I have a number of other hobbies outside of writing. I work at a horse barn part time and I currently own two horses and ride somewhat regularly.
I am rather creative outside of writing as well, and I like crafts of various kinds including painting miniatures for my table top gaming (another hobby), crochet, and newbie attempts at creating gourd lamps.
I also play video games (though far fewer than I used to), watch/read the occasional anime/manga, and I love well-written TV and flashy movies.
Next in my series of analyzing my favorite media is Howl’s Moving Castle. I saw the movie before I read the book, mostly because I watch all of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. I loved the movie and so I went out to buy the book. I also loved the book.
Over time, when I would pull the movie out to watch, I found myself instead watching a few minutes of the movie and then going and getting the book to read instead. Howl’s Moving Castle is only 329 pages, so it’s a quick read.
1) Character:
I love Sophie and Howl’s relationship and how it develops so naturally between them as they snipe back and forth. Especially! the tiny bits of care Howl displays between his irresponsibility and arrogance that gradually grow more frequent. In fact, I love this so much about the book, that it’s the biggest the reason I don’t watch the movie anymore, because it is practically non-existent there.
Howl said. “I think we ought to live happily ever after,” and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more eventful than any story made it sound, though she was determined to try. “It should be hair raising,” added Howl.
“And you’ll exploit me,” Sophie said.
“And then you’ll cut up all my suits to teach me,” Howl said.
2) Voice/Plot:
Both of these have to do with the book being well written. The narrator is so delightfully playful and the dialogue is witty and appropriate.
“Go to bed, you fool,” Calcifer said sleepily. “You’re drunk.”
“Who, me?” said Howl. “I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober.” He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him. “What a lie that was.” Howl remarked as he walked into the wall. “My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.” He walked into the wall several times more, in several different places, before he discovered his bedroom door and crashed his way through it. Sophie could hear him falling about, saying his bed was dodging.
I also appreciate how well the plot is explained to Sophie in the end. Howl does a lot behind her pov and the Witch of the Waste’s plot is rather complicated, but at the same time I never remember feeling confused about what was happening and why.
1) Bishounen:
Bishounen is a Japanese word that literally means ‘pretty boy’. I grew up watching a lot of anime and this is a trope that is quite prevalent in anime. I love men who are classified as pretty over handsome. Howl is a bishounen.
2) Sense of Wonder:
Hayao Miyazaki knows how to add wonder to his movies by just showing the beauty of nature. It’s probably why I like most of his movies.
1) The movie plays Howl up as noble, with his ‘saving’ Sophie from the soldiers at the beginning and his rampant disapproval of the war. This overshadows his being an irresponsible, arrogant womanizer. I can see why I liked the movie so much at first, because who doesn’t love a beautiful, noble character? Then I fell in love with the flawed Howl. I read the book to watch Howl become a better person through his interaction with Sophie.
2) Sophie does not have any magic. At least not that’s obvious. The one bit of ‘overt’ magic that she does do, in returning Howl’s heart, is in no way foreshadowed, so it’s easy to say Sophie can do it because she loves Howl. I suppose this is rather petty, but I feel like the magic was so naturally a part of who Sophie was that its absence gives her a different feel.
3) The whole war, which was there to create conflict instead of the Witch of the Waste …perhaps because her plot was too complicated? In the end the war didn’t mean anything except there were bombs dropped during the climax. (That and it reveals that Suliman was apparently covertly creepy/evil what with her mini-Howls and the implication that the war was just an excuse for her to gather and strip the powers of witches and wizards.)
4) The Witch of the Waste being horribly ineffective. She curses Sophie, admits she can’t undo the curse, can hardly walk up stairs, gets her magic taken away, and then turns into a senile invalid.
Now I’m sure a lot of parts of the movie suffered because, well, it was a movie and not a book. Books just have more time for detail and character arcs. What I can’t forgive is just how different the Howl from the book felt than the Howl from the movie. I could have been fine with the war subplot if Howl could have just been himself. But since one of the things I enjoy the most in my media are the characters and their relationships, I’ll just continue reading the book and using the movie for character designs.
So I said in a previous post that I wanted to look at my favorite media and analyze what about my favorite movies, books, TV shows, etc is so appealing to me. I decided to start off with what is arguably my favorite movie of all time: Speed Racer.
I am a huge fan of the graphics. I tend to like the aesthetic choices of the Wachowskis. Most of their movies are not great, truthfully, but their style, mixed with the feel of the anime I grew up with, made this world, and thus the movie, feel so beautiful to me. I understand this particular look is not something that a lot of people like (I think it may have been one of the reasons this movie did so horribly, but that might have also been the anime style that not many Americans appreciate), but reality that looks like a brighter, somewhat cartoonish version of reality tends to grab my attention right away. I also especially enjoyed the separation of the characters from the background, which allowed the background to move, blur, or even have different filters to change scenes or add emotion.
I really enjoy good fight choreography, and the races basically were fight scenes. In the Casa Cristo Speed and Racer X team up to fight off all the other cars in the dust cloud and it’s pretty amazing. Also when Speed gets Snake Oiler guy on the rail, bearing down on him with his tire. Or especially when Speed fights Jack ‘Cannonball’ Taylor and then leaves him behind.
I like the strong relationship between Speed and his family (which includes Trixie and Sparky). I like stories where there is a sense of trust between characters. Pops was willing to do business with Royalton if Speed wanted to, even though he knew big companies were not to be trusted. Trixie was willing to help Speed sneak away from home to go to the Casa Cristo because it was important to him. Mom kept everyone together when they tried to fall apart when they found out about Casa Cristo. And how Pops was willing to let Speed go when everything seemed to be spiraling out of control, but made sure to tell Speed how much he loves him.
I like the brotherly love between Speed and Rex/Racer X. Rex means everything to Speed and Speed is likewise crushed when his big brother turns ‘dirty’. When Speed tells Racer X they made a great team while driving in the Casa Cristo and how much Racer X probably wanted to tell him the truth. Then Speed accuses Racer X of being his brother, and how disappointed he is when he’s ‘wrong’, but how Racer X encourages him like only a big brother would be able to.
There is even romance and a world that feels huge with all the details and backstory they bring up (Which I appreciate as a fantasy author). I go back to this movie again and again, and there are really no scenes that I regularly skip over. Even the scenes with the monkey (I hate monkeys) are not long or drawn out enough to be an annoyance. This movie just hits a lot of sweet spots when it comes to what I enjoy.
Another prompt from the DIYMFA.com. To find out more, you can check out the DIYMFA.com’s instigator, Gabriela Pereira’s new book DIY MFA.
QOTW 15: What’s Your Favorite Type of Story?
My favorite type of story is one that has a theme of camaraderie, either a pairing or a team of some kind. This does not (necessarily) mean an ensemble cast. I am a fan of characters interacting with each other in a place of teamwork and/or trust. It can be romantic or not. (I am always a fan of a good bromance.) I also like it when it starts out as hate or reluctance.
Examples across media include:
Castle: The four main characters are willing to do anything for each other, even if it’s sometimes outside the law.
Psych: Shawn and Gus seem to know what each other is thinking and are always together, have each other’s backs, and the jokes they pull off together are amazing.
Suits: In the cutthroat lawyer world, the two main characters are seriously loyal to each other.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (TV Show and Movie): In the TV show, the two main characters are partners and work very well together. In the movie they start out hating each other and come to a sort of grudging respect.
BBC’s Merlin: The two main characters start out hating each other and eventually develop into friends AND in later seasons get a whole team that works together on trust.
Speed Racer This movie has a theme of family, and plenty of times when everyone has to work together to get stuff done.
The Avengers: More an ensemble cast, but they all have to learn to work together
Blue Exorcist: Team of students that bond through their adventures enough to keep them together when they find out the main character is the son of the devil. (This one’s an anime.)
The Legend of Eli Monpress: The main character and his team are already established at the beginning of the books, but it’s their bonds to each other that keep them from failing.
Brandon Sanderson novels: He likes to have a tight knit team that works well together and gets along (fairly well) in most of his books.
As you can see, it’s a wide variety of different types of relationships and teams that gets me interested, but it’s no surprise that I have a similar theme in all of my own stories.
Why does this archetype appeal to me so much?
Because I inherently want to trust people.
Because these are the kinds of relationships I want to have.
…it’s something like that I’m sure.
I don’t like books where everyone betrays everyone else all the time and are just out for themselves. I like to see people willing to go to the mat to defend a friend. I like to see people throw it all on the line for something they might not even understand because it’s important to the person they trust. I never get more teary eyed than when two people (especially who hated each other previously) go back to back. It’s about that connection. It also tends to result in some pretty awesome dialogue as friends snark at each other.
Out of this I am planning on doing a series of blog posts going into more depth with what I like about my favorite media, and what I didn’t like about media I consumed and didn’t like. I expect I’ll find that a lot of the things I like about the media I consume end up in my own stories, like this one, but there may be some that I’m not even aware of right now, and if I become aware of them, then I can manipulate them to better effect in my own storytelling.
Otakon is done and over and was tons of fun. We actually put events in our guidebook and went to them! Spent money in the Dealer’s Room and Artist Alley. The weekend on a whole was great.
Then I hung out for three days at my mother-in-law’s with basically nothing to do except write. So I worked on my outline, which got done more quickly than I thought it would, I spent some time working through the ‘major’ issues (both straight up plot holes as well as concepts I just hadn’t fleshed out yet, and that needed to be fleshed out) and reading the 1300 page Words of Radiance by Branderson.
What did I discover during this process? First off, doing the physical post it note on posterboard is better than the program I had for index cards because I can see it all at a glance. So I could see where all the pink cards are (those are scenes that still need to be written) and where important character moments happen for Rose (pink) Tabitha (yellow) and Garrett (green). Through the middle, the blue are the plot holes, and everything else on that line are things that need to be explained that I don’t actually have a place for yet …
However it brings into super sharp contrast the fact that my second half of the book just doesn’t exist. I knew this was an issue before I started the outline. It has been a problem for a while, but this is the perfect time to have this problem because I’m going to the Writer’s Digest Conference this weekend. I will be surrounded by writers and writing teachers. I’m sure something in a panel will pop out at me and propel me forward again.
For now, getting ready for my trip to New York.
So Otakon is this weekend (I am writing this post on Friday morning in order to still have something to post on Sunday) and so this week was a little wonky. I got plenty of notes done over the past weekend but not nearly as much as I could have. I feel that in the future I should be able to pound out notes in a draft in only slightly longer than it takes to actually read the story.
I am in the final fight scene right now, which is actually not as much of a total mess as I thought it was. The choreography of the fight needs a lot of work, but the A, B, C of what happens is pretty together.
After Otakon I am hanging out in Maryland (at my mother-in-law’s) for an extra three days (otherwise I would be spending Tuesday driving home to Southwest Virginia and Thursday taking the train to New York City for the Writer’s Digest conference.) which is just unnecessary travel. It will also give me three days of a no plans vacation in which I will finish out my notes and start in on my outline. (And maybe read some of Words of Radiance, the next #Branderson book in my queue.)
Which means that Writer’s Digest is imminent! I am a little package of nervous excitement. I am glad that I am able to take the train up and stay in the hotel with Anel (a writing buddy) so I won’t be all alone in the city. Btw, if you’re going to Writer’s Digest, drop me an email or a facebook message so I know to look for you.
So next week I may post twice! Once with what writing stuff I get done on my ‘vacation’, and another with the details of my experience at Writer’s Digest. Stay tuned!
So as my husband pointed out, this is actually my 11th year of going to Otakon. That makes me feel so old! But I still remember Otakon of 2000 when my friend Anne decided with some of her other friends maybe two days before the con, that we were going, and getting up at 4am to drive up there on the Friday of the con, and having a hotel outside the city, and not being able to find parking, and walking a mile in a downpour. It’s a wonder I ever went back.
So if you want to see all the pictures, I had Picasa make one of those instant web pages here.
As for my swag pictures:
So in the back are Hope and Lightning figures. My favorite characters from FFXIII. I also wanted to get an Ashe, who I felt was the only really worthwhile character from FFXII (except Balthier, though I didn’t really like him) but alas, I didn’t see her. In the middle is my Otakon badge. The rest of the stuff was actually from our day at the Towson Mall the day after the con. A Pride and Prejudice comic (yeah it’s weird, plus I’m so used to seeing the characters from the A&E series that I can’t remember who is who.) the latest Mercades Lackey book in paperback, a fancy covered notebook, and yummy treats from Harry and Davids.
A print from Otakon’s Artist Alley of all the Eevee evolutions. It’s just so darn cute.
I’m a fan of Flaffy, and since we had a free print to pick out (Buy two, get one free and James got the other one.) I picked this one for fun.
Stuffed animals galore. In the back, the blue, pink, and green things are from Shugo Chara! One of my most favoritest series. Then Lugia, who I did not see a plush of the entire weekend until our last trip through the dealer’s room when we technically weren’t supposed to spend any more money. The green thing is Ai-kun from Macross Frontier. One of my other favoritest series. Then of course growlithe and lapras.
Lots and lots of manga. No need to list out all the series as you can read them if you really want to know.
And if you’re interested in seeing my room immediately post Otakon: Clicky. The ‘ghosting’ and any crookedness you see is from my using the panorama option on my camera. It automatically takes three pictures and puts them together. Doesn’t work as great on things this close, but it served my purpose.
So I was finally able to get the Saber garage kit I had been eyeing for so long. After signing up and ordering on a website entirely in Japanese, getting it sent to a company who would send it overseas (as Volks would not), and dealing with a change in my credit card number which canceled my first attempt. Kind of a hassle, but my darling Saber is worth it.
For those who don’t know, a garage kit is an unassembled, unpainted, resin version of an anime figure that may or may not have a PVC version. This Saber does not, to my knowledge, at this time have a PVC version. This means that sometime in the future (maybe far future) I will have to assemble and paint this kit on my own.
I’m still working on learning to paint on the smaller and far cheaper reaper miniatures. But as she could go out of print at any time, I wanted to make sure to get her now.
It was that time of year once again, when Otakon came around. We left on Thursday, got our badges early, (as Otakon has been allowing for a few years now) and then went home to chill. (We being me, Matthew, and friend Matt from Tech.)
Friday we headed in, got the hotel room early, and puttered around the con. By that night we were joined by Chris (from Tech), Shawn (Chris’ friend), Brian (Matthew’s coworker), Brian’s sister (never did get her name), and Kelsey (Matthew’s sister). Nothing much of note in the AMVs unfortunately sans the Otakon legal department pulling some videos that were anime set to American movie trailer audio for obvious legal reasons.
I was very happy with my purchases this year, which I will now show off:
First picture! Stuff from Artist Alley. These are all prints of art done by fans. Aeris continues to be one of my favorite characters, along with Saber from Fate/Stay Night. Then one mustn’t forget Sora and Riku from Kingdom Hearts, and Hitsugaya from Bleach. I got two of him, a nice looking bust picture, as well as a beautifully rendered piece of him Bankai mode. Also there are fun little bitty prints of Saber, Near from Death Note, Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho, and Gaara from Naruto.
Next are the figures that I seem to be getting more and more interested in. I spent the entirely of the weekend looking for Saber figures, and these are the two I ended up coming home with. The larger one cost me quite a bit, the smaller not so much. I’m also one for keeping things as near mint as possible, as such everything is staying in the boxes. (This also makes dusting much easier.)
Next picture, more figures. Vincent and Aeris from FFVII. These figures are from an entire set. The company also put out Kingdom Hearts figures (all of which I passed over, mostly cause I didn’t find Riku.) but these two are the ones I got.
And this year I was able to find two nice wallscrolls. Code Geass (for which I need to find and download the second season) and Tsubasa. We put these wallscrolls in the back window as we were driving home and the plastic at the top and bottom warped into not straight patterns. I’m unhappy about that, and plan to sometime try and warp them back (don’t even know if it’d be possible) but until then, yay wallscrolls.
Two “official” posters. One of my new favorite game of all time: Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. It’s actually a picture of some figures that were put out. I tried looking for the Lenneth one, but surprise surprise, after two years it seems to be quite rare. (I found 3/5 on ebay.) The Inuyasha pic, even though I don’t watch the show / follow it in any way anymore, had all of the main characters in a nice poster and so I decided to grab it for old time’s sake.
And last picture is two pencil boards I found that I really liked. (I’m not usually much of a pencil board fan.) The soundtrack for Macross Frontier which I am currently watching, and a “How to draw” book. As usual, any time I am exposed to large amounts of fabulous artwork, I have that urge to draw yet again. Also, we had Arby’s for lunch.
I also got Ann’s birthday present, but I won’t spoil what it is. She’ll get it in due time.
I got everything from the con that I wanted except a Kowaru (from Evangelion) figure that I saw at the first place we went to in the dealer’s room. I told myself I would look for it cheaper elsewhere, and then totally forgot about it. And now I can’t find it on ebay or anywhere else. Ahh well, life happens.
All in all I had a fabulous Otakon, and we’ll see whether I get an update out tonight, or if you have to wait until Thursday.
Anime I’m downloading:
Spice and Wolf
Clannad
Shugo Chara!
Rental Magica
Shion no Ou
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
Shakugan no Shana II
Gundam 00
Spice and Wolf is the tale of a traveling merchant, Lawrence, who makes a promise with a harvest god, a wolf named Horo (or Holo, those silly Japanese) to take her North, and their resulting journey.
Impression: Actually, this is one of my favorite series to date, and that took me totally by surprise. So much so that I was thinking of putting together a Horo costume for the upcoming con. Horo’s character is just amazingly well done. The chemistry between the two main characters is just perfect. All storylines revolve around being a merchant and buying and selling goods, but it never gets boring. My only regret is that it’s only 13 episodes long.
Clannad is the story of a high school delinquent, Tomoya, who in his free time starts helping out a lost looking girl, Nagisa, who wants to restart the school’s drama club but lacks the confidence to do so.
Impression: After Air, and attempting to watch a few other dating sim games, I was sort of turned off by the general classification. But I saw Dom’s review of Clannad on Megatokyo.com, and I decided to give it a shot. I’m very glad I did. Once again watching the relationship between the two main characters evolve is a joy, and the supporting characters are lively, friendly, and in general everyone just wants to help everyone else. Just stay away from the movie. Usually I like movies like this because they kind of take the plot and condense it, and you get a nice quick trip with the characters from the series, however, this movie sapped the life out of Nagisa. She didn’t feel like Nagisa at all, and I just hated it. Plus it puts the supporting characters into nothing more than brief cameo roles, which isn’t fair to them.
Shugo Chara! follows a girl, Amu, who is seen as ‘cool’ by everyone at her school, but who really just wants to fit in. She then finds a trio of guardian eggs that tell her she can be anything she wants to be.
Impression: Just a fun magical girl show with everything you’d expect from the love interest, the rival, the friends, the enemies who aren’t really so bad, and of course the magic.
Rental Magica is the story of a boy who inherits his father’s mage renting company, even though he knows nothing about being a mage himself. It follows the small company and its employees, as well as the young leader of an impressively powerful mage renting company who befriends them.
Impression: Having a lot of fun watching this series. It’s nothing that I would end up watching more than once, but it’s entertaining the first time through. Hm, I make it sound more underwhelming than it is, but I can’t go into much detail without spoilers.
Shion no Ou is about a young girl, Shion, who is unable to speak since seeing her parents murdered in front of her when she was a child. She grew up raised by her next door neighbors, while learning to play Sougi.
Impression: I figured it would try and be some sort of Hikaru no Go rip off, but the murder is front and center in the plot of the series. It also goes into a lot of detail about the differences between men and woman’s shogi. (I’m almost positive there was no such distinction in Hikaru no Go.) Shion is adorable, and she acts like a perfectly normal girl except for having to write things down to communicate. Plus she’s falling for a bishie, and we all know how much I like those.
Shakugan no Shana II is more of the same as the first season. Still good, but you’ll be lost without the first season. Gundam 00 is extremely underwhelming right now. I think I got through about seven episodes. I’m still downloading it, but saving it for when there’s nothing else to watch.
