thief has always sounded too serious for the reading mood I was in.)

This is awesome. I wish my reading attention span wasn't shot to pieces by reading all the shoujo. Whoops...
(Actually. It was never that good for much anyway.)

But speaking of that...
This comic competes with few others for sheer beauty and strength.

The Voice Blooms Red (Akaku Saku Koe)

With the manhwa (Korean comics) that are really fetching to me, it shares a sort of stillness.
Technically, it's the dialogue:panel ratio--so many more silent panels rely on the art to tell a story rather than just talk. But it's artful.

(Here there was a really cool page that was disabled. Have a cover thumbnail instead.)





It's like the Hayao Miyazaki films of the comics world, in a way.

The Voice Blooms Red (my title translation) is a mystery/special police forces/and terribly understated romance manga.
It is two volumes, I don't think they've been translated except by fans. The translation job is not bad. The story itself has psychic depth. And the creator's comments at the end made it even more interesting to reflect on.

I've read the whole thing--brilliant to the end.
 Unreservedly recommended.

Not-So-Birthday Present Unexpected Success!

When my bro told me he was D.O.N.E. working on our Lord of the Rings fan music, I understood. I just thought there was plenty of room in the project...
Yesterday, though, he came home with an idea for a revamp of our Ents song. The improved version gave me chills.

Entmarch

Best played with bass boost!
Seriously, this made me see that scene of the Entmoot moving out to wreak havoc on Isengard so strong.
And it rocketed to #40 on Soundclick's Goth Rock list...out of 4000, so not a huge deal, but someone's listened to it, right?

So I'm not just plugging my own band, here:

Indie Music Recommendation of the Day:

Heather Dale, whose Arthuriana themed songs I link below because they are great. (If you like, I also recommend her song "Exile")
Mordred's Lullaby
Kingsword


As a third topic,
My Birthday Wish for this Year:
Let's go with...starting to seem like I'm in my 20s to people.
Or at least close, like 18-19.


We can dream, right?

101 Sensible Things to Do With an Umbrella, by my LJ friend Te Aroha. (Reprobates Represent!)
 Rather than sensible, this are more hysterically funny, whimsical, colorful....
Read the list, just to enrich your life.

(Personally, I want to use an umbrella as an unfolding travel laundry-basket.)


Hot Stuff

...since I can't find a picture of my Transformer Boyfriend, or at least not one I recognize from the .5 seconds I saw him.

Oh, this picture does relate to a short story project I'm probably going to commit any time now, though.
I'm in a short-story spurt.
It happens. Too bad these kind are singularly unproductive...



Wise Word:
This take on the idea of "killing your darlings" suits my sense much better.

There is a saying: "Throw some gold on the floor." It is derived from desprender las palabras, which in the tradition of storyteller, in the tradition of cuentistas, means to throw away some of the words of the story in order to make it stronger.

(I have been here. I envy me, too...)

Every entertaining talker knows how to do this when telling stories of things that happened--even slightly miscasting the truth, so the strength of the story is made to translate to the hearer.
And this has also inspired an idea for a human-interest article about my "accidental stalker" aunt.

She has an ongoing history in the last few years of bumping into a star Bruins hockey player, who is retired but still fairly well known. It will make a *killer* story. She knows how to throw gold on the floor, too...

...so here's the comics post!

Okay. I'll put it under a cut.




I have so many trope-challenging story ideas right now, it's not even funny. I'm writing a rejected-makeover that takes on a lot of the crush tropes, but I would like to create one that takes on the sit-com tropes, particularly the *masquerading as a boy/girl* one. In which the roommate is never the interest. (Heresy? Don't burn me yet...)

"It is up to her to inform them that when she has "that look" in her eyes,
it does not mean she is a vacant lot waiting to be filled.
It means she is balancing a big cardhouse of ideas on a single fingertip,
and she is carefully connecting all the cards using tiny crystalline bones
and a little spit, and if she can just get it all to the table without it falling down
or flying apart, she can bring an image from the unseen world into being."

~ Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes


I don't have to tell you again how much I love this book. But the way it continues to speak to me at points I need a bit of encouragement and a lot of prodding is pretty astounding.

in other news...



I watched the first season of Buffy, and am now going to stop watching it.

It's too scary for me. I love the wit (Dreams! That would be the musical comedy of this... It's our nightmares. ~ Giles)
but uncool as it is I have to face up to the truth. I have "delicate sensibilities", and the body count really bothers me.

Hulu.com has the first 3 seasons up, with commercial interruptions, for the interested. I think it may even be legal to watch them.


not to prolong your agony, but...

I was going to do a "Recently Reading" manga round-up (of only my recommendations, because I've been reading too many to talk about them all, but I think I'll do that some other day.

For now, I am squeeing over the reappearance of a certain character in Skip-Beat, and the arc following him like a katana strapped to his back...



The greatest thing about Skip-Beat is that though the heroine is being "pursued" by multiple guys, it's only a portion of the guys she's interacting with, and for differing reasons that are very believable. Or at least, organic to her character.

I'm for Ren in the long-term, but I *love* the Sho and Reino arcs.
(This from a girl who hates triangles for the most part, too.)

...Reino...<3


Last, an AMV that has it's own art (Howl's Moving Castle/Kryptonite)

(It's my first official entry into a collection. It's such a curious phenom...
This one, BTW, uses effects I haven't really seen, as a story-telling device organic to the theme)

{Yes, I'm thinking too hard about this. It's the suppressed academic in me.}

One Can Never Blog Enough Geek...

    Robin Hobb

When I walked into the Con HQ, I was introduced to a Robin, who was folding the same pocket programs I was handed on entry. It took a while (okay, and some really broad hints) for me to realize she was THE Robin I'd be writing about and picking out pictures of, Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm.

I haven't managed to read any of her books yet, though I am going to, but it was still great to meet her. She's the amazing kind of mature woman that I admire. Kind--but she can say things straight-up. Her words are gracious but they have salt.

Whether I'm an author meeting readers or just a housewife doing business in those years to come, I hope I learn to be that kind of woman. The kind of matured female anthropology shows society cannot deal without. :)

...This is my real Con Report, I think.

There were other great people that I met and admired, but I think she is the only one anyone would care to hear my thoughts about.

Cultural Literacy 101

  Back to the Future

I watched this for the first time last week. It was fun, but I'll have to put it in the category:
Too Much Boyfriend, Not Enough Roller Derby.
Except in this case it's too much Parental Matchmaking and not enough Cars Leaving Firetrails!!!

I don't think I'm the type to say that without reason either. Really, not enough Professor entirely. The only really great moments of Mom-Angst were the ones where he was present, anyhow.
 Granted, it would be a different movie then.

But the car was so HOT when it was burning up road/freezing fingers at a touch/nearly taking out Michael J. Fox.


Was that  all I had to say?

...oh. Well, guess what this week's Nerd Culture Literacy course is? I'll give you your very own broad hint...



I guess I'll get to a few con pictures later.
I'm waiting to see a few I knew were taking, with fear and trembling....

Good Things about the Con

~ Gentle nudges about things I need to do better as a writer, and

~ Hearing smart people talk, and sometimes being able to join them (in the Urban Fantasy panel, most notably...)

~ Having people I've known by face since my first con begin to recognize *me* (or, you know, have some basis for acknowledging it.)

Good Things about Being Home

~ a downpour out my open window, cool but not chilly

~ not caring how I look/no one to impress (obviously, the second oughtn't depend on my surroundings, but I am like this still...)

~ food. Though next time I'll try to remember there is a huge Reasors right across the street, as I observed late on Saturday. I can *buy* food...



Since I do not extrovert, but love to hang out with people, I always leave the con feeling a bit in a deficit. I need a con buddy.

Also, I want to go to a different con. Not that I *haven't* before, just the feeling is suddenly stronger.

Still. Let's try this again next year!

I dug out my Spiderman poster to put on my door. (I actually received 2 the year I was 18, an undeserved reward for being annoying about that particular fangirl phase.)

Back to the Superhero Research!



Sky High may be awesome, but it's really just fodder for Backlash Girls. However much I may be whole-heartedly indulging avoidance behaviors toward writing, it's really got my attention right now.

I even stripped the walls of most of the pictures I had up for "Charming" (librarian glam story) since the visuals are turning out different anyway.



Wanna hear a bit?

The Lamest Powervillain EVAR

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said at the mirror. My Han impression wasn't stellar, since for one, I have a definite girl voice (I envy those altos) and for two, I was looking at myself in the mirror. Not the best context for sounding cocky, if fearful.

My Zombie Boyfriend T-shirt (brains over beauty, yesh) is a little too stretched over significant areas, since I've gained a little more weight, and I didn't like my face without the frames Ena gave me. Stupid Carter had stepped on them. Even my gamer-chick look wasn't at its best.

Also, I had calculated that since Teddy hadn't been at the gamer coven last time, it wasn't basketball season, and the newest Halo had hit the Game-Stop shelves he was sure to be there tonight. Doesn't that sound dangerously neat? “What could go wrong?” says the heroine.

But no matter what Ena and Chelsea would be there, so it would be fun.

See how you jinx yourself?

 

 

( How it All Begins )

And yes, the post title is a later quote.

"He is so hot!"


Hee. You gotta love it when baddies say that about another guy.
Right?

Okay, since I am eternally behind the ball (this is an odd phrase, isn't it--in my softball days that was where I was supposed to be, but whatever)
I just watched Sky High for the first time.

The other movies I've watched this year are:
Wall-E
Twilight
The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement

Oh, and Star Wars. Again.


Sky High I ordered from the library to watch in better quality than YouTube. So I could appreciate this face more, especially during the fights:


My mom: Looks like the next generation's Johnny Depp
Me:            Oh, let it be so...

I like how he's got a lot of fantasy stuff in his resume.




He didn't get the good quotes, though.
Like: "Where would we even find a vat of nuclear waste?"

BTW--this has me over-the-top revved for the Backlash Girls.