Step 48: Confess (Day 1)

Now that I've returned to the Twitterverse, I ran across a fun little game J.M. Sullivan is hosting called #authorconfession for the month of February. Since I'm in dire need of things to blog about other than the fact that the world going to hell in a hand basket, I thought I'd expand on the short answers I posted on Twitter here. It goes a little something like this:

Every day asks the author a different question, and today's prompt is: 

What do you listen to while writing?

My answer? Nothing. Not. A. Damn. Thing. I have to write in near-total silence in order to concentrate, and in the past I've even taken to using ear plugs to block out the sound of birds chirping and the husband playing Fallout 4. And it's not because I'm a heathen who hates music; on the contrary, I love singing badly at the top of my lungs to my favorite tunes. I even have a "Book Playlist" on Spotify with songs that correspond to certain chapters of my books, because obviously there is plenty of music out there that inspires me.

But I have a tendency to get distracted easily, to the point where sometimes I have to pause a song just to write a tweet, and oftentimes I'll interrupt my own half of a conversation just to belt out an awesome jam that came on the radio in my car. Oddly enough, I don't have this problem when I'm drawing; throw on a good playlist or a Ken Burns documentary in the background, and I can zone out for hours on end. It probably has something to do with using different parts of my brain (or lack thereof, in the case of doodling) when I'm working.

That said, there are a few songs out there that I listen to when I'm re-reading certain chapters of my WIPs, and one in particular has me obsessed to the point that I fear if I listen to it one more time I'll get sick of it. It's a cover of David Bowie's Life on Mars? performed by Aurora for HBO's Girls soundtrack (get some tissues ready):

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 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'.