Here's 2009!

Hey all! We'd like apologize for disappearing again, but you know how the holidays get. In any case, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We're resolving to be better bloggers in 2009. :)

Fairy Tales

I absolutely adore fairy tales like how I absolutely adore classical mythology. I know this isn't one of my best openings, but I've been procrastinating on this post and I figured I should just out with it. It's a new thing I'm trying: thwarting my self-thwarting.

Back on topic though, fairy tales hold a special place in my heart. They were probably my first introduction to fantasy and magic both in picture book form and in movie form (thank you Disney). RANDOM ASIDE: Not going to lie, I'm something of a Disney junkie. If you're ever visiting Disneyland, drop me a line. I will get you your one-day pass' worth of Disneyland fun. Also, one-day does mean FULL day. You can't do a Disneyland run properly in half a day, and considering ticket prices, it wouldn't be worth it. Yes, I know where practically everything is. Yes, that's without a map. And yes, that's how many times I've been there. They were, shall we say, the earliest seeds placed in my undeveloped imagination, and as such heavily influence what I like to write and what I like to read.

This pertains to me particularly so at this moment because my NaNo novel was a reboot of something I only vaguely started in the last year or two, and it is based on a fairy tale. I also put myself through the torture of writing my own fairy tale for the novel, which meant I went and read/researched a bunch of fairy tales to get the cadence and style down. (Again, Surlalune for fairy tales plug. Why didn't I find this site sooner?!) Even so, my novel-verse fairy tale still doesn't sit well with me and I'll probably have to revise at least the second half of it. Mostly, what I want is for the entire novel to have a sort of fairy tale tonality to it. I want magic to be embedded into the story, but I want it to feel precariously paradoxical. I want the presence of magic in the world to feel eerie. That's not really happening at the moment, but it's nice to have goals, right?

While the collaborative work that Alz and I really should work on again (now that NaNo is over) is not of the fairy tale ilk, it does in turn draw from various mythologies and legends.


As for my reading tastes, I think the specific appeal of fairy tales for me lies in its ability to walk the line between charming and eerie, and they bring magic into otherwise seemingly ordinary worlds: children run errands for their parents, but then they meet a talking animal or a witch in the woods; peasant girls marry into better lives, but find their husbands ask them to fulfill extraordinary and impossible tasks; shoemakers try to make ends meet, and while they sleep, helpful elves come to answer their prayers. The settings and situations are often mundane enough, but magic is an acceptable intrusion. The world of fairy tales is liminal - real and imagined, enchanting and frightening, sweet and also grotesque, bittersweet.

They represent a type of story and reading experience that I particularly enjoy. I love The Last Unicorn so much because it's told with that sort of "fairy tale" voice, though dressed up to be more lyrical. Also, I just finished reading Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other stories, which is a collection of, well, fairy tales - some retold and others newly wrought. (Haven't read her novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell yet, but I have it.) The lovely part about the stories is that magical occurrences aren't always spelled out for you (very classic fairy tale-like); you're given just enough to draw conclusions but are left with a sense of wonder. It's that eeriness again, the sort of haunting quality the stranger fairy tales have. I suppose it's that feeling that magic could be "just around the corner."

A bunch of little updates (I have nothing witty to say here.)

Yes, I'm back for yet another update. This one actually pertains to the right month, I promise. I go through these spurts of renewed interest in this blog/blogging in general. I'm trying this new thing called "consistency," something I've learned from NaNo, but now I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, some New Things to note!

1) You may have noticed by now that the blog looks different! Alz and I both thought that for the upcoming New Year, we should fix up A Nudge a little. I want to add right now, I absolutely adore this layout (it's so cute!), but it is no small secret that I have a weakness for birds. Credits for this loveliness can be found at the bottom of the page and right here because I'm plugging Better in Pink for some really cute freebies. Ours is "Birds on a Wire," converted for Blogger Beta by Randomness. Again, credits at the bottom.

2) The side bar has also changed, other than being on the left. There are a few new links under Curiosities to check out. One of them I will be mentioning later in the post, so I will just point out Bookshelf Muse, which has the very helpful "Emotion Thesaurus", and Cut Out + Keep is a rather delightful DIY website that I was made aware of through Twitter. Speaking of Twitter, another addition to the side bar is "Deck of Cards," otherwise known as "Followers," which is much like a Twitter concept that Blogger has incorporated to make keeping up with blogs easier. So please Follow us if you are so inclined. We'd be very appreciative.

3) The new link that I saved for this paragraph is Surlalune, a wonderful resource for fairy tale related info. Why did I save it for now? Well, I'm planning to make a post about fairy tales, in which case, I will most likely be plugging this website again. And that is the other update: the return of actual posts!

Other than a post on fairy tales, I'm thinking about doing a NaNo-reflection sort of post, inspired by this post at learntowritefiction.com. My often-intimidating, but ultimately great 9th grade Honors English teacher taught me to appreciate the art of reflection, and one of the random things I've learned from my pursuit of my undergrad degree in Psychology is that writing is cathartic and thus has some therapeutic benefits.

4) I'm also considering for the side bar some sort of slideshow of random things that amuse us or stuff that is related to our writing. This is a MAYBE though.

So in short (tl;dr): new layout, updated sidebar, new posts.

Look forward to it.

P.S. Writing about writing is pretty hard!

This, then, must be a true December Update

It is as the Krispy says--'twas the pure, unadulterated insanity of National Novel Writing Month that ate up the whole of November for Krispy and me. As Krispy insists that I show off my winner badge, I shall place it here:


I suppose that's coffee in that golden cup, symbolizing the endless nights of furious writing powered solely by caffeine and the mad, mad desire to reach that word count. (My final November word count, incidentally, was 86,322. I'm still going though because this freaking story refuses to end. Every year I do better and better and go longer and longer, so I guess I am learning some discipline from Nanowrimo after all.)

But now that that particular craze is over and done with, I expect that Krispy and I shall get back on track with regards to our baby!co-novel. Having spent some time away from our baby surely makes us neglectful parents has given us some fresh perspective and we shall be better able to craft unique characters inside a worthy narrative.

Also, Krispy changed our blog's layout and template all by herself. It's so snazzy. And a nice nudge to get us working on our story again.

November Update (even though it's December)

I realize we have not updated for almost 2 months. We really have to remedy this situation, but in our defense, Alz is earning herself a higher degree in writing of the creative sort and I am trying to figure out my RL. Both are rather stressful and time-consuming endeavors.

But that does not mean we have neglected our baby because of something as trifling as Real Life. No, we neglected this blog and our collaborative project for the insanity that is National Novel Writing Month.

by angelicshadow (at livejournal)

Now, Alz has done this like 4 years in a row and because she is a Wort Ungeheuer, she chips away at 50,000 words with the ferocity of a woodchuck at wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood. I'm sure she has a spiffy "Nano Winner!" badge somewhere and I'll have her post it up some time because what's the point of a spiffy badge if you can't show it off somewhere?

I came in somewhere in the 23,000s, which considering that this was not for a grade and I am a procrastinator until the end (and also I have no idea what is going on in my novel now), I'm pretty impressed with myself. We'll see if I can get to 50,000 by the end of 2008, but seriously, I need to go back to spending more time on resolving my existential crisis. Yay goals though!

So that's the November update. We were writing, voting, and stuffing our faces in thanks for this awesome month.

Fanfiction: Unleash your imagination?

While sifting through my personal archive of old high school newspapers and library newsletters, I somehow ended up looking through the old files from my family's old desktop. This would be the computer we used through those wonder years of middle school to mid-high school. I found on both the computer and in one of the newsletters evidence of one of my staple hobbies through those years: fanfiction. (My other hobby during those years was forming a mock singing group named SMACK. The scary thing was we actually performed in public spaces.)

So is fanfiction a good or bad thing? Opinions on the subject vary. On the negative side of things, some see it as a violation of copyright and a poaching of established worlds and characters. This is basically true. It's plagiarism to take the words and ideas of another person and present it as one's own. Some people feel it treads on the rights of the creator or that it corrupts a given world and/or characters. Then there are those who feel it's just plain lazy on a would-be writer's part to dabble in fanfic. After all, such writers have a big bulk of the work done for them -- they've already got a world and a set of characters to work with. Another thing that gives fanfiction a bad rep is the sheer amount of fanfic there is out there, and I'm not going to lie, not all of it is good. In fact, a lot of it is on the wince-worthy side of the spectrum. And let's face it, when you read a fanfic that is particularly bad, something that butchers both your beloved characters and the English language, it's going to leave an exceedingly bad and lingering taste in your metaphorical mouth.

On the positive side, people also see it as a creative outlet for showing appreciation towards established worlds and characters. There's that saying that mimicry is a form of flattery, and in fanfiction's case, it's mostly true. The subject of fanfiction--whether it be a TV show, movie, book, or person--is so beloved that fans just can't help but want to be a part of it. Sometimes they want to see characters go on more adventures or delve into what makes characters tick. Other times, people want to know more about side characters or about events that happened before the start of a series. Then, there's closure. Ever watch a show or read a book and wish there was more? What happened to the kingdom after the Big Bad was defeated? Did a certain supporting character get a happy end? Did a man suffering from an apparently terminal illness die by the time of the epilogue or is he still alive? (On this last point, Alz knows what I'm talking about. I want to know, damnit!) Well, fanfiction is there to speculate on those questions. Plus, supporters of fanfiction see the practice as all done in good fun (and that's what disclaimers are for). It's a form of discussion and bonding among fans over a mutual subject.

Fanfiction can also be seen as a way of practicing writing and receiving feedback (good, bad, and constructive). For example, if characterization is an issue in your original work (i.e. your characters all sound the same, or you're really tempted to make a character do something--because YOU CAN--that would otherwise be viewed by others as wildly out-of-character), you might use fanfiction to help you out. In a fanfic, characterization would/should be based on the characterization in the original work. You would be constrained by the character markers and actions from the original work (as well as fans' expectations for recognizable characters), which may help you learn how to write characters distinctly. This skill can later be transferred to your original characters, who will benefit from your ability to make them sound like distinct and different people.

Both sides of the issue have merit, but what does all this have to do with me? Well, like I said, I found some fanfiction on my computer--my fanfiction--and it severly tested my will power to STOP myself from deleting everything in a fit of blind editorial rage. It also reminded me of all the hilarious, crazy, and fun times I had with my co-writers in middle and high school when we created these abuses against the English language. The stories were fun and outrageous--just the way we liked it--and the characters were, well, very exaggerated and not at all well characterized. But hell, it was FUN, and sometimes the plots were well thought out, and mostly they were freaking hilarious to us. The best part was I found stories I'd sort of forgotten and I still found the ridiculousness of their plots LOL-worthy. My co-writer and I remembered how much laughing was involved as we discussed plot over the phone, and we realized that we STILL found the exact same things funny.

It's been a long time since I've written any fanfic (though I suppose abusing Alz's poor characters counts...), but I do still sometimes read it (re: closure). If anything, fanfiction represents a distinct period of my tween-teenagehood. It also shows, as Alz so sagely remarked, my growth and improvement (oh heavens, the improvement) in my writing. Like, seriously.

In any case, I think the dual nature of fanfiction is best exemplified by the wise words of one of my fandom-participating cohorts, "You have to wade through a lot of shit before you find the good stuff."

Sociology of Scars

Let's talk about scars. Most of us acquire at least one scar or other throughout the turbid frothing streams of our lives: a round white scar acquired from an overly large pox of the chicken persuasion, a thin white line from some form of surgery, a reddish mark or nick from a mishap with a pair of scissors or while carving a pumpkin for Halloween. Such marks fade with time and growth, becoming paler and thinner and perhaps eventually vanishing until the skin is more or less as unblemished as before. The marvels of modern medicine ensure that most serious wounds and surgeries leave the smallest and least noticeable scars possible.

Yet the modern mentality and mythos surrounding scars seems to view them as hip and sexy indications of a person's dark, angst-ridden, mysterious past. That is, of course, speaking of characters who possess strategically placed and not-too-disfiguring scars. Shall we take a look at a few of these?


There is the sullen hero of Final Fantasy VIII, Squall Leonheart, with a great huge brown scar slashed diagonally across his face. The source of this scar is a scene of drama and fighting and hacking and slashing with gunblades and in general, actually, since I never did play FFVIII, I'm probably not really qualified to go harping on about it. But from what I do know, I'm fairly sure that Squall gets this scar to 1) make him look badass and 2) form nice symmetry when the dude who gave it to him in the first place receives a similar scar going diagonally the other way across his face. Of course, that whole point #1 about looking badass goes back to my original intent in starting this post: What is it about having a huge scar slashed across a guy's face that makes him "badass"? Is it the implied macho-ness of having survived such a near-deadly wound and coming out without permanent damage to the eyes? The thrill of a near-miss? That he must be pretty damn manly to have been in a fight and earned such a scar in the first place?

Himura Kenshin of the anime Rurouni Kenshin is a prominently scarred character, and this is an example of a scar with a purpose, history, background, and effects upon the character's life. Kenshin used to be a political assassin during the war-torn Bakumatsu era and helped to bring about the transition into the Meiji Era, and was renowned as a highly-skilled and terrifying swordsman, the Hitokiri Battousai, identifiable by the cross-shaped scar on his left cheek. The back story of how he acquired this scar—and changed from being a feared assassin to a gentle wanderer—is very dramatic, very full of character-driven passion and belief, and very excellent. Naturally having a prominent scar in a difficult-to-hide place complicates Kenshin's life for there are those with grudges or glory on their minds who seek to best the legendary Battousai—particularly as he has taken an oath to never kill again.

Dilandau Albatou of the anime Vision of Escaflowne gets sliced along the left side of his face (what it is with the left side, anyway?) during a skirmish with Van Fanel, and because Dilandau is already an unstable narcissistic freak, this wound sends him over the edge and let the animators have a field day competing to see who could draw him with the most psychotic expression short of foaming at the mouth. For Dilandau, the scar that he so often strokes thereafter is an unsightly mar upon his beautiful face and is entirely Van's fault, and fuels his obsession for killing Van throughout the series.

In the anime series Death Note, the character Mello's face becomes scarred through spoilerific means. Here we seem him munching on chocolate, as usual. But it should be noted that after he becomes scarred—or perhaps more accurately because of the events that lead to his scarring—Mello becomes more obsessive and underhanded with regards to his goals. In this case, it is events that lead to his change in personality and the scar serves as a symbolic reminder.

In Bleach, Grimmjow is scarred by Ichigo. A lot. In this case, however, it's not just a single fine slice across his face, but massive owwiness. While I can't speak for all fan art, what fan art I've seen of Grimmjow is typically not of him crisped and burninated and mono-armed. Clearly his amount, type, and location of scarring goes beyond aesthetic appeal and perhaps becomes either grotesque or just simply not "sexy." Is this because there is something tragically attractive about near-perfection or perfection-now-marred, but not immense or intense amounts of disfigurement? And yet fan art of Mello in his scarred state is more prevalent than that of scarred!Grimmjow—is it because Mello isn't also missing an arm and is more femininely androgynous than machismo-manly Grimmjow?

Moving beyond anime, there is Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride by William Goldman, a Spanish man who has parallel scars on his cheeks—one on each cheek, vertically, scarred for life as a child, he was. For him, these are scars of remembrance of vengeance, for the six-fingered Count who gave them to him also killed his father.

We can take a look (once again) at Harry Potter, who bears a zigzag scar on his forehead that is the source of much pain (physical, mental, magical, etc.) in his life. What is this mystical scar? Why, it marks him as the Boy Who Lived, the only person ever to have survived the Killing Curse, and cast by the Dark Lord Voldemort no less. Later on it's revealed to have several sorts of magical properties linking him back to Voldemort (hurting when Voldemort is nearby, enabling Harry to catch glimpses of what Voldemort's doing, etc.), and is also a symbol of Harry's mother's love for him. It becomes a symbol and a plot device and an identifying mark all rolled into one lightning-shaped stamp on his forehead.

In the Asian ball-joint doll community, many doll-collectors have an obsession with painting their dolls to have scars, with or without a story behind them. The methods of accomplishing scarring range from the purely cosmetic (simply painting a scar onto a doll's face or body) to physical modification (actually carving a scar into the resin using a knife). Facial scars slashed across an eye, along the jaw, or over the bridge of the nose are a particular favorite.

The Volks company released two versions of an extremely limited and highly-sought-after scar-faced variant of their original Cecil doll, creatively named "Cecil the Scarface". How does Scarface differ from regular Cecil? His right eye is mostly closed and a great huge gash is carved into his face—literally. (He also has a scar carved into his right arm.) This scar is a deep, jagged-edged groove that is typically painted some form of orange-red-brown, as though this poor doll is doomed to have a perpetually unhealed wound sawed across his eye. (Incidentally, both versions of Cecil the Scarface were sold with a special "blind eye", gray with a white pupil, that could be used for the wounded eye.)

But as mentioned in Grimmjow's case, scars cannot be disfiguring or else they become too disturbing. Take a look at the Anakin Skywalker of Star Wars Episode III: According to Krispy, he acquired the scar over his right eye in battle during the Clone Wars in a light saber duel with Asajj Ventress, shown in the Clone Wars cartoon series. His scar doesn't play any kind of role in the third movie and I haven't watched enough of the Clone Wars series to determine if it has any affect there either, but fans seem to accept and like his scar as far as I can tell.

But once Anakin Skywalker gets toasted and he morphs into Darth Vader (as it were), well, he's totally covered in black so that not a speck of skin shows, from face to feet. It would be too disturbing for the audience and anyway he's not attractive anymore. In a way, he very much resembles V from the movie V for Vendetta, also a victim of full-body burns who also covers himself from head to toe so that none of his burns are visible—but V probably belongs to another post some other time. For now, it's enough to see Anakin's descent from his pedestal. I mean, come on, you find tons of pictures, fan art, screencaps, etc. of Anakin and Darth Vader, but not of Anakin-after-the-lava-pit or Darth-Vader-sans-mask-and-helmet. People want him either whole and handsome or dark, mysterious, and completely covered.

The physical scars of real-life can mean anything, including nothing. I don't think twice about this weird little scar I've had on my hand for several months now, originally attained from scraping my hand on a protruding bit of wire mesh. This event was hardly traumatizing or life-changing and it was just an owwy on my hand that healed pretty quickly and didn't even require a band-aid, and yet the tiny slightly discolored mark persists. But scars earned from bullets taken in warfare or in the line of duty are proverbial red badges of courage and honor and duty.

But in the world of fandom, at any rate, scars seem to be as cosmetic and varied as eye- and hair-color. They tend to be of mysterious origins rooted in angst and trauma. But not too much scarring, and not too intense a scar. They can be marks of honor or remembrance or vengeance or brotherhood, of ritual or tragedy, or maybe just incidental, accidental, and forgettable—except that if a scar is either shown or mentioned, chances are it's not the latter.

This post is brought to you by the fact that one of our characters does have scars, acquired through traumatic means, and which definitely do drive him indeed along his thorny path of vengeance. But really it's not the scars that are important to him or about him: it's what happened to him in the past. (Incidentally his scars are not in a usually visible place, unlike most of the characters named above. I tried to think of characters who have hidden scars, but none readily came to mind. If I manage to think of a few, there may be forthcoming Scar Post Part II. Oooh, that rhymed.)