*waves excitedly* Hello again, guys! Today’s theme is “Grey”, what is arguably the most gloomy colour. It is dull and doesn’t exude the same level of energy as most of the other colours. It speaks to gloom and sadness and grief. And yet, some of the cutest creatures in the animal kingdom are grey, such as the humble bunny. It is also the colour of several metals, minerals and alloys, suggesting strength and in the case of silver, something rare and precious.
Text prompts: Silver (colour and precious metal), Gunbarrel Grey (colour), Ash (colour and substance), Battleship Grey (colour), Slate Grey (colour), Rainclouds, Storms, Rain, Steel (alloy), Iron (metal), Lead (metal), Marble (mineral), Concrete, Cement, Grey Hair, Elephant, Grey Wolf, Silver Fox, Shades of Grey
Title prompts: Confederate Grey, New York Yankees, Grey Matter
I wish you the best of luck with those prompts. As always, if you think of something that I’ve missed then feel free to post away in the comments section. I will see you guys again tomorrow with the last installment in this series.
This week’s video moves away from the recent videos dealing with human inventions and innovations. This time around, RealLifeLore compares the sizes of different aquatic life. The video presents it all with some really neat graphics that help put the sizes of all of these creatures into perspective.
Hello there! Today’s theme is “white”. Like the colour black, white is another odd colour as far as science is concerned. White light is comprised of all other colours of the spectrum and is often symbolically tied to the colour Black for various reasons. The white hat is the sign of a villain in a western. As for other uses, we often see it used for bandages due to the ease at which it shows up blood and other leaks from wounds. It is also tied to death, offering that further synergy with black.
Text prompts: Pearl, Bone White, Snow, Cream, Titanium White, Zinc White, Chalk, Limestone, Vanilla Icecream, Milk (cow), Snow Leopard (mammal), White Swan (avian), Sheep (mammal), Arctic Fox (mammal), Barn Owl (avian), Polar Bear (mammal), Albatross (avian), Baby’s Breath (plant), Bleach, Moon, Ghost, Day, Fog, Cloud
Title prompts: White Pages, White Wedding, White Bread, The Pope, White Knight, Milkman
Year: 2008
Author + Artist: Mitori Fujii
Version: Dangerous Pleasure Scanlation Group
After Morning Love Online: MyAnimeList, MangaFox, KissManga
Genre: Yaoi, Drama, Slice of Life, Romance
It’s been several months since I last posted a manga review. This time around, I will be reviewing the rather adorable After Morning Love. After Morning Love is a five-part Yaoi miniseries with several one-shots attached. I don’t read a lot of Yaoi series because I usually find myself at frustrated and annoyed at the issues of consent that are rife in this genre. Thankfully, this is not the case with After Morning Love.
Matsuno, a salaryman, wakes up after a night of drinking to find a young man in the bed next to him. Rin is a prostitute that tries to extort money out of Matsuno by implying that they had sex. Matsuno doesn’t remember having sex and it becomes clear that Rin is trying to con him. In spite of this attempted scam, the kind-hearted Matsuno soon finds himself feeling protective of a young man that he learns barely survives from day to day. Although Matsuno is “not gay”, he has to navigate his own growing feelings for Rin. Misunderstanding abounds as the pair try to muddle through their own feelings for each other.
After Morning Love is an odd story. As mentioned before, most of my issue with the genre is the issue of consent, but I would also extend that to a focus on sex rather than building a real relationship and character development. These are also issues that I have with Shoujo though.
Right out of the blocks, I had the sense that this story would be different. The whole con thing gives us a sense of what Rin is willing to do in order to avoid spending a night in the street. Matsuno’s feeling of protectiveness also gives us a sense of how good of a guy that he is. Over time, we also get to meet several other characters and see what Rin is trying to avoid.
As for their relationship. it is easy to see how the pair complements each other. However, they will need to deal with their own personal obstacles first. For Matsuno, it is acknowledging that he is in love with Rin. He will also have to figure out some of the misunderstandings between them because he is unfamiliar with some of the terms used specifically in the gay community. Matsuno is also concerned about the age thing even though Rin is old enough to go to college. Rin will have to deal with his own fear of rejection that plagues much of their courtship. He was kicked out of home by his dad for being gay and feels unloveable.
After Morning Love reminds me of the series Higouhou Junai, otherwise known as Pure Love Outlaw which I last read about five years ago. Pure Love Outlaw is a series that I remember with great fondness for its thoughtful and mature depictions of same-sex relationships. If folks can think of similar Yaoi series, then feel free to post recommendations in the comments section.
In conclusion, After Morning Love is a really adorable, well-paced story with characters that were easy to care about. If you are looking for a mature romance that happens to be between two male characters, then I highly recommend this series.
I am currently looking for a regular manga series to review on a weekly basis. I encourage folks to send in their recommendations from my existing list as well as any other series that they can think of. I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.
Hello again! With three days remaining in this series on colour, today’s theme is “Black”. Black is that curious colour that many people refer to without considering that scientific aspects of the colour itself. For example, the colour is actually an absence of the various colours of the spectrum or an absorption of light itself. Of course, most of us are referring to something else when we use that term to describe something or someone. For the purposes of today’s prompts, I will focus more on the perception of something really dark rather than the scientific nature of this colour. I will be avoiding politics and identity politics as well because they will distract from the purpose of these themes.
Western movies used the iconic “black hat” to allow the audience to pick out the hero of the story. This methodology was used for many years. Compare this to the classic superstition about coming across a black cat. Where it is the symbol of a hero for the Western it is transformed into the cause of bad luck or a familiar for a witch. In Japan, it is apparently a transition for men to wear a black kimono on their wedding day.
It is often related to death and grief. An end to something can often lead to something new, however. This colour is also tied to black coffee. Caffeine inhibits certain receptors related to sleep, allowing us to stay awake. Coffee is conducive to long conversations
Text prompts: Charcoal, Ivory Black, Black Ink, Soot, Carbon, Raven, Licorice, Night, Secrets, Mysticism, Magic, Mourning, Death, Gothic, Melancholy
Title prompts: Black Coffee (Drink), Expresso (Drink), UCF Knights, Black Cat (Superstition), Black Mark (Society), Panther (animal), The Underworld, Benedictine Order, Anubis, Hel, Hades, Black Knight (Myth and Legend), Black Market, Marilyn Manson, SS Uniform (Nazism), Black Army (Anarchism), ISIS (Terrorism + Religion), Lucifer
Quote prompts: “It doesn’t matter if it is a black or white cat, so long as it catches mice” Deng Xiaoping quote, “I was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all of the time.” Johnny Cash quote, “Black and white is so abstract; Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world.” Joel Sternfeld quote, “I want to be different. If everyone is wearing black, I want to be wearing red.” Maria Sharapova quote, “Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh quote, courtesy of BrainyQuote
Best of luck with today’s prompts. As always, if you think of anything that I missed then post away in the comments section. I look forward to reading what you guys come up with.
It’s been a while since my last update. It’s been difficult for me to regain much of the momentum that I had before Cyclone Debbie. And, there have been a few things happening in my country of late that have been distracting. Some of the people that follow me on Facebook and Twitter will likely understand some of these things but I won’t go into further detail apart from me saying that some people want to shut down conversation about certain issues. Most of the people involved are good people but I think that they are wrong in this case. It’s also led to some folks and their work being misrepresented. This puts the idea of “journalistic integrity” into question as a whole. Enough of that depressing subject. It is time to talk about what else has been going on in my life.
On the blogging front, I am back in the swing of things now. I might have to increase frequency incrementally until I am back to the amount of content that I was posting before the cyclone struck but it will be a priority from now on as well as some other things. Time management will likely be a challenge but I really need to sort it if I want to have anything to show for my time. Based on some of the content that you’ve seen on my blog, is there anything that you’d like to see more of? I am considering posting about politics on occasion. Are readers interested in me posting that sort of content on this blog? If not, I might start another blog for that purpose.
In gaming news, hubby and I are now subscribed to Final Fantasy XIV. Yes, we were both playing Black Desert Online before that. Over the last four to five months, we’ve been playing less. For my husband, he was becoming less and less inclined to do active play. He didn’t tell what he was thinking but I did notice the lessened enthusiasm which I put down to frustration at the latency issues on experience weekends.
During his recent few weeks off from work, he comes out of the blue and asked if I would be interested in giving Final Fantasy XIV a try. I was sceptical but decided to watch some videos and read up on the game. He’d also mentioned that he intended to use it as a “holiday game”, which meant that he didn’t foresee necessarily taking a liking enough to go beyond the 30 days of game time that you get with the base game.
Then we played the game… and liked it… I found myself seeing logging into BDO as a chore but felt an attachment to members of my guild because they are a great bunch of people. The possibility of leaving them was a difficult one but I also understood how little active play I had also moved into since last Christmas. I jumped on Discord to see if members of the guild were logged on. Nobody was around, so I decided to drop our guild master a private message. I felt guilty but it also felt wrong to not tell them what was going on. In spite of G’s reassurances, I still feel a bit bad about it. My husband and I were guild officers and it felt like we were letting them down. It was an irrational feeling, I know that, but it doesn’t make it less difficult.
In any case, after more than four years hubby and I have a monthly subscription to FFXIV. We like it that much. We’ve also set up a Free Company (the FFXIV equivalent of a guild in other MMORPGs) to allow our toons to swap gear. You Can’t Join. Seriously, that is the name. 😀 It might be tab-targeting and lack the action combat that I liked about BDO and TERA, but there is a charm about the combat and the numerous systems that give me a lot to play around with.
Does this mean that I am discouraging people from playing BDO? No. It does have numerous elements that work well. However, there are some pet peeves that I have. One of those pet peeves resolves around… pets. There are a few other things but they are more personal preferences than anything else. That being said, the game interface has improved dramatically over the fourteen months since the game went live. If you do decide to give it a run, keep in mind that you’ll need a decent computer to run it.
What games have you guys been playing of late? What do you like or hate about them?
Exercise? *sigh* I need to get back into it but I need to focus on the results. One of those is the endorphins released during exercise once you get to a certain level of health and fitness. Good health and fitness also mean that certain things become possible and that barring any accident that leads to death, I will be able to be with my husband longer. Given that I love my husband, I see that as a good thing.
Now, some of you are likely wondering how my fiction writing is going. I decided to move back into the first instalment of Freak rather than focus on one of the other series in the same universe because that other series is merely a prequel of sorts for one of the characters in Freak. With the help of yWriter and reading Karen Aaron’s 2K to 10K ebook on writing, completion of the first draft of book one is well within reach over the next three months. Now, if only I could stop lingering on writing scenes and focus on planning so that I can avoid unnecessary rewrites and cuts later on. I will try to avoid posting more about the project until I have the first draft completed.
Yes, I am aware that another Camp NaNo start up again on July 1st. Given that I am focusing on my current project, I won’t be participating this time around. I will likely participate again in one later on this year or in early 2018. For those that are participating, I wish you the best with your Camp NaNo project as well as any other writing endeavour that you are currently focusing on.
Some other things happened of late that I consider worth mentioning. Sam Garbett has released two new tracks on Jamendo entitled Nostalgia and I Need to Go. Sunday Playlist 03/05/2017 opened with his song The Heat. The two new songs are a must-listen!
Based on a short conversation that I had on twitter with Vitne, the artist that I reviewed an album of yesterday, he is releasing his new album Jupiter in the next few days. Here is a link to the article on his official website where you will learn more about the release. I am looking forward to the release.
We recently saw an upsurge in posts about fidget spinners online. Some of these were hilarious whilst others were somewhat creative. Whatever your stance on fidget spinners, I believe that most of us can agree that somebody is making a lot of money off of a simple idea.
It is time to finish up this post. Before I go, I would like to off shoutouts to new followers Marvellous Fitness (gym inspiration blog), Said Christina (music blogger), Doggys That Blog (canine appreciation blog), nidjihouse, and Andrea Mack (food blogger). I am sorry that I didn’t give a shoutout to some of you sooner. I leave you all with the following clip by ProleteR:
Today’s theme “Purple” continues on from the series on colour from several weeks ago. For many, it is simply the mix of red and blue. However, “Purple” is a lot more than simply that part of the spectrum in between these two primary colours. It evokes thoughts of mysterious things done in the night. It also brings to mind those in high positions because of how the colour has been used over the centuries. As such, it is sometimes used as either an adjective or an idiom.
Title prompts: The Color Purple (movie), Barney the Dinosaur, Purple Heart (medal)
Quote prompts: “Purple Drapes!” Ned Flanders in The Simpsons Season 9, Episode 9 + “Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.” Regina Brett quote, “Not to be purple, but I’ve never been a “bad boy” kind of girl. I like manners.” Toks Olagundoye quote, “I’m not posh, not in the slightest. My parents spent money on my education, but I wasn’t born to the purple.” Matthew Goode quote, courtesy of BrainyQuote
That should give you quite a bit to work with. However, if you can think of any other things that are related to today’s prompt, be sure to share in the comments section.
