Step 12: Overshare

Not much to report on the last couple of days. I got two more rejections on my query...

Surprise, bitch!

...but that's okay, because I've been keeping busy. I went to a Decades party with my husband on Saturday where I dressed up as David Bowie:

There's a starman waiting in the sky...

And I'm headed to central Oregon tomorrow to do a little trout fishing with my friend and Dark Horse Comics VP Randy Stradley:

'murica!

That means I probably won't be doing much in the way of updated my blog while I'm gone, but I haven't had a lot to write about since the weekend anyway, unless all two of you readers want to hear about my filthy dōjinshi habit.

What's that?  You do want to know all about my Freudian complex?

Oh, all right, I'll just tell you. It goes like this: Every time I watch Rurouni Kenshin, I inevitably get the itch to read the manga in order to satisfy my need for resolution (because as far I'm concerned, the Jinchū arc is the only true ending to Kenshin). And then after I've sobbed over just how good it is, I begin to crave more, which is pointless because it's been seventeen years since the comic ended and we clearly aren't going to see the Revenge chapters animated anytime soon.

Fuck you, Studio DEEN, for being the biggest cock-blockers in anime.

So, what's a fangirl to do? Well, Archive of our Own has a plethora of Rurouni Kenshin fanfiction that I tap into occasionally, when desperate sexytimes call for desperate measures. I'm not a huge fan of fanfiction, mostly because if someone is a good enough writer, they're probably publishing their own books and not goofing off in the playground of someone else's intellectual property. Not saying that there isn't any good fanfiction out there, but it's less of a treasure trove and more of a jewelry box, so to speak.

However.

Japan has a thriving market of dōjinshi--fan comics--that have trickled their way onto the internet. Some of them are light little fluff-pieces, but the majority of them range from fairly explicit to holy-shit-this-would-make-a-sailor-blush. (Which, if you haven't figured out yet, is obviously fine by me.) And Rurouni Kenshin happens to have some of the very best dōjinshi money or bittorrent can buy.

Literally the most SFW page in this particular story I can post without getting flagged for smut.

The above image is drawn by a dōjinshi circle named Meiji Jyaya, and their art style is eerily uncanny to Watsuki Nobuhiro's, the author of Rurouni Kenshin. Their books are my favorite precisely because of how similar they are to the source material, but if it's the hardcore stuff you're after, look no further than Yamaguchirow.

I can't actually show you a page from Yamaguchirow, so here is Kaoru's reaction if she saw it instead.

Unfortunately, I've mined the internet for just about all the RK dōjinshi Japan has to offer short of flying my ass to the Land of the Rising Sun and selling my organs for some of the rarer books. But I'm nothing if not entirely inventive when left to my own devices, and I'm also a fairly competent illustrator, so not long ago I took a stab at drawing some of my own Rurouni Kenshin dōjinshi:

Kenshin: Kaoru-dono... This one wanted to tell you...
Kaoru: Are you going to fuck me already, or what?

I even went so far as to thumbnail 99 whole pages of a story, which is hilarious, but I'm sure I'll never get around to actually drawing them all. I mean, come on--even I have a life outside of my fandoms, yanno?

And also I can't read half of the notes I wrote in the margins so that's honestly the biggest problem I'm having right now.

I can't tell if Kaoru is biting her thumbnail or giving Kenshin a blow job.

Step 11: Wear Pink (Kimonos)

I made a huge error in judgment today by subjecting myself to this blasphemy on a whim:

Don't let the gorgeous box art lure you into a false sense of security.

That's the DVD cover for the 2001 OVA titled Rurouni Kenshin: Seisōhen (Samurai X: Reflection in North America). Rurouni Kenshin unfortunately has a long and storied history of missed opportunities when it comes to adapting the original source material for film, which is a travesty because the manga is a goddamned masterpiece. I only watched Seisōhen once before disowning it from my headcanon years ago, because although it is quite the theatrical eyegasm--

Anytime Kenshin's hair comes down, so do my panties.

--and even though we get a glimpse at the enormous potential of Kenshin's son, Kenji--

before royally getting his ass handed to him by Yahiko

--and are treated to some unnecessary but totally hot Kenshin x Kaoru sexytimes--

[Click -> Save To: "Spank Files"]

--it completely disregards the point Watsuki-sensei was trying to make when he wrapped up the manga, i.e. Kenshin no longer needs to wander to atone for his sins. The ending of the manga is bittersweet in a lot of ways--everyone goes on their own separate paths, Kenshin is unable to use Hiten Mitsurugi anymore, etc.--but it sure as hell wasn't the sobfest that Seisōhen shoved down our throats.

Except for this part.  Cue me crying all the tears.

Kenshin's been on my mind a lot lately, for a variety of reasons. I mentioned before that Kenshin was somewhat the blueprint for the main protagonist in my novel, but I reread the manga not too long ago, and my husband and I binge-watched the Kyoto arc last week on Netflix. The manga itself was executed flawlessly in both story and art (in my humble opinion), but the anime brought to life some of the most gorgeous and poignant panels in a way that transcends the pages of the books:

I don't even know what's going on here JFC

Me: Don't you fucking cry like a little bitch... Brain: You gotta

Aoshi's gonna need some ice for that sick burn

Bye Felicia~

Even the live-action movies, which I have mixed feelings about (I liked them overall, but I'm ambivalent towards some of the changes they made), has a moment of sheer cinematic brilliance during the first fight between Kenshin and Sōjirō:

Slo-motion on fleek.

Like any diehard Kenshin follower, I long for the day when the third act of the manga--commonly referred to as the Jinchū arc by fans--is finally animated in its full glory. Despite the manga series having ended in 1999, Rurouni Kenshin is arguably as popular now as it's ever been, thanks to some new books and three live-action movies that have introduced an entirely new generation of people to the Kenshin saga. Still, instead of an animated Jinchū season, we got a two-part alternate retelling of the Kyoto arc that was at best pretty to look at, and at worst a perverse joke. It seems that, at least for now, Yukishiro Enishi and his merry band of revenge-seekers will remain bound to the pages of the comic.

Consolation Prize: Tsuiokuhen and a "chicks dig scars" complex.

Step 10: Break The Mold

As you might have heard, Prince passed away yesterday.

Farewell, my sweet... uh... well, you know.

I'm not going to claim to be the biggest Prince fan out there. I don't even know all the lyrics to "Purple Rain", which is, like, the anthem of the 80's. In fact, I'm more familiar with the pop culture references surrounding him than the man himself.

Want some pancakes?

But, as with most people who haven't been living under a rock since The Beatles broke up, Prince has had a subtle influence on me in a very specific way. Another artist that we lost this year had a particular sway over me in much the same way.

You've probably never heard of him.

I've been a David Bowie fan since his turn as the Goblin King in the Jim Henson film Labyrinth.  I'm not sure if a three-year-old can have a sexual awakening, but I knew as soon as I laid eyes on the Thin White Duke's barely-veiled, uh... lil' Ziggy, I would be forever enamored by the shapeshifting chameleon once know as Aladdin Sane.

[HEAVING BREATHING]

I went on to become an avid follower of Bowie's music--Life On Mars? is a personal favorite--but, truth be told, it was his stage personas that attracted me even more than his musical prowess. Like Prince, he was a master at pushing the boundaries of sexuality and gender, which is something that has held a curious appeal to me for as long as I could remember.

I have yet to meet anyone who makes a pink boa and pearls look this fabulous.

Gender is a funny thing. I personally identify as cisgender, but I've always been captivated by men who weren't afraid to explore their feminine side. Whereas other people might be repulsed by a man in a dress, I find it intriguing--provocative, even. Not that I fetishize trans or gender-nonconforming individuals, but at the same time, I'm drawn to the idea of questioning what it means to be a man or a woman. Neither Prince nor Bowie gave any fucks as to what others thought when they shattered the image of conventional masculinity; in their minds, rules were made to be broken.

Exhibit A.

Nowadays, with questions surrounding gender being a part of modern dialogue, one could argue that the gender-bending trope is so last year, an old idea scarcely worth mentioning. Most people with atypical gender identities don't want to be solely defined by how they present themselves, and see it as little more than a footnote in their overall lives. Still, we wouldn't even be having this (non)conversation if people like Prince and David Bowie hadn't been pioneers in breaking down the walls of traditional gender roles like the goddamned Kool-Aid man riding in on a glitter-encrusted unicorn. For that, I applaud them both.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today 2 get through this thing called '2016'.

Step 9: Embrace The Hay-ters

I want to take a moment to talk a little bit about a special dude in my life.

*sniff sniff*

No, not my husband (although he's pretty special too). Well, I don't know--what do you call a companion you've been with for nearly twenty years? Four-legged spouse? Significant fur-baby? Whatever. He's my horse, Niles, and he's a total babe.

Maybe he's born with it; maybe it's Neigh-belline.

Niles (pretentious registered name: FF Bey Ovation) and I go way back. Our life-long love affair started in the fall of 1997, when I was on the search for the perfect mount to satiate my ever-growing desire for a show horse. My friends and I piled into a car and drove a few hours away to the barn of an Arabian horse trainer named Lance Curtis, where we anticipated being presented a half-Arabian bay mare for consideration.  Instead, they brought out a skinny, purebred chestnut gelding with chrome for daaaaaays. The rest, as they say, is history.

Love at first derp.

Niles is truly a special gem, and I'm not just saying that because he's mine. Generally speaking, Arabian horses are bred to be extremely specialized, which means that if you want a laid-back western mount, you best not be looking for a horse sired by IXL Nobel Express (unless you have a sick sense of humor). Niles is unique in that he excelled in multiple disciplines beyond the one we intended him for.

He was a Regional Top Five winner in Country English Pleasure...

...a Scottsdale Top Ten winner in Arabian Mounted Native Costume...

...a Youth Nationals Top Twenty winner in Purebred English Show Hack...

...and even went on to win a Scottsdale Reserve Championship in Arabian Hunter Pleasure...

So... yeah. Niles truly is one of a kind, in my book, and it's unlikely I'll ever have another horse like him in my lifetime.  We've been through some rough times together, like barn fallouts and ligament surgery...

Never pass up an opportunity to turn lemons into hilarious lemonade.

...but nineteen years later, we've make it through thick and thin. Niles was never an easy horse to ride--even at 23, his Huckleberry Bey blood makes me feel like I'm riding a controlled explosion (and you can forget ever hacking around on him in a mere snaffle)--but he never ceased to challenge me as an equestrian, and I recently contemplated getting him back into show shape and possibly entering him in a sidesaddle class. But he's earned his retirement, and I certainly wouldn't want to mar his record from the last time I showed him in 2008--three for three in blue ribbons!

Niles never did win a National Championship, but I've considered immortalizing him in a future novel ala Cammie's Choice. Maybe then he'll finally get to wear the blanket of roses he deserves.

TBH he'd probably try to eat them.

Step 8: Shake It Off

I promised myself when I created this blog that it would be okay to write about some of my honest feelings and hardships. That this isn't Facebook, where people only want to see happy things and cat gifs. No one I know even reads this blog, so it's all right to let your hair down once in a while and throw yourself a pity party. With that in mind, I'm breaking out the party hats.

This about sums it up.

Apparently, there was a little thing happening on Twitter yesterday that involved a bunch of book editors and agents combing the #DVpit hashtag and liking and retweeting their favorites pitches. It was an event aimed directly at authors of novels revolving around diversity and underrepresented voices, which is absolutely what Defining Lines is about. Basically, it was an opportunity to solicit my idea to 50+ dream editors and agents in one sitting.

When did I find out about this little event? Oh, about twenty minutes after it ended.

[SCREAMS INTERNALLY]

Actually, that's a lie. I saw some posts about it when I was making my morning rounds at the Absolute Write Water Cooler, which is a forum for writers that I frequent. I'm still kind of a n00b when it comes to literary culture and lingo, and when I spotted mentions for 'DVpit', I assumed it was some weird acronym or phrase I wasn't familiar with. It popped up several more times over the course of the day, and I finally did a Google search for it at 5:23pm, which was around the time that the agent who had organized the event ended the Twitter session.

It's cool. I'm just going to go over here and dry heave into a paper bag.

It's obviously not the end of the world, and on the plus side, I got the names of 50 agents I can query individually if I want to. It's just that, it's so like me to miss out on something as awesome as that. I feel like my whole existence can be summed up as the girl who is a half-hour late to everything. I know everyone has the same desire of wanting to be recognized for their talents, and unfortunately there's simply too many people living on this planet for it to happen to every single person, but damn if it isn't the most heart-wrenching feeling in the world to have so many missed moments on account of my being entirely unaware of my surroundings. While I sit at my keyboard, refreshing my mailbox and cleaning up my spam filter, other people's dreams are coming to fruition because they were in the right place at the right time.

Curse my introverted nature!

Step 7: Question Your Life Choices

Another day, another rejection.

The struggle is real.

Two rejections, to be precise. One was from a known fantasy agent who also happens to represent one of my husband's favorite authors, so I wasn't too surprised to find that my book wasn't up their alley. The other one, though, seemed like they would have been a perfect fit for me based on their bio, so I can't help but be a little disappointed.

I'm genuinely starting to second-guess the strength of my query letter. The first couple of agents I queried requested the full manuscript right off the bat, so I thought I was hitting the right notes. But every agent who has responded since has rejected my idea based on my query letter alone, which means it's probably time to do some retooling. I still have ten queries out; I'll try to resist the urge to mail out more until I hear back from a few more agents.

Literary Hydra: Reject one query letter, and ten more will appear.

I've had a nagging sensation plague me ever since I heard back from an agent who had read the full and mentioned that they had had problems connecting with the narrative. Grammar can be edited, and dialogue can be revised, but I'm concerned that a narrative problem is a fault in the very foundation of the story and can't be fixed without a major rehaul. It wouldn't be the first time I've rewritten Defining Lines, but it's hard to spot the problems when you can't see them yourself.

Not sure if plot hole or a selling point.

It's a little way too early to start questioning whether I have a viable story on my hands, but people aren't kidding when they say this industry moves at a glacial pace. It's rough on the ego to wait several weeks only to get a form rejection in response, and I'm not getting any younger. I think about my chances of landing an agent, and my slimmer chances of getting a book deal, and my even further minuscule chances of it going on to becoming a bestseller, and... well, you can see why it's tempting to throw in the towel.  Head, meet wall.

It's kind of like that.

EDIT: In the time that I wrote this post, I received another rejection. Trying to stay positive.

NBD. Just gonna go throw myself in front of a bus.

Step 6: Consider The Following

Since I don't have any news to report on the literary front, and since this blog is my own little corner of the web for me to do as I please, I'm going to discuss my feelings on something that has been making the rounds of the internet the last few days. I recognize it's a touchy subject, and as an upper-middle class, heterosexual, cisgendered, white female, I am acutely aware of the fact that my voice will not weigh as heavily as others (which is 100% understandable and totally okay by me).

It has to do with a little movie called Ghost in the Shell.

Motoko Kunasagi or Mary Kemp? You decide.

I'm just going to get this out of the way right off the bat: I don't agree with this casting decision. I've loved Scarlett Johansson ever since I saw her in The Horse Whisperer, but this doesn't have anything to do with her acting abilities. Ghost in the Shell is an established world set in futuristic Japan, and the main character has a name that clearly reflects her ethnicity. I absolutely believe that there is a systematic cycle of whitewashing in Hollywood, and this casting choice just reinforces that fact. An amazing opportunity to cast a minority actress in the lead role has been squandered.

"But Shea!" you might say. "Ghost in the Shell is a work of fiction! She's a cyborg! Maybe she changed her face! Maybe the producers needed a big name attached to the movie to get it funded! Aren't you happy that a beloved manga and anime series is getting a Hollywood adaptation?"

My response to all of the above is: Perhaps. Yes, I'm happy to see that Hollywood is showing interest in some of my favorite stories. Yes, it is a work of fiction, and we've seen a few directors step up to cast actors that go against the established grain, like Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm. But before you unleash your cries of unfairness and double standards, let me just point out that there is no shortage of movies for white actors to star in. All minorities want is their slice of the pie.

...without being the token black guy. There, I said it.

I don't think that's asking for too much. And with Ghost in the Shell, there's an added layer of insult to injury in the fact that Hollywood has backed a movie clearly set in Neo-Japan, but decided that the one thing that would make it better is by casting a white actress in the lead role that was clearly intended to be an Asian character. You know what that's called? Cultural appropriation.

Say it ain't so!

Now, cultural appropriation is a loaded term. There are some instances that are so obvious we as a society have (completely mostly somewhat) eradicated them from our system. Black face is one example, as is wearing a Native American headdress if you haven't touched an enemy in battle.  There are other instances that fall more into a grey area, like caucasians wearing their hair in traditionally black styles; I would love to sport braids, but I have listened to what people of color are saying, and out of respect I have opted not to wear them.

So what about instances where a society encourages other ethnicities to embrace aspects of their culture? Is it still cultural appropriation if someone of said culture says it's okay? I'm not asking this as a rhetorical question--I actually need to know. Because if it isn't, I have a pretty uncomfortable revelation for you: I have cosplayed as Motoko Kunasagi myself.

Dun dun DUN.

In fact, it isn't even the first time I've cosplayed as someone Japanese...

Sakabatō fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

...or changed my skin color to more accurately portray a character...

Does this chainmail make my ass look big?

Granted, Fran from Final Fantasy XII is technically an alien species, but when I put on the makeup for the first time in 2007, admittedly cultural and racial appropriation was not on my mind. It has since been brought to my attention that darkening your skin--even for silly purposes like cosplay--is not kosher in this day and age, and I would hesitate to do it again.

There's obviously a wide gap between cosplay hobbyists and Hollywood, and I never considered attempting to make myself look more Asian anytime I wore a culturally-specific costume, but it's still food for thought. I am an active member of the cosplay community, and the last thing I want to do is trample on other people's feelings in a misguided effort to show my love for a fandom. To that effect, I am still trying to understand the nuances of appropriation within the grander scheme of things, such as casting a Chinese actress in a Japanese role, or a cisgendered actor in a transgendered role. There is something to be said about taking baby steps when it comes to bringing a traditionally closeted subject to the forefront of Hollywood--I am thankful that shows like Ghost in the Shell and Transparent are finally getting the spotlight they so richly deserve--but how long can we give them a pass in favor of exposure before getting to the heart of the matter and pointing out why they are flawed?

The world may never know.