welcome to camp telophase

I am informed that in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, the Pope parachutes from an airplane in advance of an antimatter explosion destined to take out Rome.

My thoughts on the matter are:

-- all the readers of this would probably think manga is too weird to read

and

-- should I read it so you don't have to? (I'm not reading the DaVinci Code, because I know too much about the actual origins of the beliefs he used to make the plot, i.e. they were mostly made up by some guy in the 1950s and I would spend the entire time shrieking WHY DIDN'T YOU DO SOME BASIC LIBRARY RESEARCH YOU NIMROD at the protagonist.) and is someone going to send it to me so I don't have to spend my own money on it?

==================

Also! I never got back to you on the poll I posted asking what item you thought rachelmanija sent me, because I moved shortly after I posted it, and the item in question got packed away.

The vast majority of you decided that she'd sent me The Playboy Sheikh's Virgin Stable Girl, and I am hereby announcing that you are all ( Read more... )

As I was messing about with a copy of the Cool Bits generator yesterday, it struck me that the one aspect of story it was missing was the why of things, in short, character motivations. Now I'm sure that there's lots of you out there who have cracktastic Cool Bits for *why* people do the things they do in stories, so list 'em off here! I'll dad them to the generator and pop in a few new sentence constructions to use 'em. :)


(In other news, my body can't decide if I'm getting a cold or if it's just serious allergies. Pfui. I hate that state of non-commitment.)


ETA: Examples of the sort of thing I'm looking for. HOWEVER: please make sure that these are cool bits for you (whether for heroes or villains), the sort of thing that will make you clutch a book to your bosom and giggle madly, and not just any motivation you can think of. :)

because they are diverting attention from something else
because of an addiction
because of an addiction to drama
by lust for an unattainable object of desire
out of a desire for vengeance
out of a desire to impress a lover
out of a desire to impress a superior
out of loyalty to a commanding officer
out of professional ambition

Back when Melody of Oblivion was first being broadcast and fansubbed several years ago, I watched several episodes, and liked them quite a bit. But it's the sort of series you really need to be in the mood for and at some point I never got around to downloading more of it. I recently noticed that it was available on Netflix, and popped disc 3 onto my queue, guessing at about which episode I'd stopped at. I guessed correctly - episode 9 was the last I'd watched, and this disc started with ep 9.

How to describe it? It's a Gainax WTF?! series, and that should tell you quite a lot. It follows a young man named Bocca and his possibly sentient motorcycle-looking Aibar machine around a futuristic Japan that is controlled by creatures called Monsters, after the Monster-Human War. Bocca is searching for the Melody of Oblivion, someone or something hidden away that could be the savior of humankind.

I remember only vague, chaotic, confusing elements from the first eight episodes and discovered as I was watching episodes 9 and 10 that I wasn't actually crazy and that the episodes were just like that. rachelmanija and oyceter, you'll be happy to note that there is a Fowl of DOOOOM! in it, in the form of a parrot or cockatiel-type thing that flies around screeching "Truth or lies!" and then delivering messages to people. No heads in jars. So far. There are references to mythology and fairy tales. I vaguely remember a bus growing horns and turning into an analogue of the Minotaur in one of the early episodes, and there was one short story arc that dealt with a boy sticking his finger in a hole in a dam, like the story of the Dutch boy and the dike, and the most recent story arc has a villain that fights inside a giant robot suit that looks like a monkey and uses a giant extendible monkey wrench, like Monkey/Son Goku's staff. The Warriors of Melos, who are the only ones that can hear the Melody of Oblivion, activate their powers by drawing an arrow across a glowing tattoo on some part of their body, and they release the arrow with a cry that's taken from poker: "Flush!" "Four Card!" etc. There's a small group of freedom fighters that may not be as human as they seem that are also a theatrical company.

And those are the parts that make sense. I'd love to watch this with someone else in the room who can truly appreciate anime crack, just because.

ETA: Have also obtained and read volumes 11-22 of Samurai Deeper Kyo in the past 24 hours, and will be reading vol 23 later on tonight. I gotta say, that is way too much shounen fighty scenes to mainline in that short a time, and yet I. CAN'T. STOP. READING. Damn you, chomiji! (Honestly - how many times can a character almost get killed, then stand up and say "This time I'll stop holding back!" and kick his opponent's ass ... and then ten minutes later fight another opponent who's even tougher, go even more all out, and then SAY IT AGAIN? Aaaagh! There's gotta be an upper limit here somewhere!)

Favorite character: currently Hotaru. YOU ARE SO CUTE WHEN YOU'RE WEIRD! Also am tired of Yuya's primary purpose in the story being the one to whom the other characters explain patently obvious things that I'd already figured out from context. The audience for this is obviously way younger than me. :) Also also am tired of the expression she wears 90% of the time being: 8O Want to yell at her to shut her mouth before a bug flies into it.

Remember the Cracktastic Quiz I threatened you with earlier? Well, here it is! And I got enough suggestions that it's damn long! I didn't even use HALF of the suggestions I got. :)

I *think* I didn't screw up and leave the correct answer off of any one of them, but I might have, so that's always an option. Also, there may be more than one statement that applies to the same series, so just because you marked it earlier doesn't mean it's not another answer. :)

Will post the answers in another post, at some point in the future.

( ON TO THE QUIZ/ZES )