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rainsometimesIn the amusement park in my city, there used to be a fine, large Ferris wheel (it sadly no longer exists) offering a lovely seaside view at a gentle pace. Usually you were only allowed to ride the wheel for two turns (or whatever the right English word for it is: two full revolutions of the wheel), and the ones who operated it and let people on and off kept track of which car had gone two turns already, so they stopped at the right time. Sometimes you were lucky and you might be allowed to travel three or four times instead. The grown-ups in the car didn't always like it when we were in one of the top positions of the wheel when it paused, especially not when some of us kids tried to spin it around. I can't remember being scared myself - maybe when I was smaller, but when I was around 8,9 or so I think I pretended that if the wheel got stuck for good and it took time to get help, I could climb my way down (hah!)
This one time when we visited the amusement park and got up in the Ferris wheel, we rode around it once, and knew we had one more turn (or is it "lap"?) to go. Unless we were lucky. As we approached the ground, I hoped so much we could get another turn of the wheel, if the wheel didn't stop until our cars had passed the ground level again.
And I was lucky! The wheel didn't stop! It took us for another spin where we could breath in the fresh summer breeze and look out at our beautiful city and the bustling amusement park with all the people.
Then the ground approached again. Again I held my breath wanting for more.
Again it just kept going!! I giggled with delight and excitement.
And it kept going. And going. And going!!! For as much as fourteen turns of the wheel altogether, a record I'd never even come close to before. Each time we approached ground, I wondered if this would be it, the end of the fun pastime. Each time I cheered when we were allowed to go for longer, until the final turn when we finally had to get off. (If this had been a fast-paced attraction, I wouldn't have been as enthusiastic, but there was no problem like that with the slow pace of the Ferris Wheel.)
As we just kept going and going, I recall some of the adults in our car getting a bit antsy. Instead of sharing my delight, they were feeling done with this, and wanted to get down to solid earth again. [edited to add: they may also have been thinking of our schedule, come to think of it.] If it had kept going for long enough, I suppose I might have ended up feeling the same way. But for the time we did get, I didn't become fed up with it. I just wanted more.
This is how I feel when reading new Gintama chapters these days.
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Date: 2019-02-26 06:28 am (UTC)Although it has made me seriously reminisce it like 20 times over the past year because I genuinely thought it was ending. Then again it's a very gintama thing to not end when it said it's ending, I guess?
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Date: 2019-02-26 08:39 am (UTC)Of course, it's not at all uncommon for writers of big epic plots with huge casts to find the ending takes them much longer to reach than anticipated... At least there's a difference between constantly creating new material on the way there (Sorachi, Oda) and just never getting out the next installment (George R. R Martin).
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Date: 2019-02-26 12:12 pm (UTC)I did read somewhere that publishers may be more wary of sorachi after this - he supposed to be doing a serial series after all, and not being able to end when he says so may seem rather unprofessional?
But his works sell well, so I guess he should be fine. And Shueisha is giving him leeway to end the series on his own terms and pacing too.
Yeah, at least it isn't like GRRM where people don't know when the next book is coming. This just reminded me of Twelve Kingdoms (by Fuyumi Ono) too. I have been waiting 17 years for the continuation of the main story, but from what I gleaned from twitter she seems to be very sick so I will just wait patiently...