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SONGSTRESS AND SONGS
There are two, mark two, songstress divines in my life: Shiina Ringo is one, and Tori Amos the other. Though both vary along the musical and vocal lines, they are the same in the whole gorgeously talented section. Shiina has this screamingly awesome voice, and such versatile musicality and character of song; a range of joyful pop, bluesy rock, hard chords and something defying classification. Her music is not a crutch and not a backdrop, and neither is her voice-- both are strong, and not second thought. She is my Rock God. And now, she vocals with Tokyo Jihen. Tori Amos, though of sometimes lung-toppping style as well, is more melodic, in the sense of the smooth piano playage, and her classical training provides her music with these unique and complex harmonics. Poetic and beautiful to the nth degree, and a wordsmith like you would not believe. The following are my recommendeds:
Shiina Ringo
Muzai Moratorium, Shouso Strip, Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana (albums); Gekokujyo Xstasy (live tour dvd) look for: Aisaika no Choushoku, Aozora, Rinne Highlight, Remote Controller, Toki Ga Bousou Suru, Koufukuron, Tsumiki Asobi, Yokushitsu, Gibbs, Yami ni Furu Ame, Identity, Tsumi to Batsu, Mo Koukyuudo, Meisai, Yattsuke Shigoto, Torikoshi Kurou Tori Amos
Little Earthquakes, Under The Pink, From The Choirgirl Hotel (albums) look for: Precious Things, Winter, Happy Phantom, Pretty Good Year, The Wrong Band, Cornflake Girl, Father Lucifer, Hey Jupiter, Spark, Raspberry Swirl, Jackie's Strength, She's Your Cocaine, Playboy Mommy, Suede, 1000 Oceans, Wednesday, Taxi Ride OTHER SONGSTERS Aimee Mann (Momentum, Save Me, Wise Up); Bonnie Pink (Inu To Tsuki, Kanawanai Koto, Thinking of You, Five More Minutes); PJ Harvey (This Is Love, Who Will Love Me Now?) Sarah Slean (Duncan, Drastic Measures, Sweet Ones, Lucky Me, The Score). Have sold soul to Yasunori Mitsuda, check.
WHAT'S WITH THEM BLONDES?
Because it's all about style. Never actually gave it a thought, till someone pointed out that there was a large percentage of blondes in the Squarenix list of favourite game characters. I looked, I gasped, I giggled in a most unseemly fashion. And really, it started from there, and tis true! she cried, for there is something verily fatalistic with my approach to characters. (Well, not really. WHATEVER, HO.) But hey. You can't blame me if the best of them are fair-haired. (And as a sidenote, they are all male because, well, that's just the way it worked out originally. So nrrrrgh. My sandbox, damnit.) Sydney Losstarot, Vagrant Story. Oh come on; there's only so much I can throw to the wolves about this mad, MAD stylish 98-pound girly man. *snerk* The first time I came across him, it was about how we laughed at his pants. Good God, they were traumatizing. But then something kicked in, something fell, and... and... "It's the sway of his steps, the hurt of his words, the sharp of his wit." </shameless plug> It wasn't even the whole SQUEE PRETTY OMG, which comes along once in a while to the fangirl near you, but there was so much goddamned beauty in that game, tucked away in dirty little corners and fallible gods. It was just so many sorrows I felt I would never really understand.
Billy Lee Black, Xenogears. I'd lie to call him a blonde, because platinum just doesn't cut it. But counted nonetheless, because whispers of moonlight sliding shadow thin through the dust leveled church just doesn't seem to be a passport option these days in regards to hair colour, let alone Harlequin summaries. And do we care? No, no, we don't. Anyway, it all comes down to that wonky limegreen chestbow, that gunslingin', that prissy uptight little priestboy deal he has going on. The way Billy Lee cares so much and keeps all that hurt inside. The way he lashes out. The way he loves his sister. The way he loves his father. The way Renmazuo can save my ass in style.
Edgar Roni Figaro, Final Fantasy VI. The moment he started on Terra in that silly silly endearing fashion of his, I knew I would love him. There's an innate genius in the king, and something so frivolous that everything seemed to be fine with the world. And any character who could love a brother so, and make me care so, and make me goddamn cry at that coin toss scene-- it all goes from there and it just didn't stop. Plus, he's a smart cookie, and we all know how Linh loves a smart cookie.
Zidane Tribal, Final Fantasy IX. He'd be topping higher on the list if it was by order, but... ah well. I really don't know anymore, because though all of the listed are more of a "Oh, he's swanky and whatnot!", none of them, uuhh, make me wish I was the destined girl (... if applicable). I love Garnet as her own character, but goddamn, I want to be in her shoes because she gets Zidane. He's charming and considerate and so obsessively, contagiously in love with life and, mmm, classified thief... and... and! I want to be his canary. There are reasons why I stalked the video game store for six months, waiting for the cardboard standee.
Tidus, Final Fantasy X. Just because I promised Sarah that Tidus would make it here someday. HA HA. No, seriously, I love the sunshine boy for all his spirited and dorky ways; there's just something so endearingly boyish about him. Besides, who else can you mangle into calling 'Tite Ass'? *snerk*
OTHERS?
Bartholomew Fatima (Xenogears); Locke Cole, Sabin Figaro (FFVI). (What did we say about that game? Thought so. Let's just Setzer Gabbiani to be stupid, too.) Um. Ramza for pony-tailed noseless heroics, and Mustadio, because he's sharpsharpsharp. And possibly Agrias, because she's a knight in shining armour.
LITERATURE. OR NOT.
J.R.R. Tolkien, Oscar Wilde and Alice Hoffman; there's also Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rowling. The first two have been mainstays throughout my life since childhood and Hoffman during my teenage years. All of the aforementioned I could never imagine life without, because each create their own magic, and that's something I love. And need, but we won't go into that. (falling snow!) I would totally slink for Troy Denning. As for the little visual parade of love, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison make my world so shiny. (Regardless of my recent estrangement with Mister Morrison, oh God, let's not talk about that. IT IS TRAGIC.) There needs to be much fruitcake given to Stan Lee, for he is THE MAN, exclamation mark. We also have heaps and heaps of love for the likes of CLAMP in general, and Nakamura Shungiku hits all our weak spots. ♥ However, because audience is more familiar with those, we will focus on the aforementioned godliness of english comic bookery. And contrary to popular belief-- I'm a Marvel girl in a Marvel world~! (That skeevy little DC company does not own my soul. I repeat, does not own my soul. GAH.)
Daredevil (Marvel) Swashbuckling big brother type to Spidey, this series took a different gritty crime noire route after Stan Lee left it to the next gen. However, it was really with the arrival of Miller and, later on, the gorgeous artings of Mazzuchelli that defined the continuum. Try to catch the Born Again arc (vol.1, no. 227-233) or the second volume of Miller's Visionaries for the very reason why Matt Murdock is known as the Man Without Fear. And why spandex is a priviledge, not a right.
Sandman (DC Vertigo) Threading stories around Dream and the family of Endless (anthropomorphic incarnations of ideas such as Destiny, Death, Desire, so on so forth), each interwoven and each stand-alone tale holds a charm and a wonder and, more often than not, a little corner full of dark and scary things. It's a world of dreams and all modern tales laced with myth. It's about the sound of her wings. The trades I adore past reason are Season of Mists, Fables and Reflections and Brief Lives.
Runaways (Marvel) What can I say? This is the most ridiculously brilliant series to fall out of the ass end of Marvel, of late. It's just this witty, clever little ditty: a pack of kids who discover their parents are the Big Bad. And so they RUN AWAY OMG! and are all kinds of hijinks and superheroing to the best of their funny, smart alecky ability. They inherit some powers and discover some neat things and go through some bad times and they have DINOSAURS! PRETTY BOYS! ALIEN LIGHTSHOWS! And if the abuse of capslock doesn't convince you, maybe the elevation of Brian K. Vaughan to minor Greek deity will help.
BOOKISHLY
Practical Magic, Turtle Moon (Alice Hoffman); Neverwhere, Smoke and Mirrors (Neil Gaiman); The Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling); The Picture of Dorian Gray, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest, every single one of those lovely sweet sad fairy tales (Oscar Wilde); Wyrd Sisters, Hogfather, Nightwatch, the Discworld series in general, Good Omens (Terry Pratchett); A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake (James Joyce); Watership Down (Richard Adams); The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams); Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand). The Fionavar Tapestry, Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay); Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone (Mervyn Peake); Dogsbody, Howl's Moving Castle, the Chrestomancy series (Diana Wynne Jones); The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde); Moonlight and Vines, Dreams Underfoot (Charles de Lint); The Edible Woman, The Robber Bride (Margaret Atwood); the Forgotten Realms series (R.A. Salvatore); Biting The Sun, Silver Metal Lover (Tanith Lee); Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card); A Wind in the Door, and related (Madeleine L'Engle); The Chronicles of Narnia (preachy keen! C.S. Lewis). The Corellian Trilogy (Roger MacBride Allen), the Rogue/Wraith Squadron series (Mike Stackpole and Aaron Allston), Edge of Victory (Greg Keyes), Star by Star (Troy Denning), Traitor (Matthew Stover), Rogue Planet (Greg Bear), Republic Commando: Hard Contact (Karen Traviss).
BAG&BOARDED Daredevil #227-233 (a man without hope is a man without fear, Marvel); Daredevil: Yellow (classic retelling, Marvel); Daredevil #179-181 (gloriously fallen, Marvel); Sandman (see above, DC Vertigo); Runaways (what she said, Marvel); Marvel Mastworks: X-Men vol.1 (original uncanny, Marvel); The Authority (everything Ellis and Millar, DC Wildstorm); Watchmen (brilliant everything, DC); Transmetropolitan (bastards we know and love, DC Vertigo). The Dark Phoenix Saga (completely cool and sobfesty X-Men, Marvel); X-Men #80 (oddly one of my fave issues, Marvel); Days of Future Past (timeswapping X-Men cool, Marvel); X-Factor #10-11 and #24 (an angel looses his wings, Marvel); B.P.R.D. (strange things that go bump in the night and who prefer not to wear pants, Dark Horse); Ruse (Mark Waid and witty Victorian detectiving, CrossGen); Arkham Asylum (off-the-hinge Batmaning, DC); Batgirl: Year One (classic Babs in action with pixie boots +7; DC); the Grant Morrison run of New X-Men, because even though I read X-Men anyway, I would follow Mister Morrison anywhere.
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