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exhilarationSo, I, ah, wrote a story yesterday and today. It's not 50,000 words, though, so I guess I can't call it my NaNo story, unless I want to keep writing new parts to it. We'll see.
I did watch the last to episodes of "Life On Mars" and I have to say, it didn't end the way I expected it to. Generally television shows don't end with suicide of the main character... do they? I mean, unless it's different in the UK or something. Is it? I would have liked to watch this series "actively," you know, as it was shown each week, and reacted to it right along with everyone else who had seen it for the first time. Instead, I've been avoiding anything anyone has to say about it, because I heard the series was so, oh, intellectual and I wanted to form my own theories first. And here they are:
I don't think he really killed himself at the end. And it's not just because I have trouble with a TV series ending in suicide - I'm not convinced he really woke up from the coma in the first place. The most compelling piece of evidence I have for that is that I want to know where everyone was! DCI Sam Tyler finally woke up from the coma he was in, so... where is everyone? Welcoming him back? Saying they're so happy he's okay? That was kind of glossed over... did it happen at all?
The "past" must have been the "afterlife," only he wasn't dead completely (since he was in a coma) and that's why things from the hospital were kind of bleeding through to him, on various communication devices. When he jumped, he must have died, which is why he ended up back in 1973 only without any further communication from his real life.
There are so many people who say they have experienced this elaborate afterlife when they've "died" and been revived, even if they've only been gone a few seconds, or a few minutes. However long it must take the brain to die - that's really eternity, isn't it? Because after it ends, there isn't anything.
I've read the description for the spinoff series, which says that Sam Tyler's file lists him as a suicide. I'm not really sure how to reconcile that with my interpretation of the final episode - maybe I'm right, and they were never intending to continue it at all, but then they changed their minds? I don't know. All the time after he "woke up" just didn't seem real to me as a viewer. It seemed kind of fabricated and lacking in detail - but then again, maybe that was the point. The amount of detail in 1973 was supposed to be evidence to Sam that it was "real" so if he didn't see his own life as real then I guess in his mind it wasn't really suicide.
Suicide is a very difficult subject I'm sure for a lot of people, me included, which is why I think I'm trying so hard to convince myself that's not really how the series ended.
Somehow I got on a little mini-Inuyasha kick - I think because the story I wrote was set in the late nineties-early millennium, so I was trying to think of what kind of stuff was on my mind around then. Well, there was Inuyasha, wasn't there? Before it was a TV show, it was a picture book, being scanlated and transcribed over the internet. Believe me, I've had my head in Inuyasha from the very beginning. I remember when the TV show first aired in Japan how I was so excited to watch a download that I had trouble restraining myself from just watching it unsubbed since I didn't want to wait any longer than I had to. Um, I speak no Japanese. From watching anime I've learned such words as "wait" and "may I?" and "stupid" and "school" and oh, brother and sister and mother and father and cat and dog and (obviously, from Inuyasha) demon and wind scar and stuff, and (obviously, from FMA) alchemy and equivalent trade. But that doesn't count, and it does no good when trying to watch a TV show anyway.
So anyway, I watched a couple of my fav episodes on youtube, at first forgetting to search for the subs and watching the first one dubbed and being like, huh, Kagome is a little more annoying than I remember her! Then I was like, doh! That was one of my main issues with the dub in the first place! Then I searched for the subs and was like, ahhhh, that's more like it! That's what they really sound like!
I'm not totally opposed to dubs, I'm really not, but I think it goes back to whatever version I saw first of a series is always going to be the "real" way in my own head. Ah, also, in the sub, when Sesshomaru first spoke I was like, "bwa? Hohenheim?" Which just goes to show how NOT into Inuyasha I've been these past few years. Cause when I first saw Hohenheim in FMA I was like, "What! Sesshomaru! What are you doing here?"
I really like Kagome as a character; I always have, and I really feel like the dub does not do her justice. In Japanese, she is naive, and it's endearing. She says things and does things that only a fifteen year old schoolgirl can do and not be completely cheesy and contrived, and it works. In English, she's cheesy and contrived, and her character just doesn't have the same amount of depth. To me, of course. This is just the way I perceive the voice acting, that is.
I also watched one of the Inuyasha movies that I've never seen. "Love That Transcends Time," it was called, and I re-noticed something I'm sure I've noticed and commented on plenty of times before. The magic of monsters and demons, or explosions caused by monsters or demons, often resembles a nuclear bomb. Blinding wash of white light that vaporizes everything in its path and huge mushroom clouds of dust when things are destroyed. It just kind of re-affirms that this is art and entertainment that comes from a completely different culture than my own. This is fiction and fantasy that comes out of a country that had two of its major cities completely annihilated by a terrifying nuclear weapon. And it's not just Inuyasha that I've seen this in - I could name everything, but I think it's present in enough anime shows that I don't need to list only the ones I can come up with.
I mentioned this once to somebody - I met a girl once who was working on her doctorate and she told me she was taking a class in Asian weapons and warfare, or something like that, and wanted to take another class on the same topic, and this is the first thing that popped in my head that was relevant - how nuclear blast-like images pop up in anime all the time. I think she thought I was a total moron because she was just like, "yeah, I don't watch anime. Ever." Um, that's fine. I was just mentioning the impact WWII had on the arts and entertainment culture.
I also had this idea that I'd try to find this Inuyasha fanfic I read a few years ago on ff.net. I remembered finding it kind of immature (not a surprise in that fandom) but oddly compelling, well paced, and unfinished. Maybe, just maybe, the author had actually finished the fic? And maybe I could actually track it down again? Well, I found it. I found it by searching ff.net for M rated stories greater than 40,000 words, because those were the specifications I remembered searching before. And there it was. On page four, or something. Clear description - that was definitely the fic.
And when I started to read it, I was like, oh geez, this is ridiculous, why was I ever reading this? We have Kagome acting totally OOC, Inuyasha experiencing the dreaded sugar high, Kikyou turned into the evil bitch - but again, it was well paced. Well written, I think, mostly. Seemed like a lot of thought went into the plot, the characterization (even though it was AU so all the characters were... out of character, because they had to be, because the situations were different) and ah! Well the way she wrote Sesshomaru wasn't OOC at all, it was downright dead on and hilarious at the same time. Maybe that's what had me hooked on the fic in the first place?
Anyway, she's been working on it for three years now (still not finished) but as I read past where it had stopped, oh, two years ago, all the OOC-ness became believably explained, and the plot brought the characters back to how they were characterized in the series itself, and it was... adorable. I thoroughly approved. Really, I should write her a review, rather than rambling on about her in my lj, but really what I want to say is that when I read a lot of fanfic from one author, it gets me really curious about them. How old are they? Male or female? How much of their own life and experience goes into their work and how much is diligent research?
I feel like I read this girls transition from writing her favorite characters going to high school and getting on sugar highs to writing real emotions and real plot points. If the fic hadn't spanned three years I might have seen it differently - I might have seen it as a deliberate device or something. But on her profile it said she was seventeen, so... yeah, those first fifteen chapters I read and liked so much were written by a fourteen/fifteen year old. Three years makes a big difference at that age. Doesn't it?
When I write stuff I get really involved in it. I kind of pour out everything I've got. All my experiences. All my knowledge. All my dreams and desires and so on. Of course it's all fiction - of course I'm not writing my autobiography or something. To a stranger, it would just be a story, and that's fine. But I hesitate to show anything I write to anyone I know in real life, because I feel like it gives them a view a little deeper into who I am than I'd like them to have. It's like I'm afraid of anyone making any connections between a story and my real emotions/experiences/opinions. I wouldn't let people I know read my diary, if I kept one. And that's kind of the same way I feel about stories. It's just too personal.
Today has been a weird day. It's been a weird couple of days. No, it's been a weird week. Well, really, it's been a weird month.
Or maybe it's just been a weird day. Maybe I've had so much time to myself and absolutely no contact with anyone else (except Erica yesterday morning) that it's given me this odd perspective of myself and my life. But after I dragged myself out of Inuyasha-world, I kind of looked through my journal and was like, WHAT? Really, I went on a blind date? Really, I went to a wedding as someone's date? Really, I just put all that personal stuff ON THE INTERNET? Really, the Phillies won the world series? Really, Barack Obama is going to be the new president? Really, I got all cranky because I couldn't vote? Really? Really I'm stuck in the house doing nothing because I fell and my knees are swollen? Really?
Yes, apparently. Yes really.
I did watch the last to episodes of "Life On Mars" and I have to say, it didn't end the way I expected it to. Generally television shows don't end with suicide of the main character... do they? I mean, unless it's different in the UK or something. Is it? I would have liked to watch this series "actively," you know, as it was shown each week, and reacted to it right along with everyone else who had seen it for the first time. Instead, I've been avoiding anything anyone has to say about it, because I heard the series was so, oh, intellectual and I wanted to form my own theories first. And here they are:
I don't think he really killed himself at the end. And it's not just because I have trouble with a TV series ending in suicide - I'm not convinced he really woke up from the coma in the first place. The most compelling piece of evidence I have for that is that I want to know where everyone was! DCI Sam Tyler finally woke up from the coma he was in, so... where is everyone? Welcoming him back? Saying they're so happy he's okay? That was kind of glossed over... did it happen at all?
The "past" must have been the "afterlife," only he wasn't dead completely (since he was in a coma) and that's why things from the hospital were kind of bleeding through to him, on various communication devices. When he jumped, he must have died, which is why he ended up back in 1973 only without any further communication from his real life.
There are so many people who say they have experienced this elaborate afterlife when they've "died" and been revived, even if they've only been gone a few seconds, or a few minutes. However long it must take the brain to die - that's really eternity, isn't it? Because after it ends, there isn't anything.
I've read the description for the spinoff series, which says that Sam Tyler's file lists him as a suicide. I'm not really sure how to reconcile that with my interpretation of the final episode - maybe I'm right, and they were never intending to continue it at all, but then they changed their minds? I don't know. All the time after he "woke up" just didn't seem real to me as a viewer. It seemed kind of fabricated and lacking in detail - but then again, maybe that was the point. The amount of detail in 1973 was supposed to be evidence to Sam that it was "real" so if he didn't see his own life as real then I guess in his mind it wasn't really suicide.
Suicide is a very difficult subject I'm sure for a lot of people, me included, which is why I think I'm trying so hard to convince myself that's not really how the series ended.
Somehow I got on a little mini-Inuyasha kick - I think because the story I wrote was set in the late nineties-early millennium, so I was trying to think of what kind of stuff was on my mind around then. Well, there was Inuyasha, wasn't there? Before it was a TV show, it was a picture book, being scanlated and transcribed over the internet. Believe me, I've had my head in Inuyasha from the very beginning. I remember when the TV show first aired in Japan how I was so excited to watch a download that I had trouble restraining myself from just watching it unsubbed since I didn't want to wait any longer than I had to. Um, I speak no Japanese. From watching anime I've learned such words as "wait" and "may I?" and "stupid" and "school" and oh, brother and sister and mother and father and cat and dog and (obviously, from Inuyasha) demon and wind scar and stuff, and (obviously, from FMA) alchemy and equivalent trade. But that doesn't count, and it does no good when trying to watch a TV show anyway.
So anyway, I watched a couple of my fav episodes on youtube, at first forgetting to search for the subs and watching the first one dubbed and being like, huh, Kagome is a little more annoying than I remember her! Then I was like, doh! That was one of my main issues with the dub in the first place! Then I searched for the subs and was like, ahhhh, that's more like it! That's what they really sound like!
I'm not totally opposed to dubs, I'm really not, but I think it goes back to whatever version I saw first of a series is always going to be the "real" way in my own head. Ah, also, in the sub, when Sesshomaru first spoke I was like, "bwa? Hohenheim?" Which just goes to show how NOT into Inuyasha I've been these past few years. Cause when I first saw Hohenheim in FMA I was like, "What! Sesshomaru! What are you doing here?"
I really like Kagome as a character; I always have, and I really feel like the dub does not do her justice. In Japanese, she is naive, and it's endearing. She says things and does things that only a fifteen year old schoolgirl can do and not be completely cheesy and contrived, and it works. In English, she's cheesy and contrived, and her character just doesn't have the same amount of depth. To me, of course. This is just the way I perceive the voice acting, that is.
I also watched one of the Inuyasha movies that I've never seen. "Love That Transcends Time," it was called, and I re-noticed something I'm sure I've noticed and commented on plenty of times before. The magic of monsters and demons, or explosions caused by monsters or demons, often resembles a nuclear bomb. Blinding wash of white light that vaporizes everything in its path and huge mushroom clouds of dust when things are destroyed. It just kind of re-affirms that this is art and entertainment that comes from a completely different culture than my own. This is fiction and fantasy that comes out of a country that had two of its major cities completely annihilated by a terrifying nuclear weapon. And it's not just Inuyasha that I've seen this in - I could name everything, but I think it's present in enough anime shows that I don't need to list only the ones I can come up with.
I mentioned this once to somebody - I met a girl once who was working on her doctorate and she told me she was taking a class in Asian weapons and warfare, or something like that, and wanted to take another class on the same topic, and this is the first thing that popped in my head that was relevant - how nuclear blast-like images pop up in anime all the time. I think she thought I was a total moron because she was just like, "yeah, I don't watch anime. Ever." Um, that's fine. I was just mentioning the impact WWII had on the arts and entertainment culture.
I also had this idea that I'd try to find this Inuyasha fanfic I read a few years ago on ff.net. I remembered finding it kind of immature (not a surprise in that fandom) but oddly compelling, well paced, and unfinished. Maybe, just maybe, the author had actually finished the fic? And maybe I could actually track it down again? Well, I found it. I found it by searching ff.net for M rated stories greater than 40,000 words, because those were the specifications I remembered searching before. And there it was. On page four, or something. Clear description - that was definitely the fic.
And when I started to read it, I was like, oh geez, this is ridiculous, why was I ever reading this? We have Kagome acting totally OOC, Inuyasha experiencing the dreaded sugar high, Kikyou turned into the evil bitch - but again, it was well paced. Well written, I think, mostly. Seemed like a lot of thought went into the plot, the characterization (even though it was AU so all the characters were... out of character, because they had to be, because the situations were different) and ah! Well the way she wrote Sesshomaru wasn't OOC at all, it was downright dead on and hilarious at the same time. Maybe that's what had me hooked on the fic in the first place?
Anyway, she's been working on it for three years now (still not finished) but as I read past where it had stopped, oh, two years ago, all the OOC-ness became believably explained, and the plot brought the characters back to how they were characterized in the series itself, and it was... adorable. I thoroughly approved. Really, I should write her a review, rather than rambling on about her in my lj, but really what I want to say is that when I read a lot of fanfic from one author, it gets me really curious about them. How old are they? Male or female? How much of their own life and experience goes into their work and how much is diligent research?
I feel like I read this girls transition from writing her favorite characters going to high school and getting on sugar highs to writing real emotions and real plot points. If the fic hadn't spanned three years I might have seen it differently - I might have seen it as a deliberate device or something. But on her profile it said she was seventeen, so... yeah, those first fifteen chapters I read and liked so much were written by a fourteen/fifteen year old. Three years makes a big difference at that age. Doesn't it?
When I write stuff I get really involved in it. I kind of pour out everything I've got. All my experiences. All my knowledge. All my dreams and desires and so on. Of course it's all fiction - of course I'm not writing my autobiography or something. To a stranger, it would just be a story, and that's fine. But I hesitate to show anything I write to anyone I know in real life, because I feel like it gives them a view a little deeper into who I am than I'd like them to have. It's like I'm afraid of anyone making any connections between a story and my real emotions/experiences/opinions. I wouldn't let people I know read my diary, if I kept one. And that's kind of the same way I feel about stories. It's just too personal.
Today has been a weird day. It's been a weird couple of days. No, it's been a weird week. Well, really, it's been a weird month.
Or maybe it's just been a weird day. Maybe I've had so much time to myself and absolutely no contact with anyone else (except Erica yesterday morning) that it's given me this odd perspective of myself and my life. But after I dragged myself out of Inuyasha-world, I kind of looked through my journal and was like, WHAT? Really, I went on a blind date? Really, I went to a wedding as someone's date? Really, I just put all that personal stuff ON THE INTERNET? Really, the Phillies won the world series? Really, Barack Obama is going to be the new president? Really, I got all cranky because I couldn't vote? Really? Really I'm stuck in the house doing nothing because I fell and my knees are swollen? Really?
Yes, apparently. Yes really.
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Date: 2008-11-09 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 02:24 pm (UTC)