idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (instaloli)
So my dad's filled up a digital photo frame for my grandmother's room, including some, uh, real throwbacks.

"Bethany is so ageless," says mom, "I have to see what stuff is around her to tell when it is."

...

I can usually tell by what horrible thing I am doing to my bangs, but I can see her point.

Evidence:


I am about 14 in these.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (instaloli)


B-Side: Skipping a bit of poserish “recap” of my life thus far (at 13. Yeah. I started with my parents meeting.) You can glimpse just the very beginning here. The real journalling begins here

—-

Nikki:

12-30

Now I’ll describe the days before the…never mind. I won’t introduce it.

We’ve been trying to sell our house for two months now and no
success. Not even a second glance from anyone who’s come. Maybe I’m
exaggerating a little, but only a little! The time of year’s bad, but
it’s not that bad, really.

[This is probably a recap of my parents’ comments. I still have little knowledge of the realty market.]

Anyway, our life is in upheaval, and it sometimes makes me wonder if
it’s worth it. And why is our lovely little farm not selling?

When the movers actually came (from Yamato transport*, and yes, it’s
Japanese) and we were sent to the P___’s for Friday and Saturday. We
mostly watched movies. Here’s the ones we watched and a basic
description:

1) Robin of Locksley: Devon Sawa^ played a modern Robin Hood stealing
via the internet to help a kid who needs surgery. Very funny and
good.^^

—-

[Cut: the reviews are worthless, the titles are priceless. I’ll recap in 2012 for you who aren’t in the know 2) So Dear to My Heart: animal fable 3) The Parent Trap: Lindsay Lohan version - just out 4) Homeward Bound: Lost in San Franscisco: I can’t even hate these movies now, they make you laugh and that is awesome, and I still like Sassy best 5) Honey We Shrunk Ourselves: now this  the kind of bad that I wish hadn’t stayed with me as a movie I enjoyed.]


Tomorrow is New Year’s eve, and there is a bit of uproar about the
Y2K virus. we are going to visit friends and count down the hours with
balloon popping.

More about that later.

—-

*Yamato is the company with the iconic black cat you’ll see in anime, etc. I have warm fuzzies of ownership about that logo to this day.

^My friend in this family, Miss A., was a Devon Sawa devotee at the time. Leonardo DiCaprio was too mainstream.

^^it wasn’t, but it gave me a serious case of infatuation with Robin Hood stories everafter, so it’s not all bad.

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (instaloli)


Dear sweet baby polar bears

what have I got myself into.

Reading my teen maunderings and all that “subtext” is quite…humbling? But still, edit or no, I think 13 years is about as distant as I can get from the material before I totally forget it.

So. Here goes nothing.

The time is turn-of-the-millenium. Everywhere people are buying bags of beans they don’t know how to cook in preparation for the cyberpocalypse. Our realization of how entwined we were in our own technology came crashing down on us, as we imagined stores unable to check anyone out, trucks not shipping, ATMs exploding…

All this before GPS, DSL, and even most people owning cell-phones.*

Anyway,
I was 13, pretty sure Y2K couldn’t be that bad. I was more intrigued by going to see “the ball drop in Times Square” at a party. Previously, I’d maybe gone to a couple church events for the New Year that ended at 12:15.

*at least in the US, as I was aware of it. There were car phones!

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Over the weekend, two pieces were released into the wild.

First, "Kami" in Strong Verse
which is my first published poem about my Japanese hometown, which makes it extra special.*

Next, [livejournal.com profile] hfqezine has released their July issue.
"Advent of the Apocalypse" is one of the last hurrahs of writing poetry treatments on a theme, for me, and it took a major rewrite to get it to an *interesting* one. I'm pretty pleased with it. Yes.

Let me know what you think!

*a photo of a place that may be the one I'm writing about. I can't be sure--it's in my town, that much I have discerned from the Chinese blog post about their tour of Yonezawa...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
One of the things about coming from a world away, back "home" somewhere people know something about where you've been is that your experience is so personal--it's so particularly tied up in details you remember, that form a reality that may not resemble the one expected.

This is the Asia I know. Not the girls in cosplay, or the Hello Kitty microwaves, but the hodgepodge buildings, with calligraphy fonts of brushes...


yakitori

Modern streets where there's just a different flavor to the air--not because the cars or signboards are that different. Things that change from town to town, but are indefinably alike in a way that is different from the other side of the world.

No Parking by stuckinseoul

And then there are the places and times that are magic--

and you know it, even at the time.

Sometimes, though, the magic is where you didn't really think about it. Just the way the streets felt under your feet, and the people who passed you...

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
A sign this impending novel is serious about being written: I am seized with sudden desires to learn about certain (seemingly random) subjects.

They always end up *helping* with whatever I write, though it may not really matter much what it is. You can use any deeper knowledge of a subject in writing...

***

I spent today making pizza. Yes, all of it. Except for the part I updated my Tumblr for the next four days...

When you start from scratch with the dough and sauces that's what it takes. But man. It actually sits like food on the stomach...

***



modern maiko: tonight's topic of sudden imperative to my brain
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
That horrible "I'm going to run out of chapters!" feeling...

I'm Not Spy is a weird little webtoon being translated and uploaded at one of the scanlation sites. So far it involves super-powered (or are they? IS IT A METAPHOR?) secret agent men and a Korean girl who on the day of her arranged marriage with a red-headed gangsta boss, all in the same hotel in the Keys...!?

There is body switching. There is Evil Afoot. It is very Korean-comic, but shorter and punchier and with no high-school uniforms. The fact that it's happening in America is very transcendental to me, like watching the anime "Kaleido-Star", technically show-biz on the West Coast but so...not.



Okay, there is a son of a super-powerful/rich CEO named...Bonnie.

It's at times like these one is grateful for all the moments one's chosen to make up names rather than use ethnic ones. Also, to live in dread of the times one didn't.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Coffee House's Yoon Eun-Hye and my K-Pop rapper boyfriend T.O.P. are doing a fashion shoot together, in NYC.

I don't know whether to be excited, because they are both awesome; jealous, because they are in New York (together) [feh; this kind of work isn't much fun]; or just generally mind-blown to be on the same continent with them.



...though the other day I realized I was probably in a Japanese middle school while many of these stars were still in their Korean elementary schools only a sneeze of a flight away. Trippy? Adorable? Humanizing?




I don't know, but the more Asian stuff I spend time with the more I have flashbacks to being a teen in public school who only spoke a modicum of Japanese...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Had a funny moment yesterday where I realized my teenage years actually had several scenes straight out of manga (not ALL of them my own humiliations).

It was a weird perspective.


Also, I think I've figured out how I need to frame my memoir...





This is not as flippant as you might think. During my four years in Japan I actually journaled more regularly than ever before or since (besides blogging, which is not the same as far as actual life events go) with the express purpose of writing it up someday.

I like to go back and look at it and read between the lines where I lightly skipped over major facts like " I am crushing hard-core on this guy" and the actual events of humiliation that I caused for myself.

(笑)

Anyway. This is partly why I enjoy reading Japanese school-story manga more than American YA that revolves primarily around school.


DUH, Bethany.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
not sure when this deal goes through, but anachred lives on only in spirit, not in name.

hakusa-tegami, "letters on gossamer" blends (for me, in my head at least) the elements of Japanese culture, my fiber art, love of the delicacy contrasted with strength of cobwebs, and the literary component that is most important of all.


Yoroshiku!
or 4649, as all my girlfriends would write on their little memo-notes, because those numbers can (sorta, kinda) be read that way in Japanese


As I said in a bio recently:
In some ways, I'm as WASP-American as people come. But I also lived in rural Japan from the ages of 13-17 as the only white teen female for several train stations in any direction.

PS, you don't really come back from a place like that. You return, but it's not the same thing.



While we're being uber-serious here, have a look at the latest in my shop:

tatara nightfall



the semi-ugliness of this yarn means my challenge to capture the essence of Ashitaka in a yarn is still on.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (hoodlums)

New York - W 59th Street by darksaif

I'm really close to the edge of tears these days. The world is so colorful right now and my projects are going well, but when I hear about something sad it's ready to spring out from under a thin veneer of moss and stone.

I don't know exactly what I'm feeling about Japan's disaster, but it's pretty obvious I'm grieving.

There are some kinds of pain or anxiety that make it impossible to do anything creative, but this is one of those where being busy and getting a lot done is better than sitting here, hands tied.


Stockholm Central Station by MazStudios

Jackson and Hyde are finally figuring out how they're going to talk, and soon I'm going to get to where we see what Mohawk City is like, since it isn't really New York, and hopefully I'll figure out more plot than just the high-drama points I need to get to.

This book is supposed to have some hard-hitting Mean Stuff, but so far it's pretty every-day.

At least I'll know if this Mononoke yarn is any good sooner than that...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (hoodlums)
Please continue to remember Japan.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/15/japan-earthquake-tsunami-humanitarian-effort

The conditions are still very hard, the nuclear situation serious, and the disaster will have a myriad of aftereffects on the country.

This seems a very dry way to summarize it, but it is hard for me to even have words, at least about this.
Sendai is the city where I took my SATs, the most beautiful city of any I saw in Japan. All the place names you hear are ones that were just neighboring where we were from, on just the other side of the mountains that surrounded Yonezawa.

We have good word about the people we know, but I am still heartsick.



idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Because it is the most personal thing I can be talking about to confess about my doubt on a manuscript, and because I started this blog as a kind of "professional writer" journal, I often forget how little I share about myself. And refer to things I think everyone knows, which just confuses things.

I have this problem in real life, too, where people will ask, "Wait, you sing?" or "You write books, huh?" and I'll think We've known each other how many years and this hasn't come up?

So.

Anything you want to ask me about myself? I will answer anything, as honestly as I think I can be and remain amusing. ;)



and here's an overview on me that I was going to cut erratically but have now decided is prime boredom, so it's all cut )

At the same time, I really don't want to be posting in a vacuum.

My name is Bethany, I am a contralto who spent her teen years in non-Tokyo Japan, and I write YA fantasy.
I am turning 25 this year and have a track-record of being asked out by mentally-handicapped gentleman.

Really, my short version there is so much more interesting... ^_^

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
初夢

The first dream of the year has a significance in  Japan (and probably other Asian countries). I can report my last dream this morning was a fun, adventurous one, not a nightmare, but some mash-up of Sungkyunkwan with some war  going on, all of which I only vaguely remember...

Typical.

Japan celebrates New Year according to the Gregorian Calender, since their traditional year didn't match up with the Chinese calender originally, either, but they do track the zodiac, and some of the cutest greeting cards I've ever seen involve plays on words, or art using the animal to create the number's shape...

Some of them are also just freaking cute.



I don't have mochi and tangerines to eat today--I think we're going to a friend's, who is serving tacos.

明けましておめでとう! Happy New Year!
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (dismemberment)
Let's just be upfront here. The only linking theme between Sungkyunkwan Scandal and Himitsu no Hanazono is the cute middle-aged men:


(note the drab colors of this screencap vs. any Korean drama. This is true-to-life.)

In fact, the closest thing to a male lead:

Wataru KATAOKA, is very much of the same type as this one I posted about before:


Wataru's not making his sad-puppy face above, but I swear, it's a dead ringer.

...You know, I like how I don't even apologize for all this f-list effing anymore XD Esp. since [livejournal.com profile] fabricalchemist confessed that she didn't know how I did all the images when I don't do HTML. (that's not how the conversation really went, but I'm just outing myself as a Rich Text Editor user before anyone else's illusions are shattered.)

himitsu no hanazono is easily translated to make sense, but as this post's title reveals, it actually has quite a bit of nuance.

Here is our heroine:


she gets to be the oblivious klutz! can you tell?

But actually, the first episode establishes her as a hard-working, competent editor for a fashion magazine. Unfortunately, it goes under, for which her boss blames herself,

and as her last act of boss-ness, gets this hard-working little chickie a job in a new department of the publisher.

At this point, I thought this actress's tenure in this show was probably done, which is a shame, because Maya Miki's beautiful and plays mature women with grace, all severe strong types in my J-Drama experience. I was happily wrong, which we may or may not get back to.

(note: I'm taking most of these screencaps from
[info]darkeyedwolf  who wrote a HILARIOUS show overview, and happens to have uploaded all the good pictures to Photobucket, so I decided to fail with grace and just USE THEM ALL. Not really.)

Turns out this new position is far outside poor little Tsukiyama-chan's experience: the MANGA DEPARTMENT. [swelling notes of doom]
This turns out to be a classy example of the forcefully airheaded boss-lady's way of operating. (I see we got back to her rather quickly. 0_0;)

And she is given the task of overseeing a famous (eccentric, of course) girl's comic writer. Enter the Shojo Manga tropes...no wait, they were with us all along.



Because "Yuriko HANAZONO" is actually four brothers, mostly middle-age except the 18 year old Hinata.
Of course, she's been basically thrown to the wolves. Four men who are kind of solitary because of some secret they need to keep hidden, and work from home can't pass up a chance with a young, serious woman on their hands.

Since this show is more classy than we deserve, only two brothers really fall for her, and the second triangle is formed by the lovably tenacious and spastic...



BOSS LADY!

She thinks Yuriko HANAZONO stole her fiancé, but is finally thinking about moving on...with Manager/Playboy Brother Satoshi.

This is about 23x more interesting of a secondary-character plotline than I have seen in a drama, because this character could have been SO annoying but you just want to watch this woman do whatever it is she's doing.
She was part of an all-female drama troupe in her 20s(?), and played male lead characters. She's got the goods, she brings a certain presence to whatever she's doing.

Apparently, today's post was GiRl-cRuSh Conf<3ssions time? Heh.



It's all good, though. And I really enjoy stories centering around some kind of creative work, despite their usual sweeping grandeurs of inaccuracy. Of course, you have to be inaccurate to make them any fun...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


my translation: Gangsta Boy and Little Four-Eyes

Secretly, everyone's a former delinquent! Generations of high-school student council gangster intrigue! Battling to not be held back a year AGAIN!


This is what I wrote to [livejournal.com profile] rhinemouse when seducing her to this particular little fandom, and while mildly spoilerish, I think it's not enough to detract from the fun that is this comic.



There is a drama.

The comic has a particular edge of not going in the expected direction--it's definitely not true shojo, though if it's seinen or shonen I can't tell. That's what's AWESOME about it, and some of that more every-day sitcom style of writing gets lost in translation to drama, but I hardly noticed.

Because I laugh at all the jokes when it's in Japanese.

They're often humor I wouldn't laugh aloud at in English, but my level of Japanese is so that I understand most of the (teenager) humor and it strikes me funny.
[Though the main actor's way of saying "Uzzzzze" (annoying) was in itself annoying. Not just that as scripted as his catchphrase, either.]

The thing that was done exceedingly well for a Japanese drama (as far as my experience goes, and I only watch comedies, occasionally) is the ending. It balances neatly so it doesn't go over into too sugar-sculpted happy, but it didn't let me down, either. And since I'm still reading toward the end of the original comic I was particularly keen on certain developments...

It seems like that, too, is wrapping up, and it's stayed really good, not romance but with the kind of crush-caused drama that does occur, comedy that strays into shonen-style overwrought faces in a way that doesn't really detract from the overall tone.


***

A redux on my Haku yarn, maybe the first-ever geek-themed yarn I did, which went to [livejournal.com profile] charismitaine  for adoption:

Day of the River

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
If I talk for more than a few sentences about my time in Japan, the jonesing to see my town again comes flooding in.

Living in Japan is the first thing I loved so much I was heartbroken when it was over. In fact, so far the only thing.


So full of things strange and beautiful--so incandescent with an alien mind.

Today's subject that got me going was looking up a map like this:



The darkened area in the middle is where the castle used to be--note how wonky the roads go before they get there, for the most part. That was on purpose--to prevent invasion. Though heaven knows the mountains circling the area were enough to challenge people needing to get OUT and there wasn't much to invade...



So anyway.
I'd like to go knock back a few sushi to soothe my sorrows, but I live a half-hour from even Reasor's sushi.
I'll just write my novel and hope someday I have an advance good for some sushi as well as taxes...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Some of my last details/duties for Conestoga (this weekend) have been wrapped up.

Not all, of course.

But I had my inaugural costuming frenzy. I have to finish my masquerade mask trappings, but otherwise I think I'm set.




Yes, cons are my chance to dress less subtly silly than other times. What of it?

...no, I will not be wearing that flag in my hair for real. But when I picked it up out of all our souvenirs I had to see how it looked.
And honestly, it looked every bit as good as the way they wear them on their backs in battle re-enactments. It was amusing. (That one's worth clicking on to see larger.)

I'll include this shot for the kinda funky look:


(trying on the prototype)

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (surprise!)
Rambling Japanese Nostalgia Post

While reading the manga "Aishiteruze Baby" (Love Ya, Baby) [a completed series--is it sad that I am suckered in by that status now?]

there was a sequence where the high school characters are on a school trip. The developments involved are uninteresting out of context but there was one page that brought to mind a vivid memory I hadn't seen in a while.
(Am I the only one who feels that way about memories, that you "see" them, and seeing them is something you should do every once in a while so you don't forget?)

I went on the school trip to Tokyo when I was in Japanese middle school. I got to see the Japanese Diet building, real live Monet paintings, one of the historic temples, and the Japanese production of The Lion King.

Between these moments, however, I was with a class of middle school kids.

The first night we spent we were in a more traditional hotel--that is, mats on the floor. Over fifty girls in one big room. Things didn't settle down before I went to sleep, and I didn't sleep particularly soundly. So sometime in the small hours of the night I was debating going to the bathroom. I sat half-awake for a while. Ayaka (who sat close to me in class) started to get up, and I joined her. I think I didn't even know where the bathroom was, which since my Japanese wasn't really great yet was a terrifying prospect. I don't remember, but I may have been agonizing until I saw she was going.

We dared the hallways. Found the girls' room, only to cross paths with Shinya leaving the boys', giggling as he made a dash for somewhere else.

When Ayaka and I met up at the sinks, we looked at each other's sleep-puffy faces, and at least I was thinking of how mortifying it was to be seen like this. A teacher yelled from down the hall. More guy-giggling. Shinya's goofy-sounding voice, too (he'd clearly not tried to sleep yet).

I journaled about this, mostly to keep that memory. The sheepish smile across the mirror at a girl who was always so together when she got to school, without her glasses or hair done, the feeling of dismay and disapproval about the guys still running around and surprising poor half-asleep girls on their way to the wash room.

There were a lot of things to that were good about that trip--but that was one of the best, because I felt like just a girl, for once, not the red-headed outsider. Ayaka and me.

...and Shinya. Thanks for that, buddy.

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)

{...I think I'm listening to Jeff Buckley for the first time. Is this possible? I know the name like it's important...}
 

So I've been falling for Shoujo Rom-Com (that may sound like a redundancy, but bear with me) lately.

Another instance of me succumbing to a love that brands me for an Uber-Nerd. I'm not complaining...it's more of a self-amused cataloguing at this point.
...fantasy, Ender's Game, poetry, costumes, anime, an emo band, Enya, chant, shoujo, old book smell, Pixar kid movies...

One closed-series comic I've really enjoyed and just finished is not a rom-com, but a drama-dy. Kinda.
If you are at all likely to read a comic, I'd like to recommend crossroad to you, for it's characters.

 

Oddity )


 

Okay, stats on my other current affairs:

Vampire Knight: another example of a non-Rom-Com (it's a little bit horror, above the usual manga love of the creep-tastic.) At Vol. 2.
Vampires at boarding school, blah, blah, blah. The heavy association of blood-taking and sex is kind of an interesting tension here, but my heart just isn't in it...

Tail of the Moon: this is also interesting in that the heroine sets out to have babies with the hero on the 3rd page, but in a naïve and horrifyingly awkward way. I would like it better if Ninja Master Boy wasn't so beautiful... At Vol. 2

Skip-Beat: !!!

Okay, this is famous with good reason. (I always forget that this can happen, and am always ashamed of my snobbery when I discover I've been avoiding a potential favorite.)

It's a bit weird at first, and not in a good way, with out-of-nowhere spirit powers in the heroine rising from her wrath...in total contrast with her normal personality. This mind-bending facet kind of abates (though not going away) as the other plots develop. And let me say, this showcases all the classic elements of manga with all the strength they have, rather than the weaknesses.

They knew each other as children!

He's actually his father!

They both are incapable of love!

But it feels organic to the comic, since it never takes itself too seriously. The angst and emotives are off-set by real moments, or at least wacko humor.

I've read every chapter in scanlation, and earnestly hope to have money someday and use it to buy the Japanese originals...or at least the most recent ones. ^_^

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