Before I begin, an important note. I will be discussing many things, animé included. Please understand that in the course of answering a question, I may provide advanced plot or character information, known as "spoilers" in my attempt to explain an animé citation. Read on at your own risk. Also, I'll be including resource references where possible, and will set the links up to open in new windows as best I can.
Random Anime Quote Time:
"Screw your stupid chivalry!
SCREW IT!!! - Lavie,
Last Exile
Outlaw Melfina:
I call attention to my "rants" for a number of reasons. Usually when I'm very upset over something, I'll write up a lengthy post or PM about it, and not really make a whole lot of sense with what I say. If I am coherent, the things I'm so loudly protesting in print are usually nuisance things that most people would find easy to brush off without the slightest annoyance. The way I write CSG (Customer Service Grievance) letters is the same. I'll say some nasty, or just plain rude things that I shouldn't say in those Grievances. Things I can't take back no matter how much I'd like to be able to do it. I'm not being hard on myself about the rants, I'm actually doing everyone a Public Service by sort of warning you all that I can and do get a little hot under the collar and post things without thinking about the consequences of my post sometimes. To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't offended anyone here yet, considering I've been on for two years, and posted some very harsh things.
In my profiles on message boards, Yahoo! and here, I say I'm on Gaea, which those of you who've seen Escaflowne (the series) will know is the world on which Van Fanel lives as the king of Fanalia. It hangs close in the sky to our moon, yet we can't see it, but from it, one can see the "Mystic Moon", our very own earth. In my fantasy world maybe.
In reality, I'm in the North Eastern United States, in the small (by land area) state of
West Virginia. If you've even seen the movie
The Mothman Prophecies it was based on a book written about some very strange occurances in a small town to the south of me called
Point Pleasant. Now the movie was horribly off base of the book and they filmed up in Pennsylvania, so enough about that. There are a few famous people who came from West Virginia, but the only one I can remember off hand is Chuck Yeager, the man that broke the sound barrier. John Denver wrote the song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" about West Virginia, George Washington surveyed and owned some land here, and Aaron Burr is believed to have sought the financial backing of a rich WV socialite, Harmen Blennerhassett, to assist him in overthrowing the government (I have my doubts). Our state quarter depicts the
New River Gorge Bridge, the one that it is perfectly legal to throw yourself off of one day every year, that being the third Saturday in October, called Bridge Day, and for the record, no I'm not stupid enough to do that, with bungee or parachute.
I don't remember ever fully losing my voice, but I did come close to it several times in high school. Luckily for me, I wasn't acting at the time and could afford the vocal downtime anyway, but it never happened. Mostly it was my own fault for not taking care of myself in the bitter cold (talking wind chills near zero when other sane school systems shut down) winter weather.
Mamma Vash:
Funny you should ask me about my thing for . . .
Image removed due to Imageshack
dragons
Normally I don't like to talk about it (why, I don't really know anymore), but I promised, so here goes. It sounds good for me to say it was Escaflowne that got me hooked on the creatures, but that's only partly true. While the references to Van (not the Escaflowne) being "the dragon" did sort of leave their mark on me, they are not the deciding factor. Part of what goes with that "deep thinker" in me is an avidly active imagination, and a whimsical dreamer of the highest degree. I'm the kind of person who believes Nessie is out there somewhere along with Sasquatch, Champ, and extraterrestrials. Fantasy creatures like dragons hold a special place in my heart because, well, they physically represent my personality. I'm a very rough somewhat frightening person to look at, but you get to know me, and you find I'm loyal to my friends, honorable to (most) enemies, I try to share my wisdom when appropriate to do so, and I will fight fang and claw (not to mention fire breath) to defend what I believe is right, my friends and my family. Dragons are also symbols of good luck, which I don't have a lot of these days, but I think dragon luck isn't quite what most people think of when I say the word luck. It's more of a Zen luck, a timeless cohesion with the universe and deeper understanding of the way things are flowing around you rather than winning the lottery or landing that promotion at work. So you don't get the wrong idea by the picture, I do not have a dragon tattoo (yet), but I have a dragon ring, three earrings with dragons on them, three necklaces with dragons, a dress shirt, two ties, and a wallet all with dragons on them, and that's just the stuff I wear.
My pastimes other than animé, tankôbon (graphic novels), and any other Japanophile stuff I've picked up from animé and tankôbon are: Astronomy (the universe doesn't seem like quite such a big place when you see the rings of Saturn through a telescope in your own back yard), Cooking (love the stir-fry especially), Drawing (I did an oil painting once, had about as much paint on me as the canvas), Digital image editing (once I found Pixia, I really got into it), Photography (If you haven't seen my pictures of the Mothman Statue in Point Pleasant WV yet, go
here - if that doesn't work, try
Here,
Here,
And Here), Reading (Anything from Jules Verne to Shakespeare, but
Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman, is my all time favorite book), writing (sci-fi/fantasy short stories mostly), Listening to music (I can sing on key only in Japanese though), Playing music (I'm trying to learn to play the recorder, I'm great with a Kazoo though), Meditation, Technology, Internet (I'm working on a
web site, but it's a long way from being what I want it to be), Audio recording (something I liked from theatre), Special effects make-up (I can give anyone a black eye in under two minutes the hard way - that's an accomplishment for FX makeup in high school theatre), and Learning. I think that covers just about everything.
Brief Statement:
This was my first Cosmic Q&A session, it will also be my last. I thought doing this would be a fun way for the people who frequent my blog to get to know me better. I did not do this with the idea that it would spur "follow-up questions" to be handled in my next post, this session was always intended to be a single event. I guess I can't help it if people don't want to get to know me, just remember, that kind of thing works both ways. My next post will be my thoughts on
Porco Rosso. Animé Dreams one and all.
Thank you for your time, no more questions.
Exeunt
