Angel 5x11 Damage (more thoughts)

( More spoilers! )

The interview thing

Questions from double_helix:

1) You want to own a scifi bookstore! Cool! Tell me your dream version of it.

Ooooo... Um. First, it has to be well-lit. Because while dark corners are great for fantasy atmosphere, it sucks to try to read books like that! Also, I'm wondering if I should do scifi/fantasy and romance, or just sci-fi/fantasy... although after seeing Borderlands, I'm a bit more certain that there are enough books for a bookstore for just sci-fi/fantasy. But I'm also all for promoting romance and making it not the genre-of-shame that it is. It's got to have a section full of comfy chairs and sofas for reading, because I want it to be a place people feel comfortable in. I was thinking maybe that area would be a little separate from everything else so I could make people take off their shoes or something before sitting on the couches, because I like curling up in the chairs and B&N. There's got to be a used book section -- depending on how many used books I would get, I would consider limiting it to out of print stuff. Graphic novel section because I refuse to own a bookstore that doesn't sell Sandman. Little fantasy knickknacks and merchandise lying around (Sandman statuettes, posters, etc) and for sale. It'd be cool if I could team up with a local cafe for a cafe in the store, with wireless access. Employees who know what they're talking about, and who hopefully specialize in different things (hard core/golden age scifi, me and my fairy tale fantasy, etc.). I would want something like "___ is reading ___ right now" things up, along with lists that each employee would make up, including their favorite books and other book recs in a certain vein (ex "If you liked ___, try ___"). Lists of Hugo and Nebula and Mythopoeic winners. Hopefully itty bitty card sized reviews of more obscure books we want to bring attention to (no little cards for Ender's Game, despite how much I love it).

And I would want some sort of online store. I don't know if we'd sell stuff online (depends on viability), but I would want some sort of online storefront that included forums. I'd have employees drop by, I'd drop by, hopefully there would be much discussion and mutual recs of books. I want my store to be something like a community, getting people of the community in for readings or book club type discussions, getting authors in for talks, and having the online stuff going as well. I want it to be something people can participate in. Heh, that was a giant answer. And of course, all this pretends that there's no such thing as money!

2) I know you've lived in several places. Which do you think you'll choose for long-term living? Or do you want to keep moving and trying new places?

Taiwan. Barring Taiwan, probably California... but I know if I ever have kids, I want to drag them back home. It sounds kind of sappy, but I want them to know Chinese and to have some sense of that culture. I really, really, really don't want to keep moving and trying new places -- I'm absolutely horrified of moving. I think the four years of packing and unpacking rooms each year to move to a new dorm in college was about all the moving I can take. Plus, I tend to get very attached to places where I live. I mean, I know the boy wants to kind of float around and try living in Japan and stuff, but eventually, I want to settle down in Taiwan.

3) Rec me some good fantasy. I need to branch out. *g*

Ooo, what have you read? I rec Diana Wynne Jones to everyone -- she writes young adult books kind of in the vein of Harry Potter, but she's been doing it waaay before JK Rowlings. I particularly like her Fire and Hemlock and the Chrestomanci books. Robin Hobb's got great world-building AND good characters AND a good epic feel, although some of my friends find her a bit depressing. I read Steve Brust and Emma Bull's Freedom and Necessity and bit back and absolutely adored it. It's a Victorian epistolary novel, on the border of fantasy, and great fun. Plus, I love the characters. I really loved Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest trilogy, which is a take on the seven swans fairy tale combined with Celtic mythology. And everyone who likes Monty Python should read Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. Firebirds, an anthology of short stories by some very good YA writers, is out, edited by Sharyn November. And that's just the tip of the iceberg ;). Now I'm slightly afraid you've already read most of these!

4) What got you into fandom and livejournal? What keeps you here?

Fandom -- wow. I had pretty much just gotten the internet back in tenth grade and was trolling around for online fiction, thanks to a giant lack of English books in Taiwan. Instead, I kept running across this weird thing called fan fiction, and I noticed a lot of it was for the X-Files. Didn't pay much attention until a girl in my class started watching X-Files. I got curious, read a few stories, and got absolutely hooked when I hit Madeleine Partous' Shadow Puppets (all the talk of a Cancerman and black oil worms was reeeaaally confusing). I decided at that point that I had to watch the show, and watched the third and fourth season in bits and pieces whenever I could catch them on TV. I'm still pretty impressed they aired in Taiwan. I was a lurker for X-Files, then I got into anime fandom with Gundam Wing -- started a webpage, wrote some fic. Then I discovered Buffy junior year watching FFL ^_^.

I think I found LJ after noticing some of the blogs I had been reading stopped being updated because the people were moving to LiveJournal. I trolled about in LJ for a while, and finally decided to get one last February, mostly because I wasn't in the best of emotional places at the time and wanted a diary that I would write in more than my paper one, since I type a lot faster than I write.

5) Who's your favorite fictional character of all time? (Or at least one of your top three). Rave about him or her to me.

Ender! This is partially based on the sheer length of time I've "known" him. Plus, of most of the fictional characters I adore, he's one of the ones who is the most delineated and explored, unlike, oh, say, Eowyn, who I adore, but who is not exactly center stage in LotR. I read Ender's Game in seventh grade, and it was an absolutely wrenching experience -- could not be parted from the book and wandered around in a bit of a daze for a few days after reading it. I love how Card brings me into Ender's head, and I love Ender's compassion and his brilliance, and his mixed desires to win so that no one will ever hurt him and his hatred of himself for that very desire. And while I do love adult Ender in Speaker for the Dead and beyond, it's kid Ender, stuck in Battle School, who I love the most. I think I love him so much because I used to be a kid like that -- not that brilliant, but smart enough so that there was a definite barrier between me and other people. And while I liked it, I also got the loneliness that comes of that.

The Rules of the Game

Want to be interviewed yourself? Ask here.

1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

NB: Will limit myself to the first five people as well, in case there are more.

(no subject)

The boy is so funny!

He played Evanescence's Everybody's Fool for me in the car and said it should be a Jasmine vid. Hee! He even had a moment picked out for when Angel reveals her for who she is!

Nyaha. It seems as though all my Angel watching has paid off ;).

( Lyrics here )