First of all, my wishlist! thethingsiwant - the password is "Ethan"

 

And here's a list of my favorite things, so perhaps you can get an idea of what new things I might like

 

 

Favorite webcomic: 9th Elsewhere http://www.9thelsewhere.com/

and others I like: Inverloch http://inverloch.seraph-inn.com/ , Mind Flayed http://www.mindflayedcomic.com/ , Order of the Stick and Erfworld http://www.giantitp.com/ , Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic http://yafgc.shipsinker.com/

 

Favorite video games: Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth & Silmeria, Suikoden II, Shadow of the Colossus, ICO, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Angelique Etoile, Team Fortress 2

other games I enjoyed, roughly in the order that I played them: Final Fantasy VII, the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time & Majora's Mask, Final Fantasy Tactics, Pokemon Blue-Silver-Crystal, Dynasty Warriors 3-5, Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy V, Neverwinter Nights, .hack//GAME, the Sims 2, Suikoden III, Suikoden I, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Xenogears, Katamari Damacy, Radiata Stories, Final Fantasy III DS, Neverwinter Nights 2, Pokemon Pearl, Bioshock

 

Favorite anime/manga: Angel Sanctuary (the manga, vol 4 or so on), Slayers NEXT, Ouran High School Host Club

I also liked: .hack//SIGN, Fruits Basket, Excel Saga, Magic Knight Rayearth

 

Favorite books: Universities of the Italian Renaissance (Paul F. Grendler), la Vita Nuova (Dante), the Divine Comedy (Dante), Good Omens (Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett), the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Luo Guanzhong), the Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde)

Favorite Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice (for how it maps onto my Italian characters...)

Favorite sci-fi/fantasy: Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling)

 

Favorite old dead guys: Cao Cao, Zhang Liao, al-Jahiz, Dante, John Dee

I also like: Seondeok Yeowang, Giovanni Boccaccio, Leonardo, Galileo, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and probably a lot of others I've forgotten.

 

Favorite time periods to study: Almost anything before 1700, including Three Kingdoms in China, Three Kingdoms in Korea, Golden Age of Islam, European Renaissance. And some European Victorian/Edwardian stuff, and the Scientific Revolution.

I do like some steampunk in my fantasies, but Apologia is more "magepunk".

 

Favorite characters from other people's work: Zhang Liao (Dynasty Warriors, Romance of the Three Kingdoms), Lezard Valeth (Valkyrie Profile)

Other characters I love: Pesmerga and Yuber (Suikoden), Gremio (Suikoden) Martin (TES4: Oblivion), Luva (Angelique), Vincent (FF7), Vivi and the Black Waltzes (FF9), Citan (Xenogears), Yoshimitsu (Soul Calibur 2), Genius Weissheit (Radiata Stories), Arc (FF3 DS), Sand (NWN2), Zelgadis and Xellos (Slayers NEXT), Uriel and Zaphkiel (Angel Sanctuary), Lina and Zelgadis (Slayers), Haruhi and Nekozawa (Ouran HS Host Club), Akito and Shigure (Fruits Basket), Snape (Harry Potter), Eiji (9th Elsewhere), Elan (Order of the Stick), Claude Frollo (Notre-Dame de Paris), Crowley (Good Omens), the Spy (Team Fortress 2)

... and Abra and its evolutions in Pokemon, and black mages in Final Fantasy

I prefer to play mages in video games. Favorite class in D&D video games is sorcerer.

 

Favorite living artists:

Kristina Gehrmann: http://www.mondhase.de/

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law: http://wwww.shadowscapes.com/

Linda Bergkvist: http://www.furiae.com/

and other I like:

Natascha Roeoesli http://www.tascha.ch/ , Linda Tso http://www.stickydoodle.com/ , Jason Chan http://www.jasonchanart.com/ , 北原 http://mmy.parfe.jp/lg/ , Eloisa Scichilone, Yoshitaka Amano, Amy Sol

 

Favorite long-dead artists:

Painters: Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Caravaggio

Illustrators: Edmund Dulac, Warwick Goble, Arthur Rackham, Charles Robinson, Anne Anderson, Aubrey Beardsley, Harry Clarke

 

Favorite music from my iTunes: "Song For Bassanio" and "Bassanio's Palazzo (Tarantella)" from the Merchant of Venice 2005 soundtrack by Jocelyn Pook, "La Serenissima" from the Book of Secrets by Loreena McKennitt, and "Revived Power" from the Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack

some favorites of other genres: "Evolution" by Hamasaki Ayumi (J-Pop), "Black Is the Color" by Cara Dillon (Folk), "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Musical Soundtrack), "番場の忠太郎" by Hikawa Kiyoshi (Enka)

other favorites from special playlists: "Up Is Down" from the Pirates of the Caribbean III soundtrack (Cosimo's playlist), "How Wicked Ruler" from the Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria soundtrack (Eschaton's playlist), "Suteki da ne" from Final Fantasy X soundtrack (Uriel's playlist)

 

Favorite smells: lavender, bergamot, eucalyptus (in essential oil form) Crowley, Dee, Talvikuu, Vicomte de Valmont, Hunger Moon, House of Night, Casanova, Bow & Crown of Conquest, Theodosius, Villain, Herr Drosselmeyer, Sloth, De Sade, Incubus, Herbert West (BPAL) Eucalyptus Spearmint, Black Currant Vanilla, Lavender Vanilla, Cool Citrus Basil (Bath & Body Works)

 

Favorite colors: browns, grays, lavender, desaturated violet, desaturated blue, mint green, white, soft peach (in general and for art) black, white, dark jewel tone red (for clothes)

 

Favorite tea: Foojoy Monkey-Picked Ti Kuan Yin (oolong), Yamamotoyama oolong, Yamamotoyama jasmine green tea, Twinings Earl Grey, genmaicha

 

What I like in...

Movies: Sheer beauty -- an incredibly beautiful scene, or a scene of really intense emotion, will reduce me to tears. I generally to prefer cleaner, Romantic-type beauty to abject-beauty, but there are exceptions. Examples of scenes that moved me - from Whale Rider, Pai's speech, and the shot of the longboat after the fade from white; from V for Vendetta, the last fight scene; from the Lord of the Rings, the aerial shots of the massive battles and the wedding; the statue-carrying sequence from Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring; the last parts of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind; and, like, ALL of Hero. I like decent plot and acting, but beauty is the most important.

Music: Similar to movies, intense emotional charge and eerie beauty (good examples from "favorite music" above would be "Revived Power" and "How Wicked Ruler".) I don't like lyricy music; I focus on the sound.

Anime, manga, and (fiction) books: Intriguing, deep, and pitiful characters with an intellectually stimulating (but not pompous) plot -- AND I like very silly humor.

Video games: The qualities of BOTH my favorite movies and books -- beauty, good characters, good plot -- with some degree of "moral freedom". I really hate being forced to take a certain moral position (especially when I find it WRONG) or to take only one interpretation of the plot. Freedom in general is also good, but I can love a one-storyline RPG if it gives me the freedom to interpret. And the game should also be fun to play -- fun and engaging in general, easy controls, leisurely and sensible level of challenge or ability to customize difficulty levels, etc. I'm a "casual" gamer.

Imaginary boyfriends: Gentleness, intellectual orientation, compassion, honesty, loyalty, but some serious, pitiful weaknesses -- personality weaknesses or physical weaknesses (I am rather attracted to physical weaknesses ) that can be healed or transformed with help. See the "favorite concepts" section.

 

Favorite concepts/the conceptual side of Apologia as all my favorite concepts are a part of Apologia.

I really like a particular... "narrative"? "emotional trajectory" in fiction? of healing that begins with a pitiful wounded one who then has a sublime and mind-opening experience and emerges from it majestically. He is aided by another character for whom the reader/player (hopefully) feels empathy; she changes from pitying the wounded one, to merging emotionally with him at the sublime moment and sharing his pain and happiness, and finally to a sense of awe and peace at seeing how he has grown beyond her. Healing and growth founded on a loving relationship.

The ultimate noble character in my stories is someone who is weak but chooses, not out of duty but free will, to suffer grievously in order to lessen the suffering of others. This self-sacrifice can be melodramatic, or much smaller and simpler -- it's most commonly an awakening to the suffering of another and a small act to help him, which is shortly followed by someone else sacrificing to help the helper, and so on and so forth, the formation of a chain of compassion and helping.

Most of my stories focus on the desires, emotions, and interactions of characters (rather than "plot.") The interconnectedness of characters is very important.

Some of the biggest concepts probed in Moon's Apologia: the formation of meaning, knowledge, morality, and identity; existence, relationships and relativism; the nature of thoughts and emotions.

The theme of "Am I human?" comes up a lot... there are a lot of androids, demihumans, and imaginary half-beings running about in the story.

I'm generally interested in delicate and ephemeral things. The emotions I'm most interested in are pity, tenderness, sadness, empathetic suffering, love, affection, eudaimonia, and sublime ecstasy.

 

The main characters from Apologia, who are extremely important to me. An example of how they could apply to Switch Witching: I'm generally not interested in trying perfume from other companies than BPAL (I already have so many more GCs to try!) BUT if there's a scent that perfectly matches one of my characters, I want to try it!!

Moon - A half-Dream gynoid, an ethereal magical construct. Extremely gentle, subtle and nearly invisible, shaped by those who care about her.

Uriel - An intelligent, gentle, dignified professor and alchemist-perfumer. Outwardly cynical, inwardly romantic.

Cosimo - A selfish, energetic, nerdy young intellectual, a magical and mathematical genius. Outwardly aggressive, inwardly shy and jealous.

Isaac - An android (bioroid) on a quest for justice. Outwardly coolheaded and suave, inwardly anxious and sensitive.

And others... Light and her Incubus, Jin, Seondeok, Tenran, Eschaton, the Bard, Izumi/Reisen/Setsushi, Ante, Yshayya, Arazari, Seri, and so many others

Go here for pictures and descriptions of them, and what they would smell like!

 

That's all for now...whew!