Whew. My last convention of the year is past, and now I can slow down and try to get my feet under me again. You know, doing SF cons is kind of like going to some fancy event like a wedding and spending ages in clothes that are stiff and itch. Then you get home, shuck off the good clothes, pull on some comfortable ones and have a good stretch and scratch. Nice. That isn't to say I didn't have a good time, because I did. I really did. I sold art, I hung out with loads of heavily creative friends, (some I haven't seen in years), and I got tons of egoboo for the steampunk costume I created for my husband. He played the part of a steampunk engineer wearing a leather apron, period clothes, and loads of brass tools and pocket watches, etc. Hey, Phil and Kaja Foglio liked it, and gave him an appreciation ribbon too. In case you didn't know, Phil and Kaja do the infamous steampunk comic GIRL GENIUS. If you haven't seen it, you need to. It's hilarious. I even have the pleasure of saying that my husband and I met at Phil's house long ago.... I still have a lot of work to do on the costume, since not all the bits I wanted to add to it had arrived in the mail before I went to the con, but it's a really good base costume to build on.

Anyway, I've got some cleaning and organizing to do to get back on track, and I found a stack of InuYasha drawings that I want to go through and evaluate. Some I will improve and take forward, some may be designated for the "sketches that I won't do much more with" pile. Someday, maybe I'll scan them all in and make a sketch dump of them all on one big page. They're fun, but not really finished art. That sort of thing.

Oh, before I forget, I just annotated the American IY volume 41, and am now working my way through 42. Having just passed the Moryomaru and Sesshomaru fight wherein Sesshomaru gets crushed in a diamond fist of tentacles, I can see what many of the rest of you have already discerned:

Sesshomaru experienced feelings for Kagura that very well could be interpreted as attraction, affection, or even love. I hesitate to refer to it as love, mainly because he didn't have a chance to develop how he felt about her beyond an attraction to her. But, when Totosai tells him that he can now "rage and grieve" for someone other than himself, that told me that Sesshomaru felt more than simple affection. Rage and grief are very strong emotions and you don't generally feel them unless you feel an equally strong attachment to someone. For Sesshomaru to feel them meant that the attachment had to be very strong indeed to overcome his inborn youkai nature, which is to be indifferent and aloof. Therefore, I conclude that, in my own opinion, Sesshomaru had fallen for Kagura, but denied his feelings until it was too late. Then he did the only thing he could do for her, and that was resolve to destroy Moryomaru and by extention, Naraku.

Sesshomaru is the consummate royal blue-blood who will continue to deny how he feels, though his actions will always betray him. That makes me think that he would be always likely to deny such feelings verbally, but still do nice things for the one he loves. Like when he brought a new kimono for Rin in the last chapter of the last book. Can you just imagine Sesshomaru shopping for clothes for her? Yeeg. Picture this: You're a seamstress of kimonos, and one day, your village is visited by the ultra-fearsome and exotic InuYoukai. The men in the village are angry, but dare not approach him as power radiates off him as he strides right up to you and asks for a little girl's kimono. You produce the goods, and he tosses some coinage at your feet and turns, his demeanor dismissive as he lifts away from the ground and flies off. Then you're surrounded by all the village women who desperately want to know what THAT was all about, and by the village men, who all want to know how YOU know such a demon and why you would bring him here.... Meanwhile, your mouth just hangs open in shock....

Or give it a modern twist, and picture Sesshomaru in a trendy boutique, glaring at and towering over the racks, trying to shop for clothes for Rin while the sales girl dithers about having such a rockstar-like personage in the store....

Heh. He's just so much fun to play with, isn't he? And this saturday, the new IY episode will be the final one for poor Kikyou. But at least she will have her golden moment with her beloved InuYasha when he kisses her. Sigh.

Well, with any luck, I will post some art today, so perhaps I'll hustle off and clear the crap off my scanner....