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Shaman Warrior, vols. 1-5 (Park Joong-Ki)
Shaman warriors have the ability to transform their bodies in various ways, making them formidable war machines. As this series opens, a legendary shaman, Yarong, meets his death under circumstances that seem highly suspicious to his servant, the massive fighter Batu. Batu swears to defend his master's child, Yaki, but he soon finds this far more difficult than he expected: shaman warriors are being hunted down and killed, with the circumstances of Yarong's death being twisted to provide an excuse. Batu at last decides he must take desperate measures to ensure that little Yaki survives and becomes able to defend herself.
Thus far, this is playing out like an almost gender-blind shounen/seinen adventure. There are more male characters than female characters (especially in the first volume), but the female characters we've encountered thus far are fighting, doing magic, and adventuring along with the men. These female characters are also generally drawn with reasonable bustlines and amazingly modest clothing. The story includes betrayal, loyalty beyond the grave, a variety of non-romantic attachments (siblings, master-servant, parent-child, team mates, etc.), and complex politics. The artwork is gorgeous, illustration rather than cartoon, along the lines of Inoue's work on Vagabond and Samura's work on Blade of the Immortal (and when we do encounter grotesques, they're all the more unnerving because they're so well-drawn).
Oh, and telophase? Batu the Destroyer traveling with little Yaki is just your kind of thing!
Shaman Warrior, vols. 1-5 (review) |
(FYI - that's teenaged Yaki in the icon.)
OK ... wild theories time. The Mr. and I don't think Yarong was Yaki's father. We think Yarong was Yaki's mother.
This may sound like total crack - after all, we have a number of pictures of bare-chested Yarong in vol. 1, and that's a totally masculine-looking torso, very much in the realistic mode: not tapered and bishie-ish, but compactly muscled and slightly stocky. But think about how Yarong has a tiny baby, and Batu keeps urging him to take it easy because "you can't fight anymore. Your body can't take it" and the General who sends Yarong off on his fatal mission apologizes that he had to "inform you of this while your body is still changing," and then later this same General thinks of Yarong with this statement:"I have plucked the most beautiful flower in all Kugai ... ."
I guess only time will tell.
Park gets a little weird with names: there is a character called Genji (female, and supposedly Batu's sister) and another called Aragorn (the tattooed warlord of a clan that's being forced out by the General). Genji is a lot of fun - frankly outspoken, a skilled fighter, and a master of disguise. Aragorn's a pretty good character too, but I keep twitching every time I read that name ... .
Yaki's experiences in the Butcher Camps are all too realistic, except in one area, and I think Park is actually to be commended for not going for the sexual angle in most of what happens to her. I also like how Yatilla gives her a reason to go on and be strong. He's a very promising character, and I hope we'll see more of him.
My only regret thus far is that Yarong was killed off so soon. He was just my sort of character.
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This is a constant theme for me - I want to be me, but I want to be loved. I won't cave for the sake of approval, but then I'm unhappy because I don't have that approval.
*hug* Awww, I don't disapprove; I know I use my LJ to vent sometimes, and I would feel annoyingly constrained if I didn't post about something that was making my fingers itch to start writing. So perhaps I was projecting that onto you! :D And I totally understand what you mean about not wanting to argue about something minor, especially on your own blog.
I actually wondered why you had a separate fic acct. Like I said, the only person I actually physically interact with on my LJ is pretty open minded, but I DO wonder what she thinks of it all :D
With the slash, I finally just refused to argue with her. I know what turns my crank sexually, and I know what type of people I like to read about, and I don't think it's hating my sex to say that I enjoy books with male protagonists and I enjoy m/m sex in stories.
I like books with both male and female protagonists, or I wouldn't have liked Buffy, urban fantasy, my trashy books, and any other of the other stuff that has women as the main character. But I like the menfolk that way as well. Personally, I think it is quite possible to be sexist the going other way too, that you shortchange the very valuable things that men bring to a story (or a person's life, for that matter).
I think most of my problem with f/f is that there are relatively few female characters with whom I identify ... that's something to think about, actually.
Well, that is true for me as well, but I know why it is, in my case. While I was growing up, I was judged by my female peers, and not by males. That is, the girls were very frequently catty, cliquish bitches, and the guys would interact with me as if I was a fellow human being. Consequently, all of my friends throughout my childhood and adolescence (and even now, really) were male.
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I think a lot of it just comes down to the fact that most people have a relative narrow comfort zone of topics that they yack about. In my case, even with a child, it can be just as awkward. They want to complain about how they can't get their kids to do their homework (not an issue at my house), brag about their kids' sports or musical accomplishments (mine doesn't do any of that), and talk about how their girls hang at the mall or on the phone (doesn't happen). And I have the same issue about the TV shows and books that you do.
It is true that for many people, kids become the overwhelming theme for everyday life. I don't think it's that great for the kids either - it's better for them to know that the parents have other interests in life as well.
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(Sorry to be coming back to this so late ... sometimes there really aren't enough hours in a day, and we had a busy weekend, with house guests.)
Well, if I want to vent about someone who might read it, or about work, I f-lock it. Generally, if discussing things or arguing won't make the situation better, I don't want to do it. And there are a number of really sweet, wonderful people here on LJ who get firmly attached to their particular soap-boxes, and nothing I can say or do is going to change that.
Thanks for being understanding. Sometimes I feel like a wimp, but this is something I do for fun, dammit, and arguing isn't something I enjoy (took years for my husband to really understand that).
I like books with female protagonists sometimes ... it depends on how they're written. Are you familiar with Rumer Godden? Her China Court is one of my favorite books ever, and yet it's a romance/family history: on the face of it, one of the girliest types of things one could imagine. I'm also very fond of National Velvet, a typical adolescent girls' fave.
>> Well, that is true for me as well, but I know why it is, in my case. While I was growing up, I was judged by my female peers, and not by males. That is, the girls were very frequently catty, cliquish bitches, and the guys would interact with me as if I was a fellow human being. Consequently, all of my friends throughout my childhood and adolescence (and even now, really) were male.<<
Oh, you too, huh? :-) Yes, that was pretty exactly my situation. I sometimes had a single female friend at a time, but that was very special and rare when it happened. (And then she'd move away, or go to another school, or something - it never lasted long.) But usually it was guys - guys who treated me like one of them, or guys who decided they could confide in me, and told me all their troubles, or both. Honestly, it feels so weirdly good to have female friends to talk with about this stuff - I'm afraid to breathe, sometimes, because maybe all of you will evaporate without warning!
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Well, I met mine after college ... right after, I will admit, but it was through the SCA.
Washington is the kind of place where people come on TDY, so there were always a few kids missing and a few new kids there at the start of the school year. And because I was a bit of an oddball, I tended to indentify with the short-term kids because they felt out of place, too ... . And in the case of my jr. high friend Nancy, her parents were devout Quakers who always intended her to go to prestigious Sidwell Friends for high school ... and it was a 4-yr high school, too, so she didn't even finish jr. high with me ... :-(
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>> I've have had to die from the shame of it all <<
I only went to Pennsic once, and I was already someone's bedwarmer, so it wasn't an issue ... but I used to have to take evasive action to avoid cloved fruit at events before then. Kissing is something I'm only into as actual foreplay, so I had no interest in the SCA's favorite sport - I was always utterly grossed out by the idea of doing it with someone I was not completely into. I mean, I always thought I was doing my best to look forbidding and crabby, but apparently it wasn't coming off that way. Not that there were crowds after me, but there was always one or two persistent ones ... .
But really, there are always so many geeky guys in the SCA hoping that they are coming off as suave and princely - I really think your problem would be the other way around!
Well, I always clicked with those kids too, and I certainly knew where "home" was. But I was always at sea for friends, and so were they.
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What, at this latest Katsucon? I don't think you told me!
It's funny, I'm often quite cuddly, but sometimes it just gets to be too much and I need space. I think my senses get overloaded. Sometimes in the evenings, after a meal in a noisy restaurant, the combination of higher blood sugar and too mauch sight/sound/taste/smell put me over the edge, and I get very irritated (frighteningly so - as though one more bit of input will have me screaming) and have to lie down in a darkened room until I'm chill again. (And this is why I feel like I really know Sanzo sometimes ... .)
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Your story is a little funny and a little sad - hers is creepy/disgusting! Makes you wonder whether his friend knew what he was up to ... .
I've enjoyed concerts and such myself - I think you're right about fatigue and blood sugar levels being important factors.
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That sounds like recent experience talking, about the noise? I hope it wasn't one of the times when we took you out ... .
Restaurant noise & similar stressors
The Wash Post food critic is now starting to rate restaurants for noise level, so it's starting to bother others, too!
You may recall that one of the reasons we ended up at Tavira that time is that Karl likes it because it's usually quiet. Last time we went back there (Friday), the staff obviously had missed us. We had 3 waiters tussling over who got to take our order, and they gave us a gratis antipasto platter of Spanish ham and cheese and olives. (They wanted to give us wine, but no one at the table but me would have been drinking any of it ... we had Liz Partan along, but she's only 15.)