A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I also have a new Gundam Wing story, written for poilass for Con Or Bust.

Heero has brief encounters with the other pilots when they’re all children.

Rated PG for violence and trauma; this is a story about Heero, so warning for suicide attempts. Given the fanon regarding the subject matter, perhaps I should mention that this story does not contain any child abuse other than that inherent in being trained as a child soldier.

The canon for this story was taken from the manga Episode Zero. It has backstories for the pilots which had been intended to be part of the anime, but were cut for logistical reasons. You don’t have to have read the manga to read this story, and the only things the story spoils are fairly predictable anyway.

A family friend recently went to Japan. Since I gave her a lot of trip advice, she foolishly volunteered to get me a souvenir. I promptly hit her up to go to a doujinshi shop and get me Gundam Wing doujinshi. I gave her detailed advice, but unfortunately...

>O I hope I got what you wanted. The art looked beautiful and the
> clerks were way too busy to help. I got Gundam Wing, but I may have
> failed on the no boys dressed in girls clothing. I thought the
> pictures were of 2 GIRLS, which I thought was so cool.

I'll find out what it is in a couple weeks. Too bad I don't have a scanner.

Yesterday Yoon and I successfully drove from Pasadena to Little Tokyo, after the previous day's foiled attempt. We played a lot of music. Expect an Angel vid to Aesop Rock's addictive song "None Shall Pass."

After making the alarming discovery that the parking lot I usually use has been covered with a mound of dirt the height and width of a large office building, we found another one and decamped to Daikokuya Ramen, home of LA's best ramen. Some joker on their staff wrote hilarious descriptions of everything on the menus they have up in the windows, explaining that the lines are due to their care for "the delectation of your taste buds," that the ramen tastes so good because it's made from vats of kurobuta pork bones simmered for hours at an undisclosed location, and that they open at noon and close when the soup runs out.

I was hit up by two punk teens for a dollar. "What for?" I asked suspiciously.

"For a mango!" replied eyeliner girl. "They cut them in slices and sprinkle them with chili."

"Oh, well, if it's for a mango," I said, digging around in my wallet.

"You failed your saving throw," remarked Yoon.

Waiting in line outside Daikokuya, I saw an adorable teenybopper Harajuku girl pass by in red-and-white striped tights and several layers of ruffled lace blouses and shorts. It was the first time I've ever seen genuine Japanese teen fashion in LA, and I am really curious whether she was an Angeleno or a homesick Japanese tourist.

The ramen comes in enormous bowls of richly flavored pork broth adorned with pork slices, scallions, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, and a whole hard-boiled egg. All conversation ceased as we inhaled it. I had a Ramune, a bubble-gum-flavored Japanese soda sealed with a marble which you use the lid to pop down into a compartment in the bottle, where it then rolls around in an entertaining fashion.

We went to LA's oldest mochi shop for dessert. I had sakura mochi and chestnut yokan. I think the owner was a little confused about which season it was.

Then we went to Kinokuniya, where we both pounced with glee upon the two copies of the Gundam Wing art book. Alas, it is not the one where the artists, who must be Duo/Heero shippers, drew endless pictures of them dripping wet, arms around each other, shirtless, and/or all of the above and also in a boy band AU.

I then became hypnotized by a $ 50 book on seasonal mochi, with Japanese and English and exquisite photographs and text like this:

Yuusuzumi (Evening Cool), August. When the evening comes, a hot day becomes bearable with the arrival of a cool breeze. The appearance of people enjoying the evening cool on the veranda or outside is embodied by white and pale blue soboro, intricate bits of bean paste.

But how could I justify spending $ 50 on a mochi book? Then the soul of the universe commanded me to buy it, and we all know what happens when you ignore that. Or maybe when you obey it. Hard to say. I now own the book, and must write a story featuring mochi and sell it to earn back its cost.

In conclusion, there are scans up of the bento otaku manga, for the three people here who read my LJ but not telophase's.

flemmings, thank you so, so much! What a fantastic surprise!

She sent me a random grab bag of Gundam Wing doujinshi! EEEEEEEEE!!! yhlee, we can play show-and-tell on Saturday!

PS: I'm just as happy that, as per the card, the "long-haired, dewey-eyed, twelve-year-old Duo ones were not included. Thanks for that, too!

This has been kind of an intense week. Yesterday I got back home and collapsed like Heero in my icon. However, I have now been fortified with sleep, take-out, and several volumes of Angel Sanctuary (which I will write up shortly, if I can come up with something more coherent than "OH MY GOD!!!"-- why yes, I just finished volume 17), and now feel ready for my next mission. Like a Yuletide Treat!

Ob-GWing: Are there any Gundam Wing communities where you can post fic links? I want to draw more attention to rilina_fic's story, yhlee's hilarious Yuletide-meta A Gundam Yuletide, and, um, mine. I tried at gundam_herald, but they ignored me.

I have a new story up, Cookies. Heero needs his own personal therapist; Duo gives it a shot. PG, 2000 words, spoilers through episode 9 (the one where they're in high school together).

In case you missed it, rilina_fic wrote me Transit, a gorgeous, moving story about Trowa at an airport. G, 500 words, spoilers for the entire series.

rilina_fic wrote me "Transit," a story about Trowa, and bad coffee and hope and the price of war. It's bittersweet and beautiful and it made me cry. It might have been written just for me-- oh wait, it was written just for me! I have the best friends ever.

Thank you so, so much! (And thank you, springgreen, for betaing and keeping the secret.) Now you can post it so other people can read it too.

ETA: Here it is. Spoilers for the entire series Gundam Wing, but not for the movie.

The orgy poll was inspired by reading this fantastic Gundam Wing story, Drift, which has the distinction of being the only orgy story I've ever liked: sweet, hot, plausible, and very very funny. No series spoilers, but as the humor is all character-based, I don't know if it would work if you don't know the series.

Torch's other stories are here. The long stories in "Theory of Flight," and the excellent (not PWP) sex scene outtakes from them in "Theory of Fiction" are quiet, atmospheric, and very well-written. They're spoilery through about episode 16. Of the stand-alone stories, "Winterlong" is a bit sentimental but nice (vaguely spoilery for the end of the series), and "Drift" is excellent. I don't really recommend the others.

I wrote a story about Trowa, Heero, and the relationship between mechanic and machine, Connection. 1700 words, rated G. SPOILERY through episode 21. Part II in the possibly continuing series, "A Boy Loves His Gundam."

snarp has posted scans from a hilarious doujinshi featuring teeny shinigami Duo and suicidal Heero-- a match made in Heaven! Spoilery for episode 25, don't read if you're not there yet. Please go help her if you speak Japanese, she's not sure of some dialogue that I bet is really funny.

On Friday, the fabulous seshat visited branna and her husband in LA, and brought a ton of Gundam Wing doujinshi for me to ogle. I don't know who was sweeter, the former for dragging them all the way here, or the latter two for making me coffee and dinner in their home while I totally ignored them and read a stack of doujinshi. Thanks guys!

My favorite circles were 25ANS and Nattsu, though there were others that I liked quite a bit but neglected to write down. I love their art, and they actually draw the Gundams too! They draw the boys tinkering with their Gundams! They draw them on missions, with guns! They put in random extra drawings of the supporting characters! They have plot (much of which I couldn't follow!)

There was one side story of Heero and Duo (roommates at some boarding school) adopting a kitten in which the kitten was so cute and kitten-like that I totally forgot my usual aversion to cute domestic stories. I especially liked the page where Heero sees the stray kitten, looks around furtively to make sure no one will see what he's about to do, then guiltily picks it up and cuddles it.

I am now convinced that Duo/Quatre is the most adorable pairing ever. There should be more of it. Also, Quatre looks good in a burnoose, and Duo looks good with a gun in his hand. There should be more of that, too.

Note: If you comment on GW doujinshi, please do not spoil the canon plot in comments.

Then yesterday yhlee and I watched Avatar through 1.08. Fantastic detail and worldbuilding, likable characters, a fantastic array of weird animals (the flying bison never gets old), and dialogue which is funny without relying on the tired use of anachronistic humor. (I cannot see any animated American movies because every other joke is based on the hilarity of fish/fairy tale characters/cows seeing psychiatrists/having cell phones/making other modern pop culture references, and they're all basically the same joke, and it makes me want to self-detonate rather than hear another one.) Excellent! Spoil me for later episodes and I will drop a giant flying bison on your head.

Yoon reports on Avatar.

Yoon reports on Cain Saga volume 1.

Rilina reports on Gundam Wing 26-30, with pilot sanity rankings.

Rilina reports on Gundam Wing 31-35, with pilot sanity rankings.