English 1000 Blog of the Century

This story was incredible and really touched me deeply.  It’s another fanfiction, this time called It’s a Wonderfully Splendid, Exquisitely Splendiferous, Magnificently Elegant, Life by sciathan file.  As you might be able to tell, the use of superfluous language in this story is prevalent, perhaps prompting my own.  While the use of such language can be aggrevating when overused or used improperly, it completely sets the tone in this story, since the main character is just as flamboyant and long-winded as the title.  Reading the story is like being inside Tamaki’s head, where every thought or action is dribbled with flowery language and unneccesary adjectives.  When he is happy, Tamaki is confident and sensuous.  When he is sad, he is “unequivocally, wholly, utterly, and completely alone”.  Everything he does or says is dramatic, and the story reflects that in the narration.  It is rather amazing, and I wish I could write with the same dramatic flair as the author.

I picked up an odd book up the other day and decided to read it.  It’s called The Spider-man Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manuel by Seth Grahame-Smith. It’s rather fascinating that someone would take their time to write a book like this (and that I actually read it).  It is a complete guide on how to be Spiderman: from costume design to police  codes, from secret identities to spiderweb solution.  It covers it all,  and is laid out like a manuel that an aspiring superhero might use to refer to.  It pretends to be serious at times.  In some places it is very detailed, like where it describes how to take a punch to the face, and in others it is laughably vague, like where it describes how to make a spider-tracker and says they won’t go into the details for fear of insulting your intelligence, but a person should be able to knock one out in several minutes.  It gives really good advice in some places, but doesn’t overstep the boundaries into actually believing people should take it seriously.  It’s a fascinating read.

Church styles have changed dramatically over the years.  They have changed from imposing, almost threatening, cold buildings to more welcome houses of worship.  It is important to know the reason behind this change, as it helps a person visualize how the catholic religion has changed as well.  Renaissance age cathedrals were designed and decorated with statues of gargoyles and demons, and with carvings of fierce, battle-ready angels.  Jesus’ mother, Mary, was always there to lend a traveler a loving hand.  Bishops preached on the importance of obeying God, otherwise a person was bound for hell.  The scary statues helped remind the churchgoers what awaited them if they did not do as the Bible told them.  In more modern times, churches are a little more friendly, with paintings of disciples and Jesus.  The focus is not on going to hell, but in serving God during a person’s life.  A person must still obey the Bible, but the fear is not the main idea.  

It’s hard to read a story, no matter how well it is written, if you hate/ferociously dislike the main character.  This was my problem when reading a fanfiction by the name of “To Prove Herself” by Sakurafan10.  The concept is sound and well thought out.  The style is smooth and there isn’t an annoying amount of grammatical errors.  It ties into the linking story surprisingly well.  All in all, it is a very well written story.  Except for the fact that the author used one of the most annoying characters of Naruto that she could possibly use: Sakura.  Sure she put Sakura at the age where she finally gets off her lazy ninja butt and starts training instead of whining, but it’s hard to forgive TEN SEASONS of whining and standing there being useless.  If the author had used practically anyone else as the main character, the story would have been so much better.

This week I’ve been reading another fanfiction, this time by Anora, called Something Personal.  It’s a Naruto story, but rather than being about the main character, it goes into the life of his teacher when he was still in training.  It is very interesting to see how a person changes over time due to significant events in his life, with this example being the death of one of his teammates.  Kakashi graduated incredibly early, finishing his training at age four, then rising in the ranks quickly until he was leader over children twice his age (and height).  He was adament about following the rules, especially after his father’s suicide after a failed mission.  This changed, however, when his comrade died on a mission.  From then on, he decided that those who betrayed their friends were scum, and that his teammates’ lives were priority over the mission.  To see him later in the story compared to at the beginning, there is an incredible change that takes place.  He becomes less tense, and more focused on living rather than on the next mission.  He becomes an incredibly likable character.  The story is told at a quick, even pace, and is terribly addictive.  

This week I’ve been reading the newest book from Christopher Paolini: Brisingr.  For as far as I’ve read, this is turning out as well as the first two.  There is plenty of action, moral decisions, excitement, and the odd bit of a made-up ancient language thrown in.  Poor Eragon isn’t as innocent as before, but we still root for him because he is still the good guy trying to save the kingdom.  The flow of the book is excellent, and before you know it, you’ve read ten chapters before checking what time it is.  The characters are well developed and diverse.  There are plot twists when you least expect it.  It is an incredible story, and well worth the wait (about three years since the last one).

This week I was reading a series of books by CLAMP, a group of four women that write stories based in the same universe, and the same characters and events showing up in other stories.  I read “Tsubasa”.  One part I love about this book is a small, well, thing that can travel through time and space called Mokona.  Mokona is a small, white, round, rabbit-type creature that is insanely perky and blunt.  Many things about Mokona remain a mystery, including whether the creature is a male or female.  The “white pork bun”, as Mokona has been refered to, never answers the question, instead crying out “Mokona is Mokona!”   Mokona is an enigma, always teasing the other members of the group, and sucking up things with it’s Super Vacuum, one of Mokona’s self-proclaimed 108 Secret Skills.  Mokona’s counterpart, a black creature also known as Mokona, stays with the Time-Space Witch, and serves as the group’s communication device, though the black Mokona does not speak, nor does it travel through dimensions.  Mokona is an incredibly interesting character, and he/she/it makes me laugh whenever it opens it’s mouth.

Since last week I read Castle in the Air, and I couldn’t remember who some of the characters were, I decided to go back and read Howl’s Moving Castle again, both by Diana Wynne Jones.  One of the reasons I like this story is because of the character Howl.  Unlike so many heroes or main characters in a story, Howl almost goes out of his way to be unlikeable.  In some cases, he actually does, like when he sends Sophie to dirty his name to the king so that Howl won’t be sent on dangerous missions like finding a missing fellow wizard.  He has been described as narcissistic, vain, cowardly, terrible with money, and a “slither-outer”, meaning he does everything he can to get out of commitments.  Howl falls in love with a woman and spends every waking moment trying to get her to love him back, but as soon as she does, he becomes immediately uninterested.  Howl is an antihero, and it is only revealed in the end that when he is terrified of doing something, he tells himself he is not doing it to quell his fear.  In spite of all his many, obvious flaws, Howl is also generous and only overcharges rich people so he can undercharge the poor. 

 It makes me wonder how long it took Jones to create a character like Howl.  Did she take nearly everything typical of a hero and turn it upside-down, or did she base him off of someone in reality?  All of the characters in this book are well-fleshed out, even the villianess, the Witch of the Waste, who hates Howl because she was one of the many whose hearts were broken by fickle Howl.  Even in the end, all she wants is his heart (although she means it quite literally).  There is nearly nothing for me to criticize in this book, except that it would have been nice if, when Howl and Sophie finally get together in the end, they actually said, “I love you.” or something.  They just hold hands.  It’s a nice ending, but for someone who waited throughout the entire book for them to confess their feelings, it leaves a tinge of disappointment.  But the story was not a romance novel, so I can’t blame the writer in the slightest.

I got out of my routine of fanfiction this week and read something a little different.  It is a novel called Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones.  It took me several times before I actually picked this up, because the summary just didn’t reach out and grab me the way I thought it should.  It sounded like it had an idea going, but just wasn’t quite there.  The only reason I picked it up was that the cover said it was the sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle, which I adore.  However, the only reason I picked that one up was because it had been made into a movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki, one of my favorite directors.  I had never realised that movie was based on a book.  Both the book and movie are great, so I decided to give the sequel a chance. 

Here’s where my feelings are split.  The beginning starts fairly well and gives me enough interest to continue reading.  After a quarter of the way in, however, it slows down and never seems to pick up the pace.  Everything moves sluggishly and is rather boring, and to top it off, not one mention of a single character from the previous book is to be found.  What the heck?   I thought it was supposed to be a sequel.   I decided to give it a chance anyway, and several chapters from the end, the rest of the book hits like a train, hard and fast.  Suddenly there are plot twists galore, people going crazy, and the missing characters I was looking for come out of the woodwork like long-lost relatives to a guy who won the lottery.  Turns out (spoiler) they were there all along, just enchanted into other forms.  It felt great to finally see my favorite characters back in the mix, but it was too little, too late.  When I finished, I was satisfied.  But now that I think about it, I have been sorely cheated out of a sequel that could have been so much better.

The blog for this week will also be from a fanfiction that I’ve read recently: “Magic Fox, Explosive Ninja, Energetic Boy” by flamingmagnum.  This is a crossover fanfic, combining the elements of Naruto and Harry Potter.  This story is a good deal different from the story from last week.  The way it is written makes it a bit difficult to read.  I suspect the author is not a native English speaker from the way he misuses phrases.  “And now, back to the presents.”  “You will rule the day you refused friendship with Draco Malfoy.”  These are only a few examples, not to mention the tremendous amount of run-on sentences and poor punctuation. 

All that aside, the story itself is not much of a read.  The plot is basic with only a few new elements thrown in.  It’s pretty… bland.   My eyes end up skimming parts because it is diffucult to keep my attention on what is happening. 

 My question for this bit of reading is about the junctions between “scenes”.  Instead of typing out a transition between each, the author puts a bracketed “(five minutes to the end of period)” between them.  It would make it much easier to read if there was a written transition rather than (here’s what happens in the meantime).  I guess the author was a bit lazy.