oh, so that's where it is

[fanbeatsman]

Went to see sis, and finally found all that snow that people keep talking about.

Comments

[trenchkamen]

Oh god, those snow pictures are gorgeous. I wish I was in Britain right now.

I feel much the same way about the Takarazuka play.

[fanbeatsman]

Thank you! And I think there's a lot of people over here who'd gladly swap places with you :D We don't do well with snow, as is becoming increasingly clear the more that falls (latest news is that there's a nationwide shortage of rock salt for gritting the roads, and heaps of it are having to be imported from Spain and Germany; Britain fails at being prepared for snow). It confuses and infuriates us. There was actually a debate on BBC Radio 4 this weekend about the ethics of "snow days", and whether it was an Important Life Experience to let kids have a couple of days of fun or if we're all just a nation of pathetic skivers. Madness, seriously.

Invading Discussions, in that Ninjalike Way of Mine

[dybji]

... only a truer ninja might, perhaps, invade in a timely fashion.
Sorry, just here to raise my hand and blither about Takarazuka. Basically, the heterosexualizing of PW was essentially out of necessity: Takarazuka does its casting by hierarchy, so they do always need a female lead role to give to the top female-role actress.
(And since the actresses are also specially trained to play either male or female roles, if they didn't throw in more invented female characters, they'd be leaving their poor female-role actresses onstage with absolutely nothing to do and not enough lines to distribute between them.)

Uh, I'll just slink back out now. Sorry, I found your journal from my fannish wanderings, and I thought it was very interesting and clever, and then I saw "Takarazuka" and thought, "Ah! I have something to contribute to that one!" :)

late ninjas are the most fashionable kind of ninjas

[fanbeatsman]

This is really interesting; thank you for dropping by and sharing it! I didn't know any of that about the way Takarazuka's set up, and it certainly casts a different light on the decisions made - funnily enough, it's actually really relevant to the work I'm doing at the moment, a major part of which is about not assuming that ~*Creative Vision*~ is always the main principle shaping fiction, and trying to account for more practical, contextual &c. factors that are influencing creative decisions.

I'm so pleased that you found and liked my journal, thank you :) And FWIW, you are always more than welcome to lurk, read, comment, friend, drop in from time to time, anything you like - I always love having discussions of this kind, and am always happy to find new people to have them with, even if they're just random passers-by :)

Let us hope that fashion never changes, then

[dybji]

Practical considerations drive a lot in Takarazuka plots, distressingly. (Those more expert than I have already dubbed the primary result as "too many characters syndrome"; they've got to fit all the higher-ranked actresses in somehow, coherency is a secondary consideration.)

not assuming that ~*Creative Vision*~ is always the main principle shaping fiction
That sounds like a simply brilliant thing to be writing about. I do wish people would remember this more often, and by "people" I here mean "myself".

M-may I friend you, then?

Re: Let us hope that fashion never changes, then

[fanbeatsman]

It's a pet peeve of mine - mostly nurtured as a result of doing the most traditional of traditional literature BAs, which was all about Classics and Canons and very text-centric stuff. My personal fascination is with how medium influences/determines form and content in fictional texts, although I swear I'm losing interest in it by the day as I keep ploughing through this bloody thesis!

Add away :D New people are always welcome.