Tuesday randomness.

[nenena]

RE: Paris Hilton

My faith in The System has been completely restored. Thank you, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer. I've never met you in person, I've only read about you once in an AP news article, but I think that I love you.

cleolinda has articulated my exact feelings about Paris Hilton here, and in a much smarter way than I ever could have written.

And what bugs me the most about this is that Ms. Hilton STILL refuses to take responsibility for ANYTHING that she's done wrong. Argh, she reminds me of my worst maturity-challenged students. You know, the ones who will blame their parents, their friends, their dog, institutionalized racism, immigration reform, and the failures of the American/Japanese social support system for the fact that I just caught them cheating on a test by copying answers downloaded onto their cell phones.

But enough about Paris Hilton, who sucks. Here are some memes.

One for me to do: Ganked from sam_chan and meiousei: Name any character I know and I'll tell you three reasons why s/he sucks, whether or not I like that character. You can name more than one character. I like a challenge.

One that I am doing: Ganked from evercool. What's in your bag?

In my backpack is...
* A folder full of schedules and contact numbers for all of the schools that I work at.
* A precious, precious English-language edition of Newsweek that I picked up in Tokyo and am trying to make last as long as possible. Also, an issue of Time, same deal.
* Colored pencils, because I use them for my special-ed students, and I never know if I'm attending a special-ed class until five minutes before class begins.
* An electronic J-E/E-J dictionary.
* An electronic kanji dictionary.
* A bottle of lotion.
* A mail-order form for the Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo Pinky:st figure. (She's so cute!)
* A flash drive.
* An internet cable, because a lot of the places where I work expect me to provide my own.
* Envelopes of various sizes, stamps, clear tape, and some postcards.
* Some spare pens and a black marker.
* An extremely crushed cookie. Oh crap, I forgot about that.
* Emergency feminine hygeine supplies.

And normally my laptop and laptop cord would be in there too, but I'm at home right now using them.

In my purse...
* Wallet
* Camera and carrying case
* Hand lotion
* Hand soap (a necessity in Japan; rarely provided in public restrooms)
* Floss
* A comb
* Nail clippers and a nail file, because hangnails suck!
* My alien registration card
* Phonecards
* A file of business cards that people keep giving me
* My International Driver's License and my Iowa driver's license, because the former is invalid without the latter
* Address book
* Bank book and ATM card
* Emergency feminine hygeine supplies
* A little to-do and shopping list
* Many pens, all colors of the rainbow
* My hanko (signature stamp), ink pad, carrying case, and hanko registration certificate
* Health insurance card and various hospital/clinic ID cards (goddammit Japan)
* Packs of tissues
* Two mirrors. Bwuh, I didn't realize that I had two.
* Makeup.
* My cell phone.

...Yeah. That's all of the stuff that I never leave home without. Apparently I was a Boy Scout in a past life, or something.

Comments

[aster-dw.livejournal.com]

I love your attempts to come up with any reason for Crowley to "suck". And Good Omens comic book series would be beyond awesome. Far beyond. Mmm...

As for the fandom, aren't all yaoi/slash fandoms like that? Taking cues from a minor amount of interaction between two male characters and then trying to fit them into a small number of tragically and utterly gay character tropes?

Anyway, here are a couple of my humble suggestions:
1. Suzumiya Haruhi
2. Barbossa
3. Mara (surely there are more reasons for her sucking than for Crowley?)
4. Aziraphale

Yay. *hides*

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Good ones again! Let me see:

Suzumiya Haruhi

1. Sexual harassment is NOT OKAY. Somebody really needs to teach her that.

2. Her attraction to Kyon baffles me. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Kyon/Haruhi pairing. But the problem is, although I can totally see why Kyon is attracted to Haruhi, I really can't see how or why Haruhi is interested in Kyon.

3. Numero Uno rule of writing sci-fi/fantasy: It is really, really, really difficult to write a character with omnipotent, god-like powers well. Omnipotent characters can gum up the plot of any piece of fiction faster than you can say "deus ex machina." I once read a really good online essay about how much omnipotent characters suck, but for the life of me I can't find it again. Anyway, the essay was specifically written about The Beyonder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonder), but I think it could apply to Haruhi as well. Now, the reason that the Haruhi novels *work* is that there's a twist in Haruhi's story: She does not, and cannot ever, know that she has omnipotent god-like powers. SHE thinks that she's just a normal person. But even with that twist, the novels still run into plot-problems caused by Haruhi's omnipotence. And the end of the first novel still freaks me out, especially when Koizumi tells Kyon that they may be living in a different world, and that he may even be an entirely different Koizumi. So in short: Omnipotent characters almost universally suck. Haruhi is a notable exception... most of the time. I still think there are parts where the novels write themselves into plot corners specifically caused by Haruhi's powers, though.

Barbossa

This one's a toughie because, honestly, I didn't really like Barbossa until PoC III. It's not that I didn't like Barbossa before, it's just that... Well, I never really noticed how AWESOME he was until PoC III. I think that's largely due to the fact that in the first movie, Jack Sparrow's shtick was still completely new and fascinating, and so (to me at least) he totally overshadowed Barbossa. But in the third movie they just cut Barbossa loose and let him shine.

But anyway, Barbossa sucks because:

1. I always thought that the apple thing was kind of stupid. As a character quirk, it's just lame, not to mention incredibly clichéd. I'm glad that they got rid of it in PoC III.

2. All of his grand schemes end in miserable failure. Aztec gold? Cursed. Try to drum up support from Feng and double-cross him at the same time? Didn't work out so well. Unbinding Calypso? Oh shit, she doesn't like us after all. Fountain of Youth? OH SHI--

And that's not something that annoys me about Barbossa as a character, really; rather, it's something that annoys me about his writers. Jack Sparrow also has all of these crazy/stupid/insane schemes, but they always work out brilliantly for him. Why can't Barbossa get a little bit of that idiot-savant-brand success thrown his way? I mean, he's way smarter (and perhaps a bit crazier) than Jack, anyway. You'd think that he'd be the more successful pirate, then. But strangely, no.

3. What kind of self-respecting Pirate Lord is the Lord of the Caspian freakin' Sea?!?!

[aster-dw.livejournal.com]

Haruhi

Word about sexual harassment. It bothered me massively when I was watching the series.
The whole Haruhi/Kyon thing was a bit contrived, but I guess part of it was that he was just fascinating for her in his level-headedness and sceptical attitude to everything. Plus, the whole over-used "opposites attract" cliche may have played a role.

Barbossa
I also didn't care about him at all in the first film, but for some reason I felt really exhilaratingly happy when he reappeared in the second. In the third was many kinds of awesome, as we have have previously agreed.

1. I always thought that the apple thing was kind of stupid. As a character quirk, it's just lame, not to mention incredibly clichéd. I'm glad that they got rid of it in PoC III.
And they replaced it with the weird "peanut" thing. I didn't actually see apples as terribly cliched, and Barbossa used to bite them in a very badass way, but I see your point in that there are many, many better character quirks out there.

2. All of his grand schemes end in miserable failure... I mean, he's way smarter (and perhaps a bit crazier) than Jack, anyway. You'd think that he'd be the more successful pirate, then. But strangely, no.
Oh yes, definitely. Strangely enough, he reminds me of Mara in this way - as in he is bound to have no success no matter how much it should logically follow from what he does, simply in virtue of not being the main character.
Although the "druming up support from Feng and double-crossing him" plan struck me as fairly stupid to begin with.

3. But he is uniiiiiique in being the only lord of the lake! That is awesome.
Speaking of which, I wonder how long it will take for a new brand of PotC sues to appear which will all be Ladies of amazing and unique seas with magical colour-changing waves and pink unicorn fishes...

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I actually think that "Lord of Lake" status fits Barbossa very well, actually. Yes he may have all of these grand ambitions and fabulous schemes, but they never work out... So if he would be a Pirate Lord, of course he would be the Pirate Lord of a dinky little lake. It's just so fitting. Because Barbossa is more ambition than he is success. Thus, he has an ambitious and grand title, but when you look closely, it turns out that he's just the lord of this worthless little inland sea.

But you're right, that's one of the things that makes Barbossa hilarious and awesome.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Oh, and forgot to add... I totally agree that Barbossa is definitely the Mara of the PoC world, too. ;) That is an excellent way of putting it.

[mik8la.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but I couldn't help replying to the Kyon/Haruhi comment, mostly because I'm of the opposite persuasion: I don't know what exactly what Kyon might see in Haruhi. (At least, not at the end of the anime; he is, after all, a little bit more infatuated with Mikiru at this point still, and Haruhi's continued treatment-slash-sexual-harassment of her does rankle him. Not to mention her blackmailing and occasional bullying.) Don't get me wrong--I don't dislike her; I actually like everyone in the cast, which is pretty rare for me.

I've just recently gotten into the series, and to me it's pretty obvious why Haruhi could be attracted to him: he's the only one who consistently challenges her (i.e., the only one who won't make her bored, and probably the only one with enough patience to put up with her without muting his own personality). Itsuki agrees with whatever she says, Yuki is like a piece of furniture to her, Mikuru doesn't fight back, her parents apparently don't figure into her life, everyone else is ordinary and thinks she's a freak and are therefore beneath her notice. Plus, Kyon is the one who three years ago--um, if you haven't read the novels, that'll be a spoiler, and should be animated when they do a second season.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting seeing things from an opposite shipper's view.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Mara

1. She's a character with such great dramatic and comic potential, and yet for nearly the past ten years, she's been almost completely written out of the manga (in favor of focusing on Hild, of course). Particularly, I think that Mara's dramatic potential has been almost completely wasted. As a villain, she easily could have been elevated to the threat level of, say, the Lord of Terror, or Welsper, or Hild. She has the brains, the power level, and the intimate knowledge of the Norn's weak spots. And she has the record of success, too. I mean, Mara managed to turn Keiichi into a lizard, summon the Lord of Terror, separate Urd's halves, and transform all of Nekomi Tech into Sayoko's personal fantasy land. That's more than Hild has EVER done. But for some reason, the latter half of the manga has re-cast Mara as a bumbling two-bit comic relief villain who hardly constitutes a threat at all. The other reason I'd say that Mara's dramatic potential is wasted is her relationship with Urd... Which is brought up once in passing, once in depth, and then never again. I mean, that's some serious story potential right there. But it's never explored, never developed. It's just brought up as an excuse to jump-start the Demon Urd arc, and then it's thrown away, virtually retconned out of existence.

2. Walking. Fashion. Disaster. Also, Kosuke Fujishima had to draw her for 85 chapters before he finally gave her a hairstyle that didn't completely suck.

3. I still have no idea what the hell was going on with her sudden and inexplicable identity crisis in Sorezore no Tsubasa, particularly in episode 18.

Aziraphale

1. In the novel, he's not nearly as developed as Crowley. Which makes it hard to get a real grasp on his personality, other than the fact that he's a stuffy bibliophile.

2. He falls into that "angels can be evil too!" (http://girl-wonder.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1311&highlight=angels+evil) cliché that's overused and annoying. Okay, we get it. He's a total bastard but OMG he's an angel too?! Oh, how original and edgy. (*eyeroll*) Now, to be honest, I really do love Aziraphale, and I do think that his whole selfish-bastard-angel shtick is really interesting and funny. But at the same time, it IS overused and clichéd. And that's kind of annoying.

3. His fandom really sucks. Especially because he's an angel. That means that he's doomed to be forever cast as pure-hearted sparkling bishounen uke. The novel may not have revealed that much about Aziraphale, but it did at least establish that he was a) NOT pure-hearted, b) cynical to a fault, c) selfish, and d) dumpy. A far cry from any sort of pure-hearted sparkling bishounen uke. But, you know, internet slash/yaoi fandom. Meh.

[aster-dw.livejournal.com]

Mara
1. Couldn't agree with you more on all of this. I think she's ultimately taken a backseat to Hild simply because AMG is wish gratification manga. Not having been particularly attractively drawn or portrayed as a person, Mara didn't really come close to fulfilling that role because she doesn't cater to any fetish and she isn't interested in reader-proxy anyway. Hild, in both of her forms, on the other hand, is a fetish satisfaction goldmine for obvious reasons.
As for It's just brought up as an excuse to jump-start the Demon Urd arc , that basically sums up why I cringe whenever anyone on the forms proclaims Fujishima to be a wonderful writer. He honestly isn't. He introduces piles of random and unexpected plot elements without any prior justification to move the plot along and then abandons them, or retcons them out of existence, as you've so nicely put it. Ootaki's girlfriend, Urd's mother issues, Sayoko's inconsistent attitudes to K1 and so forth. I mean, I'm obviously most bitter about Mara's and Urd's loose ends simply because manga would have been so awesome if it explored those issues adequately... Sigh.

2. *snort* Yes. Although, I quite liked Mara's hairstyle during the Devil Urd arc. Perpetual dishevelled look suited her personality quite well.

Aziraphale

2. I'm inclined to say that the way the "bastard angel" stuff was handled in GO was fairly decent. It wasn't nearly as blunt and annoying as Pullman's or Kaori Yuki's "ZOMG! God is totalitarian, murderous villain, marvel at my originality!!" stuff. Aziraphale appeared to me to be morally ambiguous, but on the whole a thoroughly decent celestial being, even if he's enough of a bastard to be worth liking. So I didn't really see it as bastard angel cliché rather than him just being a fairly 3D character.

3. Odd that you should mention this. All GO slashfic that I've ever read (not massive amounts, admittedly) featured Aziraphale as an evil rapist or at the very least a manipulative seducer. Although, now I'm tempted to hunt down the sparkly pure-hearted uke fics and laugh at them.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I did rather like Mara's hair in the Devil Urd arc. But at the same time... It kinds of looks like my hair when I wake up in the morning. Which means that during the entire Devil Urd arc I just wanted to yell at Mara to comb her damn hair! It's the OCD part of my brain.

I agree with you about Aziraphale, now that you mention it. I guess I was just grasping at straws. Beause Aziraphale is pretty awesome. ;)

Yeah, I've read Aziraphale as a rapist or a manipulative seducer before... But the sparkly uke thing squicks me even more, because it's just so... Argh. I don't know, I can't articulate it very well.