I dreamed I won $2 million, whether through lottery or inheritance. It was nice because I was able to pay off my credit card bills, and use the rest as a financial pad while I loafed and wrote my first novel or two.

Would that it were true.

Uneasy dreams the rest of the night. Dissatisfied with my job, my career path, some aspects of life in general, the fact that I haven't been able to finish a story in over two months, and credit card companies. Feh. Dissatisfied with the ending of "Stealing Sacred Fire" by Storm Constantine, which seemed too pat and pulled together too neatly, and yet still left a few major ends hanging. And some of the symbolism went over the top.

Priya's new Vagrant Story list is sucking me in. The Technomancy chicks have a cool site offering VS-themed mp3s, skins, smutlogs to read...a little bit of something for everyone. XD And since I am feeling so bleh lately, and gravitating towards the dark and depressing, it might lend itself to "Vagrant Story" fiction.

Even though I spent nearly a week every evening, and then almost a full weekend playing "Dark Cloud," I may not get much done in the next few days. I'm feeling dreadful, sliding into a rut of depression, and while they've been fairly short, they're pretty bad while they last. Usually I can jolly myself out of it but now is not the time.

And before this becomes totally whiny and self-pitying, it's time to change subjects.

I agree with Kya-chan on many of the points she touched on with her discussion. I read that link too. I agreed with many points, but there were a few...ehhh... Sometimes yaoi has been criticized because it's not like real, sweaty gay sex or gay pr0n or gay erotica.

*twitch* That's the point.

Yaoi is a genre written by female authors, for female readers -- in general. Its boundaries seem to be shifting and blurring as we American authors tamper with it. I know I've got a handful of guys on my mailing list, for example.

Yaoi is so appealing to me as a genre because it is, by definition, a more romanticized, relationship-focused portrayal of love between two guys. I've done my time sifting through pr0n tapes and anthologies of gay erotica. The most I've gotten out of it was some massive giggling over the ridiculous pr0n scenarios, which made some PWPs I've read look like poignant masterpieces. And having read dozens of gay erotica anthologies, I can say that the most they've mastered in their writing style is the use of multiple nouns to describe 'penis.' I was rather in awe; they usually managed not to say the same word twice. And we're talking some pretty raunchy euphemisms were thrown in for good measure.

Yaoi writers write about stuff that is, in general, aesthetically appealing. And since I say I'm speaking in general, I hope I'm not offending and leaving out the people who are trying for an earthier pr0n style of writing. ^_- So the sex scenes will, in general, omit some of the earmarks of a piece of gay erotica such as 'cum,' the 1001 words for 'cock,' '@$$,' etc. Why is there no f1sting, r1imming, or other widely-practiced fixtures of gay sex? Because this is yaoi. It doesn't reflect reality. One might remark upon the amazing lack of condoms, too.

I think I just drove my search engine hits up. XD

Not to say there isn't some wonderful writing out there, both yaoi and published literature, that has a certain element of gritty realism. Two of my favorite book-authors are Jim Grimsley and Poppy Z. Brite. Neither of them could be called 'erotica,' though.

Actually, for the most part I don't consider gay erotica to be a good thing. At the end of the story, not much has happened. Basically, an anthology of it is PWP after PWP. And one can only take in so much of that. Eventually, style-wise or reading-wise, there has to be more than just PWP or things get boring.

I had a point somewhere in there. I think. Mainly, I think it's that most of us yaoi writers try to acknowledge that gay sex isn't like het sex, but if we make mistakes in the technical details, well, hell. We're girls. We're not going to get hard-wired into a guy's brain to experience it first-hand. That, and if you're looking for the reality of gay sex, you won't get it with gay pr0n or gay erotica, either. You can only get that if you're a gay male. And as my friend Shaun would say, sometimes not even then. XD

Thea, you can send me random e-mail any time. XD I do check my mail at work. I'd love it. And I've got my toes crossed for you.

Meg, sorry I had to sign off so quickly last night. Becki needed the phone line and I'd been monopolizing it for two and a half hours. ^_^;; I wanted to express appreciation of the VS-ficsnips. And damn, if I'd made a plot-tape for the game, I would copy it and send it to you for encouragement... I'm tempted to try and find out What Went Wrong with the Playstation-VCR hookup that used to work perfectly.

Now I've got "Voodoo" in my head. n.n

Usagi is now joined the ally.

*You have reached Talya Firedancer's weblog. Talya has fried her brains playing Dark Cloud all weekend. If you would like to leave a message, she might get back to you once she returns to a state capable of concentrating on one task for more than five minutes. Then again, maybe not. Leave your message after the tone.

*Piii...*

Ch', did I ever fry my brains. Not only that but we barely ate anything yesterday, because there was nothing to eat until we made a grocery trip and we put that off until around five.

That's it, after I return this game, I may not want to buy it, after all. @_* Now I really feel "everything in moderation" was not meant to be just a saying, after all. I dreamed I was playing all last night. It was a restive sleep.

The above quote IS from Dark Cloud, only it's 'Osmond' who joins the party; I renamed him 'Usagi' for obvious reasons. @_< This game has a mild case of Engrish, and it was poorly edited in spots. It's only bad enough to be amusing, but I DID snerk when 'Usagi is now joined the ally.' And when they referred to one Key Item as a "Pez Sphere," and you find out later it's the Sun Sphere everyone's been talking about. ^^;;

I had only three entries last week, woo. *waves little flags* I'm discontented with the state of a few things in general, so I've been online less lately. Or maybe I'm discontented because I've been paying less attention to other things. Any which way, it adds up to "quit playing those video games, dammit." And since I've overdosed, now's a good time for a hiatus.

Right now I'm reading "Stealing Sacred Fire" by Storm Constantine, the excellent authoress of the Wraeththu trilogy... It's good, and I like how she weaves in Christian mythology. I need to get back to the printed word, a book in my hands, for inspiration. ^_^ Spent too much time staring at screens, lately.

We bought five volumes of "Pet Shop of Horrors" on Saturday, and I'm enjoying it. Well, what I got to see when I was able to pry a volume out of becki's hands. ^^;;;

Eventually, my page will go back up. *wince* Well, I may as well upload the fic while Puu finishes up my snazzy new layout. I can do that much.

And I wanna start playing "Vagrant Story" again, though I know this will go over at home about as well as rancid milk. @_X Well, maybe I can play it in the mornings.

Ja, everyone...happy Monday.

tay-chan gave into evil impulses on Monday, July 9, 2001 at 06:27 a.m..