You and me got unfinished business!

[in_the_blue]

Drowned this one real good to spare my friends list.

The one good side to fucked-up sleep schedules is that Adult Swim's still showing Samurai Champloo on "Action Saturday Nights," even if their promo is filled with the Bebop stuff they don't show any more. (I'd be weeping if I didn't own it all on DVD.) That bit of grievous misdirection aside, last night was like a sensory overload treat for little old me, the Steve-the-Voice-Actor fan (he is so good). In between shows earlier in the night I could hear Tom the Robot (Me: "Hannah, that's Spike inside that robot outfit") and later, after wading through lots of crap, I got to watch the first half of Lullaby of the Lost which is arguably one of the better Champloo episodes. I still think Eureka 7 is pretty terrible, and Trinity Blood didn't grab me at all and Bleach... well, let's just say it's another Perfect Venue^TM for the over-the-top voicework of Johnny Yong Bosch and leave it at that. Hey, I'm the very first to admit I'm an anime snob: the story has to be interesting, the characters have to be multi-faceted, the animation has to be beautiful, and the soundtrack has to kick ass to pass the intense scrutiny of my evil anime approval process. So few shows do.

When I was in the hospital on painkillers that were way too strong for my petite frame, I watched Adult Swim because at 4 in the morning when your brain's going prove to me you still have some semblance of who you are before you move off to join the nearest opium den, I had to do something that was familiar. Morphine makes my brain just swim, okay? and what better chore than watching the last two episodes of Ghost In The Shell: Second Gig which I'd never seen before, picking out familiar voice actors? I told myself if I could remember the real names that went with the voices and not just the other characters they'd voiced, I was still in there somewhere under the murky waters of Dilaudid. It was local boy Kirk Thornton, not Asimov or Jin doing the dying guy with the origami crane (oh, sorry, have I spoiled it for anyone?) and it was Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, not Julia as the military chick. (A note on the use of "chick:" I blame it on Brian K. Vaughan. I never used to use it because it's always seemed a little bit condescending, but... call it a grand experiment in the evolution of my personal language choices, then go read Y: The Last Man... all of it.)

Straying, rambling: all this had a definite point, and here goes. Mugen is such a great character. Yes, yes, I know all the Jin fangirls out there are shaking their heads and going what about tall, dark, and four-eyed? Get your heads out of your asses: that dude ain't nothin' but smoke and mirrors. I know it's a happy little threesome ("it ain't like that, ya morons") and they all have their stories to tell, but just ask Shinichirô Watanabe who the heart and soul of the series is. I know Mugen's a rat bastard. He's meant to be. But he's also the undertone and motivation for the series. Do we all look for ourselves in the shows we watch, or is that just me? I know I do it in the characters I write.

But back to the point. I've been so ready to retire Mugen from milliways_bar and not because he's hard to play: he's easy to play. I get him. But no one else does: they either treat him like he's an idiot just because he can't read, or they treat him like he's a waste of time because he's arrogant. He's not an idiot, he's not a waste of time. He is arrogant. Last night I was reading a thread I won't name here and thought... shit, this is the perfect situation for Mugen to come in and kick some serious ass. Then I started looking at other threads, and I realized there were a lot of stupid things going on that he could resolve with the kick of one ass or just one well-aimed flick of his katana. Too bad no one else except Paige understands him. I never in my wildest dreams expected him to be a popular character. I only expected people to not misjudge him so quickly. He stopped being fun to play because he routinely gets treated so badly, and he's not the type of person to hang around and get beat up without fighting back.

So... retirement seemed like the thing to do, but now I'm not so sure. Why not let him show up and be himself from time to time? He doesn't understand the end of the universe: he only knows it's a place that has food and chicks with really big hooters. He grew up parentless and feral on an island set aside for convicts and killed his way off. That's his frame of reference for things. He wears a hard, hard shell. For what it's worth, I've taken my contact info back out of his profile so new people won't know who plays him, although it's not exactly a secret. Still, I might just have to inflict him on a few people.

Especially people who need their butts kicked in an IC way.

And maybe then I'll retire him. I don't know. Milliways people, I'm open to suggestions. He has no plot, but neither does his life. He has no single burning element that runs everything else he does in his life. He doesn't even really give a damn about revenge: he just wants to eat, sleep, and ogle girls. If he has to kill someone for getting in his way, he does it without compunction. Anyone with me? Anyone have any desire to interact with him, or do I put him in the recycle heap? Ultimately I'll make my own decision, but every once in a while I do ask for opinions. This is one of those times. Have any of you had a character that no one else understood, and what did you do with him or her?

Comments

[skygiants]

First of all, you know I always love to interact with any of yours - and while I don't know Mugen, he sounds kind of awesome. (And, uh, I would love to see him interact with Jayne, but as I do not play him, I cannot arrange that. ALAS.)

Second . . . I dunno, really, if I've got many helpful opinions. I mean, I'm just started playing my first actual bastard of a character now. Or, not now, but fairly recently, at least. All my others have been reasonably friendly and willing to talk - or, you know, ten years old, so they get away with it. But . . . it's really kind of fun for me to play a character that just pisses people off. It's hard to get used to. But I'm liking it, myself. It's easier, too, though, because he does have canon, and canonmates, and plot to force interactions. I don't know how I'd handle it if he didn't.

[silveraspen]

I like Mugen, and I've had a lot of fun with the threads between him and Moiraine. You and I had talked briefly about the possibility of putting him and Jack Sparrow together and seeing what came of it, and that's something I still think could be a lot of fun.

If it were me, I'd say keep him. It's nice to have a character, every now and again, who you can just play without worrying about how he or she fits into things.

As for characters non-understood, well. I think there are varying degrees of understanding out there for some of mine, but it makes the facets of their interactions with others random and intriguing, for me at least. I remember going through a serious phase of "oh lord what have I done wrong with Moiraine," though, fearing that I'd made her untrue to her canon self due to how she was being perceived. The way for me to fix that situation was to show more in narration of her thoughts and motivations, at least a little, and I think it worked out nicely.

[vivien]

Keeeeeeeeep him.

A well-placed kick in the ass might be needed.

Seriously, I'd like for Tom to meet him.

[alemara.livejournal.com]

Sadly, none of mine have ever met Mugen, and I'm not really sure what most of them would think of him (Utena would blink a lot and Jack would probably laugh). But I'm with Aspen when it comes to having a character who can just come in and kick someone's ass or be obnoxious and not fit in or whatever. And I like Mugen. On the one hand, it's nice to have that kind of flexibilty with a character--if he doesn't have any connections then he's free to do whatever--but on the other it can definitely get tiresome. Still, bringing him in only occasionally might solve that problem.

Personally, I think a little Mugen-style ass-kicking would not be a bad thing at all.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

JYB fits in well - people have occasion to do lots of yelling in Bleach, so he's not OTT there. (He's downright low-key in the episode of Fullmetal Alchemist he guested in. I didn't even recognise him without looking up the cast.)

I'm definitely following Trinity Blood, but I like that baroque, alternate-church sort of stuff. I didn't get to watch the ep on the Fix yet (blast work, why can't they stream Bleach for me, too?) but this might not have been the best point in the storyline to grab most people. They've been written in Dr Who-length multi-ep story format, 4-6 parts per. I can't wait to see pics of Catherine's costume she's making from it.

[genarti]

I would say, basically, keep him if he's fun to play. Or if you think he still could be.

And by that I mean just fun to play -- not necessarily to give plots, or even to build friendships, but to just throw him at people and see what they make of him. Let him ogle women, let him be a jerk, let him offend characters, and see when he surprises you by being liked after all, or ogled back, or offered a drink by somebody equally rough-edged.

I don't have a big impression of him, because I've only seen a few threads of his. I remember really liking at least one of his threads with Moiraine, though. (And emailing Aspen to say "AHAHA he really should meet Lan sometime," although at that point it was kind of impossible as I hadn't yet brought Lan in.)

I have no idea how well most of my characters would like him. I'm entirely willing to find out, though. :)