Subject: [FFML] [Spam] On the eyebrows of Magical Knights.
From: "Henry J. Cobb" <hcobb@slip.net>
Date: 6/12/1999, 9:09 AM
To: ffml@fanfic.com

Sometimes I despair of writing into words the characters I see in the manga.

I'd feel silly writing page after page about how somebody's eyebrows
express their reactions to the situations around them, but it fits so well
when drawn up in the manga.

Take for example, Magical Knight's Rayearth's Umi.  Her eyebrows are thin
black lines that change size, curve and flow around to express her
feelings.

An explosion occurs at the Tokyo Tower and her eyebrows first arc up to
show surprise then inflect down as she flinches from the blast.  A strange
girl shows up and a closeup on Umi shows the width of her eyebrows and
they're almost straight as she concentrates to try to make sense of the
situation, with a little curve up in the middle.  She finds herself ten
thousand feet up in thin air and her eyebrow lengthens into a checkmark
from shock.  As she stands in a strange land, her eyebrows widen out again
and curve differentially as she surveys the place then become little waves
as she dismisses Fuu's theory about what happened.

Fuu's eyebrows can't change shape or curvature too much without spoiling
the seagull effect, but they do move up and down from where they normally
sit, just at the edge of her glasses.  They curve up a little in the
middle as she apologises to Hikaru for mistaking her age then show suprise
at the sudden appearence of a little boy by arcing up just a little bit
from their usual location.

And then there's the blaze, cloud and stream effects of the three knights'
hair, but that only seems to be used to demonstrate physical movement
effects, like falling through thin air.  (Old "four ears" Hikaru's "cat
tail" is a different matter.)

So how the heck do I write a story with all those eyebrows fluttering
around?

	Henry J. Cobb	hcobb@slip.net          http://www.io.com/~hcobb
    When Fuu was attacked by an illusion of her most precious person,
    was anybody else unsurprised to see who it was?