Fandom update
27/11/10 22:25![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
invitanBefore everything else: First week back home! And already got a fever, bed-ridden for 24h = = Anyway, I really haven't done anything much, except for lazing around the house all day and reading/watching stuffs, keeping update with fandoms.
I'm figuring out something more productive to commit myself to this winter (like volunteering, or learning something new), but have quite yet to come up with any good idea. A winter of SAT does not quite sound like a bright prospect to me though.
1. [Pandora Hearts] Xerxes Break
<The picture is not quite a fair representation of his usual identity, but it's my favorite, so whatever.>
I intended to write a review for Break, but eventually decided against it. He is one of those characters whose depths are too immense for me to just suddenly come up with words to describe. The process needs some thorough reviewing of the material (which is already complex on its own accord, thank you very much).
After rereading the manga like 2 times simultaneously with the anime, I can definitely confirm that Break is my absolutely favorite Pandora Hearts character right now. And to think that he gets on my nerve the most at the beginning of the story!
A lot of people say that the reason they love him is his multi-face, his sharpness, or his tragic past. Of course, all the above aspects make him absolutely badass, not to mention his skills with his sword. A friend of mine pointed out that he's really another stereotype - fake smile with a tragic past - Fye of TRC, anyone? "Which doesn't make him less deep or less likable though" - she added. I've also put some thoughts in the matter, and come to the conclusion that there's a distinct aspect of Break that makes me love him much more than Fye (actually I cannot say much about Fye - gave up TRC long time ago) - almost the same reason why I love Kanda of DGM so much (and sadly the same reason why my love for Kanda is falling apart, but that's another story). It is his total honesty with himself and total understanding of himself as well as his standing among others.
When I say 'honesty', I don't mean that he's a plainspoken, straight-from-the-shoulder type of character, because that's the opposite of who he is (and that actually sounds a lot more like Kanda, but I'm not going to stray from the main subject). What I mean is that he understands inside out his personality, his abilities, his goals, his needs, etc. He does not pretend to be reliable, because he's not (with his body degenerating and all). He does not pretend that he has a happy past filled with love and care, but neither does he exaggerate it to be something extremely sinful or mortifying. Neither does he try to be particularly remorseful or heavily burdened with the wish to redeem himself. Instead, Break is all like 'Hello, past? How are you today? Oh, btw, thanks for teaching me a precious life lesson, now bye bye!" He totally kicks ass in his honesty, just like Kanda; but while Kanda does it with brute force, Break achieves it with grace and style.
maintaining perspective by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
metisket is my favorite Break fic (well, everything written by her is my personal favorite anyway - her characterization pwns!)
2. D.Gray-Man
So, what has gone wrong in DGM lately? Really, Hoshino-sensei should just cut to the chase and stop playing around with all the bromance tension going on, because it disappoints fangirls and chases away fanboys. Really? Kanda x Alma? CANON?! There should have been some issued warnings, even if she wants to start a whole revolution in Jump. Okay, I appreciate the fact that she does not try to pretend their relationship as mere 'friendship' or 'obsession', but has the gut to call it 'love'. There are not so many popular shounen that are half as brave, and if the budding romance between Allen & Kanda becomes canon eventually, I'm not going to be surprised. Until then, Hoshino needs to stop throwing at fans things that make us go WTF, because seriously, DGM fanbase is not that large.
In the mean time, there's something that's been bothering me:
See it 0__o? The x between Allen and Kanda??? And what can that possibly mean? I'm not reading too deep into it, aren't I 0__o?
I heard there's also a Lavi x Miranda x Lenalee. If that's true, I can ROFL my way to heaven.
3. Glee
So what's with the sudden awesomeness, Glee? The latest episodes with Kurt's storyline developing is just... heartbreaking. Poor lad, glad you've got yourself a boyfriend, not so glad you're moving away. So how do you thing Glee club would do without you, Kurt? (Aww, I love that boy to bits)
Anyway, why does Glee always turn better when Kurt is in the spotlight? It's at its worse when Will's the center of attention, but shines whenever Kurt, or even better, Burt appears. I betcha the scripwriters fell head over heel in love with Kurt, which is natural, since, seriously, who can hate him? Aww...
4. Shiki
...is really reaching its climax. Wow, the thing is freakin' EPIC. Now that everything's in the light, what's left is an all-out war between the human and shiki. The chapter when Chizuru was killed was just mind blowing. It has a similar effect with the death of Toshio's wife - same level of brutality, same gray fashion that this series seems to be fond of creating. It's like... I should feel triumphant when Chizuru's dead, but no no no, the authors have a much much better intention. They instead made me sympathize with her, just to increase the level of tragedy, and then finished her role with a blast when she was all tears and bloody terrified, and just for a tiny moment I actually wanted her to be alive.
It's really these chapters that make Shiki so special. You are not afraid of the gory image of vampire sucking blood; it's the counter-attack of the human that absolutely traumatizes you.
5. Shounen tournament
Imho, vnsharing's shounen tournament is an epic fail. It might be fun for a while as a popularity contest, but the interest diminishes over time, especially when the diversity of characters narrows down to just a few. It might be a better idea to shorten the time, maybe operating more polls in one day. I don't think it's a good idea to allow clones and fake clones and all those gibberish - it just dilutes the tournament and sucks all the fun out of it. The voting topics are boring with members simply type a line than post a bunch of random pics. Well, no clone has enough time to write something more interesting, and the post will be buried under tons of new posts in seconds anyway, so why bother?
===
That's it for now, I guess. Hope to find something better to do soon.
I'm figuring out something more productive to commit myself to this winter (like volunteering, or learning something new), but have quite yet to come up with any good idea. A winter of SAT does not quite sound like a bright prospect to me though.
1. [Pandora Hearts] Xerxes Break
<The picture is not quite a fair representation of his usual identity, but it's my favorite, so whatever.>
I intended to write a review for Break, but eventually decided against it. He is one of those characters whose depths are too immense for me to just suddenly come up with words to describe. The process needs some thorough reviewing of the material (which is already complex on its own accord, thank you very much).
After rereading the manga like 2 times simultaneously with the anime, I can definitely confirm that Break is my absolutely favorite Pandora Hearts character right now. And to think that he gets on my nerve the most at the beginning of the story!
A lot of people say that the reason they love him is his multi-face, his sharpness, or his tragic past. Of course, all the above aspects make him absolutely badass, not to mention his skills with his sword. A friend of mine pointed out that he's really another stereotype - fake smile with a tragic past - Fye of TRC, anyone? "Which doesn't make him less deep or less likable though" - she added. I've also put some thoughts in the matter, and come to the conclusion that there's a distinct aspect of Break that makes me love him much more than Fye (actually I cannot say much about Fye - gave up TRC long time ago) - almost the same reason why I love Kanda of DGM so much (and sadly the same reason why my love for Kanda is falling apart, but that's another story). It is his total honesty with himself and total understanding of himself as well as his standing among others.
When I say 'honesty', I don't mean that he's a plainspoken, straight-from-the-shoulder type of character, because that's the opposite of who he is (and that actually sounds a lot more like Kanda, but I'm not going to stray from the main subject). What I mean is that he understands inside out his personality, his abilities, his goals, his needs, etc. He does not pretend to be reliable, because he's not (with his body degenerating and all). He does not pretend that he has a happy past filled with love and care, but neither does he exaggerate it to be something extremely sinful or mortifying. Neither does he try to be particularly remorseful or heavily burdened with the wish to redeem himself. Instead, Break is all like 'Hello, past? How are you today? Oh, btw, thanks for teaching me a precious life lesson, now bye bye!" He totally kicks ass in his honesty, just like Kanda; but while Kanda does it with brute force, Break achieves it with grace and style.
maintaining perspective by
metisket is my favorite Break fic (well, everything written by her is my personal favorite anyway - her characterization pwns!)2. D.Gray-Man
So, what has gone wrong in DGM lately? Really, Hoshino-sensei should just cut to the chase and stop playing around with all the bromance tension going on, because it disappoints fangirls and chases away fanboys. Really? Kanda x Alma? CANON?! There should have been some issued warnings, even if she wants to start a whole revolution in Jump. Okay, I appreciate the fact that she does not try to pretend their relationship as mere 'friendship' or 'obsession', but has the gut to call it 'love'. There are not so many popular shounen that are half as brave, and if the budding romance between Allen & Kanda becomes canon eventually, I'm not going to be surprised. Until then, Hoshino needs to stop throwing at fans things that make us go WTF, because seriously, DGM fanbase is not that large.
In the mean time, there's something that's been bothering me:
See it 0__o? The x between Allen and Kanda??? And what can that possibly mean? I'm not reading too deep into it, aren't I 0__o?
I heard there's also a Lavi x Miranda x Lenalee. If that's true, I can ROFL my way to heaven.
3. Glee
So what's with the sudden awesomeness, Glee? The latest episodes with Kurt's storyline developing is just... heartbreaking. Poor lad, glad you've got yourself a boyfriend, not so glad you're moving away. So how do you thing Glee club would do without you, Kurt? (Aww, I love that boy to bits)
Anyway, why does Glee always turn better when Kurt is in the spotlight? It's at its worse when Will's the center of attention, but shines whenever Kurt, or even better, Burt appears. I betcha the scripwriters fell head over heel in love with Kurt, which is natural, since, seriously, who can hate him? Aww...
4. Shiki
...is really reaching its climax. Wow, the thing is freakin' EPIC. Now that everything's in the light, what's left is an all-out war between the human and shiki. The chapter when Chizuru was killed was just mind blowing. It has a similar effect with the death of Toshio's wife - same level of brutality, same gray fashion that this series seems to be fond of creating. It's like... I should feel triumphant when Chizuru's dead, but no no no, the authors have a much much better intention. They instead made me sympathize with her, just to increase the level of tragedy, and then finished her role with a blast when she was all tears and bloody terrified, and just for a tiny moment I actually wanted her to be alive.
It's really these chapters that make Shiki so special. You are not afraid of the gory image of vampire sucking blood; it's the counter-attack of the human that absolutely traumatizes you.
5. Shounen tournament
Imho, vnsharing's shounen tournament is an epic fail. It might be fun for a while as a popularity contest, but the interest diminishes over time, especially when the diversity of characters narrows down to just a few. It might be a better idea to shorten the time, maybe operating more polls in one day. I don't think it's a good idea to allow clones and fake clones and all those gibberish - it just dilutes the tournament and sucks all the fun out of it. The voting topics are boring with members simply type a line than post a bunch of random pics. Well, no clone has enough time to write something more interesting, and the post will be buried under tons of new posts in seconds anyway, so why bother?
===
That's it for now, I guess. Hope to find something better to do soon.