Gackt's official website now has an English version! It's a little rough, but we'll go with that.

I began Dark Virtue again. I wrote with my heart this time, to the site that existed before almost all of the things in my present life existed, to the character and the place that are still there in my mind.

I have been asking myself for a while, how do I re-define this character and scenario for the modern web and modern me. I am not all turrets and bats like I was ten years ago, and the web is not all HTML and frames. When I re-created The Castle of the Seventh Moon, I eliminated frames since I don't remember how to do them anymore. I worked from a paper copy of the site, and still haven't finished rewriting the text for all rooms, but there it is. Still, I didn't want to finish off the project for good.

To be true to my core concept, I needed to work within the same account, since I had such an emotional attachment to my very first Internet user name. Luckily, fast-follower Yahoo made blogging available, and even allowed simultaneous posting within the site. I knew I wanted to make a blog about that original place in my mind, but I didn't know how. So much time has passed since I was seated comfortably in bed with my very first laptop, monkeying with HTML for the first time.

I am still typing up Prinzessin and am becoming so much in love with the story again, and I so regret that I never finished it, that I am thinking of incorporating it into Dark Virtue. It is about the same cast of characters and the same place, as well.

I don't know how to express how much I love summer. It is almost painful to hear the cicadas and feel the heat and know in six months it will be all gone. I anticipate it for half of the year, but it's nearly too much to appreciate.

I have taken so little joy lately in the passing of the seasons and the cycle of holidays. I long for them, but I never get that for which I so long, the satisfaction of doing something to commemorate each event.

I have begun to do this a little with cross-stitch, small seasonal things that I can handle-- an ornament or wall hanging-- but I want to more fully realize what makes summer summer, what makes Christmas so magical, and make it happen myself, because I have a hard time finding it in the world around me sometimes.

For me, summer is snow cones, long walks to Starbucks, cooking and eating food outside, especially hot dogs. It's sitting on the porch in the evenings and listening to cicadas. There are the holidays I celebrate, like New Hope Memorial and Fourth of July.

Summer used to consist of a long period of idleness in which I was bound to run out of things to do. While in school I thought of summer as my creative time because my boredom would so often stimulate new stories or projects. I wish I could savor an expanse like that still. It's amazing how I never thought about never having it one day, even in college.

Even though I no longer have that feeling of idleness, the drowsy peace of cicadas in the darkness, the long days and sunflowers, make me feel each year that I am coming to a new age.

I've decided to revive my Gather site which never really got off the ground. There are so many awesome new sites out there that I feel like are more modern in their look and feel than Livejournal, like Gather and Multiply. I like the concept of writing articles. I think it would be good writing practice, and a good incentive to develop new theories and interests.

I haven't found any writers or categories I really want to follow yet, unfortunately. They have so much great technology and means of communicating articles of interest to you, unlike Livejournal. I have been feeling lately the need for new inspiration and new mediums, and this is a great new thing to play with, at least.

I just found Windows Live Writer for posting to virtually any blog, and while it doesn't address all of my needs, it's a whole lot better than logging into Blogger. I'll have to see how this works.

I have had a resurging interest in fashion lately and thus made a Lookbook on Style. I found traces of all the styles and eras that have been inspiring me lately.

I am discovering the meaning of the Snow White story with my re-write. I am writing it from the first person, and every step of the way I have thought as she thought and felt what she felt. Now I understand what the story is truly about, not from an analytical view, but in connecting with her on life events that have affected me deeply.

Now I can see that the tale is about a woman's journey to adulthood-- all the doubts and fears she feels along the way-- the independence she gains.

Angela Carter's re-telling of this, my favorite story, in her collection The Bloody Chamber was really hateful. Snow White is not a story about the relationship between a woman and a man. It is about parent and child, and coming of age.

My drafts of "Blanche," my re-told Snow White novella, have never felt right. With each draft, I remove a layer of hatred and resentment only to find another layer. I have discovered that I cannot truly tell a story with hatred in my heart. I must embrace all elements of the story. Otherwise, it will be propaganda.

I moved ahead of the huntsman in the woods with my flower-press dangling behind me by a strap. I was not cheerful as on our previous outings. I could not look at the huntsman, who had served as my outdoor companion for much of my life. I was frightened of him.

When his shadow fell over me, my heart nearly stopped. My very bones melted and I thought I would fall down with fear. If he intended to kill me, there was nothing I might do to stop him.

When I stumbled, he took me and led me into a darkened cave. He looked anxiously behind and around himself, seemingly terrified.

"My princess," he said, "what I must tell you will fill you with grief, but it is better that you are aware of the truth. Your stepmother the Queen hates you truly. She has ordered me to kill you today and return to her with your heart. I am committed to preserve you, my princess. Therefore, you must hide in this cave until well after nightfall. Where you must go, truly I know not, but if you would choose life, it falls upon you to forage in the wilderness."

He laid before me rations of food, water and small weaponry, whereby I might sustain myself. I looked at him with horror in my eyes, but I postponed my grief until I was alone. He bade me farewell tenderly and held me, then left me to pick with nerveless fingers through the rations he had left.

I bit into an apple heartily even as my tears fell. I was abandoned, without a home. I had never been in the woods at night, or anywhere else, except my room and sometimes the refectory. I heard the din of cicadas outside of the cave and knew that it was evening. The hours slipped past quickly as I contemplated my life alone.

I crawled to the mouth of the cave and saw that the moon was high. I knew that this was the best time for me to make my way as far away from the castle as I could.

I wandered past familiar places I had visited with the huntsman on happier days, assured of my direction, till my surroundings became less and less familiar. I knew I must pass the boundaries of my kingdom in order to secure my safety. It would be nearly impossible for the Queen to harm me there.

However, I did not bargain for the stretch of wilderness that lay between myself and safety. The huntsman had not spoken lightly of foraging in the wilderness. I would have to catch my own food once my supplies ran out, and I did not relish the thought.

My fear drove me on and I wandered all night long at a steady pace I could maintain with infrequent rests. In the darkness, I thought of those I would never see again. My beloved servants in the castle, my stepmother, who hated me more than I had ever dreamed possible, and the handsome youth, whose name I did not know, and likely never would.

My heart was saddened indeed, my spirits lower than they had ever been before. I did not want to rest. My exertions were a thing of which to think, and so I continued until dawn.

There was some excitement in traveling this way and becoming intimate with all the motions of the earth from dark till dawn, when normally I slept. I was aware now as the sun rose of a deep pain behind my eyes, and I wondered how much longer I could continue before I would fall down senseless.

When I thought I could not move another step, I found a clearing with a little house. For a horrible moment I thought I had traveled in a circle and was back in my own village. However my dazed eyes quickly took in the scale: the roof, the door, the windows, were much too small, even at this distance, to belong to an ordinary house. It was like a house built for children.

I moved forward cautiously. There was no sign of life in the yard or the windows. I peered inside, about to jump out of my skin at the slightest movement. I began to suspect that the dwelling was abandoned.

The door gave easily at my push. I found myself looking into a dusty room filled with cobwebs and tumbled furniture. My suspicions that the home was abandoned became even stronger.

Normally I would not have done this thing, but I was dazed with exhaustion and desperate for any cover where I could sleep safely. I bolted the door behind me and made my way quietly through the little house. The top of my head nearly grazed the ceiling.

I crouched and nearly crawled up the staircase to find a bedroom spanning the entire upper story. There I saw seven little beds, as though for children. I peered dazedly into the gloom, not trusting my eyes. I was too tired to make much sense out of anything.

Sluggishly I schooled my limbs to push the beds together, so that I might lie across them and sleep as I so desperately wanted to do.

An orphanage, I thought as I slipped immediately into an uncomfortable, distorted sleep filled with all manner of wicked and vexing dreams.

Labels: excerpt, Snow White

Rain like tears clung to her window pane. Lind touched the glass and matched her fingers to the drops on the other side. She should want to be inside, where she was warm and dry and safe, but she wanted to be out. He eyes scanned the hills, but they were bare.

In her dreams at night it was something different. On the hills were unicorns, of all kinds, prancing in the wind. Their beauty filled her heart with delight, and they welcomed her. She stroked their soft, silky manes. The most beautiful of them was their prince, who remained isolated on the highest hill. He watched Lind while she walked with the others. She never dared approach him. But he spoke to her in her heart. He knew her innermost thoughts and touched the subjects which gave her pain with utmost delicacy.

The next afternoon Gauvain called me to his parlor. His looks were grave and dreadful, as though he hadn’t eaten or slept in a day. I, in turn, felt radiantly alive. The sun which spilled unremittingly from the windows seemed to envelop my frame and pour light out of me. I had been transformed by my love into a new being. I wanted to share my joy with my beloved brother—convince him of my total happiness—but something within me warned me to keep my head.

I had almost forgotten about the doctor’s death sentence till I looked in Gauvain’s eyes again and saw the sorrow writ there. “My darling,” he said and came upon me. He wept over my hands, then pressed me close. I surrendered patiently to his embrace, feeling none of the grief he expressed. He looked into my eyes. “What can I tell you, angelic one? How can I…? Yesterday, I thought you heard… because you ran away.”

I turned away from him. I would look like a fool to agree to the doctor’s pronouncement, with the happiness on my face. I nodded my head slowly. I gestured toward the door, where I had eavesdropped.

“Then it is as I thought. Oriente… I have poor tidings to bear. I wonder if it will break me more than you.” This last, an aside. “I must go away for a while. I know not how long. In the event of your sickness, I cannot bear to part from you, knowing not how you will be when I return. But, my darling, I am determined that you should have the best of everything. We have struggled along badly for a while… but with your illness… are nearly broken.” His voice faded to almost nothing with shame—shame for something far beyond his control.

I turned back to him, the shining happiness blighted from my face, and took his hand.

“I am going to Baden Baden to hire a consultant for the vineyards. We need an overseer, and more groundskeepers. Within a year… or two… we should turn a profit, or at least have something to borrow against.”

I nodded encouragingly.

He seemed relieved at my agreement. I know he thought he was my only lifeline, and that his absence would break me. He called for a servant and spoke to her in low tones. “In the meantime, I have made arrangements for Oskar to look after you. When you were children, you were very fond of each other, and I know you remember, as does everyone in the castle, the violence of your grief when he was parted from you. It seems right, therefore, that Oskar become a brother to you in my absence. As…” In a much lower tone he continued, “he is, in truth.”

Quickly I turned away from Gauvain and stepped to the window. There was nothing he might have said to me that would shock me more. Nothing would control the scarlet flush of guilt upon my cheek, or the panic on my face.

“Oriente… do you care for him still? Does my pronouncement disturb you?”

I turned to him, my smile determined, and pressed his hands with my own in affection. I did all I could to convince him of my approbation.

Just then Oskar entered the room. He was hot and dusty from the vineyards, his clothes disordered, his hair clinging to his temples. I looked at him across the room with unreserved affection. He did not look at me. I could not guess what he thought—if he was pleased or not by Gauvain’s request.

Now I know he must have felt deeply guilty at his deceit, aware that in continuing one relationship, he was severing the other forever.

Gauvain left us shortly, with numerous arrangements of his own to make that morning. He was leaving quite soon for Baden Baden.

Oskar came across the room to me in long strides, took my hands in his. With relief I melted against him and he kissed my forehead. “My darling,” he whispered. “Gauvain told me everything. Last night, you learned. How bold you were to bear it and come to me with no indication.”

I wished that I could tell him how little it mattered to me when I was in his arms, but I looked at him, and I think he knew.

“This summer is our very own. I will love you more than any person was ever loved and leave you with no desire to glance beyond into the abyss. You are mine, Oriente. Now—mine in truth.”

His passionate kiss broke through the last of my shame and reservation. I wrapped my arms around him, and we were only just parted when Gauvain entered the room again.

“You have conversed. Will this arrangement prove to both your satisfactions?”

“I will do my very best for her, my lord,” Oskar said.

Gauvain left the room in visible relief.

I was still overtaken with the enormity of the situation. The memory of my loving brother’s smile stabbed my very heart. He would never have knowingly tolerated my love for Oskar, yet he had arranged a situation that would protract our tenderness to its utmost.

“Your brother tells me that you play the pianoforte,” Oskar said, “every afternoon before tea. I would be obliged if you would play for me thus. I have arrangements of my own today that will detain me, nearly till then.”

When Oskar left me, he took a little of the light with it. I only felt bitterness about my situation when I was alone. I took my sheet music to the pianoforte and practiced with a new fever. I had never had much incentive to be good—but my first performance for my lover was something different.

Labels: excerpt, The Soul of the Rose

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I'm having a hard time getting started this morning. I did the vacuuming yesterday, and my arms are quite sore. Since I am using them to do the dusting today, I'm not looking forward to getting things underway. I might go through boxes today instead, since my body is reluctant, and my mind is so active.

I have been typing up Prinzessin, which is what I've titled this fragment I found from 1997. It's amazing how little I remember about it. I keep wanting to read ahead to find out what happens next. It's a turn-of-the-century story that crosses over with the one I had previously written-- also untitled-- taking place in the present day. In some instances the heroine, Mary Anne, slips back in time for a moment or two, just long enough to encounter the personalities from a past age, and then back again. I thought it would be interesting to dramatize the doings of Gisela, the woman whose body she inhabits, as she experiences life in the castle a hundred years into the future.

Looking back has got me going on a trend for simplicity. Convoluted plots to reflect convoluted minds are all very well, but I'm coming to a place where I want to "make things better." I don't want so much Sturm und Drang, but completion and affirmation. Progressively my stories have gotten more complicated, making it difficult to end them effectively and believably.

This helps me realize what I meant to say in Cambriel. That Ophelia, a flower maiden, is deceived, betrayed and finally destroyed by the worst of human traits, by a scientist who embodied the sacred role of husband for her-- who transcends his faults and works, in this post-apocalyptic fantasy, to bring her back to life.

And after he does, all the wrongs of the past, and the ones incurred in the course of the story, are made right. The new Ophelia is made: part Cambriel, her originator, and part Valentine-- similarly a flower maiden betrayed by a protector, whose past Ophelia must resolve. In the end of the story, she and Shelley transcend the fallen earth to a paradise where she becomes Cambriel again.

I wrote this to complete the cycle of the flower maiden for myself-- because the flower maiden must by rights end tragically. I wanted to see her betrayer redeemed-- I wanted what was wrong to be made right.

A flower maiden, as I saw once defined, is a woman who has been betrayed by the males who should have loved and protected her. Often associated with flowers, like Ophelia.

Also, Desdemona, The Lady of Shalott.

Their stories never say anything very kind about the male of the species yet, I admit, I am fascinated and obligated to acknowledge the blame.

The flower maidens seem to spring up out of nowhere in stories and times that are threatening to the woman. In Shakespeare, who could not create a realistic woman character-- in Tennessee Williams-- in medieval literature, where the woman is deprived of rights. Perhaps they are the alter egos of these chauvinists, or perhaps a truly great writer must reveal truth, even surpassing his prejudices.

Blanche du Bois, in her scene with Mitchell, reveals herself, strips her character of lies to reveal the glowing, powerful beacon beneath. He cannot transcend his narrow-minded views to give her the respect of which she is worthy--or perhaps he knows at this point that she is greater than him-- and she turns him away. She goes on to dress in her finest costume and flowers, and hatch a lavish lie to tell her brother-in-law about her departure, who seemingly wanted her gone more than anything else in the world. She is more than willing to obligate him-- but he stops her, directs violence to her and, despite her best efforts to thwart him, commits a crime against her.

In the end, it seems that everyone has failed her-- the women as well as the men. The sister who cannot afford to admit her truth-telling-- the land-lady who fails to see the deep-seated intelligence with which Blanche does everything. They treat her as insane-- they send her to an asylum-- and her tragic life is at an end.

Blanche, of the lavender and violets, is the greatest of flower maidens-- who failed to receive love, understanding and forgiveness from the relations from whom we all need and deserve these things-- victimized by the most despicable of human traits, brutishness.

Vivien Leigh did receive top billing for this film-- and won an Oscar. I have never seen her act better, or a woman more richly employ the power of the female than in this.

I was a happy child. I loved my father and stepmother. I cherished tales of my mother. My father told me I was her image exactly, matching her snow-white skin, dead-black hair and red lips. When my father died, my stepmother and I grieved. I made myself necessary to her, for it did not seem like she was capable of taking care of herself.

Even as she became dependent on me, she made a slave of me. She loved solitude so much that she dismissed all of the servants, and it fell to me to wait on her. My beautiful gowns turned to rags, and I no longer looked like a princess. I looked like a servant.

My stepmother, the Queen, grew strange, and the rapport once between us was broken as she no longer confided her thoughts to me. Still I loved and served her faithfully, even as I became starved of the familial love which once had enriched my life.

My one solace was the handsome young man I saw when I drew water from the well. He came around the castle on his horse, and I believed he looked for me. I took care not to gaze on him, but I could not hide the radiant happiness I felt when I glimpsed his face.

The Queen became, if possible, even more pale and grave. It seemed like all the light of life had left her face. It had been whispered at Court that she ought to marry again, and that there was a noble that she favored, but she never revealed any of this to me, and I dismissed Court gossip from my mind.

Her sole confidante was her mirror. I heard her crooning to her reflection on more than one occasion. At first I had grown cold with terror, certain that the Queen had lost her sanity, but she bore no other signs of a crazed mind, and eventually I became used to this peculiarity.

One evening as I stepped toward her room I heard her low timbre on the other side of the door. "It is said that little Snow White is the fairest maiden in the land. If this is so, then she must not live. I will tell you what you must do. Take Snow White to the woods and slay her. Bring her heart back to me in this box."

At these words of betrayal I became nearly senseless with fear and grief. I knew I must run away, but I did not know where, or how. The huntsman came to me the next day and told me that he was going deep into the woods to hunt a particular animal. He knew I liked to go with him there, for I could pluck the rarest and most beautiful flowers.

Labels: excerpt, Snow White

Delicious mint tea was served in ornate, old-fashioned dishware at Casbah Restaurant and Grocery. The food was out of this world. My dish tasted like baklava with ground chicken. It was covered in powdered sugar.

• It is noted that of course no one else in the land has golden hair.
• Both kings are brutish to the Princess.
• Evidently her betrothed does not know her very well, has only seen her a couple of times if he's not sure it's her.
• Her way of putting little objects in his soup is strange.
• She notes at every meeting that he throws his boots at her head. It seems she's determined to draw his complete attention and show him her power.
• All the same, she is obviously seeking his protections only. She's aware of his ill-treatment of her as a servant.
• His "love" for her is forceful and brutish.