a sense of joy and then a panic

1)  Colonial slash?

"Stamford Raffles was at the romantic edge of this Enlightenment quest, seeking in the rustic Javanese or highland Sumatran the noble vestige of once-great civilisations. Soon after arriving in Penang in 1805 as assistant secretary and commencing his study of the Malay language, Raffles became intimate with Dr John Leyden, a learned Scottish surgeon of almost his own youthfulness and romantic disposition, who had been a collaborator of Sir Walter Scott before leaving Edinburgh. Together they formed their vision of the Malays as one of the language-based ‘nations’ that Johann Gottfried Herder and his counterparts in the English Romantic movement, such as Scott, had seen the world divided into." (Reid 2001: 303)

I doubt that is what Anthony Reid meant.  Still, I LOL'ed.

2)  Goren & Eames?

"LAW & ORDER: CI
NEW ORIGINAL EPISODES
COMING THIS SUMMER"

YAY!

oh, wait.  -_-

I need to dedicate this song to Andromache (and Acmon):

you sit there in your heartache
waitin' on some beautiful boy to save you from your old ways
you plead forgiveness, watch it now, here he comes

he doesn't look a thing like Jesus
but he talks like a gentleman
like you imagined when you were young

- "When You Were Young"; The Killers

To-Do-This-Weekend

1.  Finish research - read all the articles. - continuous
2.  PS 9. - Thursday p.m.
3.  Chapter 2 and 3 in Silent Spring. - Thursday a.m.
4.  Slideshow for lab.  - weekend
5.  IO article - Friday?

Sigh. 

You know that your fandoms have a theme when you've favorited four videos to the two same songs: "It's Been Awhile" - Staind (A great angsty but decidedly un-emo song, by the way) and Linkin Park's "In The End".

Law & Order CI
X-Files

Law & Order CI
X-Files

After the exciting revelation that many people also think that Detectives Goren and Eames would make a great couple, I realized they have a lot in common with my other "other" pair: Mulder and Scully.  The man ("you're not a guy.  the world is full of guys.  be a man.  don't be a guy.") is incredibly intellectual but rather socially inept and has a bad reputation within the bureaucracy, probably because he's "hard to work with" or "insane".  The woman is much more in-line with the bureaucracy at the beginning, with a stoic father also involved with the bureaucracy who everyone looks up to, and is assigned as a dependable good girl to follow around the man and make sure he doesn't screw up.  At first the woman thinks the man is batshit insane with his strange theories and mannerisms, but eventually she realizes that he's brilliant and dedicated and passionate about his work, and often he's right on the mark.  At first the man thinks she's just a closed-minded goody-goody two shoes who's just a pawn for orthodoxy, but eventually he realizes that she's courageous and clever and made of pure steel.  They end up making a good team, but the world closes in on them - the bureaucracy; the man's past demons and emotional instability; the woman's insecurities and sacrifices she has to make.  And when the man looks like he's going to destroy a crime scene out of rage, the woman yells at him, and keeps yelling, but he appreciates it because everyone else just looks away, calls him crazy, and detaches from him, and though she yells and gets frustrated and impatient, she stays. 

Reminds me of the Scottish ballad of Tam Lin - where the mortal woman has to get the bewitched man out of the clutches of the Queen of Fairies simply by pulling him off his horse and holding onto him, while the fairies turn him into a snake, into fire, into ice, into a wild dog.  When she doesn't let go despite all that, he turns into a naked man and is freed from the spell. 

Ah, just watch the videos.

So then I thought, this doesn't really jibe with my other pairing, you know, the biggie, G/CC.  But I think there are two distinct kinds of couples that I "ship":

1.  Keep the Faith - the traditional couple, star-crossed and long together, the man honorable and duty-bound, the woman devoted and keeping the home fires burning while he goes out to battle.  Neither really have emotionally problems to start out with, though the stress of constant separation gets to them eventually and disillusions them, because they're the innocents who carry the burden of the world.  Examples: Goku/Chi-Chi, Aragorn/Arwen, Hector/Andromache.  And Acmon/Andromache. 

2.  Walk the Line - the jaded, angsty couple, who may or may not actually be an official couple throughout most of the series.  The man's gifted but volatile as all hell, and the woman chooses her doom by insisting on following him through his downward spiral.  Firm rather than mushy, both are active and probably work together, and end up making each other even more lonely, jaded and bitter, because they're the only ones who know truth and pain.  Examples: Mulder/Scully, Goren/Eames, Johnny Cash/June Carter.  And Rod/Nike. 

To be fair, there are some consistencies - the deepening of the bond over the course of turmoil, the woman's incredible fortitude, the man's dedication to his cause, whatever it may be.  However, Keep the Faith is like my little girl princess fantasy couple.  I'll always hold a special place in my heart for those couples.  But I think the couple I'm meant to belong in is Walk the Line.  You know?  I don't think I'm going to end up in a Keep the Faith relationship, but a Walk the Line relationship.  I don't know why I feel this or how I claim to know this, but I just do. I guess for one, in real life I'm much more attracted to Walk the Line type guys, and I'm also very committed to work, to the cause, and have at least minimal faith in The Bureaucracy, like Walk the Line type women.  In fact I consider myself a Walk the Line woman.  There's an incredible resonance when I watch Walk the Line videos, a familiarity, an understanding. 

Some songs and their AMVs for the Walk the Line couple (since I feel I've neglected them in my own thinking), besides "It's Been Awhile", which is probably the theme song for the Walk the Line couple:
* "What Sound" by Lamb
* "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" by Fuel
* "Savin' Me" by Nickelback
* "Push" by Matchbox 20
* "Run" by Snow Patrol
* "Teardrop" by Massive Attack

A note on the last video - read the explanatory paragraph on the side.  One of the (many) remaining controversies is how Scully got pregnant with baby William toward the end of the saga.  Was it artificial insemination?  Was it magic alien abduction shit again?  Or was it "the old-fashioned way"?  I think William's weird powers can be explained by Scully having been abducted in the past, because it becomes clear that Mulder is William's father, and why not have it be the old-fashioned way.  This video is pretty convincing.  It would explain the way they act around each other afterwards.  One of the strongest moments in the last season, I think, is when Mulder's being held in the secret government prison and beaten by the guards, and they want him to say that he is wrong, wrong about everything, wrong about the X-Files, wrong about aliens, wrong about the conspiracy.  So they hit him and say, "What are you thinking about?" and he says, (the second time), "My son, and his mother," and they hit him again.  It's painful.  But poignant. 

God.  As shallow as all this fandom shit may seem, it's taken a lot out of me, realizing this.  Makes me feel like I'm looking into my future.  Creepy.  But I think I know for sure now what my "type" is. 

I daresay my most heartfelt writing when I was in middle school was the stuff I never showed anybody. Not the X-Files-inspired first book of Musings of a Young World. Not the short-lived series Tarren Country. And certainly not the short stories written for class assignments about girls who had to save endangered tigers or survive in Kalimantan (Borneo, for you Westerners).

Nope, it was the stuff I hid in my yellow Engrish-riddled notebook: my tortured, tortuous love-hate relationship with my first love, DBZ, and in particular the hero of the series, Son Goku, who I randomly decided on the way to P.E. one day in sixth grade I thought was "cute". That was it. I just had to say that, and suddenly, my whole life was decided. Every single hero I ever created, no matter how terrifically unlike Goku they were, was Goku in my mind's eye. Rod Harding - atheist, womanizer, Public Enemy #1, politician. Darius Nathanael - murderous, drunk, incompetent, religious zealot. Yup. They were both played by Goku. In essence, everything I have written has been fanfiction, except I changed the names. A lot of fanfiction nowadays, after all, takes place in Alternate Universes, with Out Of Character protagonists. That's what Musings of a Young World was. DBZ AU OOC. But GxCC.

Because somewhere along the lines I diverged from the path of many a fangirl - I decided that I did not hate Chi-Chi, and I did not want to replace her. I have thought of several possible explanations: my low self-esteem didn't consider myself worthy; I related to Chi-Chi; I respected Toriyama's creative decisions; I like the idea of stable family homes, perhaps after just losing mine, following my father's death. I wanted a father figure.

It was a bad choice on my part. The first male figure I found after my father died, albeit a two-dimensional fictional one, wasn't exactly a pillar of stability. At best, his role as guardian of the world meant he always had to go off to fight, or die. At worst, he was neglectful, irresponsible, uncaring, and guilty of abandonment.

Oddly, all this actually reinforced my budding feminism. It's the one value that's been instilled by every member of my mother's family - girl power! I definitely listened to the Spice Girls instead of the Backstreet Boys. My friends and I weren't interested in boyfriends in elementary school even though my best friend and I were in love with the same boy - it was not a competition, because it was very innocent and meaningless. More importantly we sang songs like, "and he's just a boy, and he's stupid as himself" (we didn't really know the lyrics to No Doubt's "Just a Girl", so we made them up). When I moved to the U.S., I was given books like 33 Things Every Girl Should Know (a great book, by the way), Woman Warrior, Letters to a Young Feminist, subscriptions to New Moon, American Girl catalogs, and later, Ophelia Speaks, the response to Reviving Ophelia. It was clear that I was supposed to be a feminist.

And then I became obsessed with a show that absolutely reeks testosterone, to the point that it's funny. At first I saw no problem. As far as I was concerned, DBZ was a family-friendly show where good guys fought bad guys, and my favorite good guy also had a wife and kid.

It was the internet that disillusioned me, and the older fans with too much time on their hands who posted on forums and wrote web sites and spoilers that disillusioned me. I started finding out things I didn't want to know - namely, other people's opinions, and the future of the series. By this time I was already getting angsty about this new male role model always dying and leaving his family, always training, and the night I found out that the sequel to DBZ, DBGT, ended with him going off forever with the Eternal Dragon and never coming back, leaving his wife to prepare a welcome home banquet he would never eat, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't believe it ended that way - I couldn't believe it dared do that to me. Yes, it had become personal. It was like the world insisted on fucking me over. I know this is an irrational thought now, but at the time, a year after my father died, I saw no other explanation.

It also became evident that this show was, as I put it in one of my 12-year-old rants, "so bad for girl power". All the female characters were either portrayed as bitches or whores - and of course, the whores are preferred. All the jokes were indecent and at the expense of the few women. It was right after this mass sexual assault/harassment scandal in Central Park, and I was suddenly alarmed that I had fallen into the trap of a bunch of perverted men. I did not yet realize, obviously, that all anime save Miyazaki's by in large is written by and for perverted men. I felt like an idiot. And I felt other things too - like if I was to be myself, I would be considered an annoying shrew, a nag: a harpy. I was always going to be the ugly duckling, compared to some perfect Mary Sue, the "girl all the bad guys want" - I'd always be the one whose husband would rather be dead than alive with me. In other words, I was always going to be Chi-Chi.

Interestingly, I never blamed her, I blamed him. I could have gone the opposite direction, and I could have decided, like one of my Mormon friends did, that women are ungrateful shrews that need to be tamed, that they're weak and pathetic. Nope. If my feminism learned anything from DBZ, it's that women are constantly getting fucked over. It wasn't just me. It was my mother. It was rape victims. It was Joan of Arc. Ever since I came to this epiphany, I have always liked the women that are considered bitches by everyone else, especially men. Sailor Mars. Ellen Ripley (of "Alien"). Abbie Carmichael (Law & Order). Asuka Langley Soryu, for fuck's sake. Never the damsels in distress. Never the perfect, beautiful ones. Nope. The imperfect, unstable, angry bitches, because that was me, and I felt any woman who didn't think like I do was blind, or enjoying being the center of attention. Now I attribute it to my own personality, but hey, this is where it came from. I listened to Garbage. I hated "Taming of the Shrew", and as I recall, I was quite loud about it.

Still, I also hated "Much Ado About Nothing", because the sweet couple of the beginning of the play doesn't really get back together - one pretends she's dead and then pretends she's someone else and marries the guy anyway, but... that's not exactly perfect love, is it? Unfaithful husbands were the bane of my academic life, and they were everywhere, most notably in The Odyssey. Oh, damn. How I hated The Odyssey. Of course I made intellectual excuses for it then, but I knew why - because I was bitter, because I was convinced that this was what Goku always did to Chi-Chi - and by token, what my father did to my mother, what my husband would do to me, etc., etc., and forever more.

All this disillusionment led me to abandon the series completely for the rest of middle school and high school. My heart still quickened when I saw DBZ t-shirts and movies, but it was in fear - in fear of not only the show, but of myself falling back in love with it, as if it was an abusive husband. I believe this was also around the time, in mid-high school, that I started telling people how I would die - I would be pushed down the stairs by my abusive husband. I was quite sure of it at the time, because I couldn't quite kick the DBZ habit. If I could, I wouldn't keep picturing them when I wrote about Rod and Nike's increasingly convoluted trials and tribulations that shouldn't have reminded me of DBZ at all, right? Yet I continued, because I was still trying to fix the gaping wound that show's plotline and character development left on my soul, pardon the emo poeticism.

It wasn't until I was old enough to have some semblances of an actual stand-alone personality that I could get back into it safely and watch an episode without wanting to die of shame. It was in my senior year. I don't know what came first, but two things won me over: a fight scene, which reminded me how great the combat of the show was; and watching the final anime filler episodes of DB, which were strictly GCC (I later bought this on DVD, that's how much I care). I still felt the need to belittle the show, and I did. I started listening to Garbage compulsively again (their first album this time, but for me it was the second, because I bought it second), and I no longer felt like I was a GCC. I liked the fight scenes. I liked the early story line. But I still laughed at the characters, scorned their machismo, wanted to kill them all, even Goku, yes, all those lumberjack fighters could die.

By now I was writing the seventh book of Musings of a Young World, now to be titled Grace Under Pressure but originally titled The Peace Chronicles, which features the most feminist scene I've ever written - my main character, Nike (played by Chi-Chi, of course) transforms into an all-powerful avatar of the goddess Durga after withstanding political imprisonment and torture for writing "dangerous articles", and kills every one of her tormentors in very gruesome ways. It was a high to write and it's still a high to read - my mother will attest to how awesome it is, to get through the earlier chapter, which is very painful, and get payback like that.

So when I returned to DBZ, sporadically, and only on weekends when I could stay up late and indulge in the manga when no one else was awake to the hum of Adult Swim, I experienced it critically. I became obsessed with associating it with the song "I Will" by Radiohead. I couldn't decide if it was the worst thing ever written or the best - just like I couldn't reconcile the adrenaline rush it gave me to read the battle scenes and my instincts as a pacifist (and feminist). But I started thinking about it again. With rock songs in my head I would think about it as I walked my high school halls, thinking about how stupid the rest of the world was, how fucking great DBZ really was - except for all the things that sucked about it, of course. I didn't take offense when SomethingAwful made fun of it, because I could tell that they were closet fans too. To this day, no better quote about DBZ have I been able to find than this:

"I'd like to think I've got a pretty huge willingness to suspend disbelief. Hell, I watched Dragonball Z for years and enjoyed the fuck out of it. But somehow this just asked too much of me." - Ben "Greasnin'" Platt, a SomethingAwful writer

I had found my own way to love it again, though it remained a secret. Until I got to college and met Kim. She got it out of me. At first I was reluctant to divulge exactly how complicated my history with DBZ was - "just something I used to watch", and all, but the more I realized I could actually talk about it with Kim, who liked Gundam Wing, the more it came out, like waterworks. I discovered Fanfiction, and realized, to my great surprise and joy, that there were other people who supported the Goku - Chi-Chi pairing. And I fell into it, full force. Except this time I was a little wiser. It still continued to upset me. Other fans, more than anything else, continued to upset me. But this time I had found an outlet: Ilium.

Ilium was conceived out of my rage toward those people who thought DBZ was just a stupid cartoon show, a kids' show. After my years of toil and turmoil with it, I was wholely convinced it was not, and I couldn't believe they would say that a show where people regularly die or sacrifice themselves and planets get exploded is for kids. So I created Ilium. Yes, Ilium Agonistes is fanfiction. But I discovered that it also allowed me to vent all my frustrations about the show. I was going to write it the way I always saw it. I was going to fuck over all the fans I didn't like, and I was going to focus as much on my favorite couple as I damn well wanted, like I knew they deserved, although I am starting to give less and less of a fuck if other people "support" the pairing or not. Yes, Chi-Chi's bitchy, and yes, Goku's a bit of a moron. So what? It's not like I've ever cared about being popular or well-liked. Which means I'm very bad at creating Mary Sues and Gary Stus. I seem to have a propensity for latching onto characters that the masses dislike. Yes, I love Rod and Nike, but other characters don't, and sometimes I hate Rod, I really do - just like Nike, I haven't quite forgiven him for his actions in A Good Man is Hard to Find. I made Isabel Mordecai, the heroine of Rubeus Via, the "harpy" - it was what her enemies called her, but Darius called her "feisty". I made it my own, in other words. I think it's all I can do. As Fanfiction writers have to announce as a disclaimer, I don't own DBZ.

A Musical Evolution (songs I've associated with DBZ over the years):

1999: "Defeat You" - Smashmouth. Lindsey and I had pretend fights to this song. I started listening to it around the Freeza Saga, and I was beyond convinced (and remained convinced) that it is about that battle. I don't care what Smashmouth says. Just read the lyrics: "Born as a human with a kung fu spine/ equipped with a detector of what's on your mind/ you jive, you shuck, you bob, you weave/ and when you're down you've got something up your sleeve" plus my favorite "You cry when you're wounded and you laugh when they bleed". What a great DBZ anthem. How fucking pathetic that no one on YouTube has made an AMV to it. *tsk tsk* I actually bought this song for that reason.

1999/2000: "Drops of Jupiter" - Train. I got more sentimental here - I was growing more attached to it, but I have reasons for including this song. Sometimes I was talking to Goku, scolding him for always being gone: "and tell me, did you sail across the sun? Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded? That heaven is overrated?" and sometimes I was reprimanding myself for loving this show so much, for loving a hero who fucking abandons his family to learn new fighting techniques so much: "tell me, did you fall for a shooting star, one without a permanent scar?"

2000: "Special" - Garbage. This was my official I-am-over-DBZ song. It was completely and utterly directed to Goku, and it was rageful: "I'm living without you, but I know all about you... I used to adore you/ I couldn't control you/ There was nothing I wouldn't do/ to keep myself around and close to you/ do you have an opinion, a mind of your own?/ I thought you were special, I thought you should know/ But I've run out of patience/ I couldn't care less". I don't think I've ever hated him more than I hated him at this point.

2001: "Virgin State of Mind" - K's Choice. Don't ask me why, but for some reason this song has always reminded me of Chi-Chi. Eventually it became Nike's theme song too (and probably even more appropriately so, Andromache). What can I say, I listen to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtrack and see all kinds of correlations.  "Now there's a key where my wonderful mouth used to be/ dig it up and throw it at me/ where can I run to?  Where can I hide?/ Who can I turn to?  Now I'm in a virgin state of mind/ got a knife to disengage the voids that I can't bear/ to cut out words that I've got written on my chair/ like, "do you think I'm sexy?"  Do you think I care?/  Can I burn the mazes I grow?  I don't think so"

2001: "Foolish Games" - Jewel. Not angry so much as just bitter and sad and disappointed, this song reflects it. it's still directed at Goku, but this one is more from Chi-Chi's perspective than Nadia's. "I always felt I was outside looking in on you/ You were always the mysterious one, with dark eyes and careless hair/ you were fashionably sensitive but too cool to care/ You stood in my doorway with nothing to say except some comment on the weather/ Well in case you failed to notice, in case you failed to see, this is my heart bleeding before you, this is me down on my knees... well excuse me, guess I've mistaken you for someone else, somebody who gave a damn, somebody more like myself". Interestingly, I always associated this song with Darius and Isabel as well.

2002: "Take A Bow" - Madonna. This is the polite-but-chilly stage of the relationship. I wasn't as sad, because I was trying to detach and stay detached. It's hard, as Madonna shows, but I was the queen of hiding my emotional attachments at this age. This song has been used as a GCC fanfic, btw. "Say your lies, but do you feel them? Do you mean what you say when there's no one around? Watching you, watching me... one lonely star/ Lonely star, you don't know who you are/ I've always been in love with you, I guess you've always known it's true/ You took my love for granted, why, oh why, this show is over, say goodbye/ Make them laugh, it comes so easy/ when you get to the part where you're breaking my heart/ I'm behind your smile, all the world loves a clown/ All the world is a stage, and everyone has their part, but how was I to know which way the story'd go, how was I to know you'd break my heart?" Ooh, did you get that last line? It's the best.

2002: "You'll See" - Madonna. The sequel to "Take A Bow", more resolute and strong: "You think that I can't live without your love, you'll see/ You think I can't go on another day/ You think I have nothing without you by my side/ You'll see, somehow, some way/... You think that you've destroyed my faith in love/ You think after all you've done, I'll never find my way back home/ You'll see, somehow, some day... all by myself, I don't need anyone at all/ I know I'll survive, I know I'll stay alive/ All on my own, I don't need anyone this time/ It will be mine, no one can take it from me/ You think that you are strong, but you are weak/ It takes more strength to cry, admit defeat/ I have truth on my side, you only have deceit/ you'll see, somehow, some day..." And this is how I felt about this relationship for a long time.

2003: "The Outsider" - A Perfect Circle. I heard this song and thought immediately, albeit reluctantly, of DBZ, and in particular, Vegeta. But, you'll note, it is a decidedly different aspect of DBZ I had not thought of for a long time - the battles. It was probably the first time I gave serious contemplation to the emotion of battle scenes. At least it let me focus on something other than G/CC. "Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time/ What's your rush now, everyone has their day to die/ Medicated drama queen, picture perfect numb belligerence/ Narcissistic drama queen, craving fame in all its decadence". You'll notice the more sharply critical tones, yes, the dare I say "haughtiness"?

2004: "My Immortal" - Evanescence. I heard this song and thought of Chi-Chi, and I would cry on the short drive to school. It's probably been used for a Cell saga song fic: "If you have to leave, I wish that you would just leave, cuz your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone/... There's just too much that time cannot erase/ You used to captivate me by your resonating light, now I'm bound by the life you left behind/... I tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone/ but though you're still with me/ I've been alone all along!" I suggested to my Mormon friend that maybe it was about a woman whose lover had left her or died while she was pregnant. She seemed to think this was a possibility. I think that line about "bound by the life you left behind" makes it pretty clear. I still get weepy when I listen to this song, only because I think of Goku and Chi-Chi.

2004: "Getting Away With Murder" - Papa Roach. This is when I started thinking it was okay to like DBZ, and I didn't have to get all sad and emotionally involved, because I would just focus on its strengths - the fighting! This stage was fun... while it lasted. Unfortunately if you get sucked too deep into fandom you can't just not get emotionally involved. Oh well, I tried. The summer of 2004 I bought graphic novels at Barnes & Noble and had to tell myself not to read them in the car before I even got in the house. "Somewhere beyond happiness and sadness/ I need to calculate what creates my own madness/ I'm addicted to your punishment/ and you're the master, and I am awaiting this disaster/ I'm feeling rational, so confrontational/ to tell the truth, I am getting away with murder".

2004: "I Will" - Radiohead. Too many literature and social science classes makes Nadia a critical girl. The more I deeply analyzed my comics (and I mean deeply... I would take ten minutes to read every page, especially the ones published by Viz, because they have bigger pictures...), the more I realized some disturbing themes. The most heartbreaking panel that I own is from #12, Viz's magazine-style edition (not Shonen Jump's graphic novels), page 24. Yeah, this is so a kid's story. Anyway, on p. 24, an extremely badly injured Goku is trying to tell his young son Gohan, who's also injured though not as severely, to keep fighting. Gohan, in the midst of his first battle after having a a childhood that, shall we say, was "cosseted", says, "I can't... it hurts too much..." and Goku snaps back, "What are you... a coward?! Gonna let all those people... die for nothing?!" Which got me thinking, damn, what is this story teaching children? Add into this the facts that I was starting to find out about my father - that he was a political critic who backed down in the interest of protecting my mother and me, and now I wanted to go into Political Science, taking after him, revenging the world on his behalf for killing him - and this scene gave me serious psychological shudders. When I re-listened to "I Will" after dwelling thoughtfully on this scene, the song had a whole new resonance: "I will lay me down/ in a bunker underground/ I won't let this happen to my children... I will rise up/ little babies' eyes..." I wrote a stream-of-consciousness piece about this. First semester, senior year of high school. It's quite interesting.  It also gives you a good idea of just how fucked up my head is.  Oddly enough, I think I showed this to my AP Lang teacher, Cognard, and I think she thought it was great.  Truth stranger than fiction.

2004:  "Not My Idea"/"Vow" - Garbage.  Garbage never failed to see me through these feminism vs. testosterone episodes of frantic doubt.  In retrospect, when I was mentally torturing myself over this conundrum of the progressive young woman who watches DBZ was one of the most mentally fun and active times in my life.  You also see what kind of progressive young woman I would become: the angry, violent, snarky kind.  I had fantasies about Durga killing all the villains (and heroes) of DBZ.  Which explains the above post somewhat.  Too mean?  Eh.  I believe in tough love.  "You thought that I would never see/ what was meant for you was meant for me/ I was distracted at the time, forget about yours, now what about mine?" / "I can't use what I can't abuse/ and I can't stop when it comes to you/... I came to cut you up, I came to knock you down/ I came around to tear your little world apart... break your soul apart". 

2004/2005:  "Made of Glass" - Trapt.  I know Trapt isn't exactly critically acclaimed, but they made for really great comic book musical accompaniment.  "Am I still breathing?  Have I lost that feeling?  Am I made of glass, cuz you see right through me".  Yes, my dear Z-fighters, I do see right through you, I'd think.  I belittled them to the point of making them little figurines in terraniums.  But at least now I was in control.  Ah, this brings back fond memories of reading in bed by the light of my nightlight that I otherwise never use, occasionally looking up to see the new shit that is being passed off as anime these days...

2005:  "What's Happenin'?" - Ying Yang Twins.  Oh my god.  I discovered all on my own that DBZ goes with rap!  Plus it's not half as depressing as tragic ballads or angsty alternative-rock-metal.  I can't really post appropriate lyrics to this song... I mean... it's rap, it has nothing to do with the lyrics... but here, I'll post the chorus: "Boom, it's on, bitch niggas gonna rock ya room/ BOOM, bitch what's happenin'?" and I've often joked that Vegeta should really say the line "Bitch, what's happenin'?" at least once in his life.  Kim agrees with me, don't you Kim?  This is me at the pinnacle of "emotionally uninvolved".

2006:  "Starfighter Pilot" - Snow Patrol.  This is probably the only song on this list that acknowledges my role as an outsider in this whole debacle.  It's a light-hearted song, but unfortunately, it's once again directed at Goku... and that means I'm getting emotionally attached again (fuck it all): "Andrew's a starfighter pilot/ I cradle his picture at night/ Andrew's a starfighter pilot/ I watch him on TV each day/ I've got all his specials on tape". 

2006:  "Vermilion" - SlipKnot.  I started planning Ilium and at the same time found an amazing AMV by this Finnish girl named Chichicken, now taken off YouTube because FUNimation is anything but FUN.  Anyway, it was a mindblowing AMV that reassured me that I was not alone in thinking there was a deeper meaning to DBZ, and I wasn't crazy for writing Ilium.  This song is now the soundtrack to Ilium, as we know, and it's all thanks to Chichicken.  If you're out there, girl, you should be President of Finland.  "She seems dressed in all the rings of past fatalities/ so fragile, yet so devious... oh, she's the only one that makes me sad!"  It was called "the darkness inside saiyans".  I have searched the internet for it, but it's gone.  Rest in Peace.  P.S.:  Oops, we're depressed again.

Ok, I'm on a ship rant, so watch out. I'll try to remain calm. Stress on "try".

There happens to be this crazy web site out there of this crazy person who has actually published an entire page on why DBZ's Goku and Bulma should be together. Disregarding their minimal grasp on the English language, this individual is obviously completely fucked in the head. Here are her arguments, and my rebuttals.

#1. Yin and Yang: "Their personalities complement ench other perfectly, and provide the level of friction nessesary to keep a relationship active and interesting". Okay. This idea of "opposites attract", first of all, is complete b.s. I most definitely do not like guys that are dumbass motherfuckers, and they sure as hell don't like me. I'll never marry a conservative. Polar opposites do not a relationship make. Also, a relationship is not about "keeping things interesting". A relationship is a partnership, and marital harmony does not equal yin and yang. Dude, even Chinese horoscopes say this - I always get warned on those dumb little zodiac papers they hand out at restaurants to watch out for roosters, because they're my opposite. Why are you insisting on a couple simply because the pairing would amuse you anyway?

#2. Adventuring Spirit: "Neither of them are content just to sit around and count their wrinkles. Both Goku and Bulma are always going off on journeys together, searching for Dragon Balls or whatever. Now, there is no better way to build a interesting relationship than to journey together. It promises new sights, new people, and new situations to share."
* so they're both irresponsible? what happens when the children come along?
* Bulma doesn't like to adventure in DBZ. She fuckin' whines the entire time she's on Namek.
* Vegeta sits around and counts his wrinkles? Ha ha ha ha...

#3. Teamwork: "Both of them have abilities that perfectly compliment ench other. Bulma has all the technical know-how to pop a gadget to get them out of a jam. And Goku has the martial-arts skill to obliterate any opposition that stands in their way. Brains and Brawn, the perfect combination."
* Bulma fucking gives up these gadgets without a fight in Lord Slug, because she's so weak.
* If you want to see teamwork, watch the ending episodes of the Piccolo Jr. saga, when Goku and Chi-Chi are off trying to get the bansho fan. They're equally competent at kicking ass and Chi-Chi has the wherewithal to make fun of Emperor Pilaf as well as collect the random pieces that are finally needed to solve the problem. Sorry, but Bulma's just not as competent as Goku, and Chi-Chi is.

#4. Yin and Yang Revisited: "Like all people, Goku and Bulma have bad traits as well as good. However, in the long run, these traits will end up cancelling each other out. Bulma has the common sence to keep Goku from doing anything rediculously stupid and getting into trouble. And Goku has the good will to subdue Bulma's selfish side and keep her helping others." Okay, again with this yin yang bullshit. I'm going to skip addressing all of that crap and just go straight for what I think the person's trying to imply: they improve each other. Is Goku's "flaw" in the franchise really "getting into trouble"? I think the only thing he's actually lacking is real companionship. It's not like he hangs around with his DB friends if he's not adventuring. And guess what, Chi-Chi gives him that. He wouldn't have had a family without her. He wouldn't have become the Goku that everyone knows and loves, he'd just be training all the time. Again, relationships aren't about keeping people out of trouble or keeping them being nice to other people. That's what friends are for. Look at the couple that inspired the Kama Sutra, Shiva and Parvati. Shiva, god of war, is the ascetic hermit that lives by himself that doesn't really give a shit about anything, until mortal Parvati wins him over. With her, he becomes Shiva the Householder. Goku undergoes the same transformation. It's the same transformation that's been happening for generations. It's the same transformation that's been happening in the animal world for generations.  Do you really want to argue with biology?  With the Kama Sutra?  Come on.  It's Chi-Chi that improves Goku. 

#5.  Fanfiction Potential: "when you take all of the elements above, you have ample material to work with, perhaps ever more than Bulma/Vegeta or Goku/Chichi".  My response: WTF are you talking about?  You're arguing about the merits of a ship based on how much material you would have to work with in the fanfiction world?  Are you fucking kidding me?!  It's not about you! 

#6.  Romance Potential: Bulma: "Bulma has shown more feeling toward Goku than any other character. She thinks extremely highly of him, way more higher than even Vegeta. (ex: Trunks Special) She thinks about him, and shows large emotion. Heck, she's even had crushes on him from time to time. To put it short, Goku is Bulma's hero. And I think it shows."  Yes, okay, I acknowledge this one.  It's obvious from her comment on Namek about her fucking up when she chose Yamcha instead of pursuing Goku that Bulma has serious Monday Morning Quarterback issues with Goku.  But guess what, Bulma?  It's too late!  He's moved on!  You will note that there is no "#7.  Romance Potential: Goku".  Because Goku doesn't see her that way.  He immediately clicks with Chi-Chi, even as a kid, in a distinctly romantic manner.  When Bulma's daydreaming about how muscled he's become during the Freeza Saga, he's freaking out because he knows that if Freeza wins, Gohan and Chi-Chi are dead (see the episode "Embodiment of Fire"... don't even argue with me on this one).  He has a new life and priorities that don't involve her.  Harsh?  Maybe.  But it's the truth. 

Oh, wait, there is a #7:  "I think they look good together. And that's my two cents."  My response:  Akira Toriyama clearly disagreed.  It's plaintively obvious that he planned for Goku and Chi-Chi to be together since that seventh episode of DB.

Here's my closing song lyrics.

"Stupid MF" by Mindless Self Indulgence:

"Is it simple enough for you? Does everybody understand? Are you all still following me?

Should I talk slower like you're a retard?
Should I talk slower like you're retarded?

Yo' they think you're dumb. I think you're smart. No, wait, I lied. I think you're dumb.

Get it-Get it-Get it-
You just don't get it.
Get it-Get it-Get it-
You stupid mother fucker.
You stupid mother fucker.
You stupid mother fuc-
ker-
You stupid mother fucker.
You stupid mother fucker.
You stupid mother fuc-

It's under your nose.
It's over your head.
It's out of your reach."

Bow to the canon.  That's all I have to say.