My life in fandom

[in_the_blue]

Have you ever woken up in character? I have, and that's what leads me to this post. There are a lot of books/series/movies out there I like, but only a few fandoms I love enough to really want to dabble in. I don't mean fanfiction, although that's certainly part of it. I mean immersion: roleplay, fanfic, endless hours of discussion, character analysis. At its core, roleplay is essentially all of this stuff combined. It's inhabiting someone different. Putting on a new costume or shell for a while. Thinking like that person thinks, acting like that person acts, speaking and moving and believing like that person does.

Those of you who've known me longest know that I started with the Harry Potter fandom and irrespective of that 30 Days of HP meme making the rounds, I'll tell you that I got pretty entranced by it. My first fanfiction was HP fanfic, thankfully lost to the annals of time My first RP character was Sirius Black (big shoes to fill, I know, and I had no idea what I was doing). My first LJ was my Sirius journal, even before my own. The first RP game I joined was a Hogwarts game, and the first RP game I created was a Harry Potter game. That lasted a long time. I thought my HP love would last forever. So why didn't it? For starters, JK Rowling killed Sirius, something she had every right to do, but it taught me a very hard lesson: don't get too invested in any one fictional character in an unfinished canon. I have to say that Order of the Phoenix really hardened me in a lot of ways. I was never in love with any of the characters (they're fictional, for heaven's sake), but I did of necessity withdraw from being so involved with them. By the time she got around to killing Remus (arguably my second favorite HP character) I just yawned, nodded, and said "yeah, yeah, whatever." I've only read Deathly Hallows once. By the end, I almost didn't care any more. Sure, I wanted to know what happened, but it was more idle curiosity than if I don't find out it will kill me! In fact, I grew so disenchanted with the world that I ended my HP roleplay game and retired all my HP characters. I know I left a few people in the lurch by doing that, but I couldn't keep it up. The words were becoming empty.

My HP-verse character journals: Sirius Black, Bill Weasley, Charlie Weasley.

But, you know, one door closes and another opens, and when a friend introduced me to Cowboy Bebop I was a self-described anime snob. I thought it was for other people (without a life) but certainly not for me. Then she showed me half an episode of the show she had on videotape and I pretty much fell for the series. I loved the characters all the more because each and every one of them is gritty, flawed, and so very human (the qualities I liked best in Sirius). For something in the realm of animation, I was (and still am) amazed at how very honest the characterization is on the show. Add a kick-ass soundtrack and some of the single most beautiful animation I've seen, and... oh yeah, the storyline isn't bad either! One of the things I liked about Bebop from the very start is that almost every episode is a little standalone triumph. Yes, the story weaves together beautifully as a whole, but you can pick it up almost anywhere and appreciate an excellent 24 minutes of anime. The Cowboy Bebop movie consistently makes my top ten list of films. I think it's a miniature masterpiece despite its flaws. And apparently I've picked up a thing for bad-boy antiheroes somewhere along the way. But really, who can't at least appreciate Spike Spiegel?

My Cowboy Bebop character journals: Spike Spiegel (milliways_bar), Spike Spiegel (outpost_12), Gren Eckener (both games), Vicious.

Bebop director Shinichirô Watanabe also created Samurai Champloo, a totally anachronistic romp through feudal Japan. It follows the same 26-episode format, has its own musical theme (hip-hop instead of jazz), a pretty badass main character, and a lot of fighting. That's about where the similarities end and while the series itself is incredibly uneven -- some episodes are so beautiful they could make you weep, while others are ridiculous to the point of me wanting to turn them off -- as a whole, it manages to weave a fairly straightforward story into some very complex corners. None of the characters are particularly likable as a whole, but that makes them interesting. The series' supporting cast tend to be cartoonish and more like caricatures than characters, with a few notable exceptions. And boy, do those exceptions make the whole series shine like a diamond. While Champloo isn't my favorite anime series by any stretch of the imagination, it's got moments where it's smart and sexy and intriguing and those are enough to carry it through. The ending is brilliant and fitting.

My Samurai Champloo character journal: Mugen.

Around the time I started RPing Spike at Milliways, I was happily introduced to Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man. A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away), I used to collect comic books and so I have more than a passing familiarity with what makes a good title good. This series is really good. The writing is excellent, the art is excellent (for the most part), the cover art is phenomenal, the storyline holds together. It was done on a closed basis, that is, there was a finite amount of time set aside to tell the story. The protagonist(s) are once again so very flawed and human and funny and pained, and the setting -- while not incredibly unique -- was done so very well that it felt brand new. Are there problems with it? Sure. It's not perfect. The production schedule slipped at the end and the last year took two years; that was painful from any perspective. I personally have some issues with the way some of the storylines were wrapped up, but all in all it's a beautiful story told so well, and while it would be easy in the comic-book-verse to have an awful lot of characters who seem cookie-cutter and too much the same, Vaughan managed to infuse every single woman (and the stray man) with such unique personalities. The villains don't fall into the usual comic-book trap of being nefarious just for the sake of being nefarious; even they have their own deep-seated psychological reasons for being bad. It's one of my favorite comic book series of all times.

My Y: The Last Man character journal: Hero Brown.

In the aftermath of Pottermania, a friend told me she thought I'd enjoy Howl's Moving Castle so I went to Powell's Books (one of the best perks about living in Portland, I tell you!) and got myself a copy of the book. This was just around the time Studio Ghibli's movie version came out. I dragged my family to see that and was pretty enchanted. Then I went and read the book, and it was like falling in love twice. Both have their merits; both are beautiful in different ways. Miyazaki's film is a lot darker than the book; the book is (like all Diana Wynne Jones works) filled with the minutiae that makes up everyday life. Her characters aren't particularly deep but they are very enchanting; her settings take a lot for granted but they are very consistent. I love the way magic works in her world; it's simply taken for granted, no explanations necessary. I read the first book, then the sequel, Castle in the Air, then reread them both, and a third time. They're such beautiful books, both of them; I think I've gifted those two books to more people than almost any others. There's something about the stories that makes me feel like a child again: filled with wonder at how spectacular the world around me can be. Stepping into this world is such an escape, it's no wonder that I pick up these books over and over. Just last year (18 years after Howl's Moving Castle was published), Diana Wynne Jones wrote a third book in the series called House of Many Ways. It's every bit as enchanting as the first two, although each book is markedly different from the rest. If you haven't read them, I highly recommend this trilogy for the sheer joy of reading.

My Howl's Moving Castle character journal: Howl Pendragon (milliways_bar)

In a similar vein, another friend recommended Emma Bull's War for the Oaks. It was between print runs at the time, but again Powell's proved itself a minor miracle. While there are elements reminiscent of the Harry Potter world, Emma Bull wrote this one first and the level of magic in it is highly different. Why it's classified as a Young Adult novel I can't say, but I do think it's one of the finer fantasy books I've read. The writing is crisp and concise and maybe I'm a sucker for the era in which it was written, but I love all the pop culture references and the way the worlds in it fit together so seamlessly. It also brings us several entirely unapologetic and fatally flawed characters (a theme of mine when I talk about reasons for liking something) and some heartwenchingly fantastic twists of fate. I wound up having a different favorite character from the one my friend had in this book, but there are more than enough to go around. There are reasons to absolutely love this book and it's still one of my sentimental favorites. I like to revisit it every few years... and I'm glad they never made it into a movie. I might be in the minority there, but I think the printed page is the perfect medium for this one.

My War for the Oaks character journal: Willy Silver.

While we're on the subject of books, I never considered myself to be much of a Neil Gaiman fan (I know, it's heresy!) so for the longest time I put off reading Neverwhere. An obstinate rebel at heart, I don't like it when people tell me I'll love something. I want to discover new works by myself and have the option of liking or not liking something without preconceived expectations. It took me forever to read this book, but once I did, I read it quickly. It's got an incredibly unique world and a whole cartful of interesting characters, most of whom are (in true Gaiman style) incredibly unsavory. Every single character in this book has to be painted in shades of gray, from the perceptibly very good to the equally-perceptibly very bad, and that -- and the setting -- is what makes it most interesting to me. There are more than enough clever things peppered throughout to either make me appreciate it or roll my eyes, and while I'm still not the huge Neil Gaiman fan, I did grow to really like this book enough to want to explore it a little bit further (enough to watch the series, which is nowhere near as good as the book). It niggles at you like an out-of-reach fragment of a bad dream, and I guess that's the point!

My Neverwhere character journal: The Marquis de Carabas (milliways_bar).

One of the things that never fails to amaze me about the world of Final Fantasy VII is that such an empire has grown up around tiny blocky Lego-like pixellated people with spiky hair. Every single character in the game (and it is a blocky, bulky, endless game) has taken on a life of his or her own in the most unbelievable way. It doesn't hurt in the least that the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is one of the most gorgeous pieces of animation I've ever seen. Everyone in it, villain and hero alike, is stunningly beautiful. It's like a dream world where everyone got the good genes. That aside, the stories really are heartfelt and intriguing, and I only wish the rumors about a 10th-anniversary remake were true. The game itself has a rich and complex storyline (not to mention the spin-off games and books and cartoons and so on) and the movie expands on that. The movie, in fact, is like one long game cutscene. The pleasing visuals aside, there are some really great characters, an honestly mad villain, captivating plotlines, and enough emo to fill an empty football field. What's not to like? It has mystery, righteousness, conflict, magic, its own set of physics, and characters who grow and learn. And yes, they are flawed, why do you ask?

My Final Fantasy VII character journals: Vincent Valentine (outpost_12, milliways_bar), Reno (milliways_bar), Sephiroth.

Since we're on the subject of video games, Dragon Age: Origins is the latest title to make my list of things to love enough to want to explore beyond its boundaries. According to my daughter it's a standard "dark fantasy" universe, but I have to tell you that I'm full of admiration for the people at Bioware who created this world. It's so rich and complicated. The characters are so defined and often funny enough to have me clutching my sides in laughter. Yes, the game control mechanics are awkward and inconvenient, but who cares when you get such priceless background banter? It's almost like every setting, every character, was imbued with this little spark. Sure, it has its share of battles and you know a game that has an option to enable or disable persistent gore is going to be a bloody nightmare, but it's really fun if you like a well-crafted world and some priceless writing. I'm enamored with it and yeah, I'm going to get the Awakenings expansion pack. And if I can ever log on to the servers, more of the downloadable content. It's a hoot.

My Dragon Age: Origins character journal: Zevran Arainai.

Did someone say "persistent gore?" And not mention Baccano! in the same breath? This is perhaps the single most violent anime series I've watched, yet on the other hand it's one of the funniest. That surely seems like it has to be oxymoronic, but it balances itself out. The series is unique in that it takes place in New York and Chicago and points between in the 1930s (mostly). It's a look at gangland America through Japanese anime eyes, and it's this incredibly wild romp. Reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, the story as presented in anime leaps back and forth in time, not necessarily starting at the beginning (if there really is one). The characters are all larger than life, the settings are grand, the comic relief is funnier than anything, and there's enough intrigue going on to take us past the standard cops-and-robbers gangster thing. If you can tell the characters apart you'll be able to keep a step ahead of everything, and if you can figure out what's going on during the first viewing, you're a better man than I am. It's one of those series that I had to mainline, then when I was done I had to watch it again and a third time, and I laugh and cringe just as hard every single time. The worst, most psychotic characters make me giggle, and the pathos-filled ones make me shake my head, and the funniest ones are absolutely adorable. One of these days I'll finish reading what I can of the light novels the series is based on. As with Bebop and Champloo, I highly recommend the dub because the voice talent is phenomenal.

My Baccano! character journal: Claire Stanfield.

My final anime pick is Gonzo's 10th-anniversary series Last Exile. Of all the picks here, this is probably the most imperfect and least satisfying of all, but I still find it fascinating. I heard so much about this show that I ended up getting it sight unseen, but then it took me forever to watch it. I basically watched it in two large chunks -- the series is 26 episodes -- and the second half was much better than the first. The series is classified as a "steampunk fantasy" and although the show has elements of both, I don't really think either term fits it particularly well. It's a war story at its core and somewhere along the line the story that was going to be told was put in the background in favor of featuring younger characters more appealing to its target audience. Personally, I find the kids largely annoying and badly drawn, but the adults in the series fascinate me, especially the tragically flawed antihero (by now it should be clear that I do, in fact, have a "type"). If they'd only spent as much time on the characterization as they did on the world-building... if only they hadn't run out of time and rushed the last four or five episodes... if only the ending was understandable... Despite these flaws, the series intrigued me enough for multiple viewings; it got under my skin only after I'd finished watching it. The dub has its pluses and minuses, and my intention here isn't to talk about specific voice talent but kids aside, I do like the dub on this one. Watch it for the adult characters and the level of detail that goes on in the background and oh, yes, for the mechanics crew on the Silvana. They're this show's equivalent of the Dragon Age party banter or Bebop's recurring three old guys.

My Last Exile character journal: Alex Row (outpost_12).

For years, my sister kept trying to get me to watch Lost unsuccessfully. But when one of the characters' storylines was compared to something I was doing with Spike at Milliways, I decided to watch that episode and then I got hooked! I still say that the pilot episode of this show is some of the best TV ever, and I love the first three seasons. I like the fourth season a lot, and was consistently disappointed with the last two, mostly because it seems to me the writers slipped in terms of consistent characterization. But I watched it all, because damn, baby, the characters! They're so complicated! They're so nasty! The good ones are bad and the bad ones are good, and no one knows what's going on, and why are they on this island, and even though the show ended up eating itself by pandering to its own mythology ultimately, it was a hell of a ride. Some of my favorite TV moments are on this show, and while I'm not sad it's over -- it ran its course -- there were times when it was absolutely unpredictable, as well as being one of the best shows ever at cliffhangers. Watch it on DVD. That way you'll have fingernails left. Despite its flaws, I still recommend it, and it needs to be watched in order (even though I didn't) for maximum effect.

My Lost character journals: Sawyer (outpost_12), Sun Kwon, Desmond Hume.

Last but far from least, I broke down this year and watched the remade series Battlestar Galactica. Where both BSG and Lost were finite series, BSG is shorter (four seasons) and the writing and characterization on the show are consistently impeccable. The characters grow and change but stay in character, and they're beautiful and rich and emotionally charged, and the show's science is taken for granted but explained just enough to make it viable, and did I say the characters and the writing? This is probably one of the best-written series I've ever watched. It's brutal and unapologetic and the events of the storyline go from bad to worse and never get much better than that, but by then you're so invested that there's nothing to do but see it through. It has so many shades of gray that it ought to be its own color spectrum, and while it's not perfect -- there are things about it I don't like, in particular some of the storyline twists -- it's really beautifully done. The acting is phenomenal too, so I give it applause all around.

My Battlestar Galactica character journal: Samuel T. Anders.

---

Blame goes as follows:
- to lostinapapercup for Samura Champloo, Y: The Last Man, Final Fantasy VII, Dragon Age: Origins, Baccano!, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica.
- to sff_corgi for War for the Oaks
- to wheatland_press for Howl's Moving Castle
- to sunny_daylee for Cowboy Bebop
- to vivien529 for Neverwhere
- to alienchrist for Last Exile

So tell me! Why do you love the fandoms you love? I'm curious.

Comments

[alienchrist.livejournal.com]

I love watching your Alex in action and thinking I did that. I knew a lot of these stories, but it's still fun reading it. And one day when I'm not in a gigantic panic from finishing up my latest challenge fic (it's a 10k+ monster right now, and I have um... two or three days to finish it) I think I'll take the time to write a post like this. <3

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Thank you both for the compliment and the Last Exile introduction, and good luck with the monster fic!

[vivien]

Whee, I take that blame happily!!!!

I don't have a ton of time or brain, but I want to respond. This is a very cool topic.

Why I love...

Harry Potter - whimsy, magic, and silliness mixed with some intensely dark themes... Kind of like me! Har har har. I love the world JKR created, and I like that the adults were interesting and yet blank-ish slates to work off of in fannish ways.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - funny, snarky, awesome. Vampires and the incredible girls who kill them. Smart stories, and stories that break your heart.

Neverwhere - The Underside fascinates me. The people in it fascinate me even more so. I agree with your description - all those shades of gray are fabulous.

Those are my top three. &hearts

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it! It's just something that was bubbling beneath the surface today, so why not. It was my day off.

You know, you might just subtly convince me to give BTVS another try one of these days...

[ashavah]

You know, I tend to read posts like this and come away wondering about myself because I often can't put into words just what it is that I love so much about a particular canon beyond the fact that, inevitably, for me to become obsessed with something, there is a character whose motivations and situation and backstory and relationships I want to dive into and explore.

I can look at something that is brilliantly constructed and acted and developed and that I really, really enjoy and admire and am amazed by, but I won't necessarily want to delve into it that extra bit, and it puzzles me.

I suppose I do tend to like canons that aren't quite that full-on all the time (I think one of the reasons that, much as I love it, I haven't immersed myself in BSG), that can be silly and lighthearted and fun or alternatively serious, emotional and meaningful.

I'll give this a go for the fandoms that I've been the most consistently immersed in:

Harry Potter: I love the idea of a whole other world running parallel to ours, and this was the first time I'd really met that particular variety of fantasy. The story was a fun adventure, with a bit of mystery. The characters were interesting, but my favourites were always Sirius and Remus with their tragedy and regrets and the desire to make amends.

Torchwood: Torchwood and Doctor Who are both in the same universe, but it's always been Torchwood that's immersed me the most. It's got an incredibly flawed hero looking for his way in a world that no longer quite makes sense to him, and I love the way the theme of Jack's immortality is explored. It's got an amazing ensemble of characters, all of them with their own flaws and foibles and most of them outcasts in some way or another. They stare into the darkness the world offers and sometimes they want to scream and run away and sometimes they laugh but always they do the best they can. At its best, it's heart-wrenching and painful and beautiful, but it also has plenty of humour and silliness and it never takes itself too seriously.

Stargate: Atlantis: Don't get me wrong, I love Stargate. But I sometimes wonder if it couldn't have done so much more. It's easy to just not think too hard about it and watch it for the adventure of the week and tune out the depth of the world and the characters. Sometimes it's a little inconsistent; it's possible to miss a few episodes and never really understand just how deep the characters are, because they're mostly pretty good at hiding their insecurities. But see those few episodes where each character is really explored, and wow. Their flaws and tragedies and backstories come together and you see how they permeate their behaviour through the whole series. I also love the setting, and though again, I think the worldbuilding has a lot of unfulfilled potential, I adore the mythology and history of the universe and the way that it all ties into the real world. It's also a lot of fun: smart and tongue-in-cheek and genre-savvy. But it's really those things that are there but not really explored in the show itself that make me want to delve further into the world and get my own chance to play around with them.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

You did a good job putting it into words. I keep seeing "flawed" and "tragedy" so maybe those belong in your big book of JK's themes.

I found this to be a fun exercise, seeing how the different things I'm drawn to link together.

[slaversbane.livejournal.com]

Wow. What a wonderful walk into your fandom world! I shall try to answer your question as best I can.

Of course there is My first fan journal for Harry Macdowell from Gungrave the Anime. Which was based on a relatively mindless shoot 'em up video game. The anime took the video game to a new level taking the storyline back in time, and giving motive to the insane present. Harry in particular is my favorite kind of villian. He cannot see what he is doing as wrong because he believes in it so deeply it has blinded him to the truth. He is pig headed and deeply overdramatic. :-D The voice acting has all the favorites, Kyle, Beau, Steve...and they are quite the team. The last episodes are tough to watch and the story as a whole has a "we came full circle and the world still sucks" kind of vibe.

My other is Hatake, Kakashi from Naruto the Anime. I really botched the characterization on him when I played him but I still love the character and the world of shinobi created by Kishimoto. The ninjas make mistakes, they grow and heroism and faith in your friends are the main themes. Naruto is an unadulterated hero, and Kakashi as his sensei, as to deal with his own demons as well as Naruto's unending exuberance. Someday I will change up his profile and play him more, but I gotta get more backstory on him which requires another 200 episodes...someday. :-D

As a hypothetical I would like to someday play a character from a new series of books by Suzanne Collins called The Hunger Games. I am waiting for the third book to come out before I write it, but I have so many characters I love, and the story is so painful so beautiful...gonna be hard to choose. (Though I am leaning towards Peeta, he is a lot like me.)

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I've heard such good things about The Hunger Games, so of course I need to let the hype die down to a dull murmur before I'll even touch them.

One thing that seems to be a common... I don't want to call it a flaw, but a common trap, I guess, with first-time RPers is to put too much of ourselves into our characters. We play them because we love them. Not that we're in love with them, but we're not going to play characters unless we're attracted to them, see parts of ourselves in them. It's really easy to overdo it and infuse them with too much of us and minimize the parts of them with which we don't resonate, if that makes sense. I know I've been guilty of that plenty of times.

Or maybe I'm just blowing hot air. We do what we do and RP the way we RP.