I'm Not Dead Yet...
Feb. 26th, 2003 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaks...quite. I have the flu. It is nasty. I have a temperature and a sore throat and headache and nausea and complete disinclination to move at all due to being so bloody tired that it took me two hours today to get out of bed. However, I definitely feel better now than I did earlier today, and certainly better than I did yesterday, leaving me with hope that I will be well enough Thursday to go to class-- I want to see all the frosh run around being insane. Yay Hell Week. I am currently desperately trying to work out my Hell Week logistics, as there has been a death in RenChoir-- John Fryer, one of our older members who was a really nice guy, died over the weekend-- and the funeral is Friday evening. There has got to be some way of going and still getting back in time for at least bedtime stories. The matter will of course be academic if I don't get a lot better soon, though.
At least there has been anime. Alys has been showing me Scryed. Scryed continues one of the great Break Stuff anime. Every so often, one just needs to see somebody, you know, break stuff. I think Scryed is even better in sheer terms of property destruction than Flame of Recca is, as well as actually being good on top of that. It has just been licensed, both anime and manga, so everyone should go see it when it comes out, and not before as the fan translation is really bloody awful. It's definitely shounen-- testosterone all over the place as well as leaking out the ears of all the main characters-- which fascinates me, becasue the entire cast is composed of people I ought to hate. I mean, the main character, Kazuma, has an approach to life that consists almost entirely of 'See something. Punch it.' Much of the rest of the cast operates on the principle 'See Kazuma. Punch him.' Hell, there's a character in this anime named Fast Cougar, fercryeyeyie, who has red hair in this style that has to be seen to be (dis)believed, wears *fuchsia*, and spends the entirety of his screen time alternating between being an absent-minded jerk and a testosterone-laden macho idiot. I really ought to hate this man. Really. He is my favorite character. Oh, and Kazuma rocks, too, despite never, to my knowledge, having had a single coherent thought. After a while watching Scryed, I stare at the screen and scream "Would somebody PLEASE tell me why I LIKE these people?" At which point Alys laughs bitterly. But Scryed is not a guilty pleasure. It actually is good, and the characters actually are likable, and there is wit and intelligence and pretty animation and honestly brilliant voice acting and good music and my favorite character's name is Fast Cougar which just makes me want to beat my head against the wall.
Ruth is watching Scryed too, in NYC, so I will caution her not to read any more of this entry until she has seen through Episode 8, because what I am going to mention next, while not a spoiler, may be more than she wants to know given her occasional policy of sticking her fingers in her ears and humming when people discuss things she hasn't seen.
Scryed is also one of the most fascinating series ethically I have ever come across; it just taught me something about myself I didn't know. There is a character in it who has a particular, well, psychic power is the best way to describe it though that isn't precisely accurate, and it turns out that the mere fact of his ever having used this power, the simple fact that he has acted on this capacity of his, means that he honestly deserves to be taken out and shot without trial. Execution, no appeal possible, and I would cheerfully do it myself. If the thing this man does were possible in the real world, which fortunately it is not and never can be, ever, I would still feel precisely the same way, and would in fact consider it an obligation on my part, should I ever learn that somebody had done this, which, thank all the gods, is *absolutely* not possible, to track them down and kill them. This for a power which does not, necessarily, though it can, cause physical damage. I won't say what it is; that would in fact be a major spoiler. If you want to know, email me. But I am absolutely fascinated that I could have this reaction to anything, that there does in fact exist a thing for the performance of which I would simply try my damnedest to kill, without a second thought. I hadn't known that about myself, and yet every ethical principle I have points to this reaction without hesitation, and, I believe, rightly. This feels very odd, to say the least. I mean, I have known for years that I would be capable of killing in self-defence if I absolutely had to, but this is different. There isn't any hate involved; it's just a simple 'after this this person has forfeited any right to share the planet with other human beings and will consequently be permanently removed from their vicinity'. Fortunately, I can't think of *any* circumstances which are actually possible where this would apply, and I have been trying, but it's unnerving even in hypothesis.
Does anyone else have this reaction to anything, and if so, how do you deal with it? I'm fine; it's more a philosophical curiosity than anything else; but I find myself curious as to whether this reaction is an idiosyncrasy on my part.
At least there has been anime. Alys has been showing me Scryed. Scryed continues one of the great Break Stuff anime. Every so often, one just needs to see somebody, you know, break stuff. I think Scryed is even better in sheer terms of property destruction than Flame of Recca is, as well as actually being good on top of that. It has just been licensed, both anime and manga, so everyone should go see it when it comes out, and not before as the fan translation is really bloody awful. It's definitely shounen-- testosterone all over the place as well as leaking out the ears of all the main characters-- which fascinates me, becasue the entire cast is composed of people I ought to hate. I mean, the main character, Kazuma, has an approach to life that consists almost entirely of 'See something. Punch it.' Much of the rest of the cast operates on the principle 'See Kazuma. Punch him.' Hell, there's a character in this anime named Fast Cougar, fercryeyeyie, who has red hair in this style that has to be seen to be (dis)believed, wears *fuchsia*, and spends the entirety of his screen time alternating between being an absent-minded jerk and a testosterone-laden macho idiot. I really ought to hate this man. Really. He is my favorite character. Oh, and Kazuma rocks, too, despite never, to my knowledge, having had a single coherent thought. After a while watching Scryed, I stare at the screen and scream "Would somebody PLEASE tell me why I LIKE these people?" At which point Alys laughs bitterly. But Scryed is not a guilty pleasure. It actually is good, and the characters actually are likable, and there is wit and intelligence and pretty animation and honestly brilliant voice acting and good music and my favorite character's name is Fast Cougar which just makes me want to beat my head against the wall.
Ruth is watching Scryed too, in NYC, so I will caution her not to read any more of this entry until she has seen through Episode 8, because what I am going to mention next, while not a spoiler, may be more than she wants to know given her occasional policy of sticking her fingers in her ears and humming when people discuss things she hasn't seen.
Scryed is also one of the most fascinating series ethically I have ever come across; it just taught me something about myself I didn't know. There is a character in it who has a particular, well, psychic power is the best way to describe it though that isn't precisely accurate, and it turns out that the mere fact of his ever having used this power, the simple fact that he has acted on this capacity of his, means that he honestly deserves to be taken out and shot without trial. Execution, no appeal possible, and I would cheerfully do it myself. If the thing this man does were possible in the real world, which fortunately it is not and never can be, ever, I would still feel precisely the same way, and would in fact consider it an obligation on my part, should I ever learn that somebody had done this, which, thank all the gods, is *absolutely* not possible, to track them down and kill them. This for a power which does not, necessarily, though it can, cause physical damage. I won't say what it is; that would in fact be a major spoiler. If you want to know, email me. But I am absolutely fascinated that I could have this reaction to anything, that there does in fact exist a thing for the performance of which I would simply try my damnedest to kill, without a second thought. I hadn't known that about myself, and yet every ethical principle I have points to this reaction without hesitation, and, I believe, rightly. This feels very odd, to say the least. I mean, I have known for years that I would be capable of killing in self-defence if I absolutely had to, but this is different. There isn't any hate involved; it's just a simple 'after this this person has forfeited any right to share the planet with other human beings and will consequently be permanently removed from their vicinity'. Fortunately, I can't think of *any* circumstances which are actually possible where this would apply, and I have been trying, but it's unnerving even in hypothesis.
Does anyone else have this reaction to anything, and if so, how do you deal with it? I'm fine; it's more a philosophical curiosity than anything else; but I find myself curious as to whether this reaction is an idiosyncrasy on my part.
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Date: 2003-02-25 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-26 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-26 11:42 am (UTC)Lila