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petroniaFeeding on jasmine tea and nori rice crackers, white chocolate cookies, good schtuff like that. Not sleepy. Funny how that extra 30 minutes makes a difference, doesn't it?
Eyes still kind of busted, though.
GB: up to volume 13. Ban with the gel washed out of his hair makes me pointillate eloquently. He looks... he looks like a willowy purple-eyed bishounen. And like he wouldn't get expelled if he went to school. So very odd. And the more I think about it, the more he really is like Ash from Banana Fish. Seriously, how many other characters can you think of who're like, "I'm a rude scruffy bad-boy street hustler, but I also have an IQ of 195, play classical violin and know what all the little forks in a twelve-course dinner setting are for"? It's not exactly a shounen manga stereotype, or at any rate not convincingly so.
I promised to say something about Himiko. By this point I'm not quite sure where to start. Um... how about, she can consciously produce pheromones to render all men within a ten-foot radius her docile and mindless slaves, thus making her officially THE COOLEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD? >:D Is the fandom divvied up into Ban/Ginji and Ban/Himiko supporters, or what? Because I'd rather not navigate that minefield. For one, they're not much different, if only because the set of conditions under which Ban would allow himself to contract emotional ties of any kind is fairly narrow. With Ginji it's because Ginji is constitutionally incapable of conscious betrayal, trusts Ban to a fault and essentially abdicates his mental processes when Ban is around. With Himiko it's because he did her wrong and wants to make up for it; she's not asking for anything he'd be unwilling to give (and incidentally has no idea what really happened between Ban and her brother, but neither do I at this point). In both cases Ban has the emotional upper hand, and most of the literal knowledge too. He didn't consciously put himself there, but there is where he feels safe. He wouldn't feel otherwise, period. Shido loves first, and is incapable of controlling either the love or the consequences thereof, but Shido has the proverbial breast of the savage beast, and Ban only pretends to run on instinct. He's paranoid, our Ban-chan, except - as my friend Justin always says - it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you, and everyone's out to get Ban all of the time, so call his control issues the inevitable result of being as smart as he is and leading the life he's led.
The text, therefore, presents what is essentially an older-sibling to younger-sibling dynamic. The subtext is troublesome, because a brother-sister relationship between two people who aren't actually siblings... well. Take Ban and Hevn; it's an oneesan-otouto relationship, really, except it expresses itself in sexually-charged exchanges (much to Hevn's disgruntlement). You could say that if push ever came to shove, Ban wouldn't seriously consider sleeping with Hevn. You could also say that he would. (I would not advise writing Ayamine-sensei to ask his opinion.) Ban wouldn't and doesn't grope Himiko, not so much because she'd be obliged to reduce him to ashes on principle but because she's like his little sister. Except that's not any less ambiguous, is it?
...The point of the yaoi glasses of fangirl lore is to get rid of genderised conventions that should probably never be there in the first place. So now you can repeat that last paragraph with Ginji as the little brother.
There's no real point. Frankly one's justified in writing anything one likes, that's the beauty of this particular series. XD I suspect I won't write Ban/Himiko, not because I think it's less likely, but because I don't like her to be in that subordinate position. She doesn't have a Raitei to even things up, and that's without taking into account the fact that Ginji's conscious dependency on Ban is a gigantic effing issue, so. I'm halfway through tankoubon thirteen, things could change between the three of them, and frankly I'd be disappointed if they didn't.
Incidentally, if any canonical pairings develop in this thing besides Shido/Madoka, now would be a good time to tell me about it. Keep me from making a fool of myself and wasting my time, as it were. XD
Eyes still kind of busted, though.
GB: up to volume 13. Ban with the gel washed out of his hair makes me pointillate eloquently. He looks... he looks like a willowy purple-eyed bishounen. And like he wouldn't get expelled if he went to school. So very odd. And the more I think about it, the more he really is like Ash from Banana Fish. Seriously, how many other characters can you think of who're like, "I'm a rude scruffy bad-boy street hustler, but I also have an IQ of 195, play classical violin and know what all the little forks in a twelve-course dinner setting are for"? It's not exactly a shounen manga stereotype, or at any rate not convincingly so.
I promised to say something about Himiko. By this point I'm not quite sure where to start. Um... how about, she can consciously produce pheromones to render all men within a ten-foot radius her docile and mindless slaves, thus making her officially THE COOLEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD? >:D Is the fandom divvied up into Ban/Ginji and Ban/Himiko supporters, or what? Because I'd rather not navigate that minefield. For one, they're not much different, if only because the set of conditions under which Ban would allow himself to contract emotional ties of any kind is fairly narrow. With Ginji it's because Ginji is constitutionally incapable of conscious betrayal, trusts Ban to a fault and essentially abdicates his mental processes when Ban is around. With Himiko it's because he did her wrong and wants to make up for it; she's not asking for anything he'd be unwilling to give (and incidentally has no idea what really happened between Ban and her brother, but neither do I at this point). In both cases Ban has the emotional upper hand, and most of the literal knowledge too. He didn't consciously put himself there, but there is where he feels safe. He wouldn't feel otherwise, period. Shido loves first, and is incapable of controlling either the love or the consequences thereof, but Shido has the proverbial breast of the savage beast, and Ban only pretends to run on instinct. He's paranoid, our Ban-chan, except - as my friend Justin always says - it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you, and everyone's out to get Ban all of the time, so call his control issues the inevitable result of being as smart as he is and leading the life he's led.
The text, therefore, presents what is essentially an older-sibling to younger-sibling dynamic. The subtext is troublesome, because a brother-sister relationship between two people who aren't actually siblings... well. Take Ban and Hevn; it's an oneesan-otouto relationship, really, except it expresses itself in sexually-charged exchanges (much to Hevn's disgruntlement). You could say that if push ever came to shove, Ban wouldn't seriously consider sleeping with Hevn. You could also say that he would. (I would not advise writing Ayamine-sensei to ask his opinion.) Ban wouldn't and doesn't grope Himiko, not so much because she'd be obliged to reduce him to ashes on principle but because she's like his little sister. Except that's not any less ambiguous, is it?
...The point of the yaoi glasses of fangirl lore is to get rid of genderised conventions that should probably never be there in the first place. So now you can repeat that last paragraph with Ginji as the little brother.
There's no real point. Frankly one's justified in writing anything one likes, that's the beauty of this particular series. XD I suspect I won't write Ban/Himiko, not because I think it's less likely, but because I don't like her to be in that subordinate position. She doesn't have a Raitei to even things up, and that's without taking into account the fact that Ginji's conscious dependency on Ban is a gigantic effing issue, so. I'm halfway through tankoubon thirteen, things could change between the three of them, and frankly I'd be disappointed if they didn't.
Incidentally, if any canonical pairings develop in this thing besides Shido/Madoka, now would be a good time to tell me about it. Keep me from making a fool of myself and wasting my time, as it were. XD
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I'm going to regret actually posting this, I know it.
Date: 2003-08-04 09:14 am (UTC)I've had enough of scheming
And messing around with jerks
My car is parked outside
I'm afraid it doesn't work
I'm looking for a partner
Someone who gets things fixed
Ask yourself this question
Do you want to be rich?
I've got the brains
You've got the looks
Let's make lots of money!
(Someone kill me now. Please.)
Re: I'm going to regret actually posting this, I know it.
Date: 2003-08-04 09:27 am (UTC)oh, right, i was leaving for work. "o_o" /me runs off