Hi, I'm Liek Traum.

I've deleted my fics; I'm sorry if you came here looking for them. They were quite awful. Perhaps in the future, I'll write some more, but for now, I'll content myself with reading them.

-- Misc. Notes --

1. My favorite manga of all time would be Banana Fish by Akemi Yoshida. This is the only manga in which I will not read fanfiction for - unless highly recommended by a friend - because I cannot, simply cannot, imagine any other storyline for the Banana Fish characters. I have read a few where it explored the natures of the characters, but I cannot read AUs for it. Although I do wish it had a happier ending, I cannot imagine it ending in any other way.

2. I dislike the seme/uke-ifying of characters. Just because whoever receives it in the butt does not make him "the woman" in the relationship. This thought-process not only detracts from character development, but it also reinforces not only the societal norm that woman are "naturally" submissive, but men have to be "manly." It's one thing if someone just prefers being the "bottom," but that shouldn't make him automatically the "submissive" one in the relationship.

2a. You might want to note that the culture of BL/yaoi stems from the desires of female mangaka to depict an "equal relationship." Japanese culture is noted to be the most gender distinctive out of all the cultures in the world (meaning the gender roles are heavily defined/polarized from each other). This means in any sort of relationship (platonic, romantic) between a guy and a girl, the girl in always seen as submissive, sweet, and innocent. This kind of leads to an idea where the only relationship between two people (romantically) that can be "equal" is between two guys. However, ironically, female mangaka can't help but "feminize" one of the characters in a same-sex relationship-- but also note this is based off their socially-influenced perception of an ideal relationship.

2b. However, this is not to say that sexual positions can be used as a metaphor as to the characters' actual relationship. However, there's a massive amount of writers who define "uke" as the "woman" in the relationship. While I understand this is also *just* fanfiction and simply a preference *in fiction, I think there's something to be said about how a good majority of fans are underage and may not have all the resources to clearly think about what these (sexual) roles are truly about.

2c. As you can see, seme/uke bothers me.

3. I used to think a lot of the popular mangas (e.g. Naruto, Bleach, etc.), in part to that fact manga is serialized (published in chapters) and (partly) drawn to make money-- making a lot of story arcs much longer than necessary. However, I just only recently realized, particularly Naruto, how actually amazing they actually are when considering the genre/magazine it's published in and the context. For instance, Naruto is a shounen manga, in which it's critical to have a likable, tenacious, and hardworking hero with a big heart. (Notice how "never give up" is a consistent theme across most shounen mangas.) However, what's amazing about Naruto is that Kishimoto ultimately shows that (literally) you need the help of others to win. While Naruto usually saves the day in a one-on-one battle, he does so by drawing on the power of the Kyuubi (and later on, working together with the Kyuubi), and in the more critical battles, alongside with his fellow shinobi. The most recent chapters (370) are all about this. (And yes, most shounen mangas also have the theme of nakama or friendship/camaraderie, but I do think that Naruto shows it in a way that deviates from the norm. I'd go into more, but it'll become a 40-50 page thesis... really. I took notes. Because I'm that weird.

3a. Despite this, I still hate Sasuke with a burning passion. As a character, he sucks. As a plot device, he's amazing. But as a character, he really really sucks.

3b. Despite this, the pairing of Sasuke and Naruto will always hold a special place in my heart.

4. I make weird sounds sometimes.