I'm about to horrify my husband...

[merimask]

MUAHAAHAA! It lives!
Also... Gotta have a blackmail pic of the husband playing with the dog. All the cool people are doing it. :-) See? I told you he has long stoopid pretty hair.

Public humiliation is fun! Eh, Greg?

Oh, I noticed that for some perverse reason my picture of Sango failed to load properly when I did my last entry. Which was especially cruel since I mentioned spandex and all... :::shrugs::: Anyway hopefully this time you can see her. SANGO!

And!
Re; "The Twelve Kingdoms". It's getting very convoluted! I'm on the third story arc, "A Great Distance In The Wind, The Sky At Dawn" (don't you just love the lyrical-sounding chapters? So pretty), and I'm getting a little "Waitaminnit...what about that kid so-and-so, who left the kingdom of whoositz, where's he? And what about whats-his-name who fell off the cliff waaay back in arc one...wha happen? And and and..." There's all SORTS of unfinished business, and only a few discs left to finish it in, and new people keep popping in and muddling up the storyline. I'm getting anxious.

Cool thing is I'm starting to really "get" the language. Like I can totally figure out the names of all the Kirin as long as I know their gender and the kingdom they're from...and I know all the honorifics. Which is a good thing because the first few discs had me hitting pause and checking the glossary of terms kindly included with the series just about once every few minutes. S'fun though! Me = language geek.

I'm having a really hard time with some aspects of the story. The whole "babies from a tree" thing...doesn't that cause sexual tension to fly right out the window? Do they even need to have sex? I love the fantasy aspect but... :::shrug::: It just seems so ~odd~ to me because a world where all living things procreate asexually would seem to necessarily have a completely different view of life, morality...just everything. Would an asexual society be territorial? Or proprietary? Would there be monogamy, or romance, or even love? Sex and procreation seem like such all-pervasive motivators in every society, it's so deeply tied into our instincts for basic survival, I just can't conceive of a world without that.

Comments

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Huh! You learn something new every day. :-) I had NO idea asexuality was an orientation...that's kind of neat to know. Thanks for setting me straight.

While I have no problem understanding it when it's the orientation of an individual...I still can't wrap my head around an entire world system that biologically reproduces asexually. I guess that's why they call it "fantasy". :-)

And while it would be a challenge, I think it's very possible to write about an asexual character and make him/her compelling. There have been many asexual characters in popular literature (I'm thinking of Tolkien's Gandalf, for one example...perhaps also Hazel from Watership Down) where sexuality or orientation never really are an important issue. There are still strong relationships...just not of a sexual nature.

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :) Asexual is just a word of course but it's useful. Most people don't realize that there is a whole group/type of people out there who are celibate not by choice, but because it's the only thing that is natural to them.

That's true, but in the case of Gandalf, he's not a main character...and Hazel is a rabbit. But Frodo could certainly be seen as an asexual lead if you wanted. Though of course now everyone tries to claim that Frodo and Sam were gay, against all evidence. (Which is frustrating. Why does all love have to come down to sex? It's one of my frustrations.) The thing is, what I want to write isn't an adventure (at least, I don't think it would be) but a story about someone coming to terms with asexuality in a world where it is considered unnatural if it is known at all, and about developing meaningful relationships in such a society.

But I know that a lot of people would instantly be turned off as soon as they realized that some hot main male charactr wasn't going to come along and 'cure' her of her asexuality. Ican't tell you how many times I've heard the old line..."Just wait until you meet the right guy." It's always said as some giant magical truth, as if I will be transformed the instant he appears.

I'll probably end up writing my story just for therapy, lol. It's only been in the past few years that I've finally convinced (almost) everyone that he's never going to come. Lucky for my blood pressure, my mother has always believed me. :)

[lotus-faerie.livejournal.com]

And I agree with your frustration. Does it matter what Sam and Frodo were, if anything? What we did see is that they loved each other dearly as friends; why does it have to become sexual?

But I know that a lot of people would instantly be turned off as soon as they realized that some hot main male charactr wasn't going to come along and 'cure' her of her asexuality. Ican't tell you how many times I've heard the old line..."Just wait until you meet the right guy." It's always said as some giant magical truth, as if I will be transformed the instant he appears.

People tend to want to believe in everyone being like everyone else. Deviations in any form, be it asexuality or vegetarianism (even though my family has been vegetarian for millennia, people still wonder how I survive without eating meat) or believing in magic scares the more conservative among us. That doesn't mean you have to bow to them, though. The rest of us do like differences and weird people, because we're weird ourselves. :)

[lotus-faerie.livejournal.com]

I agree with this last statement. Golden, if you want to write those characters into existence, do it! I really think we have come to expect sex in our entertainment, but is that all we are as people? Hell, no. To keep from offending anyone, I won't say anything about my personal religious viewpoint (what role I think sex plays for us, etc.), but I will add that no matter what, each of us has the good fortune to be more than simply a means of procreation, should we choose to be that all.

Damn. That sounded so greeting-cardish.

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

I probably will at least try writing it for my own benefit as soon as my left hand is working again. Just typing the little comments is taking a ridiculously long time right now. Thanks for the encouragement.