flemmings | (no subject)

Bt it's so fun to watch!

Ohh dude, they came out of the woodwork with The Kiss, did they? I sometimes feel like poor Goku is not allowed to grow up without asking Sanzo first (WTF??!!) My reaction was like "My monkey is growing up, I am so proud even though his heart is broken now."

I think I am grabbing Bento's icon of The Kiss and use it...often XD.

Makes *me* weep great tears (http://pics.livejournal.com/debgeisler/pic/0000s3y6/g2) for the future of the race.

"My monkey is growing up, I am so proud even though his heart is broken now."

I *mean*, look at the new resolve in his character. Biggest step for him since Kami-sama, as I see it. I think what pisses me off is that half the screamers (by a charitable estimate) have no notion what's going on in the action and what's being said. It's all 'Kill it! Kill it with FIRE!!'

I do like that icon. A good way of rattling people's ca-- ahh umm twitting the twits.

That is so very true, the way he looks and the way he goes forward, I was very moved by that. I think that is what I love Minekura-sensei, the way she lays the road for the character to develop in crucial moments, and you can tell how much she loves the characters.

No appreciation for the story that really drives the manga is very common among the fangirls that are in only for the yaoi between the pretty boys. SIGH. I like that too but the story, people, the story!!!

hahaha, I just want to give them a piece of my mind...and kick the twits a little.

I know...I thought it was a little funny. A few of my f-list are Sanzo/Goku 'shippers....hmmm wonder how they're faring! ^___~

But the story is moving on at a crucial point in Goku's life and it's oh so wonderfully heartbreaking.

The sun is actually out today! Yay! -sorry having a random moment...but I think the in-laws are suffering. Heh!

One of the many it's I don't get is shotacon. (Exception CJ Michalski's wonderful comatose seme/now-grown-up doctor shota.) The other is Goku.

And about this Y-acronym. Why is 'ochi' translated as 'point' or 'plot' or whatever, but never 'falling'? Heeeee. But if we do things literally, it might as well be no mountain, no falls, no meaning.

ROFL!

Somehow...I have managed to miss seeing the slap fights so far. [Naturally, I've jinxed myself now.] I do, however, find it ironic that everyone wants little Pippi to die. 'Cause that's what she's doing. I mean, good grief. That was your comment on the post, wasn't it? It made me giggle. XD

Why is 'ochi' translated as 'point' or 'plot' or whatever, but never 'falling'?

The straight-faced answer is that the word ochi (I'm guessing) comes from an extended meaning of fall- it's the punchline, the point at which the story drops off. I would kill for a Japanese equivalent of the OED that lists historical usages by first occurrence. It's just harder when your documented language goes back twice as far as English.

I'm also sad that fan usage settled on ochi for the o, because the first Japanese who defined the word for me said it was owari. Endless- that's yaoi.

If idiocy wasn't so rare in the fandom maybe this particular example wouldn't gall so much. It's not as if Saiyuuki lends itself to batshit pairing wars, Minekura being the equal-opportunity subtexter she is. But you'd think the thirteen year old fans would have an inkling just how ridiculous their shrill outrage is: especially when they're nowhere near thirteen chronologically.

Yaoi fanglasses: *encouraging* myopia.

Like

mauvecloud there, I don't quite get the Gokuu thing. One may like him as a character, but the hot smexx0rs bit leaves me blinking: not least because the canon emotional connection between him and Sanzou is so deep and delicate that anything but the most glancing expression of it looks unforgivably clumsy. Kisses? With *Sanzou*? When pigs fly.

That's why I think yaoi should be appreciated alongside the canon, not overlying it. Almost by definition yaoi is an exercise in A/U: an interpretation forced on the text. Arbitrary sexual fantasies about the characters: to wit, that they're Doing It. It's as likely to be true as a sexual fantasy of the characters in S&M play. Nothing in the canon to say they don't: no great possibility that they do.

And after this rant, congrats on S'pore having sun again.

I can only assume that in the absence of a translation (and any ability to picture read) people started believing Kagenami that Pippi was heading out of town in her Conestoga wagon. And might, ya know, come back some day to rape their virgin innocent monkey.

My original irritation was sparked by the Italian fans on the saiyuki_yaoi ML, sending Minekura a solemn long Harmonian screed about how arbitrary the kiss was, and uncalled for and gratuitous and not led up to and how she should have left it out and the next time anyone kisses Gokuu it must be Sanzou. They may have intended that last as humour, but it came across as pure honne to me. (No one says 'letting your slip show' any more, do they? What's the current phrase for that, I wonder.)

As I said below, it's wincingly reminiscent of the Harmonians loudly declaring how bad the sixth HP book was. Err, no. The fifth book was a dog's dinner as prose goes: the sixth was much tighter. They just didn't like what Bk 6 said and so insisted that the way it was said was wrong. Nothing led up to that kiss in the story? We weren't reading the same story, evidently. (And we weren't. I bet they were impatiently waiting for Sanzou to come back and these silly youkai to go away so there could be some 39 interaction, *finally*.)

The sheer number of charas and combinations in PoT must smother any tendencies to shipping wars, I suppose. Though I'll note ominously that the only time I personally have seen the Japanese fen act crazy was over a sports manga. The SD fan wars were... special that way. Death threats and vandalism, and this was before the net even.

(pathetically) At least one other person thought that line funny.

My original irritation was sparked by the Italian fans on the saiyuki_yaoi ML, sending Minekura a solemn long Harmonian screed about how arbitrary the kiss was, and uncalled for and gratuitous and not led up to and how she should have left it out and the next time anyone kisses Gokuu it must be Sanzou.

O.O No, no, please tell me this didn't happen! This is her creation. She needed Goku to do the growth he did in this arc and "Pippi's" kiss was part of that. I'm all for yummy-scrummy yaoi, but you don't argue with the creator.

Oh yes it did. I think there's some confusion in people's minds between thinking something the creator pulled wasn't in line with what went before, which can be perfectly legitimate, and telling the creator she was wrong to do it, which is not.

I think it's reasonable to say 'Oh I wish you hadn't' if a writer starts, say, backtracking on a character because suddenly she's decided he's not the mean bastard she first presented him as, he's a kewl misunderstood anti-hero (and yes Lestat I *am* looking at you.) Just, there's a difference between I wish you hadn't and You shouldn't have; and of course you must examine your conscience scrupulously first to be sure your regrets aren't tinged by personal bias. The anti-kiss guys haven't a leg to stand on when viewed by either of those standards.

"I can only assume that in the absence of a translation (and any ability to picture read) people started believing Kagenami that Pippi was heading out of town in her Conestoga wagon."

I know...then you had to point it out and then I thought...are we all seeing the same thing? ... maybe we have alternate pictures or something.

"sending Minekura a solemn long Harmonian screed about how arbitrary the kiss was, and uncalled for and gratuitous and not led up to and how she should have left it out and the next time anyone kisses Gokuu it must be Sanzou.

OMG, they did? Really. *Sigh* There are such people with the audacity to do that!!!??? WTF-ery indeed.

I thought it was funny at first, then I thought 'Oh grow up!' then it was *sigh* "I'd better not read this anymore!"...but it does kind of suck you in though like some bad horror b-movie. *More sighs*

If idiocy wasn't so rare in the fandom maybe this particular example wouldn't gall so much. It's not as if Saiyuuki lends itself to batshit pairing wars

Um. What?

I don't understand what's the big deal with the kiss anyway. I think it fit nicely into the storyline and the anime already warmed us up to the idea of Goku having a little crush at some point.

Even if I were a 3/9/3 fan, one kiss, one crush--even if Goku went all the way with someone--is not going to erase TWO lifetimes of history between them.

People do have the right to complain to an author. But, this doesn't seem like it fits into one of those justifiable areas. Complain, yes. Tell them what they can or cannot do, no.

"I can only assume that in the absence of a translation (and any ability to picture read) people started believing Kagenami that Pippi was heading out of town in her Conestoga wagon."

Ok, maybe I'm wrong. I could be totally wrong. I can't read Japanese, but I got the feeling that she was heading off to fight and most likely die. That Goku had developed a bit of a crush on her (no plans to get married or anything) and knew she was going to die trying to fight. I can't see him taking it well that anyone crush or not was walking off to a futile fight. That's why I think he took it so hard. That he failed to talk her out of it and, simply, knows that any of the other three could have.

Shrug. That's how it seemed to me at least.

Well, does it? Have you ever seen the Hakkai/ Gojou contingent pulling rank on the Sanzou/Gokuu fen? that one minor disagreement aside, which basically came down to 'I just don't see it.' Do the 58 guys slug it out with the 85ers (cf Naruto and Slam Dunk)? Do the 858 and 393s gang up on the 535s (cf Blake's 7)? I've never heard people arguing loudly that any pairing is by its very nature illegal immoral and fattening, not even Hazel x Sanzou.

My general experience says Saiyuuki fandom's a happy warm pool of polymorphous perversity and change partners, plus incest, shotacon, and bunny fellatio for the minorities.

You have selected the wrong pairings for your examples. Try 38 and 39 sharing the same space. It is something akin to applying a match to kerosene.

Aahh! I think you mistake me. I was referring to a comment someone had posted that looked like it was they who misunderstood it and some of the others' whose posts were 'raging' about things like...How dare that girl kiss him, I wish she'd die and stuff.

It was the posts I was going about not reading....I would never dare speak of Minekura's work with such vehemence. Never ever. Ever. I do apologise if there are toes I have stepped on.

"Ok, maybe I'm wrong. I could be totally wrong. I can't read Japanese, but I got the feeling that she was heading off to fight and most likely die. That Goku had developed a bit of a crush on her (no plans to get married or anything) and knew she was going to die trying to fight. I can't see him taking it well that anyone crush or not was walking off to a futile fight. That's why I think he took it so hard. That he failed to talk her out of it and, simply, knows that any of the other three could have."

I 'read' it pretty much the same too!

Not going to strain my eyes squinting at screen kanji again, but I believe he was there when she said she was going off to get the stores of explosives the youkai had hidden. When they meet again he certainly knows she's going off to fight the humans and from his reaction after she goes, probably knows what with. Since she gives him a big speech about This is something I have to do, he knows she's going off with little or no chance of coming back.

I mean, even picture readers must have picked up on the explosion and Gokuu's face when he hears it. Did they just think it was some random dynamite dump blowing up? Then they've never read Chekov about what you must do with the gun hanging on the wall in the first act. Only backwards, so to speak.

I must hang out in the wrong lj communities. Whatever, if the 38s and 39s feud, it doesn't make f_w, and our public image is all I care about. (Sanzou/ Hakkai, truly? Not Sanzou/ Gojou? My, westerners differ from the Japanese.)

...though I've always thought the 39 guys most likely to be batshit because they always come off as so young. Self-insert teenaged character plus Series Slut: recipe for disaster.

Aahh! I think you mistake me. I was referring to a comment someone had posted that looked like it was they who misunderstood it and some of the others' whose posts were 'raging' about things like...How dare that girl kiss him, I wish she'd die and stuff.

Please forgive me for not making that clear. I did not mean to imply that you were the one with that interpetation of events. I failed to make that clear and I completely understand why you think that I thought that when I didn't. (Whoa...that's a long way of saying "oops my bad, we've miscommunicated" LOL!)

I 'read' it pretty much the same too!

Sweet! I'm not alone!

*head nod* That makes sense. That's kind of what my gut was telling me was going on.

Yes I was going through it and even Shahrazad picked up on it, she went, "Mama that's Goku's girlfriend right?" "It's sad....but I think he will be ok...because they will look after each other."

That's a seven year old's POV anyway.

I can only assume that in the absence of a translation (and any ability to picture read) people started believing Kagenami that Pippi was heading out of town in her Conestoga wagon.

Heh, that wasn't me. ;^) My partner, who cannot read a lick of Japanese, did this RFB broadcast solo (I'd been scanning and uploading 'til the wee hours [dial-up...ooog...], so my partner was an angel and wrote it while I was sleeping). Anyway, RFB is wall-to-wall illiterate youkai, so people should take any of its broadcast statements with a grain of salt the size of Cincinnati. ;^)

Am still bristling about the letter to Minekura from the would-be Saviors Of San-Ku, "All the girls from the Italian 3x9 Mailing List" (the Yahoo group MLsanzoxgoku_it). "Because, you know, the relationship and the balance between the four main characters is the principal reason we love Saiyuki. Why did you have to broke that special balance? What's happening to you? And... would it be possible to modify the kiss page, emphatizing it less? A high number of fans felt offended, not for the kiss in itself, but as something that goes against the style of Saiyuki."

As if the general Japanese opinion of foreign fans wasn't low enough already... On the bright side, though, Minekura will have the pleasure of knowing that some of her characters have grown to have more depth and maturity than some (oops, "a high number") of her fans. ;^)

(I'd been scanning and uploading 'til the wee hours [dial-up...ooog...]

Second the oogs. Gunma-ken knows nothing of high-speed internet? Vaguely recall

shiny_monkey saying something about areas of your city not being linked or something. (Or is that J down in Itabashi-ku? The Fuzz, it fuzzes.)

Err- in which case, doubly deep thanks for maintaining RFB in the face of technological challenges. (Teehee- there's no telling your narrative voices apart. Err again- unless that's been C talking all along... Um yes moving right along here--)

I am ~~confident~~ cautiously optimistic that Minekura's editor's flunky will say Bzuh? to the letter, either for the English or for the typos or for the discernible content, and quietly suppress it. Maybe someone will do a translation for her that basically turns it into "Aahh Sensei! nande?! doushite?! saishou no kisu ONNA da nante, hidoooiii!! shikushiku" in which case all ends well.

...Um, should I maybe not have quoted directly from the letter? First-time wanker here; dunno the rules of engagement... You're welcome to delete both of my comments if you want!

Not sure of the rules of engagement either, but I can't see any reason why quoting a document already posted by the author to a public forum accessible by everybody shouldn't be perfectly kosher. In my understanding, MLs and their posts are only off-limits if they're private lists, as lj entries are only off-limits if the post was f-locked from the start. Those are f_w's own rules, so I'll stick with them.

Maybe someone will do a translation for her that basically turns it into "Aahh Sensei! nande?! doushite?! saishou no kisu ONNA da nante, hidoooiii!! shikushiku" in which case all ends well.

LOL! Here's hoping!

It's amazing, the consistency of style that the power of having the final edit can bring...! ;^) (So far, an appearance by Zakuro and/or Stinky means C came to the rescue with a solo when the timing got too crunchy on this end to be able to do a broadcast together.)

We owe you mondo thanks for your posting your scans from last month!!

(So far, an appearance by Zakuro and/or Stinky means C came to the rescue with a solo

Ahhah. All is Revealed.

No prob on last month's scans, though I wonder how many people actually saw them.

From utmost east to utmost west, wheree'er has scanned the eye,
From the mouth of many fangirls goes forth entitled cry,
"Give ear to me, ye mangaka, and write it like I say,
Or I'll whine till I fill the mailing lists and it comes up on lj."

. . . or maybe not.

(I must assume from googlian silence that this quatrain is original to you. One never knows, what with your flypaper mind.)

Of course, it's worse if it comes up on journalfen, but that's harder to fit into the rhyming scheme.

Spur of the moment parody from me, I'm afraid, having had to sing the original ("give ear to me, ye continents, ye isles, give ear to me, that the earth may be filled, etc.") more than once at school.

Um.

"Give ear to me, ye mangaka, and lay aside that pen,
Or I'll whine and I'll whine till it ranks as fanwank and it comes up on journal fen."

(Slightly pushed, I feel.)

Should have known it was a hymn. google is bad about hymns.

That version will do very well, I think.

*applauds* - *and giggles*

*giggles some more*

he should remember I am *not* Italian. >.>

'I just live there. Really I'm Swiss.'

With your goat, Banri! ;^)

I guess it surprises me that everyone is embarrassed for them because of their comments on the kiss! It's sophmoric, but everyone goes thru a sophmoric phase at some point in their life, more so when acting as a group.

It took a while to sink in, but the part of the letter that makes me laugh and shudder is the bald faced statement 'we read bootlegs of your work'. (How else can one interpret: we hated the pictures, we read the translations, the volumes aren't out in Italian/English) To the authors face. Through the offices of the publisher. The rest is just insult on top of the injury.

The volumes aren't out in Italian or English but why shouldn't some Japanese-fluent Italian have a subscription to the magazine and tell her friends what's in the issue? I doubt Minekura is cognizant of what the distribution system is like in Italy. HK gets its ZSs next day; why shouldn't there be an Italian provider who gets them within three days? The issue came out on Saturday; these guys complain Tuesday- or was it Wednesday by their calendar? Amazon.jp is just as fast getting stuff from Tokyo to me. So no, I don't see any OMG WE READ BOOTLEGS message in the letter. 'We all waited for our copy to arrive and S translated it for us.' Perfectly natural fan behaviour by Japanese standards.

LOL! Okay, so it may not be scanlations. I would think the publisher would know, but so it goes.