This is relevant to my interests
Anyway, what is your favorite dessert? Fruit? Meat?
Peach cobbler a la mode for dessert. I could literally just finish eating a bajillion calories and I will
still go out of my way to eat any cobbler that is put in front of me. I am just that much of a sucker for it - I know I shouldn't, but I will anyways.
When it comes to fruit, I'll pretty much eat anything that isn't citrus. However, I'm particularly fond of cantaloupe, strawberries, and bananas, in no particular order. Matter of fact, I have a crate of strawberries in the fridge waiting to be snacked on.
...correction, I now have a crate of strawberries that I am snacking on. In this case, strawberries can count not only as a fruit but also a dessert! Because I have a small dish of chocolate to dip them in.
For red meats, I'm not that exciting. I don't have a favorite cut of steak or anything like that - if it's cooked to medium-rare or medium, I'll eat it. I tend to go for prime rib, though, but not always. Otherwise, I vastly prefer fish and chicken, and mostly for their flavor. When it comes to 'healthier' food choices, I'm pretty lucky. I've developed a taste for the flavor of the 'better' stuff - whole grains, wheat breads, fish, egg whites, fruits and the like. 'Course, it's like pulling teeth to get my brother to eat the same stuff.
Why no noses?
Danbooru links approaching rapidly, be wary of NSFW banner adsFor some reason, I just find it incredibly cute on MOE KAWAII DESU UGUU drawings - which I am a bit of a sucker for. Just look at
that Youkai moe! The lack of a nose is my trigger for defining something as cute.
Mind you, that doesn't mean that I immediately label detailed art that also happens to lack a nose -
a la Utsuho and her Bahamut cannon - as cutesy, either. And I won't snub it just because it has noses drawn, either (
Exhibit SDM), nor will I immediately dismiss it. It's just, if a drawing is done up deliberately to be cutesy, I find it more cutesy if the nose is left out for simplicities' sake.
Are you surprised you've gotten this many questions already?
A little, yes, actually. I knew the Ask a Staffer (Staffer of the Week? SotW!) threads were pretty popular, but I didn't think I'd get such a high turnout in just the first few hours.
Which one are you again? The froofy one?
There's a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy joke in there and I'm kicking myself for not remembering it. And hey, weren't you one of the sub-Librarians way back when? Deserter!
Actually, the dump-stat is the one you put in as little points as possible so that you can put more points in the stats relevant to making your character the unstoppable killing machine you want him to be.
....ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I knew that. I was just seeing if you did.
New question:
What kind of music do you usually listen to, and what is your relationship to :dragonforce:The Metal :dragonforce: ?
I can't say 'a little bit of everything', because now that I think on it, it's more or less like 'I only listen to about half of the types of music out there.' I won't listen to jazz, blues, hip-hop, R&B, rap, country, raeggaeton, 'dubstep', growl-heavy metal, or very repetitive synthesized/techno music. I do listen to techno, though, so long as it's well done.
I will typically go for classical/strings, first, then hard rock, then metal, then techno. When it comes to classical music, there really isn't an instrument that I
don't like. I'm especially a sucker for horns and strings, and I know how to play a violin. I don't have one, which sucks big time, and I haven't for a long time, so by now I'd be lucky to remember how to play Ode to Joy. When it comes to unusual instruments, I tend to gravitate towards
harps,
accordions, and
harpsichords.
Finding good music is more or less like a drug for me. If stories stimulate my imagination, music stimulates my emotions, and being as spiteful as I am to the people around me and the state I'm in, my emotions are unusually stagnant.
So far, the best way I've found to wake up the dead emotions in me (and seriously, you have no idea how much of a head rush that is for me) is quite simply with the Blue Man Group. They have a cover of Donna Summers' 'I Feel Love' that to this day never fails to make me cry with just how incredible it is. The song by itself, not so much - though it is a major part of this - but it's also knowing that the Blue Man Group plays music for the sheer sake
of having fun while they do it. Yes, they're commercialized, they're rolling in the big bucks (and blue latex), they're 'corporate' or whatever you may want to say, but they still do it for the fun of it. They know that music sings to the heart, the home of emotion. Another song of theirs that just makes me grin like a flippin' idiot because of just how awesome it sounds (to me) is the opening measures of their Piano Smasher song, where they are literally smashing a piano... well, they take a grand piano, stand it up on its side, and take the top cover off and then start smashing the strings with a giant rubber mallet. It really just sounds like a bass guitar, but knowing the concept behind it - that these guys were fucking around so much and decided 'hey, lets see what it sounds like when we rip a piano apart and play it like a drum!' It just sounds neat :3
Everything. I was referring to you wanting to switch with Matsy, since he lives in Indiana. I actually live in a nice place. :smug:
Eh. Even if it has the same amount of idiots, but more diverse weather patterns, I'll take it. If it has the same weather patterns (yuck, I hate year-round humidity saturation) but less idiots... hmm... tough call. I'll just move in with Ruro.
Or IryanTop five favourite books?
I'm assuming I can't count each of the different books in the Night Angel Trilogy as books one through three, huh? In that case, top favorite book - currently, at least - is the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. I've gone on about him quite a bit in the past, especially around here, because I feel that it's a perfect set of stories for the demographic that seems to dominate MotK/PSL.
Then we have The Black Prism - another story by Brent Weeks. The guy is good at crafting up interesting worlds and characters, and the rules behind the magic in his stories stays consistent within themselves, which I myself have found to be a tricky feat to accomplish. The Black Prism involves color magic, which is based on how light enters a mages' eyes and what spectrums they can use. It's really pretty cool, but unfortunately I haven't found out if the story was completed or aborted halfway through.
I've got a little excerpt from the Bardo Thodol on my nook, and it's done a lot to help me find comfort with my Granpa's passing. It's the first step I took towards looking into Buddhism, and I intend to follow up on it further and see what else I can do and how I can fit Buddhism into my life.
I really like the Harry Potter series, too. I mentioned it elsewhere in the Shrinemaiden Cafe in one of the threads who currently escapes my knowledge (I think it was the 'Things that make you ask 'why?' thread) that it's a very rich world to explore in your imagination, and the characters are very balanced and well-done. It says a lot for you when you can carry a story on a main character who is completely and totally average at everything he does, with the exception of flying - and come on, it's not like he's going to
fly Voldemort to death. Seriously. Hermione is a better magus than Harry is. Multiple people even comment on it in-story.
I'm always going to have a soft-spot for the X-Wing Series of Star Wars novels. Wedge Antilles and Wes Janson have an often-times hilarious, but otherwise incredible dynamic with each other. They are true Bros. I particularly like the books revolving around the Wraith Squadron they put together - Myn Donos and 'Face' (which, yes, he is more or less the same role as Face from The A-Team) are my two favorite Wraiths, followed by Lara Notsil. She's so conflicted, but she keeps pushing on anyways to get a unique identity for herself and prove that she's not just everyone elses' doormat.
Now, don't think that because I'm listing this one as number five that it's my least favorite - it's not. But the Savage Empire series of books (or what I've read, at least - the first three of the four/five that have been published) are exceptionally good reads, too - especially for me. It focuses on what is essentially the two vastly differing schools of paranormality; telepathy and telekinesis. The telepaths are called Readers, and, in my opinion, have probably the closest representation of what true telepathy would actually be like, while the telekinetics - the Adepts - have the fantasy-flavor of telekinesis, which somehow includes being able to create lightning strikes.
How did you get into Touhou?
A spunky little girl who wouldn't stop ramming it down my throat at the slightest chance she got. I describe building a mech in Armored Core based around high agility and top speed? BAM! Aya reference! Make a missile platform mech with lots and lots of forward-facing heavy artillery? Hey, that's just like Marisa! Don't stay in front of her if you like to stay un-crispified.
Any mention of fire-based powers? If you can't figure this one out there's no helping you.
It started mostly with just little character bios, the occasional IOSYS song (which to be fair she only picked because it actually showed the characters the songs were focused around), and the occasional gameplay video. From there, I turned to Touhou as a way to test my writing, which with the exception of Kaetir, had been growing stagnant, because Touhou has such a large cast of already-established characters. If I could write a story that used those characters and get some kind of reader-response from it, then I'd know it's not the quality of writing that's keeping people from being interested in Kaetir but something else instead.
Cue as many doujin-dives I could manage, a lot of Touhou-wiki trawling, and then
Forsake the Future came together. I am seriously a little embarrassed by that story now, but in a good way. It's like, 'wow... I can't believe I put that together and had the balls to throw THAT plot device in there.'
I don't believe I've ever heard you mention this, so: what are your political inclinations, if any?
I don't really have any, to be perfectly honest. It's a mix of apathy and cynicism, though - mostly apathy, but the cynicism stems from the sensation that I truly and honestly don't have any leverage when it comes to political legislature or anything of the like. If I had to pick one of the two primary parties, though, I'd lean towards Democrat. Mind you that's just a lean, not a full-blown leap.
HELLO ESIIIIIIII 
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHI know you've mentioned your reasons for shying away from my works, but is there any reasons for your sensitivity towards horror?
Just as I've said. My imagination is, in this regard, terrifyingly powerful. I don't have to see a drawing or a motion-clip of something for it to bounce around in vivid detail in my head. Written text is just as powerful a medium for me as the visual arts. Since you can craft up such terrifying things, obviously I have a fear response to them. The human mind remembers what it fears so it can steer itself away from it, and since I tend to spend a fair amount of time in my own mind, I much rather prefer not to bump into those
visceral, horrifying, mind-scourges. Nothing against your writing style, though. I
have peeked through Xenophilia every now and again - especially since I was the one assigned the summation of it, and I like how you handle the Great Old One's effects with the warped text. Or whatever causes that. I just peek in for a few seconds, scroll through as quick as I can, and suddenly Hey! Big block of garbled text. Since the story is about Things That Oughtn't Be Seen, I can only imagine that's how you're handling non-Euclidean body-horrors.
Would you believe me if I said horror wasn't my cup of tea?
A little. I mean, you don't exactly have a very good track record in that regard, but I do understand what you mean by the whole 'getting it out of your head' on a paper medium thing. I just don't want to get it INto my head.
Would you give Thanato a try? 
While I haven't worked out the whole thing yet, it's very likely to be much less visceral than Xeno.
Knowing my luck I'll be the one assigned to write the summary for it :getdown: If the straight-up gore and viscera stays down but you still manage to maintain the inherent 'wrongness' of What Oughtn't Be Seen and I still get creeped out, we'll know it's because you're a very solid writer, not just because I'm hella squeamish.
Are there any Touhoes you believe have way too much attention than they should?
Than they 'should'? Nah, not really. But there is a fairly sizable over-saturation of the SDM crowd, if you ask me. And Eientei. I'm bored of them. Gimme more Earth Spirit Palace, or UFO folks'. Especially Kogasa. She tries her best.
I know you're a kind of guy who is all about the mind, so I guess you have a "mindspace" as I call it (you know, the world in your head what defines you and your mind). If it's not too personal, could you tell us how it looks like?
Picture mesas, rising out of calm waters. The sky either overcast, or it's night. Rain falls constantly beyond the immediate area, that being wherever the focus is. Atop each different mesa is a door leading down into them, where they become more like silos than mesas. Inside these silos are countless storage areas, many of which are locked away, all of which are rather unorganized. From whichever mesa you stand upon, you are alone, but across the way, atop the others, you can see people. Some of them notice you as you float around from mesa to mesa, but the rest of them mill about and mind only themselves. They never linger atop the mesa you're going to.
In the middle is a massive avatar of my own self-image. It's usually in a state of flux, depending on how I'm feeling at the time and how my self-esteem is doing. It has no mouth, but it always watches everything that goes on atop the mesas. Whenever it's gone, the waters aren't calm anymore and the rainstorms close in. There's never lightning.
Are you a wizard, Esi?
I am absolute bunk with a sword, and if you've seen my YouTube account, you'd know I'm not that great at archery, either, so obviously I'm not above a Grand Master there. If you mean magically, well, you've just turned into a whale, so what does that tell you?
What do you think, why is that people can find supernatural fictional sceneries beautiful as real ones, why they can perceive non-existing things as beautiful?
Because it's their own personal take on it. If I showed you a picture of Daiyousei and said 'This is Daiyousei', that'd be stuck in your head. But if I just described her and let you picture her, would she not be a more enticing character to you? Millions of people love God - whichever version they believe in. None have ever seen him. Why do they love him so much? Because of their faith that he is what they perceive him to be.
Nevermind the insinuation that 'God is non-existing', I'm just using that as an example. As for why
the surreal is so often romanticized and people are attracted to it, well... think about it. We live in concrete jungles. It's all gray, it's all square, it's all the same. That's a fucking turtle flying through the air with Rainbow Dolphins jumping over him. That's awesome.
And then and then STUFF HAPPENED?
wat
What is the meaning of life?
Please submit in a 1000+ word essay. Include anecdotes and the like.
No :derp:
'Meaning of life' is actually a touchy subject for me. I haven't yet figured it out - when I have, I'll get back to you on it. But that very quandary is part of the root cause of my depression.
