Stolen meme again
Feb. 26th, 2012 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terajk This one stolen from rhivolution:
Is there anything you've always wanted to ask me? About my life, my views of the universe, my writing, anything?
Go ahead!
rhivolution:Go ahead!
terajkterajk
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I bet you're about to be sorry you let me ask anything
Date: 2012-02-27 03:00 am (UTC)Do you cook? What do you cook?
Who's your favorite character to write?
What's your favorite fandom, people-wise?
Is there a fandom/fic/article of clothing/etc. you really kind of hate but can't leave alone?
Is Soul Eater really that good?
How much are you looking forward to Korra?
Not sorry at all!
Date: 2012-02-27 05:18 am (UTC)I cook some! (I got lazy and stopped--I should start up again.) I like cooking soups. My mom's favorite soup I make is miso soup with udon noodles, based off this recipe. Instead of dashi I use vegetable broth (I couldn't find any dashi), and then I throw mixed vegetables in it. Also shrimp.
Who's your favorite character to write?
Ryoga, I think. He's pretty open about a big chunk of his feelings, and also I don't have to put my neurotypical hat on and think real hard about directional words. (Although I still spend a while agonizing over some spatial concept before remembering whose POV I'm writing from.)
What's your favorite fandom, people-wise?
AtLA is the fandom where I know the most people, and they are ALL AWESOME.
Is there a fandom/fic/article of clothing/etc. you really kind of hate but can't leave alone?
I wish I had a good answer for this question. There are things I genuinely like but am kind of embarrassed about liking. In college I wanted my mom to take me to Pokémon 4Ever; half my DVDs aren't suitable for human consumption. And I think I love all characters with disabilities everywhere, no matter how badly their canon treats them.
Is Soul Eater really that good?
It's a combination of Harry Potter, The Nightmare Before Christmas and CTHULHU MYTHOS! There are friendly eldritch abominations who have tea with people/invite them to parties at their awesome mansion instead of eating them! Mad gods (see: Cthulhu Mythos) whose disabilities are taken seriously and who are AWESOME, even if one of them is the Big Bad. Disabled humans who are AWESOME, even if one of them tries to dissect people now and then (he's
Snapeon the side of goodness, though)! Badass piano-playing! Excalibur is actually a supernaturally obnoxious jerk who enrages everyone it meets, and King Arthur is a hero because he could tolerate the thing! (I LOVE EXCALIBUR, IT IS HILARIOUS) Body horror! Blair the awesome cat who turns into a person! (I will find a way for you to be a service cat, Blair-chan, even though you live with two of the few non-disabled people in the cast.) There's someone who doesn't have a gender (I don't think zie's supposed to be genderqueer, although I want all the fic where zie is), although translations and the fandom tend to give zir one. *eyeroll**Ahem.* I doubt it's Gold Rush 21 good, though, as there are problematic things in it. One of the disability jokes I was like, "Oh, Atsushi Ōkubo, couldn't you have done that differently?" And other things. BUT I LOVE IT.
In conclusion:
(Excaliburrrrrrr!)
And also:
(One of my favorite disability jokes in the series.)
How much are you looking forward to Korra?
THIIIIIIS MUUUUUUUUCH. (Korra is so badass. I can't wait to see her interact with Chief Bei Fong.)
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Date: 2012-02-27 06:53 pm (UTC)/I'm totally tripping it and would like to discuss Zoro, Brook and others with you but I don'twannaspoil/
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Date: 2012-02-27 07:01 pm (UTC)I don't mind spoilers at all and would love discussing Zoro--though I don't know how helpful I'd be :D
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Date: 2012-02-27 08:05 pm (UTC)But in general, I find that there appears to be intriguing things about how One Piece deals with various mental variations. Among the Strawhats, Zoro, Brook and argueably Luffy are the ones I'd peg as "most likely to be found not neurotypical in 'our' world" - Luffy is tricky because he's got some really well-hidden depths and is super hard to read - and I think it's so interesting that it's depicted in quite differnt ways! (There are probably plenty of side-characters too that one can discuss, but One Piece 'suffers' from MASSIVE CHARACTER OVERLOAD and one would have to read it with a Excel sheet or twelve open to make notes, lol)
I was first brought onto the issue from TVtropes, of all places, since they point out that several of Zoros attacks and attributes are (beside being sushi puns) symbolically connected to "insanity", as well as Buddhist deitys and demons. Extra odd since he's an atheist.
Plus the whole happy self-mutilation for the sake of victory/honor thing he has going on a couple of times (you thought the Mihawk fight was a one-time only brave stand, think again ;) make a lot of people consider Zoro a bit
This clip from an anime special is pretty spot-on about Zoro's approach to problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC8T1i3inHs
And yet, he's undoubtedly a good guy. Not only does he repeatedly save people and show loads of loyalty, Luffy whom appears able to "read people's hearts" pegs him as that right at the start. And then he just goes on proving it
Brook is one of those characters only Oda can pull off: Really weird character design (he's the tall skeleton seen in later group pics), strange speech patterns nearing tics, and an Incredibly Amazingly Touching Backstory which is if anything made more touching by his character design. (Btw, I hope I don't say anything insulting here, if I do please just bop me; my field is lit science and I have a hard time looking away from 'these are written characters omg what effect does X have and was Y side-effect intended?')
And he's clearly hallucinating and losing contact with reality due to extreme isolation for a while. He's also a swordsman, a very good and dangerous one, but he is depicted as one of the most gentle, life-positive characters in the story. He knows the value of life, rarely loses his temper and finds great joy in music and beauty. Zoro's polar opposite, in other words.
I just find it interesting that something like One Piece, which is technically aimed at young boys, manages to squeeze not only so much emotion, depth, politics and sheer staggering plot-perfection into the story, but also has a greater width of mental variation compared to loads of 'Great Works' aimed at adults =)
Sorry for the extreme tl;dr *hangs head* And for saying so little about Zoro's directional issues. But they're kind of hilarious. Compared to Ryoga, btw, Zoro does not acknoweldge them at all. Everyone else gets lets, the keep moving stuff etc but he getting lost? Never. Otoh, he does seem fine with acknowledging that his personal, uhm, ethos (honor and death before retreat, for instance) is not what the mainstream considers sane. Another thing I find interesting
Yeah. Uhm. Shutting up now.
Don't be sorry!
Date: 2012-02-29 01:55 am (UTC)From the "little" (ha!) I've read, there seems like a LOT of disability-relevant stuff in One Piece. Most of Oda's characters have non-standard body types, more so than in most manga/anime/Western cartoons I've seen. Also, there are lots of characters with traits that are especially disabling in a culture where sailing is important--all the Devil Fruit users who can't swim, Zoro's inability to understand cardinal directions, Luffy's inability to understand that sea navigation takes you where you want to go--and they're all pirates anyway.
At one point, Luffy's fighting some miniboss and takes Zoro's swords. Luffy says something like: "I can't use swords [like Zoro]! I can't navigate [like Nami]! I can't tell a lie [like Usopp]! That's why I have my crew!" So there's a theme of interdependence, too--which is not exclusive to disability at all, but ties into it. Especially when you consider all the other stuff.
Re: Don't be sorry!
Date: 2012-03-03 03:31 pm (UTC)Yes, for one, he's created a world where there is much larger variation in body size than in our. I read somewhere that he's basically stated that there are (among the humans) both "normal" sized people, giants (who also come in various sizes) and "big people". Brook for instance counts as one of those, considering that he's +260 cm tall (Google tells me that's 8,7 feet) and he's not a giant. Plus his character design means people can look just about any which way you can
'timagine ^_^ And then there's the humans with wings, the peoples with an extra arm-joint and the Fishmen...Unfortunately, the body-variation is also one area where I feel his biggest fail comes in: crossdressing/transvestitism and "homosexual" characters. It's a bit hard to pinpoint anyone's sexuality in One Piece, since most don't have/show one (Oda doesn't want romance).
But he's driving the point hard that men in drag/genderqueer/trans* characters (1) are there for comedy :/ The overwhelming majority don't have character designs that fan latch on as pretty or sexy and are called ugly in-universy (usually by Sanji too, whom I really wish could get over his problems with women and men-not-fitting-his-ideal-of-masculinity argh).
On the other hand, there are several such characters, some have great personal depth and many are shown as being powerful warriors. So, while there is absolutely sexism, "lol guys in drag are hideous"-jokes and very sensible arguments made about transphobia in One Piece, it's more multi-faceted than most shonen manga *winces* Which is really, really sad
there are lots of characters with traits that are especially disabling in a culture where sailing is important
Oh yes! And there's several parts that deal with in-world prejudice. Outside of the Grand Line, and even sometimes inside it, the people with Devil Fruit's are considered cursed/monstruous and are often outcasts or feared. For most of them, it appears as if a life as a pirate or among the Marines is one of the only opportunities of belonging somewhere. Which of course brings them in constant contact with their greatest weakness, the sea.
So there's a theme of interdependence, too--which is not exclusive to disability at all, but ties into it
Absolutely! And Oda uses this in a great way. Very consistently too, especially once you start looking at the villains! There's a kind of sliding-scale-of-evil, where the people who don't care for their own crew are usually the lowest of the low, it's really great :)
(1) [Just a footnote on that: I think there are arguments to be made that certain characters do drag, while others are trans* and there is at least one character that is intersex and id's as genderqueer (unless the scanlation completely messed things up)]