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Feb. 16th, 2005 07:51 amI was thinking about doing the favorite character meme, despite some slight discomfort with it, until I saw people posting in comments about why they hated the character the poster loved but other people didn't. This should not have come as a surprise, but it did. And I can't say it's wrong, exactly, I'm all for open discussion; I just wish more people could make a distinction between open discussion and stomping on someone else's squee. (Including me, at times, which is why I hate seeing it so much right now.)
The slight discomfort comes partly from feeling like I lose something when I try to quantify emotion like that, and also from the way some of the language seems to reinforce all of fandom's most isolated and paranoid tendencies (I'm not sure I've ever loved a character absolutely no one else liked, including Tara and Connor and Kate and early Wesley); and also because much of the time I don't fall for characters, exactly, I fall for relationships and history and implication, for context and world, for interconnection and surprise. To judge by my first two fandoms, the best way to get me to fall for a show is to show me a sequel or the second half of a two-parter without showing me the first half, so that I'm tossed in the middle of emotionally fraught circumstances and have to tease out meaning and history from implication, so that I go straight to consequences without the build of setup.
And now I'm looking at the manga bookshelves and thinking about how many of the series slowly reveal backstory, how backstory is somehow more interesting as backstory than when told chronologically; how I don't particularly like mysteries but adore the new information that drops like into place and revises my interpretation of everything that came before it. (When it doesn't work, it's a retcon, and it disengages me utterly; but when it works--)
So, this character meme. I do like seeing my friends mention characters I too liked despite the general dislike or indifference of fandom-at-large; I will restrict my commenting to that. And fandom doesn't have to be my happy place today, because today my happy place will be my comics store, which is providing me with Tokyo Babylon 6 and Peacemaker Kurogane 3, not to mention Ocean #4, Vinamarama #1, and the final issue of Promethea.
Obligatory plug: Peacemaker Kurogane is the sequel to Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker, which has not had any official English translation, and to the anime Peacemaker Kurogane, which is largely an adaptation of the first series and not the second. Peacemaker Kurogane-the-manga is wonderful but almost incomprehensible without the first series as background, and I dearly hope the decision to publish it without the first series doesn't backfire on ADV as badly as they deserve.
In the meantime, Mangacity is scanlating Shinsegumi Imon Peacemaker.
If you can't find the chapters on IRC or BitTorrent, there might be a fan arounddesperate to hook people on her new addiction willing to send you chapters out of the goodness of her heart. You never know.
The anime is currently being released on DVD, but you can also find fansubs floating around on BitTorrent.
MangaCity also just put out a few more chapters of Saiyuki Reload, although at this point I've lost track of what was available before and what wasn't.
The slight discomfort comes partly from feeling like I lose something when I try to quantify emotion like that, and also from the way some of the language seems to reinforce all of fandom's most isolated and paranoid tendencies (I'm not sure I've ever loved a character absolutely no one else liked, including Tara and Connor and Kate and early Wesley); and also because much of the time I don't fall for characters, exactly, I fall for relationships and history and implication, for context and world, for interconnection and surprise. To judge by my first two fandoms, the best way to get me to fall for a show is to show me a sequel or the second half of a two-parter without showing me the first half, so that I'm tossed in the middle of emotionally fraught circumstances and have to tease out meaning and history from implication, so that I go straight to consequences without the build of setup.
And now I'm looking at the manga bookshelves and thinking about how many of the series slowly reveal backstory, how backstory is somehow more interesting as backstory than when told chronologically; how I don't particularly like mysteries but adore the new information that drops like into place and revises my interpretation of everything that came before it. (When it doesn't work, it's a retcon, and it disengages me utterly; but when it works--)
So, this character meme. I do like seeing my friends mention characters I too liked despite the general dislike or indifference of fandom-at-large; I will restrict my commenting to that. And fandom doesn't have to be my happy place today, because today my happy place will be my comics store, which is providing me with Tokyo Babylon 6 and Peacemaker Kurogane 3, not to mention Ocean #4, Vinamarama #1, and the final issue of Promethea.
Obligatory plug: Peacemaker Kurogane is the sequel to Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker, which has not had any official English translation, and to the anime Peacemaker Kurogane, which is largely an adaptation of the first series and not the second. Peacemaker Kurogane-the-manga is wonderful but almost incomprehensible without the first series as background, and I dearly hope the decision to publish it without the first series doesn't backfire on ADV as badly as they deserve.
In the meantime, Mangacity is scanlating Shinsegumi Imon Peacemaker.
If you can't find the chapters on IRC or BitTorrent, there might be a fan around
The anime is currently being released on DVD, but you can also find fansubs floating around on BitTorrent.
MangaCity also just put out a few more chapters of Saiyuki Reload, although at this point I've lost track of what was available before and what wasn't.
