Association Meme: Comment/ask on this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.
raisedbymoogles gave me mythology, gold, sound, feathers, and anime
Mythology: I am a total dork for mythology. I love it a lot. I had a book of Greek myths as done for kids that I read over and over, and then I found another book of Greek myths that was less for kids, and it kinda snowballed from there in other mythologies. I've kind of dropped out at the moment, though, I'd like to start looking into it again, try and integrate it into the stories I write, that sort of thing.
I’d also like to look into the geographical regions that various mythologies covered. I mean, Japan and the British Isles, they’re islands, that’s easy; Nordic legends? Generally associated with Germanic tribes I believe only I’m not entirely sure what territories that means (modern day Germany dates from the later half of the nineteenth century, around the 1880s I think?) and Aboriginal legends Iiii really don’t know. It’s probably all tied up with history (conquest and assimilation), so there’s probably a lot to look into.
Gold: Shiny. Good for jewellery; not so good for armour (kind of soft). (Which makes you- well, me, anyway- wonder why RPGs have it as better than iron. *shrug!*)
Sound: I didn’t really pay attention to sound a lot- I tend to turn the sound off or down on games. Honestly, I’m not sure I pay a lot more attention now, though I do pay some- trying to gather a collection of somewhat eclectic music on my computer, blameable partly on programmes like Spicks and Specks and Rockwiz. I suspect that this is part of why I have selectively sensitive hearing, which can work brilliantly for a couple of rooms away (sometimes) and really poorly in the same room. It always works for buzzing insects, though (like flies. And mosquitoes. And flies. And bees. But especially flies. Did I mention flies?). If it’s a superpower, I want to trade it in.
Feathers: Feathers are one part of what makes up a wing- probably the most noticeable part, though I’m not quite clear on how much they contribute structurally. They’re really interesting to look at. Lorikeet feathers are grey towards the bottom! I want to know what galah feathers look like.
Individual feathers are fine to draw, but drawing an entire wing is more of a pain. Especially with the attached creature, ack. MORE PRACTICE, SELF.
I always wonder, in manga/anime like D.N.Angel, why they shed so many feathers. That doesn’t seem like something that would be good for flight.
Anime: In actual fact, I tend to buy more manga than anime. Manga tends to be a bit cheaper- especially if you buy it in Japanese (this is not the worst idea I’ve ever had, I just need to put the rest of the idea into practice and I think it’s helping a bit anyway)-, between 8-15 AU dollars for most single volumes, and a single DVD is around 25 AU dollars. Also, it’s guaranteed to work. Which should probably not be a problem with DVDs, and isn’t with most, just this one (and pretty much just on my Mactop), which is seriously weird. I tend to think books in general tend to tell their stories better than animated/movie editions, too (though that might be related to the ease of getting books as compared to anime/movie etc. idk [it is kind of crap being down here sometimes, ask me to rant about delays in movies and games sometime or better yet don’t I’ll probably just repeat myself loudly a lot and it won’t be fun]). I guess anime’s got colour going for it, but sometimes the artwork seems a bit less. I get why (time, ease of reproduction between frames), but… mm, yeah.
I should look into finding Triplets of Bevelle sometime. It looked interesting, I don’t know why I haven’t yet.
cofmanynames gave me Imagined tailwag, Dahy, Birds, green and otherwise, Alas Babylon, and Australia
Imagined tailwag: There're some meanings I figure a tailwag does better than other things, only I'm human and don't have a tail, so when I say I'm wagging mine, it's not real, it's imagined. Essentially I'm trying to be friendly and not appear too crazy. I dunno how well it works, though.
Dahy: Hey, a chance to talk about one of my original characters, awesome! (I- I really like doing this? Only I’m fairly convinced it tends to bore everyone else, so I tend not to… do much of it. Certainly not out…) Dahy’s from about 2005, and design-wise he hasn’t changed much, just got taller, done a couple of things with his hair. Personality, on the other hand… That’s tied into a whole bunch of kinda-spoileriffic things I don’t actually want to get into (working out precisely what would spoil people gives me the creeping horrors, sweet mercies why am I doing this project), though, so… not going to go into much detail. With personality, originally, he was meant to be a sort of happy bloke, fairly even-tempered, mostly seen with a smile- I might have a note somewhere that says ‘doesn’t know how to frown’ or something of the sort-, vegetarian, cheering, not very mysterious at all. He’s not much of that now. Story-wise, he runs an agency that deals with supernatural things. He’s the more measured, sensible one, or the one Xephos trusts to have some sort of plan. Tends to defence and uses sigils, partly so people underestimate him, partly not to show all he can. Otherwise, he generally tries to keep himself in check emotionally so either he simmers or explodes, cooks mostly Mediterranean and Central European foods, has secrets. His right eye, however, remains completely unimportant. He just likes it like that.
Birds, green and otherwise: Basically, I’ve been interested in birds for ages. I think it’s the flying thing, I think that captures a lot of people. Also, they’re fun to chase. Especially seagulls. And pigeons. Mynahs, on the other hand, are just small ratbags of birds.
There are a lot of parrots and parakeets around (except I don’t know anyone- not here at least- who calls them just ‘parakeets’ [the bird book I have certainly doesn’t], probably because there’re so many of the buggers [parakeets = small-medium sized parrots with long tails e.g., budgerigars, cockatiels, lorikeets, rosellas, probably some other species I’m forgetting]). They have really nice feather patterns, but they’re really noisy- almost as noisy as sulphurs, sometimes.
Green comes out a lot in our parrots/lorikeets. Which might be part of why kunenks got to be green (we had a couple of lorikeets who’d swing past to be fed at the grandparents’ place in the northern bit of Sydney), but that’s got more to do with them being supposed to be wood-based birds. Which basically means they should look less like ducks and probably more like quails or ground parrots or something.
Aside from looking like ducks, kunenks are something I based vaguely on phoenixes and have never given a proper story, so they’ve not really developed much past that. They might end up in the Project Without a Name sometime, they’re probably quiet enough to not get noticed much.
Alas Babylon: The second- third? Eh, I’m not talking about that one, so- second RP I’ve been part of (the first was Neutral Omens). It… basically got me thinking about RP again, I guess. I’m sorry it didn’t go further than it did (partly because I have this twitch about unfinished stories, which kind of kicks in with NO, too, but… we’d had more hints with that).
Hearing Babylon generally makes me think of that song that Don McLean, at least, did once- I learnt it in one of my early years singing, and it’s something I kind of relate to, but also find really depressing. Fortunately, there is another song called
Babylon which is slightly more cheerful, by David Gray. And also the city-state, and some of the legends of the region.
Australia: Interestingly (or so I suppose), I relate to my country through music/poetry- or at least, what I perceive to be the perceived view of my country. Anything I personally say on the subject is essentially subjective, as basically I am a Sydney girl of kind of mixed heritage, mostly British/UK, but… most of what I’ve said is subjective. What makes this different enough to note? Well, it seems to me that people get very uptight about countries, and the way they’re perceived- who’s doing the perceiving, who’s creating the object/perspective being perceived, and so on (see: people exploding over Hetalia. I’m okay with it at the moment, but… I’ll probably be trying to avoid strips with Australia. I don’t get on with stereotypes of the country). And Australia’s a big country (which, honestly, one movie is not going to capture the whole of, not that I imagine that that was Luhrmann’s point anyway- well, not much, maybe), and around here we don’t bother so much with WA aside from knowing it does mining mostly (from what I see) mostly because we’re- that is, NSW in general aside maybe from out west and the bits wanting to be SA instead (time zones)- busy bothering about Victoria and Queensland instead and occasionally remembering Tasmania. (Which state was left off the posters for the movie?) So it’s about borders, creeds (teams- oh, geez, I don’t remember the specifics right now but it was… north of the Murray? North of something, anyway, you supported the Toads- was it? And south of whatever it was, you supported the Cockroaches… but I think I’ve got the names wrong. It’s a sporting thing. And then further south the favoured game was… whatever it wasn’t up here. AFL, I think. I have no idea where I read this, I’ll have to look around…)- Anyway. It’s an identity thing. Which is part of why I’m not convinced a global rule would work, the rest being the necessary considerations of local geography, which would probably get overlooked unless you put local governments in place… and then it seems to all sort of divide again. Well, so goes my theory, anyway. It’s not, you know, properly researched or anything.
People have this tendency to group. Australia had a lot of migrants, and generally people tended to clump with others of their own nationality- so Leichhardt is/was Little Italy (apparently it’s sort of moved? To… Haberfield, I think they reckoned on the radio). We seem sort of more dispersed, but all the same, I’d say there’s definitely a group situation happening. Not just mainland Europeans, either, of course- reckon you’ve got Isle areas and we’re near one of the bigger/more notable Chinatowns of Sydney.
So the question then is, how do you represent all of that? What culture does this create? And so far, as far as I can tell, people look at Australia and go ‘is this Australian food? No, it is Italian/Greek/Chinese in origin, it is not Australian’, and what is Australian art? I mean, truly Australian? Obviously we’ve got influences from that large landmass over here, though I’ll be blasted if I see how there’s much of the south-east going. Especially considering that that’s the part we’re closest to.
Which is the point I’d like to make. Australia was originally colonised by people coming in via South-East Asia, who several thousand years later got a bad deal when the Europeans decided they wanted to colonise the place (mainly the British, but they just found a good spot and got to Port Jackson before the French did). The gold rush brought more UK immigrants, and also Chinese (possibly other nations; as I recall Australia’s went on a little longer than that in North America, but it’s been a while). Later on- probably more noticeably post-World War II- Australia accepts migrants from other European nations- so Germans, Italians, Hungarians, and so on. Migrants from Asia would’ve come, but the most notable time I recall would be around the Vietnam War and after. The political system we have is based on the Westminster system. So, to a fair extent, culturally, socially, politically, Australia is strongly European. Geographically, though, we’re located pretty much at the extent of South-East Asia- the tectonic plate we’re on is heading up that way. Which basically, ‘s far as it looks to me, fucks a whole bunch of things up. Or probably just people’s minds. Remember
this? Yeah? Well, move the ‘x’ to the East Coast of Australia, and look again. We’re probably lucky West Australia’s not called East or something, I dunno.
…that was long. Er.
Music now.
Down Under- Men At Work Solid Rock- Goanna Sounds of Then (This is Australia)- GANGgajang Beds are Burning- Midnight Oil Treaty- Yothu Yindi Tribal Voice- Yothu Yindi My Island Home- Warumpi Band I am Australian- performed by the Seekers Streets of Your Town- The Go-Betweens Cattle and Cane- The Go-Betweens Under the Milky Way- The Church And to finish off,
Adam Hills on Australian accents.