![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockAm I staying up all night to watch PT and knit? Yes. And yes, I knit now! I started tonight. I'm making a purple scarf. It's great. I can't purle though, the book's explanation just confuses me.
Disc 1
I had forgotten the actual degree of abrupt little asshole Fakir was in the first episodes. I mean, really. He's quite the nasty bitch.
I'm "eh" about Mytho's dub VA; he's alright for the soft-spoken stuff, a little jarring for the louder stuff. Ahiru/Duck's dub VA is quite talented; some of those lines must be murder on your throat. Rue's English voice is lovely and Fakir's is positively splendid. I still wish they had used his actor for Sasuke in the Naruto dub.
I'd forgotten how often, in these first episodes, they repeat the line that the princess is fated never to be with the one she loves. Ahiru says it about five or six times, Drosselmeyer says it twice that often, and even Rue repeats it once. I know how that dialogue reads in the beginning of the show, but having seen the end and knowing how the cards fall... that prediction takes on new tragic meaning, as does Drosselmeyer's fanatic insistence that the audience "never forget that Ahiru, as her true self, is a duck." It's something the audience and Ahiru forget over the course of the series... we start to see her as a girl who turns into a duck, not a duck that turns into a girl. That change in perception (or misperception) correlates with the fact that as the series progresses, Ahiru begins to operate as if it were that way, particularly in her relationships with the other characters. It reminds me so much of The Last Unicorn, as Ahiru is forever changed by being human, and what her true identity is begins to blur as she becomes more than what she was. The transformative aspect of this series is beautiful. The first half of the series we discover who these characters are as pieces of them are revealed... the second half of the series takes those newly-revealed characters and this time transforms them.
Disc 1
I had forgotten the actual degree of abrupt little asshole Fakir was in the first episodes. I mean, really. He's quite the nasty bitch.
I'm "eh" about Mytho's dub VA; he's alright for the soft-spoken stuff, a little jarring for the louder stuff. Ahiru/Duck's dub VA is quite talented; some of those lines must be murder on your throat. Rue's English voice is lovely and Fakir's is positively splendid. I still wish they had used his actor for Sasuke in the Naruto dub.
I'd forgotten how often, in these first episodes, they repeat the line that the princess is fated never to be with the one she loves. Ahiru says it about five or six times, Drosselmeyer says it twice that often, and even Rue repeats it once. I know how that dialogue reads in the beginning of the show, but having seen the end and knowing how the cards fall... that prediction takes on new tragic meaning, as does Drosselmeyer's fanatic insistence that the audience "never forget that Ahiru, as her true self, is a duck." It's something the audience and Ahiru forget over the course of the series... we start to see her as a girl who turns into a duck, not a duck that turns into a girl. That change in perception (or misperception) correlates with the fact that as the series progresses, Ahiru begins to operate as if it were that way, particularly in her relationships with the other characters. It reminds me so much of The Last Unicorn, as Ahiru is forever changed by being human, and what her true identity is begins to blur as she becomes more than what she was. The transformative aspect of this series is beautiful. The first half of the series we discover who these characters are as pieces of them are revealed... the second half of the series takes those newly-revealed characters and this time transforms them.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 05:20 pm (UTC)If you need help visualizing stitches and stuff, check out knittinghelp.com - they have VIDEOS! I heart them.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-22 06:14 am (UTC)I'd forgotten all about that as well; you're right when you point out that, along with Ahiru, the audience was totally hookwinked. She might not have become the duck Drosselmeyer had intended her to be, but she was a duck nonetheless. Now that you bring up the phrase, I'm also beginning to wonder if there was an emphasis on their roles as characters through repetition since that of Princess Tutu's "destiny" isn't the only case. There was the repetition of Fakir's total inability to protect Mytho and his uselessness as a knight, and as for Mytho himself, the fate of the forever heartless prince. It was Drosselmeyer constantly reminding them of their story roles, as if we could've guessed beforehand that the characters themselves would forget. I can't seem to recall any repeated lines for Rue, though.
*runs off to rewatch PT, whoo*
SPOILERS LIKE WHOA SPOILERS!
Date: 2008-01-22 07:44 am (UTC)There was also quite a lot of repetition of the fact that the prince in the storybook is the only one capable of loving her truly and wholly, as well as the fact that she loves the prince. What one of the cast members pointed out in the last commentary, and that I was glad to hear, was that Ahiru's love for Mytho and Rue's love were very different. Rue's love was much more passionate... Ahiru never wanted to own Mytho, never had that total obsession. Ahiru's love was a pure, idyllic, almost courtly love. Actually... very much like courtly love. Which is better? Hard to say. But we know in the end, it was Rue's love that broke the curse. I think Ahiru truly loved Mytho, but while it was sincere, it wasn't the kind of love that breaks curses or pulls people back from the void. ::coughFakircoughtreecough:: The show seemed to me to make an interesting statement with that: for all that fairy tales are about simple, idealized romance, in the end the love that won the day was the carnal, dark, possessive love. This intense, almost scary love ended up being redeeming for both characters. It wasn't pretty, and it left scars, but it led them to a kind of happiness, and it allowed the story to end. Ahiru may have given Mytho back his heart, but Rue already had a downpayment on it.
I think the part about the princess tutu not being with the one she loves ended up being twice-tragic. In one sense, because she and the audience eventually had to admit and accept that her love wasn't meant to free Mytho and she wasn't meant to be with him. That prediction was true. But its doubly sad because she lets Fakir into her heart (she never says she loves him, but she's always going back to how he makes her a stronger and better person, and its evident in all her actions that she cares for him deeply, and knows him far better than she ever got to know Mytho), but she doesn't get to be with him, either. Not in the romantic sense. It's one of the things about the show that broke my heart. I can always imagine he'll write her back into being a girl, and the series hints that their story is "beginning" not ending, but I'll never get the satisfaction of seeing it on screen. Which is appropriate, of course, but still... it hurts. The story hurts!
Re: SPOILERS LIKE WHOA SPOILERS!
Date: 2008-01-28 04:21 am (UTC)Ahh, that's a funny way to put it! *laughing* But it's quite right. I just wish I knew Mytho's take on this; and on the topic of Drosselmeyer and The Real Creators vocalizing their intentions, I don't think they ever once said that Mytho returned Ahiru's love, despite appearances. I thought this was confirmed, stamped, and sealed with wax when she turned out to represent hope for him and not love, and even more so when it turns out Ahiru represented hope for everyone and the entire series, with the exception of Fakir. It turns out that, from the very start, Ahiru was never meant for Mytho, with or without Drosselmeyer's help. After all, true romantic love - the cutting, absolute one you describe - is nothing if not exclusive.
The story hurts!
It does, it does! And it's not that the creator ran out of ideas, either. In an interview, she is asked what she'd focus on if she ever created a sequel or spinoff, and she answers without hesitation that she'd build one around Ahiru and Fakir and what happens to them after the story finished. But she admits, of course, that she can't do any of this without funds from the DVD sales. WHICH IS WHY I WILL BUY THE SET, I WILL! But you can imagine how hopeful that statement made me - "she has more, there's a chance she'll come out with more! And it'll be all about Fakir and Ahiru and possibly how she's written back into a girl and fjjdfkjdf--"
The link to that interview is here. It's not verbatim but more like a very precise summary.
Re: SPOILERS LIKE WHOA SPOILERS!
Date: 2008-01-28 04:24 am (UTC)MORE SPOILERS!
Date: 2008-01-22 07:56 am (UTC)The gender roles are so wonderfully, beautifully twisted around in this story. Mytho is the most passive character since the stupid girl I hate from Phantom of the Opera, and he wins the love of the villain through his "inner purity" and "goodness of heart", even though she basically rapes him he forgives her all her wrongdoings. And Fakir! Fakir started out the ultimate dark macho man: he rides horses, he swings swords, he threatens and bullies people. But in the end the way he helped was through none of those things, it was through giving up everything he thought made up who he was for the sake of serving a girl, taking on a much more hands-off, nonviolent role of support. Though he wrote the story, in a sense he only channeled it, and what's more--- channeled the heroine's story, the heroine's power. He was her voice, her hands. His greatest achievement came in helping Ahiru reach HER achievement, and his power to write was always centered on her, defined by her story and her power. I loved that, because its so different from the power roles you usually see given to men and women in fiction.
Re: MORE SPOILERS!
Date: 2008-01-28 04:51 am (UTC)Mytho is the most passive character since the stupid girl I hate from Phantom of the Opera.
If you've ever watched any Utena, then you'll understand me when I say that he is the Anthy of the series, only for helpless birds instead of flowers! They are both impassive and, umm, objects, and sort of tossed around by the other characters - though in Utena, the tossing of Anthy is much more crude and sexual and downright annoying. I like Mytho a lot more than I like Anthy, though; actually, it's more like I hate Anthy, whereas I tolerate and appreciate Mytho without any particular preference. (ANTHY, IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE ROSE BRIDE, JUST SAY SO. Utena, Juri, and Miki are not such jerks that they'd fight for you when you make it clear that you hate it, Touga's busy womanizing everyone else, and Saionji's an easy win for Utena.) I don't... even want to get into Anthy's issues with her brother. I didn't get far enough in the series to completely understand them, either.
Admittedly, I did love Utena the character. But anyway, yes - what started out as a power struggle to protect Mytho, with the male in the lead, ended up an achievement of all three but particularly through the girls. I also loved that Fakir could not counter-write through Mytho's perspective but only through Ahiru's - this doesn't only highlight that Fakir's understanding of Ahiru far surpassed his understanding of anyone else, but also that Ahiru, the pacifist female, had the most of whatever it took to return the rest of Mytho. It marked Fakir's growth when he allowed his role to become Ahiru's and when he came to the realization that he is Mytho's support by being Ahiru's support - and I will never stop loving that he doesn't drop the role of support after the story, but only lives up to it by staying with Ahiru when he no longer needs to.
Re: MORE SPOILERS!
Date: 2008-01-28 11:10 am (UTC)But Mytho doesn't exist in Utena. Except maybe as a potential in everyone. No one is that pure in Utena.
I don't think Rue as a dark magical girl (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkMagicalGirl) is that rare an archetype either. While redemption stories which use a female character are much rarer than the ones with males, they do happen occasionnaly. However it is rare for the redemptive character to be as passive and innately pure as Mytho.
Ahiru's definitly a female archetype still IMHO. It's her ability to reach to people and have them open up to her compassion, to inspire them with her capacity for hope which makes her a hero.
Re: MORE SPOILERS!
Date: 2009-01-16 04:43 pm (UTC)And it's awesome.
Re: MORE SPOILERS!
Date: 2009-01-16 06:21 pm (UTC)It's weird for me to say that this is one of the most feminist anime series I've ever seen, even though it involves a magical girl in a skimpy top who prances around with flowers and classical music. But it is! And I love Ahiru so, so much for being sweet and modest without being stupid or fawning. She's so practical! And resourceful. And if someone blocks her she just finds a different way. But at the same time she's girly too.
Re: MORE SPOILERS!
Date: 2009-01-16 09:29 pm (UTC)Besides the stuff that you mention, you have the entire Rue arc. First of all, any other anime, she and Ahiru would not have been friends (she even told Ahiru she loved her!) and she would not have been painted as such a sympathetic character.
Also, I love what it ended up saying about how you don't have to be pure to love and have you love returned.
Re: MORE SPOILERS!
Date: 2009-01-16 09:56 pm (UTC)Re: MORE SPOILERS!
Date: 2009-01-18 02:13 am (UTC)Rue is a character that can't win for losing, and oh, hearing all the 'no one can love you' was brutal and then that moment when Mytho is like, 'I love you best'? I kinda got misty.
hey random comment
Date: 2008-01-30 07:27 am (UTC)I've written 130 fics, some of those collections of shortfics or drabbles.
I frequently not only forget the stories I wrote, I forget whole FANDOMS I wrote for. I'll be browsing somewhere and end up linked back to one of my older fics and I'll be like, "Whoa, I totally forgot I wrote that! Hey...that's not half bad. Neat!"
Re: hey random comment
Date: 2008-02-03 05:10 am (UTC)You could probably tell from my occasional review that I read your work on a regular basis (though I generally review so rarely nowadays for all that I never stop reading). I've read 'Don't Look Back', if you still remember the details of that one - "Faye in his mouth, Julia in his eyes." O_O Such a great last line, by the way; it encompasses so much of their triangle with so few words. I don't know if you've written CB beyond that fic, though; you've prompted me to go back and look. *is a fanfic magpie*
I'm not surprised that you forget some of your fics with a whole store of 130, but fandoms? You're too young, too young for that yet! :P I understand what you mean, though. Sometimes I go back and reread some of my old-but-not-glaringly-bad work and can't really recognize that writer as myself. Once while I was suffering a really bad writer's slump, I read one of my better fics (not on my FFnet profile, though; I wanted to ~reform~ before re-uploading anything to FFnet) and got jealous. It was kind of ridiculous.
I have a question: I know you've planned plenty of longfics and started several of them, but why haven't you finished any? (I can tell that you intend to finish the Katara/Zuko ones, though.) I hope this question doesn't seem as offensive as it might, especially coming from a fan of your fics; honestly, I don't mean to pressure you about finishing them or whatever it might sound like! I'm just curious as to why; did you lose interest or not like the fic? -- that sort of thing.
I haven't finished the longfic I attempted either, nor do I intend to. Having written it as a teenybopper, it's irredeemably bad, so I'm going to take it as the memory of a great learning experience and just let it die.
Re: <-- *in Haggard's country*
Date: 2008-02-04 05:43 am (UTC)I've just drifted from fandom to fandom and back again so often, that I completely forget to revisit the older ones. I know what you mean about not recognizing your own fic-- my fic style varies dramatically from fandom to fandom, probably because I approach different characters differently. I also reflect the style of my fanfic peers in that community, sometimes.
The question's not offensive: I just usually don't have the will to commit; I think up great story ideas but I lose interest before the writing is complete, or I run into a problem that I don't want to take the time to overcome. The reason I haven't written the epic CB fic I thought of was that I lost the outline and found it a year later, but by then it'd been about 18 months since I'd even watched the show, and I no longer felt comfortable writing the characters. I could have always rewatched and fixed that, but there's always something NEW to watch...
*uploads and uses THIS icon because I am worse than any tin man!*
Date: 2008-02-03 05:35 am (UTC)I finished reading The Last Unicorn today and--!!
It must be crossed over with Princess Tutu. O_O It must. It's strange; as I read it (especially as I got closer and closer to the very end) I found myself thinking of Princess Tutu over and over again, and comparing them and noticing they shared patterns and just... akldjfkdjf <3
Gosh, the unicorn was such a tragedy. Such a beautiful, beautiful tragedy - not unlike Ahiru herself. The natural order of things, indeed. ;_;
*also using this bombshell of an icon!!!*
Date: 2008-02-03 05:42 am (UTC)I love it when creators do this, when they make the quirky, humorous, powerful and earnest side characters just as important as the lead couple. I love it when the story's not just about the few important people undergoing the important, important turning point and climax; I love it when it's everyone's story! Though I wish we got more of Molly. Why do I feel like we're Molly, and that we might know her better than anyone else?
What an icon! I've never seen that image before
Date: 2008-02-04 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 12:44 am (UTC)Oh man, I thought you read the book. But if you've seen the movie, then you should understand my diatribe, to an extent. ^^;; Luckily, I didn't get too carried away and give away nothing terribly important.
While I was reading it, I kept imagining that it would make a great animated movie - it also helped that you once mentioned the movie in a previous PT discussion. Peter S. Beagle describes the landscape with a lot of vivid details, bringing Tolkien to mind, but his metaphors were very whimsical and reminiscent of fairy tales. The writing is also clever, and he makes so many allusions to other works that even I caught a few of them, to my delight. ^^ It was a great, colorful, yet inexplicably wise book, and it would sound fantastic read aloud, especially to children.
Schmendrick was complex in the novel, I thought; he didn't get as much of the spotlight that the unicorn did, but we were frequently given parts of the story from his perspective, and he developed so well despite being so flawed. Reminded me of Fakir when it comes to drastic character development, despite their different roles - and excepting that Fakir seemed to get younger and Schmendrick older.
And I kept finding the same metaphysical suggestions in The Last Unicorn that exist in Princess Tutu! The mention of the roles of heroes, and and and the unicorn vs Amalthea, and Princess Tutu vs Ahiru, and their asymmetrical, bittersweet endings... Gyah ;_; It tickles my fancy that The Last Unicorn is something Fakir could've thought of writing, when I think solely of the ending. In any case, it was the same brand of wisdom, I think, and the same contemplation on Right Choices in stories.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 12:53 am (UTC)Drosselmeyer+Fortuna=OTP!
Date: 2008-02-12 06:44 pm (UTC)<-- *in Haggard's country*
Date: 2008-02-03 05:53 am (UTC)Also, I'm going to dig around for that thread in which you first brought up The Last Unicorn during PT discussion. Stories without endings - I remember that bit!
Re: <-- *in Haggard's country*
Date: 2008-02-12 06:09 pm (UTC)Fakir: "Life is short, and how many can I help or harm? I have my power at last, but the world is still too heavy for me to move."
Duck: "I have been
mortalhuman, and some part of me is human yet."And the line about regretting! "I am not like the others now, for no duck was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret."
"The townspeople are free from the story and the lost Prince has his heart again. No sorrow will in me as long as that joy--save one, and I thank you for that, too."
It's odd. I am so Unicorn/Lir in this book and so Ahiru/Fakir in PT, but I am absolutely convinced that Fakir=Schmendrick. But that's okay too, because even in a book where two characters like them aren't meant to be romantic, they still have this awesomely complex relationship.
I feel like there's not a little bit of Ahiru in Molly Grue as well, and definitely some of Rue in Amalthea (though the Unicorn is all Ahiru, an older and wiser version).
Ack! I can't wait to read the novella sequel. I'm so excited. Will report back later with results. Have you read it?
Re: <-- *in Haggard's country*
Date: 2008-02-18 07:16 pm (UTC)There's a bit of Ahiru/Fakir in Unicorn/Lir, I think, in that they both end with a mountain of duty, not a little bit of tragedy, and a separation they can work against. But yes, the similarities between PT and The Last Unicorn aren't perfectly clean-cut. It excites me so greatly to think that two people can write this same metaphysical fairy tale without ever having to meet.
I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS A SEQUEL. O_O I can't believe it; there's actually a sequel! It didn't even occur to me that it might have a sequel; tLU by itself was so good that any more of it would sound too good to be true. Like PT. ;_;