Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 61

Fan Art

I don't have much, but since I am writing to my pen pal again, I attempted a new picture of Renji.  Not entirely happy with the results, though:

Tired and Sore

Mason and I went back to kuk sool after a couple week's absence.  We had a great time, but my calves, of all things, are sore this morning.  I suspect that it has to do with being out of practice of standing in a stance.  Also we did kicks... who knows.  All I know is that the more I go, the better I feel.  So it's good to be back at it again.

I'm tired today because I spent last night hanging out with a friend.  We met up at Izzy's icecream parlor last night after martial arts, and, by chance, we also ran into some friends from Crossroads and their kids, Ava and Gavin.  To people who say St. Paul is a dead town after 5:00 pm, I call bull.  That place was HOPPING, and there was a whole sidwalk culture happening up and down that entire block, thanks to everyone hanging around outside, eating icecream.  In fact, it was so noisy, my friend and I had to retire back home so we could hear each other talk. 

Mason got to stay up late, since Shawn is away on a business trip.  That meant I was in charge of bedtime, and, since I wanted to stay up and chat myself, Mason got to stay up too.  He built himself a fort on the front porch and read, while the grown-ups talked in the living room.

It was actually pretty awesome.

But I'm paying for it a little today.  I have things to do, but all I really want to do is nap and possibly do a bit of writing.  I do, at least, have a loaf of zucchini bread in the oven.  I was thinking, given how many zucchini I STILL have in the fridge, we may have to sign up for the kuk sool barbeque just so I can drop off several loaves and flee.  :-)

Otherwise, I'm going to turn into that weird neighbor who leaves zucchini at people's front doors.

Movies and Comics

I've been hearing a lot of hoopla about the new Batman movie and "spoilers."  What confuses me is that I would have thought most people know what happens to Batman when he meets Bane.  It was a pretty big deal when the comicbook came out, and considering that I, a Marvel fan, even have a clue makes me think that, in fandom at least, nothing that happens at the end of the movie should be a surprise.  Especially given the cover art of that particular issue.  It's memorable.  It kind of sticks in my brain, even after all this time.  In fact, knowing what I do is why I actually have no plans to see this movie. 

I guess I've always been confused about the lack of cross-pollinization in these two fandoms.  Marvel's latest movies have only made me convinced that EVERYONE reads the comics, because the directors so clearly give us long-time comicbook fans so many GIFTS.  Also, the movies are full of "dog-whistles" for comicbook fans--just setting the Thor movie in the southwest made me understand WHICH Thor I could be expecting.  And, then as a bonus, we got a little nod to the older Thor with the "Dr. Donald Blake" referrence.

Genuis.

Or not, I guess, if you don't get it.

Because, what, only two days ago, people on the Internets got the screaming heebie-jeebies at the announcement at ComicCon of the mere TITLE of the next Captain America movie, which is simply, "Winter Soldier."  Now, if they're not reading, what are they getting excited about?  I mean, I'm squeeing.  I may even have squeed my pants a little when I heard the title, because I've gone on record saying that I was PRAYING they were setting up "Winter Soldier" in the first Cap movie, what with the dog-whistles of Bucky's age and the scene where he breifly uses the sheild before falling off the train to his apparent doom...

So are Comic movie fans, not comic fans?  I haz teh confuses.

AO3

Oops, sorry that this is just sitting here, but I was reading the latest Shonen Jump on my iPad and I thought that this particular picture of my boy would make for a much better profile pic than the one I currently have, and, weirdly, I've found that LJ has a nice interface for resizing pictures.

It may go away, I noticed that my other pic of Renji disappeared off the internet. (Sorry, Sensei Kubo, just sharing the love.)

Just so you know, if anyone out there wanted to take my fan art and make it into their profile picture or flash it around the internet, I'd be okay with that. I see that as, you know, flattery.

Speaking of stuff that fans stole from me that I appreciate, thank god for internet pirates or I wouldn't be able to announce: AngeLINK books to come out as E-books, Finally! No official release date yet, as Cheryl and I are trying to see just how MESSY the copies we have are, but check back in. I'm hoping it will be soon!

Survived CON

I can't even begin to express all the amazing that was CON this year.  I had So. Much. Fun.

I also think that I may have made a dildo reference with Tamora Pierce, which is just... awkward.  In  fact, I'm fairly certain that when/if I get the CONvergence DVD, I'm probably going to be pretty horrified by some of the things that came out of my mouth.  This is the only drawback to having caffiene as my drug of choice.  Too much coffee can make me stupid (usually funny, but sometimes only because I'm willing to say something no one really should have. EVER.)  Also, I think this problem can be summed up by the fact that the single most retweeted line of mine involved me saying, "OMG, I got so much money for that short story; wait, let me take my clothes off."  (Which makes no sense out of context, but kind of shows you the state of my over-caffinated brain.)

I met some amazing people who talked me into having a fan twitter account, so I now have Yet Another Secret Identity to keep track of, but, much to my complete surprise, I kind of like Twitter in small doses.  It's so much easier to follow seven people than seventy. 

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I failed the secret pro party.  For one, I invited fans.  Our squeeling scared off all the boys, but I also feel bad that my friends naomikritzer  and jiawen  probably ended up feeling left out as well.  I did have a couple of panels from hell, which I should recount at some point in great and grisly detail but the gist of both of them can be summed up thusly: TOO MUCH TESTOSTERONE and OMG-at-least-read-the-genre-you're-bashing-or-I-will-go-commando-on-your-a$$. 

In general, if I had a thinky-thought about CONvergence this year it is to wonder if there was a little blowback (as it were) towards women and womanly-things thanks to the theme, which was "Women of Wonder." 

Now, sadly I must return to the Real Life (tm).  What a let down!  For one, I have no minion (yes, I got a minion as a perk of being of Guest of Honor,) and, thus, no one to fetch me things and/or generally take care of MY needs.  I'm now back to caring for others and doing the dishes.

At Con

Starting tomorrow (actually, for me, tonight), I will be assuming my duties as one of the guests of honor at CONvergence. If you're headed to, as many locals refer to it, "The Con," please feel free to stop by and say hello (or ogle my time-traveling hair.)  My schedule can be found at:   http://schedule.convergence-con.org/?s=Lyda+Morehouse.

Why I Relate to Renji Abarai

For those of you just tuning in, I've been more than a little obsessed on an Anime called "Bleach." In particular, my brain has seized upon a character named Renji Abarai, over whom I've expended a great deal of creative energy writing fan fic and drawing fan art.

I realized, today, why I love Renji. Renji isn't the hero of "Bleach," no, far from it. He's not even the most powerful or cool guy in the show. In point of fact, he gets his a$$ handed to him on a surprisingly regular basis. The reason I love Renji is he gets back up. Every damn time. There is ABSOLUTELY no keeping Renji Abarai down.



Today, I need to be Renji. I need his indomitable spirit. I feel kind of crushed by a particular rejection -- shredded, quite honestly. But, as much as I want to just lay down and die, what I need to do is get up off my knees, *again*, and fight.

lyda222 @ 2012-07-01T19:58:00

Fan Art of Fan Fic

I gotta know: how bad off am I when I start drawing fan art of my own fan fic?



And, here's the moment (totally safe for work):

Byakuya seemed irritated at having to make room for Renji in his morning bathroom rituals, but Renji enjoyed not having to bump into more than one person in a shared space. But after the third snippy “excuse me” from the captain, Renji got the hint and went out in search of a servant to rustle up tea and breakfast.

When he opened the suite’s main door, however, Renji found a distinguished-looking, gray-haired gentleman raising his hand as though ready to knock. At first, Renji feared it was some new Kuchiki relative, but one look at the man’s simple black kimono revealed him to be a servant of some kind--though he did seem to be wearing the Kuchiki crest on an armband.

“Can I help you?” Renji asked as politely as he knew how.

“I have a message for the young lord, are you his manservant?” The man sniffed with obvious disapproval.

Renji was still dressed for bed. His flowered robe had ratty edges and he hadn’t even undone his braid, which meant quite a few tattoos were visible. “I’m his lieutenant.”

“Close enough,” the man decided. “The Lady Masami Kuchiki expects her nephew in attendance at breakfast in her suites this morning.”

Renji shook his head and let out a rueful laugh. “Tell her ladyship, ‘nice try.’ Listen up, pal, the clan’s head, Lord Byakuya Kuchiki, attends no one. If she wants to share a meal with him, she’ll have to await his invitation, got it?”

To the man’s shocked, open mouth, Renji shut the door firmly.

But, with a quick thought, he opened it up again, “Oh, and hey,” Renji said to the servant’s still stunned and gaping face, “Have someone bring up breakfast and a tea service for Lord Kuchiki, would you? And make it snappy.” When the man just stood there sputtering, Renji deepened his frown. “Oi, exactly whose crest do you think you’re wearing? Hop to it!”

Startled by Renji’s tone, the servant blinked rapidly and then bowed deeply, “Right away, sir!”

“You have a startling set, Renji Abarai,” Byakuya said dryly from where he leaned against the archway.

“Well,” Renji said, “You would know.”

Byakuya smiled lightly. “Yes, I believe I would.”

Mostly Over It

I'm mostly over my rant about the Super Seminar. It helps that on Saturday, Mason and went and had a fabulous time with our local folks. No one yelled at me for making all "drama" noises in the middle of our sparring excercise, even though I think at one point I even made the "buzzwhum" noise of a lightsaber. :-)

Plus, talking to another KSW friend at a mutal friend's kid's birthday party I got a real emotional boost. She said, "You know, don't you, that you're a real asset to the dojon?" and she was talking about my goofy happiness, and how infectious it can be. This was made particularly awesome and profound because this is a person with whom I've had a dubious past in the writing community. Not terribly long ago she was on my list of "do not put me on a panel with this person." On Saturday, I told her how awesome she is and offered to help her get her short stories out into circulation.

How times change, eh?

And, it also reminds me that, while I go through these... huh, what I need here is a word that's the opposite of an "emotional crush", something like a brief, intense, passionate hatred... anyway, one of those with various writers in the community, they are, in point of fact, temporary, and even the worst of them can mend in time. So, while I *am* an evil Scorpio bastard, my Leo Rising generously allows for people and myself to change.

On Sunday morning, I got up early and rewrote the first chapter of SAMURAI HIGH. I'm currently waiting on a fencing friend to vet my swordplay, and then I'm going to let a couple of othe friends check it over and then it's off... to hopefully seduce an editor into buying the whole thing. Fingers crossed. It would be nice to be rewarded for all the engery I've put into my fanfic. Think of it! All sorts of samurai research ALREADY DONE! Dude, ask me anything about Edo period toliets!

We also spent a lot of time on Sunday dong a ton of errands, including a trip to Uncles to deliver the last of my Fallen Hosts, and getting a massive amount of yard work done. It was also, apparently, Pride Weekend. I haven't been to a Pride in years, partly because I find I miss the frightened huddle we once were, compared to the huge commericalization we've become. My friend who did go told me that she didn't even get many condoms or lube hand-outs. WTF! That's not my Pride! *tease*