Confessions of a female otaku... April 2013

Yes, yes, yes, I confess... I'm a nut. I think I've already confessed to that. I'm a project nut. I have like a million projects going on. I'm re-tagging my music library, I'm doing my 15 minute sessions, my 4 hour sessions, my "movies i should have seen that I didn't", my trophy hunting, my trope hunting, my yaoi cook book, my writing, reading, gaming, Disney comparisons... Projects that never seem to get off the ground, and if they do they get just a few inches over the ground and then just hovers there, quite uselessly. But I WILL get cracking, I promise.

Once upon a long, long time ago, in August 2012, I believe, just after starting this blog, I thought I had this pinned. I made a plan. Didn't stick to it. I suppose I don't have the discipline. I don't even blog every day. But then again, discipline. That I lack.

I have another confession to make: I'm impressionable. If I read something I tend to take on the same tone in my writing. Or if I watch certain videos, especially on a certain webpage with a number of movie critics that I really like. If I ever come into a larger sum of money, I'm pouring part of over you, guys, just so you know.

So, status update om my projects:
I HATE you, Buck-Tick! To many singles, and my music tag program doesn't recognize them, so its slow as hell. I BLAME YOU!

My 15-minute sessions are.... going.... slow, but then it's mostly just that everyday stuff, cleaning, exercising, planning of the meals and money and stuff. I get distracted, mostly bu this hellish thing called computer.

My 4-hour sessions, which is me playing video games and watching movies and TV-series, is going slow, too. I'm supposed to be playing a game, buuut, I get distracted. By OTHER GAMES! I was playing Ni no Kuni, but then ME Citadel landed, and I got distracted.

My "movies I should have seen" is a little better off, as I started, well, I did start on new years, but then I just did one for 2012. My new project is to check up all the movies that came out on a particular month. Space it out a bit. I'm working on January 1985-2009. Gotta try to catch up to April. I'm getting on that after I finished here.

Trophy hunting, didn't even start, but I will.

Trope hunting... well, I'm doing trope hunting on the Final Fantasy characters, backwards, I'll have to tell. Guess how far I got. Final Fantasy XIII. Not finished. I have Hope and Fang left. So, yeah, slow.

Yaoi cook book, I have one recipe done, I'll post it next week.

Writing.... *stares at pile of notebooks*......

Reading, I have done a lot, finished the Nightrunner series yesterday, re-read Passion, going to check my update status on Goodreads. I haven't updated that for a while.

Gaming, well, that goes hand in hand with trophy hunting, I guess.

Disney comparison project... I like this project, even f it's slow going. It's coming up here one day, I just have to finish editing and stuff. Hopefully I get to post the videos, if not... we'll see.

All in all. I'm slow. Some would argue that I spread myself to thin, but if I didn't, I would get bored. Some might argue that I got ADD, but I don't. I've checked.

Wednesday is library day....

Books, books, books, books, books, books, books....... yes, I love books. My mother worked at a library, so, I blame her. In a loving, cutesy way of course. I have read a loot of books in my day, mostly ones targeted at kids and young adults. What can i say, I'm young. I have a kind of odd relationship to books though, as most of my dearest book memories are those i didn't read myself, but listened to. Audio books I've always listened to, and that made my book choices a bit odd when i was a kid. My mother used to play her books on the living room stereo, so here are my favorite Audio books when i was 5-12, in the order i heard them:  The Swedish crime series about Martin Beck, Mio in the Land of Far away by Astrid Lindgren, Lord of the Flies, some books about Inspector Morse, Edgar Allan Poe's most famous, Winnie the Pooh, The Chronicles of Narnia, the sweet little kid books about Eddie (by one of the more known Swedish authors), Mina drömmars stad (famous book about Stockholm and its history), Utvandrarna + Invandrarna, Shakespeare "12th night" and..... of course all the other books by Astrid Lindgren. Hey, I was a kid! All kids in Sweden read Astrid Lindgren! Eclectic? For sure. I still love reading Audio Books. (And YES! People do READ audio books. Only people who can read with their eyes listens to audio books. My father was blind, so in my family we READ audio books.) I cant really explain the appeal of reading an audio book, i think it has to do with who is reading. Both the actual person you listen to and who you are as a listener/reader. For example there is an old time reader of audio books here, which you seem to either love or hate. No middle ground at all for that poor soul. Well, I sure love him, and that I say, loud and proud. Without naming names..... One Sweden can't seem to hate to listen too, however, is Astrid Lindgren. She read just about all her children's books as audio books. That's good. Too bad she died, dead people don't write books, but the old woman was like 90 for heavens sake. I think she was even older still. So may she rest in peace.

There is this debate in Sweden, not unlike the debate about kids and video games, and that's the debate about kids and books. Now, I know I was kind of extreme when I was a kid and read a lot of stuff kids don't and shouldn't read. When reading actual, written books (a.k.a not audio books) I was just as wierd as with the audio books. I read Lord of the Rings when i was 7, and Utvandrareposet (big 4-parter about Karl-Oscar and Kristina moving from Sweden to the US in the 1800s, that in the 1990s even became a musical) when i was 9. So, yeah, I shouldn't talk, right? If I can read heavy-hitters, why cant other children? THAT'S JUST IT! why can't other children? Ok, maybe not let them read what I read, but they BARELY get to read Astrid Lindgren anymore! Ok, she has a free pass, but still. There was a debate a year or so back on TV, where one of the authors of children's books that were published before the Millennium said that if she had come with her scripts today, she would have NEVER gotten published. A publisher that was there for the debate agreed and said that IF she had come with her scripts today, ASTRID LINDGREN would never have gotten published. Why? Because of thing like Pippi Longstocking not having any parents, or the fact that there are drunk people at the auction where Emil i Lönneberga went, or the Brothers Lionheart DYING! We cant have that in children's literature! Maaaybe if they were animals they could be allowed to die.... but not people! I mean, it's reality. Children must be protected at all cost! Or not.... I think there are lessons to learn in all literature, as long as you dare touch the subject. And as with the video games: TALK TALK TALK! with the kids. When will people learn?

So, what were my favorite books when i was a kid? I have NO idea, i read to much, and I tend to read good books over and over and over, so I don't really know when i read some books. But now, and "genre"-wise? I will tap into my bookshelves at my favorite book site. And they go like this:

Adventure: Wow... this is hard..... maybe because most of the books goes in more category than one. But going with a classic "adventure" story, I'd have to say Treasure Island. My first encounter with pirates. I love the book, I love the movie from 1990, and for some reason, I fell in love with Captain Smollett. Whose first name is Alexander, by the way, not Abraham like in the puppet movie. This has spawned a few good fanfic ideas, first one i can find writen by my own hand is in a school notebook saying 4th grade on it. I was 10! Dear me, I have been at the fanfic thing for a while. There was also a fanfic scrap about batman in that notebook, buuuut..... no, not going there.Treasure Island also spawned my first yaoi fanfic. I promise to tell the story about that one on Saturday.

Classics: Well, I read a lot of classics, I guess, and Treasure Island might as well have ended up here. But I'll go for Shakespeare's 12th night, simply because it is one of the oldest. I was leaning towards The Three Musketeers, but it's too close to Treasure Island. Why is it The Three Musketeers always seem pirate-y to people? Anywho, the 12th night was my first Shakespeare play, I actually saw it on Swedish public service before reading it, and I fell in love... humor, gender-confusion, hot guys in tights, some of the Swedish acting elite of the day (this was, maybe, mid 90s)...... what's not to like. This never spawned any real fanfic efforts, but I did steal the name of the main character for one of my heavier yaois. (Heavy in more than one way.)

Comics: Yes, I think comics is reading. Just as Manga is reading. A lot of kids learn to read by reading comics. So don't put shame on them. Uncle Scrooge! Actually, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, by Don Rosa. I've always loved Uncle Scrooge, he is so greedy and sinister and... well, greedy. He could almost be a bad guy. Which makes him an exceptional good guy. It's a problem a lot of books and movies, especially movies, have. The good guys are less interesting than the bad guys. You care more for them. But not this time! Uncle Scrooge is the greatest duck on earth. The Ducks of Duckburg never spawned any fan fiction. And no yaoi. That would just be weird.


Crime/Mystery/Murder: But mostly Crime and Murder. This is one of those genres I have a problem with knowing how to categorize. Mystery doesn't really fit in here, but then, almost all crime and murder novels are mysteries. My favorite? The series about Martin Beck by Sjööwall&Wahlöö. Especially the last one, Terroristerna. Maybe this is all nostalgia on my part, growing up with them in the speakers at home, but to me, this is as close to perfection you come in a murder mystery cop series. So there! In my younger days, this did spawn some fan fiction but not much, and I don't think any of it survived.



Fantasy: This one is easy: Lord of the Rings. Oh, Frodo... you have been my constant companion since i was 7. I swear, honest to a god i don't even believe in, I NEVER put this one down. I come to the end of the appendices and I swear, I just flip right back to the first page. First page of The Hobbit, that is, cause I think you should read that first. I do on occasion read the Silmarillion, Book of Lost Tales, Unfinished tales, Children of Hurin and Tales from a perilous Realm as well. About once a year. This has spawned A LOT of fanfic from me, and even yaoi. And NO, not about Sam and Frodo. Not even about the rest of the fellowship. No, one of my favourite yaoi stories is about a character that is in like 2 pages of the Fellowship, and has like 3 lines. Oh, and Elronds little brother. Not Elros, though. One that I made up. That's fan fiction for you, making up characters that don't exist in the original. My first Fan fiction, thought was not yaoi, but feminist. I cast myself, at age 9, as the leading lady, that actually went with the fellowship on their journey. Back then, I thought there were not enough women in this book series. Now.... I think there are to many. (Yaoi fangirl mode activated.)

Girls books: Why are there girls books and no boys books? Or is it that all books are for boy because girls shouldn't read, so when a book for girls pop up you have to point it out? Or is it the other way around, boys shouldn't read girls books? Anywho, I guess this is the category for books like Nancy Drew and the Sweet Valley twins. So I choose Anne of Green Gables. I and Anne have a lot in common. We're both girls, we're both redheads, (at least i was a redhead when i was younger), we're both dreamers. She talks more than i do of course. I'm kind of a quiet girl. And i never got in trouble the way she did. Anne in some ways was like my brave, stand-up alter ego when I was a kid. I dreamed and wished I could be like her.


History: Not classics, but set in times past. I think my own arbitrary rule for a book to qualify as history in my head is that it has to take place before the 1950s. And I'm going for Havets djup, a book series about two Jewish sisters from Vienna who come to Sweden during the second world war. The real focus is the older girl, who sees her younger sister loose the connection to Austria and their language, and becomes more and more Swedish, while she herself tries to stay true to her heritage. And will they ever see their parents again? Will they make it out of Austria? And should they move form the people who took them in in Sweden and go to relatives in America? It's a good read about the predicaments of leaving one thing behind and be confronted with another on a level older children can understand. It is a book for younger teens. And it resonates with me on a special level, because i have relatives who went through that hell and came out the other side.

Kids books: Haven't I already done that? Maybe not. Can one be from Sweden and say ones favorite kids book is not written by Astrid Lindgren? Well, i guess... So I'll just pick two, favorite Astrid Lindgren and favorite someone else.Let me just say this before i forget: I HATE PIPPI LONGSTOCKING! I cant stand her. She's so.... obnoxious. She said one good thing and one good thing only: If you're strong , you have to be kind. That's all. My favorite: I have a hard time choosing between the three most "fantastical" in the sense they are mostly fantasy. Mio, min Mio, The Brothers Lionheart and Ronja the robbers daughter. But i go with The Brothers Lionheart. It's just such a heartfelt story, full of adventure and love. The brotherly kind. It seems like you always have to point that out nowadays. What's wrong with people? And, god, there's a f*ing dragon! And, yes, please don't kill me now, but actually, this has spawned a yaoi story out of my messed up brain. This is another of my "shove-another-character-at-them-and-see-what- happens." I do that a lot. It's Jonatan who has a love interest. After growing a few inches. And years. I think the weirdest decision Astrid Lindgren ever made was making that kid a.... kid. I mean, who would entrust an entire war to a 13-year-old? I never believed it as a kid and i don't believe it now.

 



Well, it's become a really long ramble today, actually, it's already tomorrow. so I'll just have to make it a two-parter. or I will sit here for the rest of the night. So, the following categories I will write about tomorrow: Kids Books (the one that's not Astrid Lindgren's), Manga, Fairy Tales, Sci-Fi, Shounen-ai, Thrillers and yaoi. Damn, that means two blog posts tomorrow, or I will get confused.....

Let's play... project: Preamble

So, I'm starting my huge Game Nerd Project today by starting a new local account on my Xbox 360 and planning for my Dragon Age Origins adventure. Not like it's a new adventure or anything, I've played it maybe a.... trillion times? I think... Anywho... Before i do get down and dirty in Ferelden, I thought about saying something about gaming in general. This desire was further fueled when i stumbled upon a forum thread at a Swedish forum targeted at families and all that goes with having one. It's an old discussion, one I have reacted upon in the past. My reaction? GAMES ARE NOT JUST FOR KIDS! Honestly, knowing what it is, especially now-a-days, with the blood and the gore and the maiming of people, and general realism of almost all genres, not only the horror one, would you put your 5-year-old in front of Mortal Kombat? Or Silent Hill, which is really scary? Or Resident Evil? If you would, that's okay. Because if you do, or consider doing that, i take for granted you know WHAT IT IS! Don't come crying to me if  you get shocked, do the research. Don't know a title? CHECK IT UP! Don't just go and buy it and let your kid play without you knowing what it is and what consequences it will have on your kid. I don't know your kid, so i don't know what scares him or her. I'm all for kids playing video games. Handled the right way, it's great that kids play, they learn a lot. Solving puzzles and action-reaction and consequence thinking can really be enhanced. So I'm not against kids playing, i just think parents should be aware of what they let their kids play. And play with them, god knows how many great bonding sessions i had with my mother over some Mario way back when. So get going. Play a video game with your kids. Just know what it is you're playing. And test your limits, and your kids. That last game a delightful kiddies romp through the forests with a cartoon character? Good. Now you have the option of getting more of the same, or trying something darker and heavier. Try it, go ahead. Too much for your kid? YOU CAN ALWAYS GO BACK! Maybe the darker game is for next month, or next year. Or never. As long as you take it slow, do it WITH the kids and take the time to TALK, TALK, TALK with the kids about their experience, you will have some of the best time with them.

So let me talk a little about my own childhood gaming experience. Now, I grew up in a picket fence kind of place, close to the capital yet not really at the rich end of the scale. The Swedish term "Medelsvensson" would probably apply, though I don't like the term. Fact is, sometimes we were poor, sometimes we were "rich", but somehow we could always afford games. My first ever game memory was my ototo's 4th birthday, I was then 6, and he got a Nintendo for birthday. A classic NES, with a Super Mario Bros. 3 along with it. Now, neither console or game was new, per se, they had both been on the market for a few years. Guess what? My brother REFUSED to play. Gaming wasn't really new to either of us, we had older friends that played, and we had both played Mario before. Still, he wouldn't play for months. Mom tried to coax him into playing, but finally gave up. Instead I was allows to put my little hands on the game, me and my mom played in 2-p mode, alternating between Mario and Luigi. Was it every other time, or until one player died, or....? I don't remember, it was so long ago. Must i say my brother eventually came to play too? Of course he did. Since then, I think we've owned every game console easily available on the Swedish market, each giving me memories I treasure. With the exception of Sega, maybe because back then you either had a Nintendo or a Sega. And because my parents decided on what to buy, or I would have had Sega as well.

So, what were my favorite games for each console i owned? Hard to tell. But the ones i remember go something like this:
NES: Super Mario Bros. 3 (Duh!) MetaCritic score: Actually, there doesn't seem to exist one, maybe its to old. Gamespot.com User Score was 9,3/10 anyway.










SNES: ActRaiser! Oh, old gem, how I struggled with you. Took me maybe a month to clear that first level. MetaCritic score: Still, none. I have the theory anything before 2000 is too old. Gamespot.com UserScore: 8,5/10. I played good games in the early 1990's.






GameBoy: We did have a GameBoy, but i don't think I played it all that much. I don't remember playing it.


N64: Super Mario 64! What else? 3D and all. Wow, I tell you! Wow! One of my many "Wow" moments in gaming. MetaCritic Score: 94! I'm impressed, both at the score and the fact it had one. Though it might be on the re-release for the NintendoDS 3D. Honorable mention: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. One of the coolest games ever. Link was one of my first Game Crushes. And now, well, since after playing that game, I too play the Ocarina.


PlayStation: Mmmmm..... Let me think....... FINAL FANTASY VII. The most AWSOME game of the 1990's. And I got it for my birthday. I am my mother ever grateful for this. And yes, a lot of yaoi has come out of that game, from my ever-so-.screwed-up mind. MetaCritic Score: 92.







GameBoy Color: The only memory of GameBoy Color i have is that my ototo played Pokémon on it. I didn't. I wasn't all that impressed with it. It was fun and addictive while you played, but not memorable. And I barely got to play, because he would always monopolize it.


Nintendo GameCube: For me an odd choice, because i was never a sports fan: 1080* Avalanche Snowboard game. I love snowboarding... GameCube kind of came and went. Except for the Mario Party games and LoZ: Wind Waker, I don't remember having ANY games for this console. MetaCritic Score for 1080* Avalanche: 73







PlayStation 2: Hmmm.... tough choice. I think I will go with Kingdom Hearts. The first one. Mixnig Disney and Final Fantasy sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it really wasn't. MetaCritic Score: 85 Honorary Mentions: Final Fantasy X and XII (yes, I do like them, sry), Yakuza 1 and 2, and a bunch of others...







Xbox: Oh, my.... let's see..... all of the BioWare games... Actually, that's it! All of the BioWare Games.... all like... 2 of them. I swear, time goes by so fast, I had to check so the games I thought was on Xbox wasn't for 360. Was the original Mass Effect for Xbox? No! It was for 360! Is it that the 360 is that old? I think so. Anywho, my favorite game for the Xbox was Star Wars The Knights of the Old Republic. Star Wars + pre-movie story (really, really pre-movie story) + BioWare.... What can go wrong? MetaCritic Score: 94 Honorary Mention: Lord of the Rings The Third Age. It was a really good fun little adventure through Middle Earth, with the fellowship in the background and another fellowship in the foreground. It's weird no one dares touch that mythology and make something of it. Or maybe they only remember the Lord of the Rings books....


Anyway, that was my extremely long ramble on one of my favorite topics. Later I will post my first session of playing Dragon Age Origins..... now, all i gotta do is decide how to play it...

Confessions of a Female Otaku....

Yeah, yeah, yeah..... I confess....

1: I'm not a blogger. I hate blogging. Ok, HATE is such a strong word, but still. I'm just not good at it. Which is probably why this blog hasn't had any update in like a month. I mean, what do people blog about anyway? To me, it seems like the blog topics, at least for women, are clothes and feelings and clothes and family and clothes and children and clothes and food and clothes and the occasional movie review and clothes.... ok, fashion....Me, I hate clothes, uh, I mean, fashion, clothing stores, even on the internet, gives me panic attacks. I cant blog about children and family, cause I have none of those, all I really have is my ototo and  onee-chan (honorary family member), and a very small number of friends that are busy with lives of their own. And feelings, well.... I've never kept a diary, EVER! I hate writing about my own feelings, maybe because all I ever dealt with was my parents feelings about my mother getting breast cancer when I was eight. Don't take me wrong, I love my mother. She died waaaay to young. Food.... well, everyone needs food... so, maybe some food blogging... yaoi-related, of course. Is it just me, or are people in manga always eating? Or talking about food, or cooking? Movies.... ok, I'm not a movie critic.... usually, I like movies others hate, or at least dislike. For example, take a look at the movies that got a 10 from me at the big great database... (In no perticular order):  Fanny och Alexander, The Fellowship of the Ring, Schindler's List, Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi, The Lion King, The Return of the King, The Green Mile, Beauty and the Beast, Rosemary's baby.  Inconsistent? Very. Good movies? Very. All deserving a ten? According to the sites rating, no.... closest we get is Schindler's List and  The Return of the King with an 8,9 tie, Closely followed by the Fellowship at 8.8. Honorary big fail mention: Queen of the Damned which I gave a 3.... and the audience:  4,9. My rating movies seems to be in the 6-10 span rather than 1-10.... I gave Bambi 2 an 8 for heavens sake... something is wrong with me.... Also, I have a hard time focusing on the movie itself, as I am one to Loooove source material and side material. and for that reason, i actually happen to kinda like the Star Wars Episode 1 movie. So, shoot me! I see where they're coming from and what they're going for, because i read all the books around the move. I even read the book The Phantom Menace. Sure, it was written with screen play in hand, but in my humble opinion, Terry Brooks did a good job with it.Ok, ok, ranting movies.... moving on....

2: This is supposed to be a fan fiction yaoi blog, but you know what? Well see what happens with that. Fact is, I write by HAND in a NOTEBOOK..... ok, like 20 notebooks, but whatever. I simply think better when lying in bed at two in the morning, wonder what time it is and why I'm not sleeping yet. Same way i take my books, thank you very much. So having too write things twice.... meh! Maybe, well see... But I'm always thinking about doing it. Yeah, I hear you! "Why not just write on the computer, you obviously have one." Well, the reason for that is that IT'S NOT A LAPTOP! I cant have my stationary computer in bed with me, too cumbersome. I am thinking about buying a laptop for the soul purpose of writing on it, but that seems like an unnecessary cost, especially when one's not as rich as one wishes.

3: I'm a nerd... Ok, that we already knew.... let's see.... Oh, yes! I AM NOT A BLOGGER! And on top of that, I have no sense of aesthetics. This will never be a pretty blog, unless someone takes pity on me and helps me out. And that's not likely to happen. EVER! *Cries a little.* Anywho, I guess it is what it is. I don't really care anymore. I've surrendered to the fact that i can barely draw a stick figure, but that's it. That's where my skills in the fine arts end. I can write and I can sing *she confessed reluctantly*, but that's it.I FAILED art class when I was in school (Swedish equivalent to junior high). I mean... who FAILS art? Honestly? Ok, there was this whole other thing going on in my life making me not care, but WTF, if you excuse the language. So, now you know why this blog looks like it does.... and yea, I also have no camera, not even on my cell phone, cause that phone is from the last millennium. I'm not kidding. It's from 1999.... or 2003, but still!

Now I'm done ranting. I'm going to kick of my two big new projects that are probably going to last for a year or so, IF I really do it. I'm going to do my very own "Let's play..." series with the crap video games others has already done... but through the eyes of a girly yaoi otaku of course. First out: Dragon Age! All of them....  Secondly, and this I have been on a while, making VERY slow process: I'm going to read EVERY SINGLE book I own. Even the once I inherited from my grand-mom. Even the once I inherited from my grand-mom that are in Hungarian! Nah, skip those, it's mostly tourist book over museums that don't exist anymore anyway. The 1960's come and gone loooong ago.... I wasn't even born then. First out among those? I have NO IDEA, we'll see once I've blogged about the once I've already read.


And in the immortal words of Pippi Longstocking: Please leave now. If you don't go home today, you can't come back tomorrow.