I think one has license to be lazy after trekking some distance down historic Route 66 and back, a la Jack Kerouac (ostensibly). Although I think there was somewhat less jazz, poetry, and drugs and more restaurants shaped like blue whales, rare soda pop, and flatulence.

Sarah's trip sounds much more entertaining, overall.

Kent does look a little Joker!crazy here, but I think that we can go ahead and attribute that to metatextual commentary regarding the horrors that will be visited on him in Wednesday's strip. I don't want to spoil anything, but those horrors? They are horrific.

I finished watching the last episode of Tenchi in Tokyo last night. I was a huge fan, back in the day--not of the show itself, oddly. I hadn't seen enough of any given continuity to decide if I was a fan or not. No, I was enamoured of Miho-Kiyo, because even at the tender age of thirteen I recognized anime lesbians when I saw them and adored them on general principle. There was also a special place in my heart for Ryoko, because she was basically the Vegeta of the series. And I have a weakness for partially-reformed villains. As I said, though, I never was able to see any given continuity in the Tenchi line all the way through back when they were airing on Toonami, so being able to watch all of Tokyo was a first.

All there really is to say is that it touched me quite a bit more than the average anime does, and it reminded me of the reason why anime in general influenced my expectations of all media, not just television and film. It also reminded me how deeply the over-the-top, logic-be-damned style of genre anime has affected my writing. It's probably not as readily apparent in FT--or maybe it is, I wouldn't be able to tell--but I enjoy being able to combine fluff and drama and comedy and what is technically known as "fucking weird shit" into stories that are character-bound, adventuresome, and escapist. My thinking has always been, "Who needs plain old reality? We get that every day. This needs something extra."

I know there are people out there who can add just the right zest to reality that they wind up with a story that's entertaining, well-structured, and officially certifiable as Literature. And that's good on them. Some people like to wallow in reality and can see the endless story possibilities there. I'm just not one of those people. I can't be sure if that's a weakness on my part or what, but there you have it.

Now that I stop and think about it, Fancy That is really quite the stretch for me. Not that it's a bad thing at all, it just hadn't occurred to me.

It is, of course, healthy to stretch every once in a while.