laceblade

wisteria_ with a picspam titled Kara Thrace, in adjectives.

Via coffeeandink, Joss Whedon's original Dollhouse pilot script! I haven't had time to read it yet, but word on the Internet is that it's a lot better (SURPRISE!).

meganbmoore on Dollhouse, 1.2, and entil2001 on the same.

ladyjax "PSA: Images of Blackness".

This is for all my peeps who need a little ammunition when confronted by anyone who thinks that watermelons and Black folks go together like, I don't know - rice and butter or who immediately tries to roll with, "But it was just a joke? Don't you have a sense of humor?"

smuu on Naoki Urasawa's Pluto and 20th Century Boys. I loved Monster! I'm afraid to start reading this other stuff and having to wait so long between new volumes!

I'm keeping my eye on reread_no_jutsu because it's been a while since I read what I read of the Naruto manga. meganbmoore has already voiced most of how I feel about the series in this post, here. IT IS SO GOOD THAT I AM REPOSTING MOST OF IT HERE!

All shounen has some serious problems going on regarding gender. Even Claymore and Fullmetal Alchemist, the two series that seem to have largely ruined me for any shounen that I wasn't already attached to, have problems. But I am, in general, more lenient with shounen than I am shoujo. The target audience for most shounen is 13-15 year old boys. Their main interest in plopping down their allowance every week for Shounen Jump is reading about a couple guys going "And now...I will show you my TRUE power/SECRET move/etc!!" "Writing for the target audience" doesn't absolve a series of any problems it has, but it is an important consideration, and it's why I can get past things that would normally (and sometimes still do) irritate me in Samurai Deeper Kyo, Kekkaishi, Black Cat, Bleach (sometimes) and various other shounen I read/have read but aren't jumping to the front of my head at the moment. And though the line between them can be difficult to see, there is a difference between focusing on your main character and sidelining a character, and when you pick up a shounen action series, you're most likely getting a series where most of the attention will be on variations of certain, primarily male, character sets. It's pretty much an inherent part of the genre, and one that, if it doesn't work for you, largely guarantees that the series will just irritate you.

Naruto, though, always bugged me more than other series when it came to female characters, and I think it's because of this: Is there something in the DNA of every ninja tribe in that world that results EXACTLY one girl for every two boys born every year, stretching back at least 50-60 years? Is there some sort of law in every tribe that says each and every team (though there might have been teams introduced later, or that weren't around long enough for me to remember them that upset the formula) must have exactly 2 boys and 1 girl? Why are there no teams with 2 girls and 1 boy? All boy teams? All girl teams?

In theory, the numbers themselves should put Naruto a step ahead of other shounen simply because having 1/3 of your cast be female in the typical "cast of thousands" makes you female character outnumber those in other series about 5:1, proportionately. And yet, it's so exact, so deliberate, that "one girl for every two boys" can't be anything but a conscious decision. And when it's so conscious, it makes the treatment of gender stand out all the more. And then there's the fact that, in this world, almost every character the same age has near identical levels of training and experience. There's no variety. In personality and individual specialty, yes. But as presented, every character of the same age (with the exception of characters like Sasuke and Gaara) should be on equal footing, with some allowances made for personal strengths and weaknesses. In another shounen, you'll have a character with little or no training or powers, one who is new but who has enormous training, and two who are experienced fighters. That the only girl of the four is the one with no powers or training is a problem, and not one that should be dismissed, but it is a textual reason for the girl to not be in the middle of the fight with that arc Big Boss. With Naruto, however, that isn't there. The girl in question has as much training and experience as the three boys. Yet she's still the one sitting it out or fighting a lesser opponent while the boys are fighting the arc's Big Boss. So while I get grumpy that Yuya/Okuni/Mahiro/Orihime/Tatsuki/Tokine/etc. isn't on a par with the boys in terms of getting to fight and win fights, and can at least follow along with the why of it as presented by the manga. But with Sakura/Hinata/Ino/etc., I'm left with the feeling that Kishimoto is standing there going "look, I gave you exactly one girl for every two boys...do you really expect me to actually give them something to do in addition to existing?" (Plus, other shounen tends to at least let them have goals and motivations and backgrounds and lives separate from the guys, and the only female character I can think of in Naruto that that applies to is Tsunade.)

An example post....Introducing Team 7!

(BTW, blog titles that are not self-explanatory are still being taken from Wizard People. If only so Steph will nod in approval while she reads.)

I had a post written last night, and then I fell asleep. WTF. Classes are over. I've made the first steps toward job-searching. Do I write about specifics on the blog? Theoretically, the majority of my readership is also my competition, and I am an ambitious whore. So......YOU WILL NOT KNOW WHAT I DID.

Things I'm Reading
I started A Great and Terrible Beauty today (reading throughout my entire English lecture, as I can't stand it), and I like it. Although, for how much people love it, some of the writing seems.....not so great. Especially Gemma's interactions with the other girls her age. I don't know. Are they making this into a movie? It seems like it wouldn't feel the same at all, without her biting commentary. Ah, well. The plot's interesting enough, anyway.

I don't know why I keep reading the Naruto manga. I am through volume 25 (chapter 225), and I just feel like it's not all that great. When one battle takes 4-8 volumes to resolve....? I lose interest. I'm also not a fan of....
"MY ANGST, LET ME SHOW YOU IT BEFORE WE FIGHT! AND WHILE WE FIGHT. AND AFTER."
"OH YEAH? LET ME EXPLAIN MY SUPER-ULTRA ATTACK MOVE IN EXPLICIT DETAIL, COMPLETE WITH DIAGRAMS FOR THE READER ABOUT HOW MY CHAKRA IS FLOWING!"
"OMG ME TOO!"
I dunno. I've stuck with it this long, I'm going to hang around until the Shippuden arc starts and see if it starts throwing bucket loads of awesome on to pages, and if Sakura stops frickin' moping all the time, and maybe I'll keep going. I think I would just like it a whole lot more if it didn't take so damn long for the plot to progress. I now understand why the anime has so much filler. It wouldn't be very hard to catch up with a pace set by a turtle.

And other things
I'm still really glad that I took off of work next week. I couldn't focus at all today when I was there. How can you? You walk around giant slabs of marble and Greco-Roman paintings and statues, deliver pieces of paper that make legislation happen, and have endless conversations with intelligent peers in the basement. I'm really going to miss my job when I leave it, :/ This is the best job I've ever had.

It's so hard to focus once finals start. All I can think about is going Christmas shopping, and what books I want to read and shows I want to watch. Most of all, I feel sick to my stomach when I think about the fact that I'm going to graduate in May and really have no idea what I'm doing. I've entertained the thought of presenting a cool and collected persona via my blog, buuuut.....we all know that that's just not my style.

Whatever. Because we all need an lol.....I am still registered for Ballroom Dancing next semester.

I'm off to try and get a bit of Christmas shopping done now, and then go and see "Blade Runner" on the big screen with Antoine and some of his friends. I've only seen Blade Runner once, and I think I might have fallen asleep and not understood it. Or, possibly, both. I feel like it's one of those things that I should like, though, so I'm going to try again. If nothing else, I can fall asleep on Antoine in the movie theater, which is always a win.