"I kind of liked it your way how you shyly placed your eyes on me. Oh, did you ever know that I had mine on you?" - Faye Wong, Eyes on Me

I am a romantic. I can't write romance. I also don't read romance novels as a genre. But I like my stories to be romantic.

I find myself, recently, drawn most to mature romances. Now, this may sound a little weird considering I am saying this after finishing a manga volume revolving around a 16-yr old kid and a... 28, 29 year old? So you'd imagine that it'd be rather teen like. But the kid has to be mature and take into consideration things most teens in teen romances don't have to consider, making him more mature and the romance more mature (even though when it comes to what results from that romance, he's extremely embarrassed and reserved. But it's cute.) One of my favorite manga volumes ever right there, though... Ahh... I cry (from happiness) and I can listen to the drama CD again and again. (And I have.)

But, yes, back to mature romances. What is the typical youth romance you think of? A couple of teenagers finding love for the first time and it's passionate and awkward and full of confused emotions. More mature romances can still be passionate and awkward and full of confused emotions, but it's different somehow. I probably should put more thought into this before saying it, but...

So that's what I want to write. Mature romances (and just for the record, I'm not dealing with level of explicitness here. You know what I mean.) But I can only imagine what that's actually like, and use other stories as a point of reference. But that's okay, I think. I'll learn. So my first "mature romances" might be pretty silly, but with time..  Which is one thing that makes the romances more interesting. The characters have had more time to sort out their confused hormonal feelings from their teen years and generally have more experience and knowledge about relationships. They can have a deeper, more meaningful relationship because they understand people better than teenagers do.

Maybe that's a load of hogwash, but that's what I feel it's like.


I love this song. Fame from FFVIII obviously. When it is played in the game, I love that part (a nice scene between Squall and Rinoa, who I think are cute together, even though for fannish pleasures I'm a Seifer/Squall fan all the way), but what I really love is how you can apply it to two other characters in the game. I'm not sure if it was written SPECIFICALLY for the game, but it certainly sounds like it does from the lyrics. I'm too lazy to look it up, though. I have yet to win FFVIII. That should be my goal this next year. Been trying since 8th grade. (I finally got to the last disk though! Wooo!)