Inside Insanity

Thursday, April 24, 2003

The problem with having anime calendars is that, since they're Japanese, they don't have American holidays on them and I can never remember the date of anything. Which means I would've forgotten about mothers day if I hadn't been reminded...Very bad of me. I may not have much money to get gifts, but I should at least remember. Even if it is just an artificial creation by a company.
posted by Kristyn 12:41 PM

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Random Yaoi couples generator ...scary, yet amusing. Be wary of the link though, your reactions to couples may scare you. I had to berate myself after my first response to the Tsuzuki (seme) and Ken (uke) pair, 'Ooh! Pretty!'. Though, to make up for it, the generator keeps trying to scare me. Muraki/Ryuuichi? Poor Ryuuichi would never stand a chance. The most horrifying has to be Akito/Hiei though because it's wrong on so many levels I can barely stand to contemplate it. And, no matter how horrifying, you just KNOW some ff.net fangirl is going to look, squeal, think they'd look great together and then write something up for it. Who cares if they aren't even in the same series, or time period or planet, they're pretty together! There's a reason I fear Alternative Universe (AU) fics. As a whole they are complete and utter crap. Though there are a couple good ones, but you'd expect that from such a prolific genre. AU's suffer from the fact that changing the background changes the personality of a person so people either have to use plot contrivances to make the characters background the same or change them. And, if you're going to have them the same, why not just keep them in their original universe? Mainly, those AU's are just to introduce some Mary Sue-type character or, god help us, put everyone in high school. That works for things like, say, Gundam Wing where the boys are all the right age but still...overdone at best. And those that change their personalities tend to turn them into boring stereotypes. We read fanfics to read about the canon charas, not some random person with their name. And, of course, heaven save us from those who try to do the first one but end up doing the second because they can't write the character, or any, in some cases, in the first place. Bad fanfics... Agh. @_@
Fanfiction.net, destroying your belief in human intelligence one 'story' at a time.

Edit note: I couldn't resist the chance to see a couple more pairs and got Dilandau (Escaflowne)/Dark Mousy (DNAngel). That would be a great parody fic, with Dilandau changing genders every couple paragraphs and Dark switching between himself and Daisuke. Hee. ^_^ And then I got Ayame (Fruits Basket)/Subaru (Tokyo Babylon). I guess Subaru, having been burned by Seishirou, decided to go for the male version of his sister? And then I got Daisuke (DNAngel)/ Farfello (Weiss Kruez) and hurt my mind again. That's just wrong, people. Really, just...argh.
posted by Kristyn 4:49 PM

Sunday, April 20, 2003

There's nothing quite like starting a series and getting into the flow of things, liking what is there but, perhaps even more so, liking the potential the series holds. Knowing that the author can, with their next book, spend more time polishing the marvelous worlds and characters they have created and producing something even better than what you've just finished. Nothing like going through a series and discovering that, in reality, after several good runs the author clearly runs out of creativity or steam or whatever you want to call it and is now producing absolute drivel. Avid readers will know what I'm talking about. If you read often, it's only a matter of time before you come across a series of books that, while very good at first, should have been cut off partway through, for the good of everyone. Many people probably feel this about the Star Wars franshise right now; that they should have just left it at the first (or second, whatever) trilogy and never, ever produced Episode 1. Two is a bit better, but not enough, IMHO, to makeup for the bore-fest that is one. The book series I feel this most strongly for is the Anita Blake series. The first few books are filled with promise and the possibility that Anita can get over her fascination with describing her scars and that pathetic wanna-be Jean Claude and become a kick-arse heroine. And then she turns in Avatar!Anita, Mary Sue incarnate, the ultimate in 'perfection', and I can't evne bother to read all the later books. Jean Claude = Sad, wanna-be vampire. Richard = Whiny, angsty & pathetic. Anita = Annoyance. Edward = Cool, but not quite psychopathic enough to make up for everyone else. Strangely enough, one of the fanfic series that I've seen done very well is a cross between Anita Blake and Gundam Wing, an unholy duo (hee ^-^ Unintentional punnage) that should be horribly awful and, yet, is better than either of its sources. Well, better than the Blake series and fandom Gundam Wing. I can't really claim that it's better than the series, though rewatching has called the quality of the series into doubt in my mind. But...er...what was i talking about again?
Oh yes. Series that go bad. Currently, I'm staring in wonder as a once good Gundam Wing fic (Don't laugh! There are a few good GW fics out there, amongst the polific hideousness) that has turned into Days of Our Lives. I swear, everything in the current story, which is the 4th and just as epic as its prequels, reads like it came from a soap opera during sweeps month. They have all the common plot contrivances: the Major Illness to Bring a Family Back Together and Provide Lots of Angst, the She's Too Good For Me So I'll Push Her Away, the Sudden Regaining of Memories Hidden for Many Many Years, the My Adoptive Family is Too Good for Me so I'll Push Them Away, the Fanatics Killing Sympathetic Members of a Very Brutal Race (Who Just Happen to Have Been Very Very Old Friends of the Family), and, of course, the Wow! So We Grew Up Together All Those Years Ago Until Something Tragic Happened to Split Us Up and Made Us Forget and We've Been Beside Each Other For Years Without Knowing, Except the One Guy Who Just Never Said Anything, and Now We All Know Thanks to the Script Gods? plot contrivances. That last wasn't good in Final Fantasy 8 and it isn't good here. Nothing ruins a story like those wacky 'We were all together years ago but just forgot' plot contrivances. It's never done well and it rarely adds anything to the plot, other than an easy similarity to bond over. I finally gave up on FF8 ever having any semblence of decency when it was revealed that everyone but Rinoa, including Cid AND the villain, just happened to grow up in the same orphanage (and Laguna has rather close ties to Squall and the orphanage as well). Except Rinoa. Which explains why she's so stupid, really...
But...the story... I've rather liked the three previous stories in this series. They aren't the best but, hey, sometimes something a bit less polished is just what you want to read. Something simple and nice. But, now, it's become soap opera hell. Every new chapter reveals some new plot contrivance it seems. The reporter from Earth sent to investigate the killings just happens to be tied to the really sick character and to have watched over him even though, gasp!, he doesn't know her at all. Wanna bet that she will have the same basic genetics, and thus be able to cure him? Wanna tell me who she is and why I should care? Doesn't matter, that'll be revealed next week, I'm sure. On the next episode of Days with Our Gundams, same AC time, same AC channel.

(And yes, I realize I've digressed quite alot from my point about series gone bad but, hey, it's 3:30 am, I just got back from work a half hour ago, and I've been playing Dark Cloud 2 all day. Plus, well, when have I ever failed to digress? And why am I bothering to justify this to myself. Meh...Back to taking pictures of random landscape features, I guess.)
posted by Kristyn 3:50 AM