Project Sakura Discussion Thread

Mines bad also. And I believe it did go off and made a life of its own. I’m waiting to see what your next post is Bamboo and see if I can make mine mesh with yours some.

Well, right now I’m finishing up the Bluebeard’s Castle arch, and then I’m going to catch up with the folks back in Moriyoh. But my ideas are a bit vague right now. I’m planning new kinds of grief for Chinpo to get himself into, of course. And we haven’t heard from Binkan in a long time, have we? Not since April. I hope the readers understand that Bluebeard’s Castle and much of what I’ve written lately are in the manner of flashbacks, but that last bit about Binkan and Aquamarine represent the present day. Sorry to Tarrentino-ise the story so much, but that’s just the way I write.

Working on my next post. It’s days before the meeting and during the meeting.

Just a warning. I’ve made twins male and female and they hate and love each other. They even fight each other.

Just one question. Why is everyone calling Brant a “blighter?” In British slang that means an annoying person or pest.

Really? Well maybe he is but I was going with the fact he destroys his enemies or something along those lines.

Oh! Then he “blights” them, eh? “Smighter” might also be appropriate, because he “smites” them, you know.

I hope everyone enjoys our virtual visit to the Jlist store in Narita.

Nice store snapshot and the end gave me a chill.

Chill? How do you mean? Dogs are just like that, you know.

Well yes. I don’t know why I did I just did.

Bamboo: Poor Yuki hope she doesn’t suffer to much. Now I need to think what my next one will be about. Is `Shimi still on leave or whatever it is?

I wonder what happened to the others?

to paraphrase General Kala from the old De Laurentis Flash Gordon movie:I don’t enjoy making her suffer. But I don’t dislike it, either. Actually, the Wife keeps me from getting too sadistic. But I like to think that the troubles I put my characters through are transformative experiences, and that they’ll emerge from them (if they do) as stronger and better people for having gone through all this shit.

Oh, I have something really, really terrible in mind for Yoshimi, but that’s pretty far down the road. In the meantime, she’d still on LOA, but it will be necessary to my story to get her back into the plot soon–but not too soon.

Poor `Shimi maybe I’ll give her a vacation maybe. Good thing I keep my post vague or completely vague.

Fox lore is a fascinating subject, and far too vast to be contained in one little story. For anyone who might want to learn more, here’s a site that I think is pretty good:

http://academia.issendai.com/fox-japanese.shtml

In the story, Doc Tenma choses to classify foxes using the Chinese classes. The Japanese terms are, of course, different. Japanese foxes are uniquely associated with Inari, the Rice God, who may be a fox, himself. Also, it’s not unknown for shrine maidens, like Kitsune, to become possessed by fox spirits, although being inhabited by more than one at a time is just something I made up. It’s said in the folk lore that foxes are earnest scholars, dedicated rakes, devoted lovers, seductresses, tricksters, poltergeists, and avengers. So far, we’ve only seen the fox as seductress, [possibly ]avenger (or vengeful yandere) and trickster, unfortunately for Chinpo, who was left holding the bag.

Who knew that Hitomi had a little step-sister, eh?

I do at least now I do. I started my post and `Shimi with Brant, Eri and Iris are going to the beach resort I said at the end of my other post.

So let me get this straight, Yoshimi went to the beach with Brant and company, but she didn’t take Takuya along? That surprises me, because I see Takuya emerging as Yoshimi’s Faithful Indian Companion who follows Yoshimi around wherever she goes and frequently has to be rescued by her. Plus, his natural submissiveness offers Yoshimi a less troublesome relationship than the one she has with Narumi (Altho, her relationship with Narumi may be more emotionally satisfying, because of the constant “edge” that exists between them). Actually, I toyed with the idea of a little shounen ai action between Yoshimi and Takuya (she’s in her mid-thirties and he’s barely twenty), but decided against that. I need Yoshimi to focus all her hormones on Rex in order for me to visit a great evil upon her. But that event is still pretty far down the road. Altho I have it in mind to bring my story to an end by xmas or, at most, oshouji. It can’t go on forever, you know. After that, we’ll see. Maybe something new. But I expect to have my next post ready by this weekend.

Takuya. I forgot that person. Eh mine are all self enclosed though I may end it rather interesting or not I’ll see.

You may remember that when Heart was kidnapped by Jose and Binkan and sent up to the Chateau where she met Sugimoto, she wondered how he could command the loyalty of such obviously intelligent and competent women as Sugimoto and Reiko, his assistant. In this story I try to address that issue, at least a little bit. I find Jose my most difficult character to work with. Because there’s always a temptation to turn him into a stereotypical Frito Bandito-type character just because he’s from South America. In actuality, he’s just as Japanese as any of the other characters in the story (assuming that the readers are buying that any of these characters are Japanese), even tho he’s culturally Hispanic. But how do I show that, when the only thing I know about Hispanic culture comes from watching The Cisco Kid on TV back in the Fifties? I’ve tried peppering his dialogue with a few (very few) Spanish expressions that I know, but this is a very clunky and fake device that I’m pretty uncomfortable with. Actually, I’ve read a few Japanese novels that had Japanese-Hispanic characters in them and their dialogue isn’t any different from that of any of the other characters. I should probably try that. Basically, what I’m saying here is that I’m trying to make Jose into a real character and not just a paper villain. Forgive me if I’m not succeeding at that. I’ll keep working on it. You know, they always say you should write about what you know. But that seems kind of limiting, don’t you think? I’m pretty sure that Tolkien didn’t know any real Elves, but look what he accomplished.

Well I think your doing a good job better than me I think.
Limiting? Maybe. But then I write what comes to me which doesn’t flow well all the time. But I still continue.
Mama runaway city? I think.

I think it’s pretty well understood by now that I like to pepper my stories with allusions to the H-games that I’m playing, current events in the Japanese media, and all things Japanese that I personally find kind of goofy. In that respect, Corgi is sort of my avatar in the story. But I wonder if anyone at all got the gag about Tommy Lee Jones’ portrait on a can of vending machine coffee? It goes like this: there’s this brand of canned coffee (yuck!) call Boss, which has on its logo the picture of a mean-looking middle-aged Caucasian (the “Boss,” in other words). And for some time now Tommy Lee Jones has been doing a series of commercials on Japanese TV for Boss coffee where he plays a character called “Alien Jones” who has a ¬ëjones’ for Boss coffee. There have been so many of these commercials now that it occurred to me that TLJ is obviously the new face of Boss coffee, so I put him on the can.

Narumi sure is a stick-in ¬ñthe ¬ñmud when it comes to a little adventure, isn’t she. I just can’t get her to string along with Yoshimi on anything. Which is too bad, because she’s a pretty good hand with a sword (or a mop, as the case may be), but she just doesn’t want to get involved in anything risky. Somehow or other, tho, I’ve got to figure out how to maneuver her into a position where she has no choice. I just haven’t figured it out, yet.