(( canon treefuckery? ))
. . . So last night I was uh gloating in IRC. "Wow. WOW, for once, I actually have absolutely nothing to essay on for any of my characters!" And people were like "O Tomo. Pat pat. You'll think of something." Well, fuck you all. 8D Because I actually meant to write this one up ages ago and it totally skipped my mind ARGH have an essay. AGAIN.
It came to mind tonight in a thread because . . . Tomo's a pretty static character. I play her that way; VERY VERY LITTLE of camp actually sinks into her head. Most of her experiences she forgets about quickly, or views very distantly. Many of her relationships, she LOVES THEM, but there are very few people who can ACTUALLY impress a point on her or create any change in the way she acts. Her personality does not and never will significantly change, even if some of her ideas do. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that could happen to cause that which I would be willing to play out (because it would take nothing short of massive, massive trauma).
But there are a few people who are important enough to her that she treats them carefully and, to an EXTENT, will actually go out of her way not to make them angry. This isn't something we see a lot of in canon, although yes there are some similar incidents. Sometimes I feel weird about it. But the problem isn't a characterization one exactly. UH I HOPE? anyway I've never been critted on it SO TELL ME IF IT IS D:
It has to do with the format and genre of Azumanga Daioh. There's a point where I have to pick and choose between "So is it more IC for Tomo to ease up a bit on the annoyingness around certain people she's close to, or for her to have no close relationships and be generally disliked?" And in general, I think the first is actually more IC than the second. (Feel free to disagree, because like I said, this is the one and only recurring issue I really have with Tomo's characterization, and I like input!)
. . . Christ, that was just the INTRODUCTION.
IN THIS EPISODE: Azumanga Daioh anime vs. manga canon for Tomo, why I take her mostly from the manga but pick and choose bits from the anime too like a big hor lol, why playing a character from a 4 panel comic strip sometimes leads to relationship weirdness in camp, and why I fix it the way I do instead of fixing it the other way. GO? GO!
Anime vs. Manga
Azumanga Daioh's one of those series where the anime and the manga are almost identical. In the anime, the timing of things--both the sequence of the mini-arcs and the pacing of individual scenes--has been altered somewhat, and a little has been added or removed here and there, but overall, they're the same. Mostly. I like both versions of the series a lot. I've read the entire manga MAAAAANY times lol, and I've seen about 2/3 of the anime (I'm missing some of the middle of it) and have watched that many times too, because they're both hilarious, so go buy them and such!
When I first got Tomo, I didn't think much about how her character might be different in the two versions, because I hadn't noticed it. The differences are very very slight. They have a lot more to do with how the scenes are delivered and paced and NOT with the lines actually being different; in most cases they aren't. But the more I watched, the more I realized that there's a liiiiittle difference there that bothers me a bit.
For one thing, Tomo's a little nicer in the anime. She's still NOT REALLY NICE. But there are scenes that have been added to the anime and also scenes that have been removed from the manga that give her an overall nicer impression. Some of her really randomly cruel moments in the manga just get cut out of the anime completely (usually physical violence, such as one strip where she socks Yomi in the jaw for no reason). I've already kinda essayed on one of the added scenes here--it's the scene in which Tomo gives Chiyo-chan a birthday present which isn't well-received, and we see a rare moment of Tomo Emo occur over it. This never happens in the manga. I play Tomo here with that scene in mind sometimes, because even though it doesn't happen in the manga, I still sort of like it. It's just a random snippet of internal dialogue that you can't really get across in a 4 panel manga. And I like the idea of characterizing her that way, as someone who wants people to be happy--or rather wants to MAKE them happy, which is subtley different, but is also another essay. 8D fuck you guys srsly
But it's also a good example of the main difference between anime Tomo and manga Tomo--which is that anime!Tomo is a character that, at times, you're obviously supposed to pity. She is in some ways very socially awkward and pays the price for it. Manga!Tomo, on the other hand, knows exactly what she's doing when she pulls shit, and she deserves everything she gets. And I MUCH prefer to play the latter.
To me, that's the FUN of Tomo. She knows how she should be acting, and she doesn't act that way, because she doesn't CARE. She'd rather be doing what she wants, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an IDIOT for not LOVING HER COMPLETELY because god she's clearly awesome! But the anime cuts back on that aspect of her personality. There's a slight difference between "I don't understand what I did wrong" and "I don't understand why you're actually calling me on it." The anime Tomo plays up the first interpretation a lot more.
Like, an example--the other scene I quote in that other essay I linked. XD; CROSS-REFERENCING FTW. That's the entire scene. In the manga, it stops right there, after Tomo's "What?!" In the anime, the dialogue is basically identical. But at the end of the scene, instead of immediately cutting to the next scene, there's a slightly drawn-out bit there where Tomo keeps going "What? What? What is it? What?" while the rest of the group stares at her (and I think eventually begins to walk away--my memory's fuzzy). It goes on juuust long enough that you actually begin to feel sorry for her. And I kind of hate that. XD; You SHOULDN'T feel sorry for her; she's driven and dedicated and accomplished something pretty awesome in terms of academics, but come ON, she did it to be annoying, and she's fully aware of this, and she deserves the shun from Kagura. In the manga it's a lot more "WHAT WHY AREN'T YOU PRAISING MY AWESOME" and a lot less "WHAT'D I DO WRONG?"
There are other examples, like the bit near the end of the series where Yomi's failing all her entrance exams and Tomo's trying to encourage her. In both versions--in both versions, I personally think Tomo actually IS worried about Yomi and wants to see her succeed, because I think she cares about her. But in the manga, there is a DEFINITE edge of mocking there too, which is completely absent in the anime--which is to say, I don't hear it in her tone and she doesn't make the same gestures. On the other hand, in the anime, Yomi's reaction to Tomo's encouragement is also a LOT more overblown. So depending on which version you're seeing, you end up either bemused at Yomi's being a total spaz and feeling a little bad for Tomo, or wondering why Yomi doesn't just strangle Tomo already. XD;
So because I much prefer the "Tomo brings all her abuse upon herself" vibe in the manga to the "Tomo is sometimes a punching bag/just doesn't understand how to make friendly gestures" vibe in the anime, it's the manga interpretations of these scenes that I draw from. It's not that the anime makes Tomo nice. It doesn't. But it sometimes makes her pitiable in a way I don't really agree with. I still draw from the anime, like with using the present scene, because I like the idea of her having a more human side and some good intentions when it comes to her friends and their feelings. But overall I lean towards the self-aware Tomo, the one you shouldn't really feel bad for when she gets topped--and the one who doesn't really feel bad for HERSELF when she gets topped, because she knows as well as we do that she can be a huge bitch.
Manga vs. Camp
So, speaking of drawing Tomo from the manga. Azumanga Daioh is a 4 panel gag strip. It's a damn GOOD one which even manages minor character development and some running jokes and plotlines and such, but it's still an episodic series which only works by merit of having a specific rhythm and punchline. The situations unfold, by necessity, in a way that will set UP this rhythm and punchline.
CFUD does NOT follow the same pattern humor-wise, for the most part. Although if you follow Tomo threads at all, you'll probably see me setting it up whereever possible. XD It's easiest to play Tomo's humor in a general format of "Pose, pose, pose, punchline" because those are her roots, and at this point I do it completely unconsciously. FTW.
But the problem's not with the humor. It's with relationships. BECAUSE Azumanga Daioh is a humor series that's set up as a sequence of VERY BRIEF snippets of interaction . . . there are no consequences. To anything. It's assumed that if two characters have a falling out, even if we don't see them making up (and we NEVER DO), their relationship will be exactly the same as it was before by the time we hit the next page.
So Tomo came to camp operating on the assumption that life works this way. But hahah surprise surprise, no one else here is from a 4 panel universe! (Unless Vlad counts.)
It's very confusing for her to have to deal with the fact that "Okay, so I just punched/completely dissed/screamed at my best friend--and they're NOT going to brush it off within five comments?" XD; This was something she didn't KNOW! It didn't really sink in until the incident with the Robert bodyswitch and Sano getting pissed off at her and leaving the cabin for a few days. That Does Not Happen in Tomo's world. And it felt HORRIBLE. Tomo is not used to people being angry at her for more than like half an hour at a stretch, absolute maximum. To have someone she cared about get irritated, and stay irritated, and act strangely for a few days? Completely blew her mind.
Like I said, Tomo's personality doesn't change, and camp events uuusually don't quite sink into her mind the way they should a normal person's. But she can learn. And from that experience, and some after, she's learned that in this world, sometimes people don't like you again three strips later. Sometimes you do something to mess things up and they stay messed up unless you work on them.
. . . And Tomo's hedonistic. She wants to feel good and she doesn't want to have to work for it. So there are people that she will AVOID pissing off if she can. The usual suspects, and most of all Sano and Robert, because she has experience with what their anger and sadness feels like, and she HATES it. And so she's much more likely to go "All right, all right, I won't do this, okay, I won't say that" when it comes to them than she was back home. At home, she could say whatever she wanted and things would be fine, because those were the laws of her narrative universe. HERE, there are consequences to things. And they feel really bad. It feels really BAD when Sano makes that face. :( So--don't make that face! I'll do something, something good, to distract you!
She does not care about most people to this extent. But if she likes you? And especially if you've proven in the past that you will make her face the music if she fucks with you? She'll learn to tread lightly around you, to an extent. Tomo treats Robert with kid gloves in a way she doesn't anyone else, even Sano, because she recognizes this quality in him where his friendship is extremely difficult to obtain and possibly extremely difficult to keep, and with the first in mind, she doesn't want to test the second. This doesn't mean she's not still insensitive and bitchy at times to people she likes--laughing at their discomfort, playing tricks on them, badmouthing them, etc. But uh. She's not going to haul off and sock Sano in the jaw the way she might have in her canon, because she's learned that he won't forget about the incident 30 seconds later. 8D
I could play her otherwise; it was my choice to have her take something away from these incidents where people have actually been angry at her for extended periods of time. It'd be a valid choice to play her exactly as careless as she is in canon. But the reason I choose not to is that in canon, her actions, no matter how bad, never damage her relationships. In camp, doing something seriously fucked up like that WOULD damage a relationship. And the great thing about Tomo in canon is that . . . for SOME REASON that I'm not sure we're meant to understand, she's liked. Genuinely, universally liked. Her friends tease her and hit her and have moments of hating her and she does the same to them in return, but she is always voluntarily included, and people look to her for advice and companionship and amusement.
And this is only possible because of the episodic format, really. You just can't get away with having a character like that be LIKED in a series where relationships and plots develop. It's the Magic of 4 Panel that allows Tomo to get away with things like tricking her best friends into thinking she's destroyed their most prized possession in one strip, and then planning a weekend at the beach with them totally amicably in the next.
I try to replicate this as much as possible in camp; I would like to think very much that my Tomo is childish, loud, hyperactive, immature, petty, sometimes stupid, hedonistic, impulsive, sadistic, greedy, and egotistical. If she's not, then, you know, please tell me. I don't see Tomo as soulless or unredeemable, and I do think she's a good person at heart and someone who can and does care about people and wants to make them happy and can have normal relationships with them, but. She's still the kind of person who DOES stuff like hit her friends out of the blue and laugh at their discomfort and pull pranks on them and goad them into having negative reactions that she finds funny. And even if there's a small extent to which I have to play this down in camp for the sake of replicating canon relationships, and much MORE SO with certain characters that she's come to rely on emotionally, I don't actually want to take Tomo away from being Canon Tomo.
Because as you've probably figured out by now, I have near-obsessive love for Canon Tomo. T^Td FAITO, EVIL LITTLE BITCH.
It came to mind tonight in a thread because . . . Tomo's a pretty static character. I play her that way; VERY VERY LITTLE of camp actually sinks into her head. Most of her experiences she forgets about quickly, or views very distantly. Many of her relationships, she LOVES THEM, but there are very few people who can ACTUALLY impress a point on her or create any change in the way she acts. Her personality does not and never will significantly change, even if some of her ideas do. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that could happen to cause that which I would be willing to play out (because it would take nothing short of massive, massive trauma).
But there are a few people who are important enough to her that she treats them carefully and, to an EXTENT, will actually go out of her way not to make them angry. This isn't something we see a lot of in canon, although yes there are some similar incidents. Sometimes I feel weird about it. But the problem isn't a characterization one exactly. UH I HOPE? anyway I've never been critted on it SO TELL ME IF IT IS D:
It has to do with the format and genre of Azumanga Daioh. There's a point where I have to pick and choose between "So is it more IC for Tomo to ease up a bit on the annoyingness around certain people she's close to, or for her to have no close relationships and be generally disliked?" And in general, I think the first is actually more IC than the second. (Feel free to disagree, because like I said, this is the one and only recurring issue I really have with Tomo's characterization, and I like input!)
. . . Christ, that was just the INTRODUCTION.
IN THIS EPISODE: Azumanga Daioh anime vs. manga canon for Tomo, why I take her mostly from the manga but pick and choose bits from the anime too like a big hor lol, why playing a character from a 4 panel comic strip sometimes leads to relationship weirdness in camp, and why I fix it the way I do instead of fixing it the other way. GO? GO!
Anime vs. Manga
Azumanga Daioh's one of those series where the anime and the manga are almost identical. In the anime, the timing of things--both the sequence of the mini-arcs and the pacing of individual scenes--has been altered somewhat, and a little has been added or removed here and there, but overall, they're the same. Mostly. I like both versions of the series a lot. I've read the entire manga MAAAAANY times lol, and I've seen about 2/3 of the anime (I'm missing some of the middle of it) and have watched that many times too, because they're both hilarious, so go buy them and such!
When I first got Tomo, I didn't think much about how her character might be different in the two versions, because I hadn't noticed it. The differences are very very slight. They have a lot more to do with how the scenes are delivered and paced and NOT with the lines actually being different; in most cases they aren't. But the more I watched, the more I realized that there's a liiiiittle difference there that bothers me a bit.
For one thing, Tomo's a little nicer in the anime. She's still NOT REALLY NICE. But there are scenes that have been added to the anime and also scenes that have been removed from the manga that give her an overall nicer impression. Some of her really randomly cruel moments in the manga just get cut out of the anime completely (usually physical violence, such as one strip where she socks Yomi in the jaw for no reason). I've already kinda essayed on one of the added scenes here--it's the scene in which Tomo gives Chiyo-chan a birthday present which isn't well-received, and we see a rare moment of Tomo Emo occur over it. This never happens in the manga. I play Tomo here with that scene in mind sometimes, because even though it doesn't happen in the manga, I still sort of like it. It's just a random snippet of internal dialogue that you can't really get across in a 4 panel manga. And I like the idea of characterizing her that way, as someone who wants people to be happy--or rather wants to MAKE them happy, which is subtley different, but is also another essay. 8D fuck you guys srsly
But it's also a good example of the main difference between anime Tomo and manga Tomo--which is that anime!Tomo is a character that, at times, you're obviously supposed to pity. She is in some ways very socially awkward and pays the price for it. Manga!Tomo, on the other hand, knows exactly what she's doing when she pulls shit, and she deserves everything she gets. And I MUCH prefer to play the latter.
To me, that's the FUN of Tomo. She knows how she should be acting, and she doesn't act that way, because she doesn't CARE. She'd rather be doing what she wants, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an IDIOT for not LOVING HER COMPLETELY because god she's clearly awesome! But the anime cuts back on that aspect of her personality. There's a slight difference between "I don't understand what I did wrong" and "I don't understand why you're actually calling me on it." The anime Tomo plays up the first interpretation a lot more.
Like, an example--the other scene I quote in that other essay I linked. XD; CROSS-REFERENCING FTW. That's the entire scene. In the manga, it stops right there, after Tomo's "What?!" In the anime, the dialogue is basically identical. But at the end of the scene, instead of immediately cutting to the next scene, there's a slightly drawn-out bit there where Tomo keeps going "What? What? What is it? What?" while the rest of the group stares at her (and I think eventually begins to walk away--my memory's fuzzy). It goes on juuust long enough that you actually begin to feel sorry for her. And I kind of hate that. XD; You SHOULDN'T feel sorry for her; she's driven and dedicated and accomplished something pretty awesome in terms of academics, but come ON, she did it to be annoying, and she's fully aware of this, and she deserves the shun from Kagura. In the manga it's a lot more "WHAT WHY AREN'T YOU PRAISING MY AWESOME" and a lot less "WHAT'D I DO WRONG?"
There are other examples, like the bit near the end of the series where Yomi's failing all her entrance exams and Tomo's trying to encourage her. In both versions--in both versions, I personally think Tomo actually IS worried about Yomi and wants to see her succeed, because I think she cares about her. But in the manga, there is a DEFINITE edge of mocking there too, which is completely absent in the anime--which is to say, I don't hear it in her tone and she doesn't make the same gestures. On the other hand, in the anime, Yomi's reaction to Tomo's encouragement is also a LOT more overblown. So depending on which version you're seeing, you end up either bemused at Yomi's being a total spaz and feeling a little bad for Tomo, or wondering why Yomi doesn't just strangle Tomo already. XD;
So because I much prefer the "Tomo brings all her abuse upon herself" vibe in the manga to the "Tomo is sometimes a punching bag/just doesn't understand how to make friendly gestures" vibe in the anime, it's the manga interpretations of these scenes that I draw from. It's not that the anime makes Tomo nice. It doesn't. But it sometimes makes her pitiable in a way I don't really agree with. I still draw from the anime, like with using the present scene, because I like the idea of her having a more human side and some good intentions when it comes to her friends and their feelings. But overall I lean towards the self-aware Tomo, the one you shouldn't really feel bad for when she gets topped--and the one who doesn't really feel bad for HERSELF when she gets topped, because she knows as well as we do that she can be a huge bitch.
Manga vs. Camp
So, speaking of drawing Tomo from the manga. Azumanga Daioh is a 4 panel gag strip. It's a damn GOOD one which even manages minor character development and some running jokes and plotlines and such, but it's still an episodic series which only works by merit of having a specific rhythm and punchline. The situations unfold, by necessity, in a way that will set UP this rhythm and punchline.
CFUD does NOT follow the same pattern humor-wise, for the most part. Although if you follow Tomo threads at all, you'll probably see me setting it up whereever possible. XD It's easiest to play Tomo's humor in a general format of "Pose, pose, pose, punchline" because those are her roots, and at this point I do it completely unconsciously. FTW.
But the problem's not with the humor. It's with relationships. BECAUSE Azumanga Daioh is a humor series that's set up as a sequence of VERY BRIEF snippets of interaction . . . there are no consequences. To anything. It's assumed that if two characters have a falling out, even if we don't see them making up (and we NEVER DO), their relationship will be exactly the same as it was before by the time we hit the next page.
So Tomo came to camp operating on the assumption that life works this way. But hahah surprise surprise, no one else here is from a 4 panel universe! (Unless Vlad counts.)
It's very confusing for her to have to deal with the fact that "Okay, so I just punched/completely dissed/screamed at my best friend--and they're NOT going to brush it off within five comments?" XD; This was something she didn't KNOW! It didn't really sink in until the incident with the Robert bodyswitch and Sano getting pissed off at her and leaving the cabin for a few days. That Does Not Happen in Tomo's world. And it felt HORRIBLE. Tomo is not used to people being angry at her for more than like half an hour at a stretch, absolute maximum. To have someone she cared about get irritated, and stay irritated, and act strangely for a few days? Completely blew her mind.
Like I said, Tomo's personality doesn't change, and camp events uuusually don't quite sink into her mind the way they should a normal person's. But she can learn. And from that experience, and some after, she's learned that in this world, sometimes people don't like you again three strips later. Sometimes you do something to mess things up and they stay messed up unless you work on them.
. . . And Tomo's hedonistic. She wants to feel good and she doesn't want to have to work for it. So there are people that she will AVOID pissing off if she can. The usual suspects, and most of all Sano and Robert, because she has experience with what their anger and sadness feels like, and she HATES it. And so she's much more likely to go "All right, all right, I won't do this, okay, I won't say that" when it comes to them than she was back home. At home, she could say whatever she wanted and things would be fine, because those were the laws of her narrative universe. HERE, there are consequences to things. And they feel really bad. It feels really BAD when Sano makes that face. :( So--don't make that face! I'll do something, something good, to distract you!
She does not care about most people to this extent. But if she likes you? And especially if you've proven in the past that you will make her face the music if she fucks with you? She'll learn to tread lightly around you, to an extent. Tomo treats Robert with kid gloves in a way she doesn't anyone else, even Sano, because she recognizes this quality in him where his friendship is extremely difficult to obtain and possibly extremely difficult to keep, and with the first in mind, she doesn't want to test the second. This doesn't mean she's not still insensitive and bitchy at times to people she likes--laughing at their discomfort, playing tricks on them, badmouthing them, etc. But uh. She's not going to haul off and sock Sano in the jaw the way she might have in her canon, because she's learned that he won't forget about the incident 30 seconds later. 8D
I could play her otherwise; it was my choice to have her take something away from these incidents where people have actually been angry at her for extended periods of time. It'd be a valid choice to play her exactly as careless as she is in canon. But the reason I choose not to is that in canon, her actions, no matter how bad, never damage her relationships. In camp, doing something seriously fucked up like that WOULD damage a relationship. And the great thing about Tomo in canon is that . . . for SOME REASON that I'm not sure we're meant to understand, she's liked. Genuinely, universally liked. Her friends tease her and hit her and have moments of hating her and she does the same to them in return, but she is always voluntarily included, and people look to her for advice and companionship and amusement.
And this is only possible because of the episodic format, really. You just can't get away with having a character like that be LIKED in a series where relationships and plots develop. It's the Magic of 4 Panel that allows Tomo to get away with things like tricking her best friends into thinking she's destroyed their most prized possession in one strip, and then planning a weekend at the beach with them totally amicably in the next.
I try to replicate this as much as possible in camp; I would like to think very much that my Tomo is childish, loud, hyperactive, immature, petty, sometimes stupid, hedonistic, impulsive, sadistic, greedy, and egotistical. If she's not, then, you know, please tell me. I don't see Tomo as soulless or unredeemable, and I do think she's a good person at heart and someone who can and does care about people and wants to make them happy and can have normal relationships with them, but. She's still the kind of person who DOES stuff like hit her friends out of the blue and laugh at their discomfort and pull pranks on them and goad them into having negative reactions that she finds funny. And even if there's a small extent to which I have to play this down in camp for the sake of replicating canon relationships, and much MORE SO with certain characters that she's come to rely on emotionally, I don't actually want to take Tomo away from being Canon Tomo.
Because as you've probably figured out by now, I have near-obsessive love for Canon Tomo. T^Td FAITO, EVIL LITTLE BITCH.