icey

Not that I have a problem with people reading yaoi, but here's my two cents. According to who? I work at a sexual education centre and in fact I just met a female porn director this weekend. You say that there are depictions of women being raped in porn. Well, guess what? There are depictions of men being raped/abused/humiliated in porn too. They're not very hard to find. Yes, I agree that the majority of porn is marketed towards men, but saying that porn is "for men by men" and then using this to DEFINE porn is a gross generalization. Saying that porn is for men by men is like someone saying "romance novels are for women by women because women enjoy reading about relationships" -- a blanket statement that does not define what the term really means. Romance novels are marketed towards women, but that does not mean a romance novel written by a man and marketed towards men is not a romance novel. Moreover, you seem to have a problem with pornography and "whores". Females and males who work in the porn industry are, in fact, real females and males. Some of them may have chosen to work in the porn industry; some may enjoy their careers. But consistently maintaining that pornography depicts "whores" (an extremely charged word, by the way), are you not perpetuating the belief that people work in porn should be dehumanized? In 2003, Playgirl's gay readership was around 30%, according to Wikipedia. Women are still the main audience of consideration of Playgirl. In addition, by citing Playgirl's more recent trends, you are ignoring the fact that in the past, before Playgirl's gay audience grew, Playgirl WAS marketed exclusively to women. ---- Moreover, you claim that yaoi does not represent gay men because the characters do not identify as gay. I would argue that yes, they do not necessarily represent men who actively identify as gay, but on the other hand, they do depict same-sex male relationships. In our culture today, you do not have to identify as gay to experience marginalization. We live in a heterosexist society - a society in which heterosexuality is generally taken to be the natural, the norm, and the superior - and men who have sex with men (MSM) are a historically marginalized group, regardless of whether they identify as gay, bi, or otherwise. Depicting MSM in yaoi IS misrepresenting MSM - characters in yaoi don't have to deal with feelings of being oppressed, marginalized, or silenced; they do not have to fear being discovered; and in real life MSM relationships there may not be a "seme and uke". Since you are so contemptuous of women being misrepresented in porn for the purpose of men in a patriarchal society, I wonder why you do not feel the same way when another type of people, MSM, is misrepresented for the purpose of women in a heterosexist society. In the same vein, women who have sex with women are a marginalized group, and depicting girls having sex with girls in porn - whether they identify as lesbian/bisexual or not - do not change the fact that same-sex female relationships are being misrepresented. Finally, if the only purpose of depicting men in yaoi was because they are "blank slates" and "cannot be whores", why are genderless beings not used? Or a third gender?

I don't really have a favourite genre... but if I had to choose, I would choose literary fiction I guess? That's a very subjective term though. But I usually enjoy books that focus on psychological depth and writing style - though that's not to say that not that other types of fiction can't be psychologically deep. I guess I also like coming-of-age novels (bildungsroman?), and novels that promote discourse about gender/sexuality (no idea what you would call that). I tend to avoid historical fiction and romance

Perhaps the little ball of energy in Nergal's hand? ........Or is that dark magic?

8

Your team will definitely shrink when you get to HHM, because you are limited to very few deployment slots per chapter. In some chapters you'll only be able to deploy like, 6-8 units. In HHM, there are going to be a lot of tough magic users starting midgame or so. Staff users with high Staff Weapon Level are very helpful, because you can use things like Physic, Restore, Barrier, Rescue, Warp, or even Torch. Pent starts with an A rank in staves, and has an auto-support with Louise if you're using her, as well as solid stats. Lucius is probably better than Canas because gets a C rank in staves when promoted, and has a fast support with Raven. Priscilla or Serra is also a good choice. Resistance becomes a lot more important of a stat in HHM, so I'd consider using more units with good resistance, such as Florina and Fiora over Heath. As a bonus, they have a super fast support with each other. Heath joins pretty late and he's hard to train in the first few chapters he's in because they're filled with archers and mages. However, I've never really used Heath on HHM so don't take my word on how good he is . I find that the Lords are pretty good units in HHM if you're not going for rankings, in part due to the fact that deployment slots are so limited already, and also because of their good support list. You might want to consider giving the Angelic Robe from LHM to Lyn though. I would recommend using Matthew only up to Chapter 20, Dragon's Gate, and then dropping him in favour of Legault. Legault gets HHM bonuses and is a better combatant in a tight spot. Make sure to steal the Silver Card in 19x with Matthew though, it'll be really helpful.

Margaret Atwood, Raymond Carver, e. e. cummings, JKRowling (kinda)

I think Shinon is older than Gatrie. If you read the "Records -> Characters" pages at base, and then click Gatrie, I THINK it says that Shinon treats him like a younger brother. Not 100% sure about this though. I think Titania is a lot older than Ike (by 15+ years). In her support conversation she said that when she was a Crimean knight, she saw Ike sleeping in his mother's arms. I'm pretty sure Ike was just an infant or a toddler then and that Titania was a teenager or early adult. So if Ike is 20-something I think Titania is probably around 37+.

For me, I... 1. Favor peg knights over dragonknights. In FE7, I always used Florina and Fiora; in FE9 I always used Marcia and not Jill. I did use Haar in FE10, but I also used Marcia, Elincia, and Tanith on the same run. 2. Am way too stingy with rare weapons. My Tempest Blades still had almost full uses by the time I finished FE10 ... 3. Almost never use generals as one of my main team "main team". In FE7, I would use Oswin for a while, but then afterwards I would bench him in favor of higher-movement characters. Same with Gatrie in FE10. 4. Will sometimes be anal about weapon ranks, even though I don't take advantage of them. In FE7, I always tried to get my Lyn's Bow rank up to A, Fiora's Sword rank up to A, and so on; in FE10 I got my Marcia's Sword rank up to S even though I never used the Tempest Blade, and got Sanaki's Thunder rank to S even though I didn't buy Thoron from the shop.

I think I remember in Grade 8 or something, some guy coming over for a project went on my computer while I was in the bathroom and saw the URL of one of the pages I'd visited. He asked me if I was gay. I said no, but then I discovered that I was gay one year later. And uh, I got caught by my sis once (she barged in even though the door was closed), but I know she has a folder of hentai somewhere on her comp so neither of us really cares. I think my parents used to care... but after I told them I was gay I think they stopped trying to predict what I think about sex . But I've grown pretty open about liking sex; I'm applying to do counseling on the Sexual Education Centre at university next year, etc. Two years ago I met this guy at school and we somehow started talking about sex and stuff like that, and then after we kinda became porn buddies. So we share the sites/images/videos we discover and stuff. It's fun .

I love some of the pieces you listed, particularly Beethoven's Symphony 5, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and the Bach pieces. I believe Mozart's Symph 40 is in G minor though ;).

I think it really depends on how many deployment slots are available. For instance, in FE7, it's easy to deploy both Serra and Pris on the Normal modes, but on EHM and HHM you have like 8 slots per chapter, and deploying another healer means losing a slot for a combat unit, which may be critical. (It may be necessarily to use both to bring up the experience rank though, but I usually alternate using them in different chapters...) Plus, one healer + vulneraries (or Elixirs in a pinch) usually suffice, especially in FE10 where you have amazing and common healing items.