Entry tags:
Meme time!
Fandom Tennis Match Meme:
Okay, here's how this is going to work. You comment with a fandom question. I answer it and then ask you a question that has some thematic relevance to the question you asked me.
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redbrunja asked me: "You can make three pairings disappear from fandom with a snap of your fingers. What are they?"
I've actually never found myself in a position of wishing for a pairing to go away, given that I've always found it easy to just plain avoid/scroll past pairings that I don't personally ship in all of my fandoms. So my honest answer is: None. I'm serious. This isn't just me being nicey-nice, because I literally do not understand why anybody would begrudge anybody else shipping what they ship. I can understand wanting to defend why Pairing AxB is an awesome pairing when it comes to ship wars, but I've never really understood the opposite mindset, actually caring about the fact that somebody else ships Pairing YxZ when I personally don't. Even when there are squicks involved. There are a lot of pairings in my fandoms that I just can't ship because of squick-related reasons (incest and teacher/pupil relationships being the biggest squicks that I have), but then again, I know that I ship a lot of things that squick other people (especially since I definitely have a kink for unhealthy and abusive relationships), so it's not like I have any right or reason to judge what other people ship, period. I just avoid the ships that I don't like and that's that.
So because that's a total cop-out answer, here are three pairings that I just plain don't like and avoid like the plague. I don't wish for these pairings to cease to exist or anything, but I don't ship them, I don't like them, and I avoid them as much as possible.
1. Smash: Michael/Julia. This has got to be one of the most simultaneously horrifically boring and uncomfortably creepy canon pairings I've ever suffered through. And I do mean suffered through - I almost stopped watching Smash altogether because this goddamn pairing was taking up so much screen time. (Thank God the writers finally killed it.) Michael was creepy, domineering, and invasive; Julia's angst was insufferably boring and repetitive; for a pairing based around the concept that these two people felt such an overwhelming physical attraction to each other they literally could not control themselves around each other there was practically zero onscreen chemistry between the two characters, even during the supposed "hot" sex scenes. Smash has a lot of issues with the way that it writes women and the way that it portrays relationships, and the Michael/Julia ship encapsulates the worst of it. Personally, I find it very hard to believe that a grown woman would be so overwhelmed with lust at the sight of a douchebro like Michael that she would constantly be rendered flustered to the point of speechlessness. Furthermore, I find it very insulting that the writers apparently think that Michael's creepy HEY JULIA YOU SMELL GOOD and IT'S ROMANTIC WHEN I INVADE YOUR PERSONAL SPACE and EVEN IF YOU TELL ME THAT YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED IN ME I'M NOT TAKING 'NO' FOR AN ANSWER BECAUSE DEEP DOWN I KNOW YOU WANT ME behavior to be the sort of shit that women actually swoon for. Literally swoon for. What's worse is that given all of the above I should probably have felt more angry and creeped-out about this ship than I actually did, because mostly I just felt bored by it. Painfully bored. Again, it was that fatal lack of chemistry between the two characters. Any chemistry at all. Boring, boring, awful ship. And yet there's somehow a fandom for it. I can get why there's a fandom for it - the taboo "forbidden love" factor plus the supposedly sizzling chemistry that I guess I never saw - but I got enough of this awful ship in the source material, so I just avoid it in the fandom as much as possible. This isn't always easy, though, because Smash is kind of a miniscule fandom right now.
2. X-Men: Logan/Mariko. Definitely my least-favorite X-Men ship of all time. Zero chemistry, existed only to provide Logan with more boring repetitive angst, and culminating in one of most obvious (and predictable) fridgings in X-Men canon. Even as a kid, before I even knew what a "fridging" was, I could see Mariko's death being broadcast from miles away: because she was a Beautiful Asian Woman With a Tragic Past, and therefore I knew that her story was going to end with some sort of Gruesome Self-Sacrifice For Honor (and it did), and also because she was Logan's love interest, and it was obvious even back in the 80's that comic writers were determined that Logan should never have a happy ending in any of his relationships EVER. So from the minute Mariko was first introduced I knew that it was only a matter of time before she died just so that Logan could have EVEN MORE TRAGEDY to angst over. I was right. What surprises me, however, is that to this day there's still a fandom for this pairing. Of all the bajillion Marvel characters that you could pair Logan with, people still choose Mariko?
3. 30 Rock: Jack/Liz. I just cannot get behind the idea of Jack and Liz in a romantic relationship. I just can't. I hate to be one of Those Fans, but shipping these two romantically feels (to me at least) incredibly untrue to the characters and their canon relationship. Normally I'm not opposed to the idea of characters who are close friends or partners in canon being shipped in the fandom, but the thing is, Jack and Liz aren't just "friends" in canon - they have a very different type of relationship, a mentor/mentee relationship. Also, even though they make great foils for each other in the workplace and even in each others' personal lives, they would still be completely horrible as romantic partners for each other. Sometimes your best friend is NOT the person that you want to wake up next to in bed every morning. Some people NEED for their best friend to be completely the opposite of what they would want in a romantic partner. Jack and Liz both exemplify those types of characters, and that is exactly why I just can't see them being shipped together.
Okay, so, those are my picks for the top three ships that I just avoid in the fandom as much as possible. It's not really the question that I was asked, but it's the question that I ended up answering. ^^;;
Ask me questions!
Okay, here's how this is going to work. You comment with a fandom question. I answer it and then ask you a question that has some thematic relevance to the question you asked me.
redbrunja asked me: "You can make three pairings disappear from fandom with a snap of your fingers. What are they?"I've actually never found myself in a position of wishing for a pairing to go away, given that I've always found it easy to just plain avoid/scroll past pairings that I don't personally ship in all of my fandoms. So my honest answer is: None. I'm serious. This isn't just me being nicey-nice, because I literally do not understand why anybody would begrudge anybody else shipping what they ship. I can understand wanting to defend why Pairing AxB is an awesome pairing when it comes to ship wars, but I've never really understood the opposite mindset, actually caring about the fact that somebody else ships Pairing YxZ when I personally don't. Even when there are squicks involved. There are a lot of pairings in my fandoms that I just can't ship because of squick-related reasons (incest and teacher/pupil relationships being the biggest squicks that I have), but then again, I know that I ship a lot of things that squick other people (especially since I definitely have a kink for unhealthy and abusive relationships), so it's not like I have any right or reason to judge what other people ship, period. I just avoid the ships that I don't like and that's that.
So because that's a total cop-out answer, here are three pairings that I just plain don't like and avoid like the plague. I don't wish for these pairings to cease to exist or anything, but I don't ship them, I don't like them, and I avoid them as much as possible.
1. Smash: Michael/Julia. This has got to be one of the most simultaneously horrifically boring and uncomfortably creepy canon pairings I've ever suffered through. And I do mean suffered through - I almost stopped watching Smash altogether because this goddamn pairing was taking up so much screen time. (Thank God the writers finally killed it.) Michael was creepy, domineering, and invasive; Julia's angst was insufferably boring and repetitive; for a pairing based around the concept that these two people felt such an overwhelming physical attraction to each other they literally could not control themselves around each other there was practically zero onscreen chemistry between the two characters, even during the supposed "hot" sex scenes. Smash has a lot of issues with the way that it writes women and the way that it portrays relationships, and the Michael/Julia ship encapsulates the worst of it. Personally, I find it very hard to believe that a grown woman would be so overwhelmed with lust at the sight of a douchebro like Michael that she would constantly be rendered flustered to the point of speechlessness. Furthermore, I find it very insulting that the writers apparently think that Michael's creepy HEY JULIA YOU SMELL GOOD and IT'S ROMANTIC WHEN I INVADE YOUR PERSONAL SPACE and EVEN IF YOU TELL ME THAT YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED IN ME I'M NOT TAKING 'NO' FOR AN ANSWER BECAUSE DEEP DOWN I KNOW YOU WANT ME behavior to be the sort of shit that women actually swoon for. Literally swoon for. What's worse is that given all of the above I should probably have felt more angry and creeped-out about this ship than I actually did, because mostly I just felt bored by it. Painfully bored. Again, it was that fatal lack of chemistry between the two characters. Any chemistry at all. Boring, boring, awful ship. And yet there's somehow a fandom for it. I can get why there's a fandom for it - the taboo "forbidden love" factor plus the supposedly sizzling chemistry that I guess I never saw - but I got enough of this awful ship in the source material, so I just avoid it in the fandom as much as possible. This isn't always easy, though, because Smash is kind of a miniscule fandom right now.
2. X-Men: Logan/Mariko. Definitely my least-favorite X-Men ship of all time. Zero chemistry, existed only to provide Logan with more boring repetitive angst, and culminating in one of most obvious (and predictable) fridgings in X-Men canon. Even as a kid, before I even knew what a "fridging" was, I could see Mariko's death being broadcast from miles away: because she was a Beautiful Asian Woman With a Tragic Past, and therefore I knew that her story was going to end with some sort of Gruesome Self-Sacrifice For Honor (and it did), and also because she was Logan's love interest, and it was obvious even back in the 80's that comic writers were determined that Logan should never have a happy ending in any of his relationships EVER. So from the minute Mariko was first introduced I knew that it was only a matter of time before she died just so that Logan could have EVEN MORE TRAGEDY to angst over. I was right. What surprises me, however, is that to this day there's still a fandom for this pairing. Of all the bajillion Marvel characters that you could pair Logan with, people still choose Mariko?
3. 30 Rock: Jack/Liz. I just cannot get behind the idea of Jack and Liz in a romantic relationship. I just can't. I hate to be one of Those Fans, but shipping these two romantically feels (to me at least) incredibly untrue to the characters and their canon relationship. Normally I'm not opposed to the idea of characters who are close friends or partners in canon being shipped in the fandom, but the thing is, Jack and Liz aren't just "friends" in canon - they have a very different type of relationship, a mentor/mentee relationship. Also, even though they make great foils for each other in the workplace and even in each others' personal lives, they would still be completely horrible as romantic partners for each other. Sometimes your best friend is NOT the person that you want to wake up next to in bed every morning. Some people NEED for their best friend to be completely the opposite of what they would want in a romantic partner. Jack and Liz both exemplify those types of characters, and that is exactly why I just can't see them being shipped together.
Okay, so, those are my picks for the top three ships that I just avoid in the fandom as much as possible. It's not really the question that I was asked, but it's the question that I ended up answering. ^^;;
Ask me questions!
no subject
I'm not sure how you knew I liked Stephen King...whether I mentioned it, or you looked around, but well played, very well played indeed. As far as short stories go, my favorite had to be "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it it in French", which always comes to the front of my mind, and espeically after reading the desciption he put in the end, which made it even more chilling, which i loved. As for longer book, I am eternally torn between Firestarter and The Dead Zone (and I DO NOT forgive USA for taking the character and using him in their own show). Both had good points, and some slow parts that were hard to read through, but both had the same Stephen King "weirdness" as there's no other way to describe it, and while both had bittersweet endings, I was satisfied at the end.
My least favorite, hands down, is The Dark Tower 7 (The Dark Tower). I ALWAYS feel cheated when it ends just like it begins. I also have a feeling, from what Stephen King said, that had he not been in that accident that halted his writing, the story would've ended differently. I also am not a fan of self insertions, so that also turned me off in the 6th book (Song of Susanna). So it was like the major buildup to one enormous let down.
On an semi-related note, the book that got me interested in Stephen King was It- I saw my friend had the movie, and being the snob that I was, I wanted to read the book first (that was when I was 13) and that started me reading him, and the only novel of his that TRULY frightened me was Pet Sematary, which afterwards I was so freaked out I callewd my then boyfriend in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep and had him talk me down til I was calmed down enough to sleep.
Wow, I just wrote a novel there (irony?) I have another question for you, since it's around this time of month: CURRENTLY, which are you finding more enjoyable, Soul Eater or SE Not!
no subject
In answer to your question: Definitely Soul Eater, no contest. I am enjoying Not!, probably a lot more than a lot of the fandom does, but it still doesn't hold a candle to the main series.
Question! Since you mentioned satisfying endings... What is your most favorite, satisfying, perfect ending to anything ever?
no subject
Oh, satisfying endings? There are MANY contenders for that. Most Stephen King Books have bittersweet endings (Although I was very happy with Eye of the Dragon and Rose Madder) I didn't feel that way at the end of Harry Potter, I loved LOTR, meh on Star Wars, HATED Kuroshitsuji ending (and to this day, not sure why i stuck around to watch the second season), I watch too many psych thrillers to weigh in on movies, but The Exam was AMAZING, and I loved it so much. Mostly to anime, there's still many many to count, but I've narrowed it down to these:
1 Rave Master- I was younger when I read this one, but I felt the ending just fit into the series so well, and it was the perfect happy ending everyone was looking/waiting for.
2 FMA- while I hated the first series and was somewhat disappointed in the second, the manga was incredible...everything was resovled, no one was ignored, and it even gave a look into the characters future post manga lives (Ed and Winry with a kid and Al an May maybe together?) Also Ed wins the award for Worst Proposal EVER and Winry wins the award for Worst Acceptance of Worse Proposal EVER
3 Rurouni Kenshin- this was the one that got me into anime and will always have a special place in my heart. It showed all characters, even while going their own ways, still being friends and moving towards what they wanted to do, and of course, Kenshin and Kaoru got married, and even if he can never use the special secret move again, he's taken care of his past and now can leave the future to the next generation (Yahiko).
4 Paranoia Agent- I love Satoshi Kon (and was sooooo sad when he died- his last letter on his blog was also heartbreaking) and my love of pyshc thrillers shows with this series. I have spent with friends SEVERAL HOURS just discussing this anime and what happened in the end...even with how weird it was, it was so open to interpretation and speculating on it was just fun, and really, it could've have ended any other way, or any better way. And so Tsukiko resolved her past and accepted responsibility, which let her move forward in her life and career, although I always wondered just what was going on with the detective in the end, but whatever. Still loved it.
To continue along this train of thought: I found the SE ending HORRIBLE, so what would be the worst ending to anything you've ever seen?
no subject
with the thrown in borderline sexual tension with Kim and Jackie?
Because fanservice.
I never sensed that from the main SE storyline.
Jackie tried to keep Kim away from Ox and gave Kim heartfelt speeches about how as long as the two of them were together nothing else mattered. It's really not a stretch to go from there to Jackie having a crush on Kim. And maybe you didn't sense it, but quite a lot of the fandom did - Jackie having a crush on Kim was a popular piece of fanon before Not! actually made it canon.
so what was that whole thing with Akane and Tsugumi? (although most of me says he was just messing/playing with her)
It's likely that he was just messing with her. It's equally likely that he actually does have a crush on her, because she's the female protagonist and he's the handsome male lead, and that's how these stories tend to go. Either possibility is likely and I still don't see how or why this is an "issue" that needs to be resolved.
And this itself actually kinda clashes with the yuri overtones I'm picking up from the three girls
How does it conflict?! Tsugumi is the main character. It's a fanservice manga. Most of the secondary characters are going to have crushes on her, whether they're male or female. Either way it's still moe-moe pandering for the audience (whether the audience is male or female!). A lot of moe-moe manga features both het and yuri romantic options side-by-side, and Not! is no different.
To continue along this train of thought: I found the SE ending HORRIBLE, so what would be the worst ending to anything you've ever seen?
Haters to the left, I liked the ending of the SE anime. But in terms of the worst ending to anything ever, I have to nominate the Tsubasa Chronicle manga, because not only was it an anti-climatic and poorly-plotted mess, but turning the lovely Sakura/Syaoran pairing into CANON INCEST is something that I will never forgive CLAMP for.
no subject
I didn't pick up on it because I started reading the manga in the middle...I'll explain in a bit.
As for fanservice, I know it's unreasonable of me, but I don't like having more than one because it only panders to one type of audience. I find nothing wrong with yuri (I'm good with anything as long as it's not too explicit), but I also tend to like yaoi fanservice too...but in any series it's one kind of auidnece and only does het and one of them. I want to see a series that does all three!!! (If you would happen to know any, I'd be more than happy to hear of it and check it out)
The reason I disliked the anime so much was because despite earlier mentioned snobbiness, I made the mistake of watching the anime before reading the manga. When I first wacthed the anime, I LOVED it, and when I decided to read the manga too, I decided since I watched the first part I could start in the middle, which was a terrible idea, as it turned into a nightmare of EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING IS WRONG!!! and it totally ruined the anime for me and I just didn't like it anymore.
Also, I read about half the Tsubasa Chronicles and then decided I like xxxHolic better, then stopped reading that halfway through, because CLAMP also has this annoying tendency to go on long hiatuses and I cannot forgive them for ruining the Blood "franchise" with Blood-C for me, since I loved the previous ones so much (The Last Vampire, +, and The Last Vampire LA). And if you noticed the "hidden question" in here, I would much appreciate it if you know of one.
PS- I keep leaving you novels for comments. I'm sorry