nagia | On Friending, Grammar, Oh John Ringo No and Oh Mark Knopfler Yes.

Go figure that I find you through the fact that we both have 'romany' listed as an interest.

WAIT

I KNOW YOU

I SAW YOUR PROFILE AND DIDN'T SEE YOUR IM.

WHAT THE FUCK.

ASDL;KJSADGLKJAGH I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU FOUND ME THROUGH INTEREST IN ROMANY.

THAT'S WHAT I SAID. XD

Although on that note, have you read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart?

Dude Y/Y/MFY. Read Phedre's trilogy, read Imriel's trilogy, will read the next sequence of works that come out (which are apparently supposed to be about Imriel's granddaughter or something?)

I was impressed about her knowledge of Romany culture in KD, and I e-mailed her about it asking what references she used, since I was doing a few papers on gypsy practices at the time. I was both delighted and amusedly disappointed when she e-mailed me back and I found out she'd used almost the exact same books I'd already been using. There's sadly little research material on them.

Hey! It's, um... well, I don't know if you've seen this already, but I figured that if you hadn't, you might find it interesting (since I know you like Yuffie.)

It's the Early Material character files. Yuffie's was translated, and it's really interesting. It's here, if you haven't seen it yet!

~ Re, from the Ruroken community.

Thanks for the link! I'm actually rather glad those ideas never became canon.

No problem! I am, as well, in the end. Though I'll probably end up using bits and pieces to fill in some of the holes in her canon.

And I apologize if this is a little stalkerish... but is that you playing the Misao over on the IC anon meme?

Now why would you think something that crazy? Could it possibly be the huge number of icons made by

leviathanmirror, one of which coincides with one of my own?

^_~ Yeah, that's me, and she's specifically from

capeandcowl

Well, there is that. And I recognized your writing style. :P I read through a couple of the logs on

capeandcowl. Rurouni Kenshin cast, OMG... Even if it's kinda tiny-little.

PSGJSG It stands out that much?! Crazy talk!

I know, I know! I saw the Saitou and flipped my lid. And, if

leviathanmirror doesn't decide she hates me between now and 22 June, the cast will be growing by one more person (Misao will have her Aoshi-sama and Saitou will panic).

Maybe? I'm generally pretty good at picking out certain styles of writing, and since I'm familiar with your work and knew you liked Misao from the Ruroken community... And, well, you do have a kind of disctinctive way with words.

Oooh, awesome! ♥ I'm glad for you. The RK cast at Damned, both current and former, will probably go "*~* omg do waaannnt", too. (... Panicked Saitou? Now that'll be a sight to see!)

Ah. Yeah, I was originally going to apply as Yuffie, but the Saitou got me to switch gears to another genki ninja.

Yeah, I know they're trying to get Ay to take her Saitou over to Damned. I'm not so sure about my Misao. I'm sure

leviathanmirror's Aoshi will be fantastic, though.

(He's already stated that he's basically trying to make sure Misao stays safe so that Aoshi doesn't go knocking on Saitou's door with a "my weasel got kicked" frown on his face and his kodachi drawn.)

Go go ninja girls! I've been thinking about playing Misao somewhere, but I feel safer with Yuffie.

If you ever did get interested, look us up! I'm not really part of the cast, but my character is pretty heavily involved with that group. ~~/end shameless advert~~

(Ha, nice. How's he handling the babysitting duty so far, then?)

Yuffie's easier because she gets more screentime and there's a lot more weight given to all that informed ability. Watsuki was never really sure what to do with Misao, so one volume she's hyper-competent (with a little incompetence for cuteness factor) and the next she's a total moron running of with Yahiko to tilt at windmills.

With such a schizophrenic portrayal in her canon, it's hard to portray her solidly in one realm or the other without people going OMG OOC.

Wait, you're part of/affiliated with Damned? You honestly think I've got a good enough grasp on her that I could take her there? OMG. ♥

(Not so well, as you may have read in one of her recent logs. She's gotten into plenty of trouble and she's only been in for like three weeks now)

That's a very good point. Yuffie has little inconsistancies that I've noticed, namely in Dirge of Cerberus, but for the most part her portrayal is fairly stable. Still, you seem to be doing a good job so far! I especially liked that one log where she went looking for a fight.

Ehehe, yeah. I play Yuffie there (Thatdamnedninja, the one running around on the IC meme. ~~And I feel horribly embarrassed admitting this.~~). Anyway... yup, that's my honest opinion. ♥

(Typical Misao, then. I'd say that I pity the headache Saitou must be getting, but I really don't.)

P.S. I apologize for the length of time between replies; I'd noticed that the sun had come up, so I went to bed for a while.

OMG, you're the Yuffie there? ♥ I stalked that journal for a while.

I try not to think too hard about anything in Dirge of Cerberus because then I get angry that they fucked up my two favorite characters. Although I have played and replayed the Azul battle just to watch Yuffie slap Shelke.

Then again, I like to have a side of badass with my genki ninja girl.

Also ♥ ♥ Thank you! Because of you, I'm going to apply for her over at Damned, come July. I've heard the place is like the last bastion of quality (well, that, or the cancer that's killing RP).

(Pretty much. And I don't, either, although the last week has been rough on the poor dude.)

Ehehe, that's me! ♥ You stalked..? Thanks! I hope you enjoyed what you read.

The only reason I give much of a mind to DoC is because I like what they did with the W.R.O, and Yuffie's role in it. I'm with you on liking a side of badass to go with the genki; I like to have the opportunity to add some seriousness and some... "Woah, this chick really could kill me about six times before I hit the ground".

OMG, you are? Awesome! ♥♥ I'm really happy to hear that. If you need anything~... and, oh, if you're apping, feel free to drop into the OOC chat sometime. Damned really is good if you're looking for quality and depth, though equally good is the crack and such.

(Oh? What else has been going down for him~?)

I did! I really like your take on her.

And yes, agreed about the WRO. I have... Problems... with where DoC says Reeve got his funding, but I like the idea and I also like the idea that Yuffie has a position in it.

I'll let you know! Would you mind overmuch beta reading my app once it's done? And where is this OOC chat?

(Let's see. Misao's shown up, Saitou's best friend has been carved into little pieces and then revived, Misao herself has had a seizure, and just yesterday Saitou got slurped by a Polymorph that took the form of said best friend being tortured. So now he's lost his ability to feel anger. Oh! And Misao got slurped first, thought crazy!Aoshi was in the City, and is now alternating between wrath and crying jags. So she's being impossible to deal with.)

a;skmsfg I'm flattered. ♥ Thanks again! She's been a lot of fun to play, moreso as of late than ever.

Ah, that bit. I know what you mean; I was kind of a little… uh, about it. It's probably foreshadowing for Rufus to try and take over the world again or something like that. =|

I wouldn't mind at all! I'd be more than happy to, actually. And if you wanted any second opinions, I'm willing to bet that the RK-players would be more than happy to lend their assistance. The OOC chat is DamnedOOC, on AIM. Drop by anytime, if you wanna! It's usually pretty active, especially in the evening.

(… Sounds pretty crazy. And crazy fun, at that. What's this about Saitou's best friend being carved into little pieces? ~~What a typical thing for me to focus on.~~ And I'm trying to imagine a Saitou who can't be angry at stuff. Is it just 'anger', or is it… like, frustration, etc.? Everything like that?)

Hahaha. God, I feel like I need to write that fic. (My Yuffie muse just went "LET HIM TRY, I'LL TAKE HIM DOWN")

Yeah, it would be nice to know which abilities the other RK characters kept so I'll know how powerful to leave Misao. She's already a pretty vulnerable character in the canon, and I'm certainly not about to leave her stronger than any of her canonmates in the game.

Thanks for the invite and thanks for the beta.

(It has been fun. Here's the no-anger one, and here is the one in which Kiryu got carved up.)

Ha, do it! I'd enjoy reading it. (I think he'd have half the W.R.O tackle-diving him in protest.)

The old Sanosuke-mun (who dropped a while back, which I'm still really sad about. Hopefully she'll take him up again sometime) had the info about his abilities in his character journal (Damnrudecock). Kaoru's not had any power-changes, since she's relatively 'average' in canon. Kenshin... is definitely under power restrictions, but I'm not exactly sure what they are.

♥ No problem.

(Oooh, thanks! I'll take a look at 'em later.)

Oh, damn, the Sano dropped? She was in the IC meme, so I thought she was still around.

My problem with Misao is that she's given this informed ability of above-average martial arts (I mean, c'mon, the beginning of her training was done by Hannya and then it was most likely completed by Okina). We see her use it against fairly average thugs, and she's pretty damned effective against Kamatari (for a long-distance combatant). And according to filler, Misao's fully capable of taking down Yahiko (who gets more badass points in the actual series than she does).

And I look at the canon and wonder: how much of this is Watsuki not knowing how to focus on anybody but the boys, and how much of this is just Misao's nature? Oh yeah, and how much of it is him never being sure what to do with her?

ANYWAY ahahahaha. I hate it when my feminism gets in the way of enjoying some shounen.

Yeah. I recall her saying that she'd consider taking him up again? But, at any rate, she still plays him on memes and on the Fountainofcod comm.

... That is a bit of a problem. And I'm not entirely sure what to suggest, because... wow, inconsistant much? In my personal opinion, I'd that by the time Yahiko's really badass at age 16, he and Misao are pretty much equal? Orrr something.

To be honest, I'd say it's an equal combination of all three of those. As much as I love RK, I really hate how some of the male antagonists are better developed than the female leads. It's just. What.

(Warning: TL;DR and occasionally capslocky Feminist Rage ahead. Turn back, turn back if ye can!)

The way the male antagonists are better developed than the female leads in particular is infuriating. And, for me, it always seemed to slam Kaoru pretty heavily. We know more about Yukishiro Enishi's tragic past than we do about what it was like for Kaoru, growing up as the (female) only child of a kendo school. While she as a character is somewhat independent of Kenshin, very nearly everything that happens to her is usurped to develop Kenshin somehow, and it was that way from the very fucking beginning of the manga. UDO JIN-EH, I AM LOOKING AT YOU.

Hell, even when we get a chance to see a female friendship--how much Misao and Kaoru mean to each other--it turns into a show about the boys again. It's great that Misao gets a chance to grieve for Kaoru when she's "dead" in the Jinchuu arc, but A) that friendship never looked fully developed to me. Part of it was that it was a shounen manga so the peaceful growth of friendship got skipped over period, but part of it was omg icky girls my readers aren't supposed to care about them... and B) then Watsuki went and made it an extension of another male character by showing Aoshi sitting and listening to her cry like some retarded creeper so he could get a burr in his fur about proving that Kaoru wasn't dead.

Even the anime fell into that same fucking trap. "To My Angel Misao" was one of the only remotely female-centric fillers, and oh. It's all a bunch of women wandering around, talking about how to become more attractive to men. And when they're not talking about that, they're talking about the men in their lives. And when they're not doing that either, SANO AND YAHIKO ARE IN THE BACKGROUND, BEING DERPS. Which is cute, but so. Very. Male-centric.

I mean, I know, I know, I get that it's a shounen manga and a shounen anime, and I love the anime considerably more than I do most. But still. It's galling.

Ahhhhhh sorry for the late reply! I actually had something all written out, but my word processor ate it. And then life ate me. But, I'm back now! TL;DR is perfectly acceptable and is actually encouraged, despite the fact that I could never hope to match it. Somehow, I'm just not that good at focusing on one topic and writing a lot about it (which is why I roleplay more than write fic.)

At any rate, I absolutely agree with you. I'd have really liked to see some of the female leads develop as individuals, rather than just as foils for the men. There was so much potential and room for development in Misao's relationship with Kaoru, but did we get to see of it? Hardly. THEY HAVE A LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE GUYS. Please to be showing it to us, Watsuki. How independent must Kaoru have been, to continue to run her dojo like that before meeting Kenshin? And then there's Misao, running all across Japan -- again, on her own. Granted, she was looking for Aoshi, but she stood on her own two feet and nflkasmfl. I dunno. "My Angel Misao" would have been an awesome episode if three quarters of it hadn't been filled with, as you said, the girls talking about their men and/or how to be more attractive for men. I can forgive Sanosuke and Yahiko for derping around everywhere, since… idk. I had a reason lined up, but I just lost it.

I'm actually a fan of the anime, too. Kind of. Most of the fillers I could've lived without, up to and including most of the third season, but on the whole I enjoyed it. Would've killed for them to animate Kenshin's past and the Jinchuu stuff, but I'll take what I can get, I suppose. If only some of the stuff (both in the manga and the anime) hadn't been so two dimensional, etc…

Eh, I guess it's just another reason why I love fanwork. It's a nice chance to explore without all the genre constraints, when it's actually done well.

On Friending, Grammar, Oh John Ringo No and Oh Mark Knopfler Yes.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject