Online Alias: YoujiK33; also occasionally Caryn5995

Real Name: Caryn Stevenson = P No, not really. I just don't feel comfortable giving my real name to strangers.

Birthdate: August 2, 1982 (8-2-82!)

Sun Sign: Leo (my Moon is in Capricorn and Scorpio is my ascending sign, but the layperson won't even have a clue what that means... ^_^*)

Gender: Female, technically, but not a particularly feminine one, and I don't think my gender is very important. I just kind of am.

Location: Kalamazoo, Michigan. I'm NOT KIDDING! (I tell people this in chat rooms and they have a tendency to say "Ha, ha. Where are you REALLY from?") Currently I'm going to Western Michigan University; summer break just started.

Major: English with Creative Writing Emphasis. Um. I have no idea what I will do with it, but I like writing.

Classes Taken: None, I'm on vacation. I just got done with Shakespeare, Studio Experience 2D, and Japanese 201; next semester I'll take Japanese 317, Advanced Poetry Writing, Modern Japan, and British Literature II.

Hobbies: Reading and writing, anime, doodling, spending way too much time on the Internet looking at yaoi stuff, video games (especially RPGs)

Meaning of Online Alias: YoujiK33 came from Youji Kudou of Weiss Kreuz (as in Black Angel: A Kudou Youji Shrine). The K stands for his surname, and the 33 is because his birthdate is March 3rd (third day, third month). As for Caryn Stevenson... I actually picked the name Caryn up from a Star Trek book in middle school, and really liked the spelling. And I had a silly internet relationship with a guy whose last name was Stevenson. ^_^* I have NO idea where the "5995" came from. They were just the first numbers that popped into my head.

Favorite Food: I don't really have one. I love steak, grilled chicken, hummus on pitas... And I love Chinese buffets, soba noodles, miso soup, any kind of cheesy Italian food (especially if THAT includes mushrooms)... In fact, I love food in general. Too bad I have so little money ^_^*

Least Favorite Food: Probably raw onions. I like grilled/sauteed onions just fine, but when they're raw they make me gag. I don't care for most fish, either.

Favorite Song: I love music. I love songs that are technically not very good, but enjoyable to listen to. Some of my favorites, though, are "Call Me Call Me" (from Cowboy Bebop), "Your Woman" by White Town, and "Finale" by L'arc en Ciel. There, that was a random assortment.

Song Playing on Winamp While I Type This: I often listen to all my MP3's on "shuffle" while I'm doing things.Coppelia's Coffin", the Noir opening, just ended. ^_^* I know I have said repeatedly that I hate Noir, but the opening song is pretty cool. The tune will get in your head and eat your brain, though, just to warn you. Now it's playing "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell. I have no idea why I love this song so much, but it's really grown on me. I don't think I'd ever even heard it until that one jeans commercial, believe it or not. But it's so... catchy. "Sometimes I feel I've got to... (dun dun) run away, I've got to (dun dun) get away..." ^_^*

Favorite Movie: Um... This is hard to say. I guess it's still, after all these years, "The Princess Bride". I love it! It's hilarious and sad and cute and scary and everything, all balanced out so nicely. And I love the fantasy setting, and Cary Elwes, and the simple but exquisite score... and I love lines like "AAAAS YOOOOOOOU WIIIIIIISH!" and "Inconceivable!" and "He's only mostly dead" and "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." and "Bye-bye, boys! Have fun storming the castle!" and "What in the WORLD can that be??" But I digress. If you haven't seen this movie, drive or bike or jog or skateboard or something to your nearest video store and RENT IT ALREADY!

Favorite Anime: Cowboy Bebop has been my favorite ever since I saw it in fall of 2000. It's stylish, well-directed, with great music and animation, and it has some of the best characters I've ever seen in any anime. I still have mixed feelings about the ending, though. ^_^* Some other favorites include Trigun, which would probably surpass Bebop if it didn't have quite so much filler, and Black Heaven, which is the vastly underappreciated story of a normal middle-aged salaryman saving the world from aliens with the power of his electric guitar. It could have so easily been stupid, but the sheer humanity and empathy for the characters makes it great. I love lots of other anime too, though.

Popular Anime Series I Hate: Noir - BORING! REPETITIVE! They spend half the time staring at each other! They use that damned music box tune every couple of episodes for a very long span of time! Love Hina - I'm sorry, but seeing a guy being smacked around by a superbitch and not having the guts to stand up to her is just not funny, in my book. Vandread - Started out okay, but by the second season the overabundance of annoying women, and the show's tendency to ignore the fact that homosexuality would be perfectly normal to all of the characters, really started bugging me. Serial Experiments Lain - I was really into it for the first 6 or 7 episodes, but the lack of character development really turned me off.

Phew, I feel good getting that off my chest. ^_^

Favorite Anime Character: Nicholas D. Wolfwood, from Trigun. I love Wolfwood more than is probably healthy. ^_^* The reasons are complicated; even I'm not sure exactly what makes him so special. I guess it's because he's such a complicated character. On one level, he's a total badass who doesn't take crap from anybody. He'll kill if he has to without a second thought - at least at first. Then he meets Vash, and his ideals are suddenly thrown into question. The mere fact that he's WILLING to question the ideals he's had all his life makes him cool. Then there's how good he is with kids - totally cute! The look in his eyes when he's giving food to the kids in episode 9 just melts my heart. He's also the most openminded priest I've ever seen, LOL... Oh yeah, and the fact that he's completely sexy doesn't hurt either.

Anime I've Gotten Into Recently:
Argento Soma - A really interesting tale about mechs fighting aliens. Could be typical, except the characters - including a living weapon made from pieces of dead aliens who befriends a little girl, and the man who sells his soul to take revenge on it - make it really intersting. The only anime I've ever seen where I said to myself in all seriousness, "I think that man is Satan."
Fruits Basket - I LOVE this show. It's the insanely adorable tale of Honda Tohru, a highschool girl recently orphaned, who ends up living in a house in the woods with popular pretty-boy classmate Soma Yuki and his older cousin Shigure. When another relative, Kyo, crashes through the roof and challenges Yuki to a fight, Tohru slips and accidentally discovers the Soma family's secret - they're cursed to turn into different animals of the Chinese zodiac when hugged by the opposite sex. Yuki is a rat, Shigure a dog, and Kyo a cat, who was left out of the Zodiac all those years ago thanks to the rat's manipulations. He wants to avenge himself and take his rightful place in the family... but the show isn't really about that; it's about the Soma family, and Tohru, and her friends, and the relationships between them. All of the Somas are interesting in their own ways. I can't wait to see the rest of this show!
Hikaru no Go - Another very cute show, about a boy named Hikaru who discovers a 1000-year-old spirit hanging around an old Go table. The ghost, of a Heian era Go instructor named Fujiwarano Sai, wants to play Go so badly his soul can't rest, and so he plays through Hikaru. With Sai's help, Hikaru beats a young Go prodigy named Akira, who becomes obsessed with him... and things just develop from there.
Sexy Commando: Sugoi yo, Masaru-san! - I have no idea what it is about this show that's so appealing. Hananakajima Masaru is known as the class weirdo; he wears a men's underwear top at all times, and strange gold rings on his shoulders. He says he learned the secrets of the Sexy Commando through a book he found in a field. He wants to start a Sexy Commando club. He attacks his enemies by dropping his pants and doing a funny little dance in his boxers, and when they're unconscious, he draws the kanji for "meat" on their foreheads. And he likes fake mustaches. Seriously, it's even more insane than it sounds, but something about it I just really love! ^_^*

Favorite RPG:I just got Final Fantasy X, and that might be my favorite. I won't really know until I see the ending, though. ^_^ I was afraid that it would pull a VII on me and get so caught up in its cutting-edge graphics it forgot character development, but I was proven wrong, much to my delight. I still really love FFVI, largely for nostalgia value - Edgar was my very first crush - and largely because I still think Kefka is just about the perfect video game villain. He's hilarious and I sort of like him, but at the same time, he's so evil and insane that I don't feel bad casting Ultima on his ass. One of the biggest weaknesses of VII was that the only characters I really liked either barely got any development (Vincent) or were villains (Sephiroth, Rufus, the Turks). I'm starting to develop a theory that Final Fantasy games are like Star Trek movies, and the even-numbered ones are the best. I know a lot of people didn't like VIII, though... but I thought it was awesome. It was so focused on its characters, and that's what makes a good game, in my opinion.

On the other hand... I ADORE Chrono Cross, which has so many characters it can barely develop them. But I've beaten it three times; I'm not positive how many endings it has, but the 40+ playable characters and plenty of branches in the storyline that make for a VERY high replay value. If you liked Chrono Trigger (which I did!), I really recommend it. It's got one of the best RPG scores around, too.

Favorite RPG Characters (more-or-less in order):
Final Fantasy IV: Edward, Edge, Rydia, Kain
Final Fantasy VI: Edgar, Sabin, Locke, Cyan
Final Fantasy VII: Vincent, Sephiroth, Reno, Tseng, Rufus
Final Fantasy VIII: Irvine, Zell, Seifer, Selphie, Laguna
Final Fantasy IX: Amarant, Steiner, Kuja
Final Fantasy X: Wakka, Auron, Rikku, Jecht, Braska, Luzzu
Chrono Trigger: Magus, Frog
Chrono Cross: Norris, Karsh, Nikki, Pip

Favorite Fighting Game Characters:
Guilty Gear: Testament, Sol, Axl
King of Fighters: Benimaru, Iori, Kyo, Vice, King
Rival Schools: Hayato, Nagare, Kyosuke
Street Fighter: Vega, Ken

Favorite book: After recently rereading the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, I've decided that my favorite book is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, book 3 in the series. I've read all four Harry Potter books and I just ADORE them for their characters, writing style (which has this sort of breezy hilarity that reminds me oddly of Douglas Adams' Hitchiker series), and the storyline , which is really complex. These are NOT written for little kids, by the way, so if that has ever stopped you from reading them, please get rid of this misconception right now. People DIE in these books. Scary things happen. I really don't recommend it for six-year-olds. I probably would have been ready for it when I was around eight or nine, but a lot of kids wouldn't. (Er, I hope that doesn't sound really conceited, but I was reading Tolkein when I was eight, and most kids don't do that.) The main reason I've settled on this one being my favorite (although I love all of them!) is because it has Professor Lupin in it, and I totally love him. And Sirius is awesome too. And Snape is in it a lot, being vindictive. I can't say much about why I like them without spoiling it like mad, so just take my recommendation and give the books a try.