(no subject)

[the_rck]

They have actually gone out in the boat, so I’ve got some time to myself. I haven’t settled enough to write fic yet. Instead, I’ve been going through emails more than a decade old and trying to save off whatever information made me decide to keep them. Basically, when I delete the Earthlink address some of those emails will vanish, and I’m not actually sure which ones. I was going to get rid of that account on my email profile, and the program gave me a huge warning about deleting all associated messages.

Mainly, I’ve got a lot of emails from a Yahoo list I belonged to in 2003/2004 that include a lot of snippets of historical research that might or might not be useful for a fic I’ve had in my WIP folder since then. Sadly, most of the messages are links to websites that simply no longer exist. Or maybe that’s not so awful— It means I can delete the messages and not worry that I’m losing important information.

I kind of just want to lie down and sleep right now. Maybe I will. I don’t know. I need to write, but I’m not sure I can do it right now. If I were at home, I’d have some tea or some orange juice and some cheese or some almonds, but all I’ve got here is water which, for some reason, doesn’t help nearly so much (at all).

I also want to talk to someone, but the internet here won’t support my chat programs. Anybody want to talk about anything in comments here?

Comments

[lunabee34]

I'll talk about stuff.

What kind of historical research?

[the_rck]

At this point, I'm at home for the night, but it's nowhere near bedtime, so talking is great!

It was an old Yahoo list for English speaking fans of the Shinsengumi. I wasn't planning to write about them directly. The fic I had in mind would be for Rurouni Kenshin (an anime/manga series) which is set about ten years after the end of the Japanese civil war that the Shinsengumi were a part of.

As far as I know, there's only one non-fiction book in English about the Shinsengumi, and it was written by someone who has a very heavy bias against them. I don't know that he was particularly inaccurate in the details, but the slant was noticeable to me, coming to the book cold.

They were a paramilitary group that supported the Shogunate in the civil war and did 'police work' in Kyoto. Their rules for members were extremely strict, and violating them was grounds for being required to commit suicide. They weren't any kinder to anyone they considered an enemy.

[lunabee34]

I watched Ruroni Kenshin a looooong time ago when it was first airing on Cartoon Network, but I don't remember the details of it, just that I liked it.

Did you watch the live action movie made of it recentlyish? If so, was it good?

I know very little about the history of that part of the world, so that's fascinating.

[the_rck]

Do you remember the character named Saitoh from Rurouni Kenshin? He was a real historical person and a member of the Shinsengumi. The version of him in Rurouni Kenshin probably doesn't bear much (any) resemblance to the historical person except that he did survive the war, change his name to Fujita Goro, and work for the police for a while.

There were three live action movies made. I've seen two, and I liked them quite a lot. I haven't yet seen the third, and I really should because the second one ended in a cliffhanger.

I think the movies were well cast and, mostly, well written. There were a couple of decisions made about when to introduce certain characters that didn't entirely make sense. They brought one character in much earlier than he appeared in the anime or the manga and omitted someone else from the first movie entirely so that, when he appeared in the second movie, his motivations were utterly nonsensical.

The Rurouni Kenshin manga is a lot tighter than the anime is, but I like some of the decisions that they made in writing the anime better. Well, I've only seen the anime up to about the halfway point. After that, it's apparently all filler because they outpaced the manga. Mostly, I prefer anime Kaoru (the female lead) to manga Kaoru, but there are also a couple of points where incidents and characters have more room to breathe in the anime so that things feel more like they would have happened that way.

[lunabee34]

I remember very little about it at all except for what Kenshin himself looked like, the repetition of the phrase Maji Era and Gatling guns. LOL

I'm glad you say the live action movies were good. I'd like to watch those at some point. I want to watch the anime with Emma at some point. She'd like it.

I never read the manga.

[the_rck]

There was (or still is? I don't know the timing) a Takarazuka production of Rurouni Kenshin. There was a preview sort of thing online a while ago, but I don't know if it would mean anything if you don't remember any of the characters except Kenshin because it was mostly giving each actress a chance to show off her portrayal of her particular character.

[lunabee34]

Ahahhaa, yeah. Probably not as useful. I think I have forgotten way more things than I've remembered. Sigh.

[luminations.livejournal.com]

You're probably settled in to write by now, or perhaps napping.

I was supposed to lose my Cox email address when I changed providers a couple years ago, but I can still get into it. I thought I had 60 days to go through everything I wanted to keep... with most things I ended up just saying "fuck it" because of all the stuff I feel like keeping, very little of it is anything I actually end up looking at in the future. I'm not sure when I think I'm going to get all nostalgic and want to go through all this saved crap I have.

And from the other post... like with your Amber characters, I wonder how Harry Potter isn't royally messed up after the awful childhood he had. How could he possibly know anything about love or friendship when he's never experienced it up through age 11?? But, Rowling had a story to tell, and delving too deeply into Harry's psyche would have hindered it.

[the_rck]

I got this right as everyone came back. Sorry for not answering sooner.

I have the impression that one of the threads in the new Harry Potter play is that Harry's pretty messed up.

[luminations.livejournal.com]

Quite alright, I know it wasn't right after you posted so figured you might not be around anymore :)

I'm reading that screenplay now actually! I don't see his parts showing that he's messed up, really... but I'm not done with it yet...