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It is much easier to watch anime than to write fic. Just thought I'd mention. Especially when watching anime doubles as Consoling the Cat. I discover you can't read and console cats because cats want to be exactly where the book is.

It's also terribly lavish to be watching my own anime that I can pull from the box as I please and know there's more in there whenever I want and that they don't have to go back to the shop on Friday. That's why in the end I'm glad I bought the Kyoto arc ~~instead of the new shoes that money was marked for~~. Getting it from zip.ca wouldn't have given me the freedom of 'what I want whenever I want it.' Fortunately for my budget this experience isn't likely to be duplicated in the near future because, as Vice-fearless Leader was saying to me last night, there isn't another series I *really* want to watch in the same way. Not until Gankutsu-ou comes out complete to ep 17 at least. Maybe in the dogdays of summer I might want a similar mindless marathon of FMA but until then- mh.

Let me also say I have *no* idea where on god's sweet earth Japanese fandom and its western followers got their slut!Aoshi from. He's not there in the anime. This feels like one of those moments when the Japanese fandom sees things you don't and wouldn't. IME it doesn't happen that often- certainly there were no surprises in anything they did with Saiyuuki- but this almost automatic Saitoh x Aoshi pairing is certainly blink-worthy. I gather they did equally blink-worthy stuff with Naruto, but I was never in that one and

deepfatfire and

stanking, who were, departed it a good three years ago with the epithet 'Naruto, what a ho.' Sic transit.

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I hope that's not a serious question. So... any sword for hire can become a body for hire? The rest of the Oniwabanshuu? Mifune's Yojimbou? It just won't translate for me, sorry. Aoshi has no iro in him that I can see. Sexual he is not.

Also IME what the Japanese did was up the degree to which Aoshi wangsted over not having fought in the Revolution and then had Saitoh simultaneously lecture and screw him into the present. That it's Kenshin who does this in canon, from his own experiences, got casually brushed away. Kenshin is shorter than Saitoh and therefore can't be his seme. Saitoh must be, by default. (I got so tired of this trope that I stood up and cheered when I finally got sent a dj where *Hiko* lectures and screws *Saitoh* into the present.

Kenshin is shorter than Saitoh and therefore can't be his seme.

Brainfry. I meant Kenshin is shorter than Aoshi, of course.

And the djs you've seen- were they bought off Cybershoppe? Recycled djs may not really reflect the popular pairings being drawn.

LOL! Do you want more Hiko x Saitoh? I can send you some.

Actually yes, I would. What I've seen is all Fearless Leader's tastes, and her tastes ran to Saitoh x Aoshi. (And there's enough SanouxKenshin as well- I disliked Sanou very much until I actually saw him in the anime.)

I'll drop you a note when I put a box in the mail for you. You will like Hiko x Saitoh, it's very cute.

Thank you. I await it with a certain trepidation. Cute isn't a word I'd use of either, though the clash of ego with ego has possibilities.

Surely you have seen the ones with the baby? I thought our fearless leader sent it to everyone. :P

SaitohXAoshi is difficult to see, it's true. But slut!Aoshi is not so hard to see, is it? So many reasons... let's see. Moral ambiguity in a pretty face and uke-type character is automatic translation to slut. Also angst, the angst. The well-adjusted characters are never turned into sluts. And all that excruciation of the flesh with its sm undertones.

Baby? No bells. But as I said before, Aoshi just has no sexual vibes at all. He's a black hole that way. (Once again like 12 K Keiki.) To turn that sterile aphysicality into a rent-boy is a leap of the imagination far beyond me. In fact I'd say any SaitohxAoshi story I've ever seen looks totally OOC to me now. That's not Aoshi, it's not even yaoi!Aoshi, it's an original character you've decided to call Aoshi.

Whereas Western RK fandom AFAIK mostly did Aoshi x Misao het with Aoshi in the role of Upright And Lacking In Clue (cf. Keiki in 12K), and... Saitou x Sano. J-fandom-wise anything with Saitou or Aoshi was the classy stuff, step out of Aesthe and all I came across was ditchwater-dull by-the-numbers Sano x Kenshin with no regard for characterisation at all. ^^;

Saitoh x Sano feels like something the Japanese ought to have been drawing- kind of an obvious pairing- except that when you expect them to do the obvious they don't. Except when they do, as in... dull by-the-numbers Sano x Kenshin with no regard for characterisation at all, which agrees exactly with my own (limited) experience thereof.