"Didn't you know?" she asks teasingly. "Most otaku come from redneck country. It's the only way we can keep our sanity when surrounded by hillbillies!" She picks up a piece of broccoli with her chopsticks and blows on it. "As for explaining myself," she continues, "are you ready to be bored?"

"First off," the girl begins, "I should introduce myself. I'm Donielle Mari Deionæra (Rose-)Mystagic, and since I get a lot of questions about my name, I'll go ahead and explain it. Donielle's Latin-Italian for lady, Mari is the Japanese spelling of Marie, which itself is the French spelling of the Hebrew name Mary, meaning bitter." Donielle takes a deep breath, followed by a long sip of her root beer, and grins. "And Mystagic is a name of my own devising, a combination of the words mystic and magic. I've used the Mystagic label for all of my artwork for years, and now I've gone and labelled myself with it. The (Rose-) bit is a sort of online jest, referring to my online 'wifey' Domino Rose-Mystagic."

"With a name like that, you must have some odd nicknames...." you muse.

"Oh, hells yeah! Quite a few, actually. My friend Blu Flyer gave me D and D²L, D^2L, or D2L--whichever spelling you use, it's short for Donielle, Deionæra, and Linka; myself and my two favorite alteregos. Some people call me Doni or Donnie, mostly to annoy me. Some of my older nicknames from high school are Athena, Lady, Hellcat, and Daria. Don't ask." She laughs shortly. "Then the majority of the human species calls me 'That short girl' at one point or another. The nickname I've given myself, however, is Crossplay Senshi, 'cause of my fondness for crossdressing as male characters at anime coventions." She scribbles something on a napkin--with her left hand, you notice--and hands it over to you. "You can see pictures of me in costume here." A URL is written on the napkin, with the name Neo-Kyoto below it.

You tuck the napkin away with a nod of thanks. "You look kinda young to be travelling to anime conventions."

Donielle makes a face at that, then shrugs and takes a bite of fried rice. "Yech, onion. Anyways, I get that a lot. About my age, that is, not onions. Most people think I'm about 15. Actually, if you want proof of how old I really am, look at my license."

She hands it over to you and you note, "2 July, 1979."

Donielle nods. "You do the math." She taps her chopsticks on the rice and drops one into the box. "Oops." She fishes it out, licking the oil from her fingers before digging in the rice with the chopsticks again. "Lefties are supposed to be talented with their fingers, but I can't even play with my damn chopsticks right," Donielle grins. "I do draw, though. And write. My unofficial career is that of illustrating fantasci author. Did I mention my idol's Miyamoto, Shigeru? The guy who created the Mario and Zelda series? He's left-handed too. And so's Link. You're a Zelda fan, right?" Then she laughs, choking for a second on her mouthful of rice. "I get motivated to talk when it comes to my idols and my favorite characters," she explains sheepishly. "Just don't turn the conversation to Duo Maxwell."

You remember the song Donielle was singing that caught your attention in the first place and try to suppress a smile. "So where do you hang out online?" you ask. "You've got a webpage, so you must do some chatting or roleplaying, right?"

"Ayup!" she replies with a vigorous nod and large smile. "If you wanna find me online, my number one hangout is #CAML-Anime on IRC. I'm an op on that channel. I also run #Animanga-Techno. And I'm a feline--an Alicat, to be exact--everywhere I hang online, so just look for the girl sitting on the ceiling fan in chat rooms making really bad pussy puns."

She flashes you a subtly evil glance before continuing. "Then there's Furcadia, Subspace, ICQ, AIM--I HATE AOHell, by the way, and others. I'm also a member of a decent number of groups and mailing lists, mostly anime-and-cosplay-related, that got their start online."

She takes another sip of her drink and thinks for a second. "There's Cruel Angel ML, AKA CAML," she says musingly. "That ML was started as a sort of rebellion against the Otakon ML, and it eventually spawned #CAML-Anime. Then there's ORGYcon. And the Aliroo RPG ML, or ARPG. On ARPG my PokeWorld character Donielle Nidora is part of the Pokemon-training Team Raver with Thomas Heaton's character of the same name as him. I also run a Zelda roleplaying ML called Zelda no Densetsu Questlist. It's great!"

Donielle grins, oh-so-modestly, then continues, "In cosplay, I'm half of the Heat Twins with Strippin' Heat himself, my 'twin brother' Donnie Wells. We jokingly use terms like 'The Other White Heats' or 'Heats: They're What's for Dinner' to describe ourselves. I'm also Duette Maxwell in the Duo Trio, consisting of myself and my friends Shaidar Haran, who is 'The Duo Maxwell With the Really Cool Plexiglass Scythe,' and Locke, who is Raver Maxwell, the only Duo wearing raver pants at cons. Cool, huh?" She laughs happily. "I'm surrounded by Duos! It's heaven!"

Laughing yourself, you shake your head in amusement at this girl's obsession with Duo Maxwell. "It looks like you're a pretty big Gundam W fan, then," you say. "What sort of other things do you watch?"

"Lots of stuff, mostly sci-fi and fantasy," Donielle replies. "My favorite movies are both anime--The Last Unicorn and Tenchi Muyo in Love. I also love that old unicorn movie Legend. That one and the two anime movies I mentioned always make me feel like crying." She glares at you warningly. "Shut up!"

You just grin, not intending on saying anything anyways.

"I also love The Neverending Story," the girl continues, deciding to let the grin pass. "And The Sixth Sense, Labyrinth, most 'Jackie' Chan films, and anything Monty Python, including that Eric Idle/John Cleese/Rick Moranis movie Splitting Heirs. The list could go on...." She trails off. "But I think you've got the basic idea here."

She stretches then, taking a minute afterward to eat some of her rapidly-cooling Chinese. "Now, as for shows," she picks up suddenly, "I'm a huge anime fan. My favorites are Hameln no Violin-hiki, Tenchi Muyo!, Dejimon/Digimon Adventure, Monster Farm, Kodomo no Omocha, Lodoss, Crayon Shin-chan, Dragon Half, Dragon Pink, Gundam W, etc....Yes, I'm a major otaku!" =^^=

She taps her chopsticks again. "For non-anime, I like Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Daria, Law & Order, X-Files, Hercules, Xena, Kids in the Hall, etc....I love Britcoms too. Are You Being Served?, Keeping Up Appearances, Vicar of Dibley, and Red Dwarf are definitely worth checking out!"

Then she leans forward conspiratorially, looking you in the eye. "I DO have other hobbies besides watching TV, though, ya know," she says. "I read a LOT. My favorite book of all time is Richard Ford's Quest for the Faradawn. I also love Yoshimoto, Banana's books. I read pretty much every fantasci author you can think of--everyone from Terry Pratchett to Irene Radford. The only author I actively avoid is Anne McCaffrey."

She continues holding the chopsticks in her left hand and taps on the table with the fingers of her right hand. "I'm a gamer too, of course," she starts up again. "I'm more or less old-school, though--graphics and sounds don't impress me at all. I'm pretty much strictly a Nintendo gamer, too. My top favorites of all time are Seiken Densetsu 2/Secret of Mana, Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce/A Link to the Past, Zelda no Densetsu: Yume no Miru Shima/Link's Awakening, and Final Fantasy 6. For non-Nintendo, I like Monster Farm/Rancher, Bust a Move: Dance and Rhythm Action, and Dance Dance Revolution."

You nod your head sagely, absorbing it all. "You have some wild interests, don't you? What sort of odd songs do you like?"

"You don't know the half of it," Donielle says with an evil smile. "I'm proud of my widespread tastes. Now, music....Like anime, that's a topic that I can really get warmed up to. I love to sing, though I'm no good at it. Give me the lyrics and I can sing in pretty much any language, but you'll usually hear me perform in either Japanese or German. Pretty much everything I listen to is anime music or Euro and Asian dance and techno. My absolute favorite musical artist is the gorgeous Blümchen, Jasmin Wagner. She's a goddess of the techno/dance beat!" Donielle bounces excitedly in her chair, forgetting her cooling lunch. "I also love to hear The Rembrandts, Savage Garden, Dune, E-Rotic/S.E.X. Appeal, Scooter, Nightcrawlers, Robert Miles, as well as the Gundam W, Bust a Move, and Hameln soundtracks.... The list just goes on and on. Now, as for specific tracks...." She pauses and rubs the back of her head, thinking.

It doesn't take her long to come up with a list. "Blümchen may be my favorite artist and I love absolutely every one of her tracks, but my favorite song is by The Rembrandts," she continues. "It's called The Other Side of Night. I also like I'll Come Callin', which is also a Rembrandts track. Then there's the ending credits music from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which I call the Zelda Love Theme. I also really like Aria de Mezzo Carattere, which is Celes Chere's opera solo in Final Fantasy 6. I've got MP3s of it in Japanese and Italian, and I love both of them!"

Suddenly Donielle remembers her Chinese and looks down at what's left. "Aw damn, it's gone cold," she says, wrinkling up her nose. "I'll have to reheat it at home."

You stand up then, realizing you've been too long sitting here. "Sorry to distract you," you say as you turn to leave. "I oughta be going now, but it was good to meet you!"

"Same here." Donielle smiles. "And sorry for boring you for so long! See ya 'round, hopefully!" So saying, she puts on her teal-and-black mini-backpack and exits the food court with her cold Chinese lunch.

Thus ends my narrative of boring little me. =^-^= And now for something completely indifferent....

First off, I want to say....Yeah, I'm single, and no, I don't really care to remain as such permanently. But don't get the wrong idea about me--this section is NOT an attempt to score points with all the single otaku out there. And keep in mind that I'm not necessarily referring to romantic love here. So sorry to disappoint ya. =P~ On with the show!

How do you define love?

DEIONÆRA MYSTAGIC: Easy. Love sucks.

*Glares at Deionæra* [Quiet, you.] ANYways, love happens, whether we like it or not. And when it hits you without warning, you always end up losing a piece of your heart--not that that's necessarily a BAD thing, mind you. I'm fortunate enough to have discovered love through my interaction with the people below. If you've helped me find myself (I didn't even know I was lost!), helped me to discover the deeper levels of my soul--

*Deionæra Mystagic makes choking sounds*

--Or if you're just a damn good kisser *Grins evilly*, you should see your name here, as one of the people who has made off with a shard of that cold black thing I call my heart.

LINKA OF HYRULE: Good kissers, huh? I guess now we all know just how high Donielle's standards really are....*Grins mischievously*

[You can just hush too! =^-^=] All right, let's get going before those two start in again, okay?

So, who does Donielle love?

JASON/MAKOTO: TAIL!!!!

[=@.o= Et tu, Makoto-Chu?? I said WHO, not WHAT!!] *Sighs* Let's try this again, shall we?

I have photos of all the people below (save Domino) on the Neo-Kyoto portal of the UMIAST. Just look in my conpics for these people's names. =^^= Also, I make lots of references to CAML and #CAML-Anime. Look above at my list of online hangouts to figure out what these stand for. When I'm referring to both CAML and #CAML-Anime, I use the abbreviation (#)CAML.

In order of appearance:
•Thomas "Ishtar" Heaton
•John "Zyvernia/Jinnai" Hoelscher
•Domino Rose-Mystagic
And Honorable Mention:
•Masaki Tenchi

[Right....] *Mutters darkly*

[Uh...um...ah....] *Ahem* Uh, let's continue on, okay? =*^-^*=

Everything on the pages of the Universe Mystagic is the creation of Donielle Mari Deionæra Mystagic, except where otherwise noted. If you wanna use anything on this site (pictures, characters, etc.), take a look here first--you might be pleasantly surprised, and it's just good manners! =^^v= Wanna contact me? Try donielle@snowhill.com!