Que sera, sera. Et je serai dans le coin, pleure.

::rewatches episode 50 of Full Metal Alchemist::

Ok, I am much calmer now. In fact, instead of getting me more upset, watching it a second time has actually left me feeling more reasonable about recent events.

Also, it's reinforced my deep and profound respect for this series. God, the amount of plot development they fit into 21 minutes of running time! It's pretty amazing. Sometimes it feels like an hour-long drama because so much *happens* in every episode.

A few small spoiler notes: (stay away all unspoiled folks!) ( Read more... )

ETA: I just want everyone on my flist (::coughgirlwithjournalcough::) to know that despite how I bitch, I really love this show.

Really, I do. I respect any series that can make its audience its bitch, any show that is ambitious and not afraid to go for your gut with a sucker-punch while wrapping it's silky soft hands around your heart. I think it's quite possible I might never watch another anime series this good.

What I wouldn't give for this to be made into a live-action series on HBO where there are no ratings limit and they love controversial stuff. Cause there's a lot of controversial stuff in this show. Episode 1...and 3... and 7... and 8... okay maybe more than a lot. Maybe a friggin' huge amount.

Then again I love it as an animated series so maybe live-action wouldn't be any good at all.

Ah hell. The truth is that I'm one week from the series finale and I don't want this show to end yet. I'm not ready to let go.

Drive-by Music Video rec

Link: "You Know He's Gonna Be"
Vidder: D-Man
Song: (I would walk) 500 Miles
Band: The Proclaimers
Source: Trigun


I watched this vid at this unseemly hour of the morning because I don't want to go to sleep. But I'm happy, because this video is very amusing. It's got like 8 different Vash pairings, for one thing. I think I counted Vash/Meryl, Vash/Wolfwood, Vash/drunk guy from episode 4, Vash/ girl with short short dress, Vash/Milly/Meryl, Vash/Rem, Vash/Old Lady, and a couple other people too. Wow, Vash is a slut. And wow, he *does* walk a lot, doesn't he?

Anyway, the video has little one-liner clips of dialogue inserted at amusing moments, and the whole thing is well-timed. It's funny and cute and makes you smile.

Two more video recs:

Link: "EasyAction of [hagaren]"
Vidder: Pianos
Song: Easy Action
Artist: Kotani Kinya
Source: Full Metal Alchemist
Spoilers: Up to at least episode 42 because episode 42 credits are used. Probably safe enough for anyone who's just watched past episode 25, but definitely not before then.

This is like a music video that's also a promo for the series. There's little bits for each major character and a general sense of the action/adventure/drama themes of the show. I watched the video twice in a row because it's short (1:37), and very visually stimulating. It's fast but amazingly well timed and well edited.


Link: "The Path of Least Resistance"
Vidder: breeman
Song: Born Too Slow
Artist: Crystal Method
Source: Samurai Champloo
Spoilers: Eh, not really. Just early episodes.

This one gave me the same reaction I got from watching most of Samurai Champloo episodes: wow, pretty, but I'm kind of apathetic. To clarify: this video is being recced because it's a great video-- well timed, well edited, good use of special effects but not over-used, and is the quality of video I'd like to some day be able to make myself (as is the FMA vid above.) However, it is mostly a battle-centric vid that draws on the earlier episodes, and the earlier episodes were not my favorite of SC.

(no subject)

I am now sorting through the international music that people so generously sent to me. I amazed. Overall people have sent me links to or recently uploaded SIXTY-FIVE SONGS!

I feel totally, totally spoiled by you guys.

Thank you, donna_c_punk, girlwithjournal, trollprincess, arafel beatrice1209, d_irge, and everyone else.

Thank you very much.


Now I have a few questions, cause there's some songs whose language I can't place:

Delerium - Forever After

Clifford Gurdin - Stabat Mater

Lakiitu Orchestra - Enola Gay

Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan

Metisse - Boom Boom Ba (I know the verses are in English but what is the chorus?)

Fandom universes, crossovers, AUs, fusions, and the meta-ness of it all.

I am currently reading Stephen King's 5th Dark Tower book, Wolves of the Calla.

I know, I know. I'm horribly, horribly behind. And just last week he released the 7th and final book, the book to end his magnum opus, his masterpiece, his work to encompass all works.

And I'm still a book and a half behind! ::reads furiously::


Still, I bring all this up because I was think about "universes" in fandom and I've decided that I fall back on the Dark Tower approach.

You see, fandom likes to present each show/book/play/film/comic as existing in its own "verse." There's HarryPotterverse and WestWingverse and Buffyverse. And beyong Buffyverse, there is Jossverse. One can reflect on the fact that the "verses" of the Terminator films and the Matrix films are practically interchangeable-- The Matrix is what happens when John Conner and the rebels lose to the rise of the machines. Or that the crew of Serenity from Firefly might as well be flying around in the same space as the crew of The Bebop from Cowboy Bebop, because the settings for both shows are almost exactly the same.

You may even be pondering what will happen the day the Guold run into the Peacekeepers for the first time. Who will win: the space-Nazis or the psuedo-godly worms?

And of course, there's the fact that Highlander-verse is cross-able with absolutely anything and everything.

So where am I going with this? Back to the Dark Tower, of course.

Stephen King's Dark Tower series (The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, and The Dark Tower, respectively) are based on a concept that he has woven into all the fiction he's ever written: that in the end, all universes and all worlds converge, and at the center is the Dark Tower. He's even said that as he's written over his carreer and ever since he started writing the Dark Tower series (20 years ago?), he's come to realize that all his characters in some way belong to the universes and worlds surrounding the Dark Tower.

Now, having read 4 and 3/4 of the 7 book series over the course of the last 5 years, I have to say that in my head, it's bigger than that. The way Stephen King sets up the idea of his Dark Tower is so beautifully meta that I can't help but want to use it to encompass all fandoms everywhere. There's no such thing as a fanfic crossover that could never happen. Because they're all linked through the Dark Tower at the center of all universes.

In my head, every fandom verse is somehow a world that branches of from the Dark Tower. Stephen King, with his beautiful mind, has created a fandom with which I can cross or converge or tie-in any other fandom ever created.

(no subject)

I think my roommate is having a passive-aggressive war with me over music.

She arrived, I was sitting at my computer listening to French songs trying to decide what I wanted to put on my new mix CD.

Just now, about 5 minutes later, she sits down at her comp and starts listening to Spanish music.

Now, she's no more Spanish than I am French-- we both have just studied the languages. But basing on this new behavior and the behavior of our music tastes and habits over the last week (when she's around, which isn't often), I'm getting a passive-aggressive thing here.

How does one resolve this?

(no subject)

Stephen King

Wolves of the Calla, page 683.

"Harry Potter model" ?

That's just wrong.

That's so wrong.

And wrongly cool.

I'm gonna be thinking about that every time I read anything about Quiddich now.