Lines Drawn in Starlight

I saw a photo of a Paolo Sebastian dress from this collection, and I couldn't believe how close it was a the dress I visualized for Jouet. This whole collection is faerie dresses. I mean, it's birds, vine lace, and little else.




And this one




And this one, with the absurd skirts!


...

Recently, Hulu.com has been running anime that is currently running in Japan or is otherwise so recent that I can't even buy it. But I can watch it streaming!

Otome Youkai Zakuro, or just plain Zakuro, is a very good introductory anime. I know because I tested it on D and he wasn't lost. Set in the early 1900s, when Japan started to westernize, it tells a story full of folklore and pretty costumes. (The art is beautiful.) It's more accessible to a western audience than Spirited Away. The title character is part fox spirit, and what that means is explained in the story. At the same time, there is plenty on a higher context level: one of her mentors is a baku, and Zakuro fights with a branch of cherry blossom while her sister yokai sing a song of enchantment. (That is so completely badass that I was in awe at the first fight scene.)

The full series is currently on Hulu (US) and just recently became available for purchase.

The other show is The Devil is a Part Timer!, or Hataraku Mao-Sama. This comedy is clever and cute with characters that develop beyond their comic roles as the show goes on. In this story, the devil is trapped in our world as an average-seeming young man and gets the only job he can: working at "MgRonald's." The show manages a large cast by introducing them briefly in the prologue and then bringing them back into the story at a realistic pace. The tropes are divine. I'm laughing so much at this show. Nothing else has tickled my funny bone so well in a while. Still, there have been genuine moments, like when one of the human characters talks about the pity she gets when she reveals that she is from Kobe, because of the earthquake.

This show is in progress. The richness of the comedy may require familiarity with anime tropes, but the basic story is smartly paced and easy to follow. The character design is more standard, but effective and still quite pretty at times.

Flickr is so much better for crossposting images. I'll remember that next time. ( cut for size )

Today I discovered that Death on a Cold Night is now available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. This wasn't supposed to be a surprise... {laugh}.

Links at my blog on Blogger.

I've been pretty bad about keeping up Windowed Worlds. My last update was a month ago, and it was a link to YouTube. It seems bad to talk about writing instead of, well, doing the writing. Except that it's not. That's the kind of thinking I'm trying to undo by echoing my thoughts across the different social media. Which reminds me... {goes to post link to blog onto Facebook}

varina8 linked to this editorial about chicken keeping, or not-keeping-chickens, rather. You Absolutely Should Not Get Backyard Chickens. The comments go OT discussing backyard bees. A rare case where the comments are made of awesome.

I hope to have bees one day when I have a lot of gray in my hair (and maybe arthritis). I added another thing to that "when I am old" list: learning Arabic. I think that the language is beautiful. The written language is beautiful, the romanized spellings for pronunciation are lovely, and the spoken language is fascinating. I hope that my brain is still soft and squishy so that I can retain a new language.

Awesome! Someone has put a bunch of Card Captor Sakura (now out of print) episodes on YouTube. Here's the channel. If you only watch one, watch Episode 6. (Parts 1, 2, & 3) I think it exemplifies what made this show stand out.

I hope these get to stay up for a while.

1 can (15oz) of coconut milk (I used Trader Joe's light coconut milk)
4 tsp of chia seed (more or less)

Allow the chia to soak in the coconut milk for 24 hours. It will thicken up to a wonderfully refreshing, naturally sweet soft pudding.

Serve with a little agave syrup, honey, or fresh fruit.

Cham!

I uploaded the whole set so that my non-Seattlites could see the rock art. Isn't this place pretty? The colors are pretty much true. In the lower left you can see part of a yin-yang design. There are detail pics of it among the rest.

Sort of wondering if I should cross-post to seattle, or if that would increase the jerks-who-would-knock-them-down peril.

Practically speaking, glitter in the bath is annoying.

Aesthetically speaking... glitter in water is beautiful.

~

P.S. I thought more highly of you and your CD collection for the last 4 hours. Alas!

I think this merits...

...a *SQUEE!*

info on the eclipse

( Look at the moon, honey-- )