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I have marks all over me from Bujinkan tonight. Not that it was any more brutal than usual, but my skin's really dry because it's so damn cold out so every single pinch and scratch shows up. I had good partners tonight and actually got in a fair amount of training (which doesn't always happen when you end up in a group of three...). We started off with different ways of getting out of a full nelson (not that I will ever be putting one on anyone who isn't a hell of a lot shorter and weaker than I am since I could barely hold my partner in one after he gave me a full couple of seconds to link my hands together properly). Then we did a review of the first four kata of the shinden fudo ryu. I had missed number three in the past weeks and I'm kinda disappointed I did since it's one of the more ridiculous looking moves you can do (oddly enough, I swear it's one of the moves you can do using Yoshimitsu (or maybe Voldo) in Soul Caliber). Basically, someone tries to strangle you and you get into their space and almost climb up so you're sitting with your legs around your waist and with your arms wherever it will do the most damage (*eg*) and not get you hurt. Then you lean back and make sure they bend over as you go down. If you do it right, they're off balance enough that it only takes a bit of a lean forward (and maybe tugging on the back of their ankle) and they crumble and you can put an ankle lock on them or what not.
I got rather pissed off about a fic I was reading today. My problem was that I had a moral objection. It weirded me out since I've only had this happen once before while reading another fic (Published authors probably get these things caught by their editors 95% of the time). 'Cause it really wasn't that I was objecting to what the characters were doing. I've read fics and books filled with depravity and morally ambiguous etc. and I have no trouble with it. If you're showing, say, a reformed villian, and they're being written before they were reformed, I expect them to do evil things and not feel sorry about it. Hell, there's a lot of amoral behaviour from otherwise moral characters that I'll accept as well so long as a) they know on some level that it's wrong b) they get called on it c) it's obvious the author knows it's wrong d) the narrator is biased. But sometimes there's a fic that's otherwise well written, but has a moment where morals are extremely lacking and it's obvious that the readers are supposed to think this is okay because the characters are "special" or what not.
Now, I'm not going to name any names, cause i'm not ranting for the author's sakes, I'm ranting for mine. If you can tell which fics and fandoms I'm talking about here, more power to you (and considering I read in 100+ fandoms I'd be impressed if you did).
Anyway, the fic that pissed me off today was a drama with a lot of romance. Not something I read all that often cause romance usually sucks but here I was reading the sequel to the first fic (which was very well done). The sequel kicks off with the guy becoming emperor and the girl his official wife. Their son is missing. Now, the guy is in need of some serious psyciatric help due to a lot of things that are beyond his control, and instead he's trying to take over an empire whose leader he just killed and keep his wife happy.
He's basically verging on a psychotic breakdown, but he also knows that if he keeps her around both mentally and physically, he'll be okay. He communicates this badly of course, ordering her to stay instead of asking etc. but he also does make every effort to please her and every effort to find their son. He goes off to a peace negotiation and she takes the first opportunity to sneak away and rescue their son knowing the effect she has on him and what leaving will do to him. He goes insane once he hears and starts massacreing people and killing everyone left and right. She (and the author) justify the whole thing as a mother thing and about how important her son is etc. But here's the thing, how could anyone in their right mind think that a baby's life is worth the death of hundreds of planets and races? It was probably one of the most selfish things I've ever seen a character do, but I kept reading cause I figured someone would call her on it. And, lo, someone did, but they were a demon and God came by and scolded the demon for chastizing her!
Technically speaking, there's probably an epilogue missing, but atm, the fic ends with them all together as a happy family and not a word said about how many died in their marital spat/his psychotic break. I was left to just stare at the screen and wonder if the author knew just how horrible she was portraying her characters as being.
Now the other fic I had this happen with, I did stop reading after the incident. It was pretty simple. One character betrayed another character who was the daughter of their teacher. Said character's betrayal, while bad, wasn't even life threatening and could in fact, be passed off as a prank, or just simple-minded maliciousness. The author, following her reviewers clamouring for revenge, wrote a scene where the daughter was given permission by the teacher to take the betrayer into a room and beat the shit out of him. This was considered proper and the daughter and teacher were both proud of it, as was everyone else. Even the betrayer seemed to think it was proper! It was such a vicious, stupid thing for the protagonists to do, and I couldn't stand to read the story anymore.
So there you have two very different cases of amoral behaviour on the part of the protagonists without any explanation or repercussions, and I have to say it bugs me a lot to see someone write something like that. I'd stop reading a book if a character did something like that to, but I can't seem to recall any that do so. Perhaps what bothers me so much is not that the characters think it's all right to do these things, but that the authors (and many of the readers) agree.
Dad and I watched Mirror, Mirror (ST: Classic) a day or two ago. I was surprised by how cool it was. I'd rank it right below Amok Time in my book. It's not like they're the first to ever tackle the parallel universe idea but it was well executed and fun to watch.
Incidently, this is the best version of Country Road, ever:)
I got rather pissed off about a fic I was reading today. My problem was that I had a moral objection. It weirded me out since I've only had this happen once before while reading another fic (Published authors probably get these things caught by their editors 95% of the time). 'Cause it really wasn't that I was objecting to what the characters were doing. I've read fics and books filled with depravity and morally ambiguous etc. and I have no trouble with it. If you're showing, say, a reformed villian, and they're being written before they were reformed, I expect them to do evil things and not feel sorry about it. Hell, there's a lot of amoral behaviour from otherwise moral characters that I'll accept as well so long as a) they know on some level that it's wrong b) they get called on it c) it's obvious the author knows it's wrong d) the narrator is biased. But sometimes there's a fic that's otherwise well written, but has a moment where morals are extremely lacking and it's obvious that the readers are supposed to think this is okay because the characters are "special" or what not.
Now, I'm not going to name any names, cause i'm not ranting for the author's sakes, I'm ranting for mine. If you can tell which fics and fandoms I'm talking about here, more power to you (and considering I read in 100+ fandoms I'd be impressed if you did).
Anyway, the fic that pissed me off today was a drama with a lot of romance. Not something I read all that often cause romance usually sucks but here I was reading the sequel to the first fic (which was very well done). The sequel kicks off with the guy becoming emperor and the girl his official wife. Their son is missing. Now, the guy is in need of some serious psyciatric help due to a lot of things that are beyond his control, and instead he's trying to take over an empire whose leader he just killed and keep his wife happy.
He's basically verging on a psychotic breakdown, but he also knows that if he keeps her around both mentally and physically, he'll be okay. He communicates this badly of course, ordering her to stay instead of asking etc. but he also does make every effort to please her and every effort to find their son. He goes off to a peace negotiation and she takes the first opportunity to sneak away and rescue their son knowing the effect she has on him and what leaving will do to him. He goes insane once he hears and starts massacreing people and killing everyone left and right. She (and the author) justify the whole thing as a mother thing and about how important her son is etc. But here's the thing, how could anyone in their right mind think that a baby's life is worth the death of hundreds of planets and races? It was probably one of the most selfish things I've ever seen a character do, but I kept reading cause I figured someone would call her on it. And, lo, someone did, but they were a demon and God came by and scolded the demon for chastizing her!
Technically speaking, there's probably an epilogue missing, but atm, the fic ends with them all together as a happy family and not a word said about how many died in their marital spat/his psychotic break. I was left to just stare at the screen and wonder if the author knew just how horrible she was portraying her characters as being.
Now the other fic I had this happen with, I did stop reading after the incident. It was pretty simple. One character betrayed another character who was the daughter of their teacher. Said character's betrayal, while bad, wasn't even life threatening and could in fact, be passed off as a prank, or just simple-minded maliciousness. The author, following her reviewers clamouring for revenge, wrote a scene where the daughter was given permission by the teacher to take the betrayer into a room and beat the shit out of him. This was considered proper and the daughter and teacher were both proud of it, as was everyone else. Even the betrayer seemed to think it was proper! It was such a vicious, stupid thing for the protagonists to do, and I couldn't stand to read the story anymore.
So there you have two very different cases of amoral behaviour on the part of the protagonists without any explanation or repercussions, and I have to say it bugs me a lot to see someone write something like that. I'd stop reading a book if a character did something like that to, but I can't seem to recall any that do so. Perhaps what bothers me so much is not that the characters think it's all right to do these things, but that the authors (and many of the readers) agree.
Dad and I watched Mirror, Mirror (ST: Classic) a day or two ago. I was surprised by how cool it was. I'd rank it right below Amok Time in my book. It's not like they're the first to ever tackle the parallel universe idea but it was well executed and fun to watch.
Incidently, this is the best version of Country Road, ever:)
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