The Child is the Father of the Man
Well... Christmas approacheth. Sarah arrives today, and she left early to avoid the traffic and bad weather, so she'll be here sometime this afternoon! I hope that she's doing okay on the road. She was a little worried because she spun out on some ice a few days ago, and may have done some hidden damage to her car. So I'm really looking forward to having her safely here.
I'm so excited. I have all these weird buzzy feelings in me. It's a combination of a lot of things, but mostly the upcoming holidays, and the end of the last semester. Working on my application for Japan... registering for spring classes. God, spring. How can spring be coming? Winter just started, didn't it?
Time is flying. Really, really flying. It's a bit scary, and... a bit exalting too I suppose. So what have I been up to?
- I just got a new graphics tablet, which is totally swank and I love it. The one I'm used to is pretty old, and seems to work slightly differently, so I have to get used to it still, but I can already tell it's a lot better. So I've been playing with that a lot.
- I went to see the Return of the King again with mom and dad. That is, as you've probably heard, a Pretty Good Movie. More about that later after I see it with my sister.
- Chatting on AIM. I never do this during the school year, or at least, very rarely. It's actually pretty nice to be able to vegetate for a few hours and chat with my friends. I've missed talking to my AIM friends chalaine and eltreum, plus I can keep in touch with all my school friends. Oh, and though my usual name is agentamek, I'm going to be on a new one, odorimashou, while I'm here. That's just so people can identify between me at school and me at home.
- Doing laundry and *trying* to help mom with chores. She says she wants help, but I swear she won't let me anywhere near that kitchen...
- Playing Fire Emblem. I'm halfway through Hector's story, and I'm right now in the chapter where you get Jaffar and Nino. I've had a hard time with it since it seems to be different for Hector (NPC Jaffar definitely acts differently). What is the deal with Maxime? He seems like he should be someone you can at least talk to or something. I'm not looking forward to the Sonia chapter either, but I have some wicked strong pegasus knights this time around, so it might be easier (I hardly used them at all in Eliwood's path).
I'm putting this next bit behind a cut because it's a long rant that I doubt very much most of the people that read this will care about.
Speaking of Fire Emblem, I have been following the evolution of the fandom since the game came out in English. There are some really great sites out there already, and a few very good fanfics, too. But I've also noticed that the fandom does seem to be infused with people who don't seem to have actually played the game, which is a little strange to me, but whatever.
As more of those kinds of people arrive, there's another segment of the fandom that I've noticed emerging: the elitists. I don't mean the canon purists... I'm definitely one of those. I think good fanfiction has to be at least a little bit canon, or explained such that it *could* fit into the canon, otherwise it's not really fanfiction anymore. I'm talking about an attitude that I've seen in the MegaTen fandom too... when you have a series that is mostly Japanese only except for a few games, the people who speak Japanese and have played the Japanese games and read the Japanese fanbooks tend to scoff at the people who are limited in their knowledge to English resources. I can understand why... the people who are fortunate enough to know the whole series/world really well have high standards when it comes to fandom.
But I don't really think it's fair to criticize or exclude those that only know the English games. I think the English games in a mostly Japanese series can almost be seen as their own, standalone, games. Are they really? Of course not. But to someone that only speaks English, they certainly seem that way. And that's okay. That's what fandom is about, isn't it? Taking something someone else created and making it a little bit your own. So someone *can* write decent FE 7 fanfiction without intimately knowing the history of all the rest of the games. They *should* stick to the characters that appear in the game, and I'm *not* defending the "badfics" that have been showing up lately. I think that this is mostly a matter of nuance.
I guess I am feeling this a bit because I *do* speak Japanese, at least well enough to be able to play a game in Japanese with a lot of time and the help of a dictionary, but that doesn't mean that I *do*. I don't like playing games, especially RPGs, in a language I don't natively understand. There's so much dialogue and so much character nuance that I can't really grasp, or I get tired of looking up kanji, or whatever... okay, I may be a bad Japanophile game addict, but I just don't like it. So I play the games in English, I love them in English, and my particular breed of fandom revolves around the English version of the game. Yet... I don't really feel like I don't fit into any fan circles for Fire Emblem or Persona/MegaTen. It's a little sad, cause I wanna share my enthusiasm about the games with someone, you know?
So, I'm sorry for that whole rant. I hope I didn't piss anyone off. ^^; (By the way, I don't mean to accuse anyone specifically. It's actually just a general feeling I get, if that makes any sense. I myself am guilty of doing it once in a while.) I might be taking the whole thing a little too personally, but it's something I noticed and it has always irked me a little. If we both like the game, then that's something we should be happy about, regardless of how long we've 'been in the fandom' or who played the game first.
*steps off her soapbox* Enough of that. :) I hope that you all are having a nice relaxing vacation, and that your Christmases are wonderful!
I'm so excited. I have all these weird buzzy feelings in me. It's a combination of a lot of things, but mostly the upcoming holidays, and the end of the last semester. Working on my application for Japan... registering for spring classes. God, spring. How can spring be coming? Winter just started, didn't it?
Time is flying. Really, really flying. It's a bit scary, and... a bit exalting too I suppose. So what have I been up to?
- I just got a new graphics tablet, which is totally swank and I love it. The one I'm used to is pretty old, and seems to work slightly differently, so I have to get used to it still, but I can already tell it's a lot better. So I've been playing with that a lot.
- I went to see the Return of the King again with mom and dad. That is, as you've probably heard, a Pretty Good Movie. More about that later after I see it with my sister.
- Chatting on AIM. I never do this during the school year, or at least, very rarely. It's actually pretty nice to be able to vegetate for a few hours and chat with my friends. I've missed talking to my AIM friends chalaine and eltreum, plus I can keep in touch with all my school friends. Oh, and though my usual name is agentamek, I'm going to be on a new one, odorimashou, while I'm here. That's just so people can identify between me at school and me at home.
- Doing laundry and *trying* to help mom with chores. She says she wants help, but I swear she won't let me anywhere near that kitchen...
- Playing Fire Emblem. I'm halfway through Hector's story, and I'm right now in the chapter where you get Jaffar and Nino. I've had a hard time with it since it seems to be different for Hector (NPC Jaffar definitely acts differently). What is the deal with Maxime? He seems like he should be someone you can at least talk to or something. I'm not looking forward to the Sonia chapter either, but I have some wicked strong pegasus knights this time around, so it might be easier (I hardly used them at all in Eliwood's path).
I'm putting this next bit behind a cut because it's a long rant that I doubt very much most of the people that read this will care about.
Speaking of Fire Emblem, I have been following the evolution of the fandom since the game came out in English. There are some really great sites out there already, and a few very good fanfics, too. But I've also noticed that the fandom does seem to be infused with people who don't seem to have actually played the game, which is a little strange to me, but whatever.
As more of those kinds of people arrive, there's another segment of the fandom that I've noticed emerging: the elitists. I don't mean the canon purists... I'm definitely one of those. I think good fanfiction has to be at least a little bit canon, or explained such that it *could* fit into the canon, otherwise it's not really fanfiction anymore. I'm talking about an attitude that I've seen in the MegaTen fandom too... when you have a series that is mostly Japanese only except for a few games, the people who speak Japanese and have played the Japanese games and read the Japanese fanbooks tend to scoff at the people who are limited in their knowledge to English resources. I can understand why... the people who are fortunate enough to know the whole series/world really well have high standards when it comes to fandom.
But I don't really think it's fair to criticize or exclude those that only know the English games. I think the English games in a mostly Japanese series can almost be seen as their own, standalone, games. Are they really? Of course not. But to someone that only speaks English, they certainly seem that way. And that's okay. That's what fandom is about, isn't it? Taking something someone else created and making it a little bit your own. So someone *can* write decent FE 7 fanfiction without intimately knowing the history of all the rest of the games. They *should* stick to the characters that appear in the game, and I'm *not* defending the "badfics" that have been showing up lately. I think that this is mostly a matter of nuance.
I guess I am feeling this a bit because I *do* speak Japanese, at least well enough to be able to play a game in Japanese with a lot of time and the help of a dictionary, but that doesn't mean that I *do*. I don't like playing games, especially RPGs, in a language I don't natively understand. There's so much dialogue and so much character nuance that I can't really grasp, or I get tired of looking up kanji, or whatever... okay, I may be a bad Japanophile game addict, but I just don't like it. So I play the games in English, I love them in English, and my particular breed of fandom revolves around the English version of the game. Yet... I don't really feel like I don't fit into any fan circles for Fire Emblem or Persona/MegaTen. It's a little sad, cause I wanna share my enthusiasm about the games with someone, you know?
So, I'm sorry for that whole rant. I hope I didn't piss anyone off. ^^; (By the way, I don't mean to accuse anyone specifically. It's actually just a general feeling I get, if that makes any sense. I myself am guilty of doing it once in a while.) I might be taking the whole thing a little too personally, but it's something I noticed and it has always irked me a little. If we both like the game, then that's something we should be happy about, regardless of how long we've 'been in the fandom' or who played the game first.
*steps off her soapbox* Enough of that. :) I hope that you all are having a nice relaxing vacation, and that your Christmases are wonderful!