SHEEP!!!@ / random titles ftw
Darlin', どうぞ、召し上がれ means "Please go ahead and eat." And none of your other translations make any sense. Why are you translating if you don't even know that much...?
Is it just me, or does the plot of "Loveless" make absolutely no sense whatsover? (Is there even a plot? It keeps being hinted that there is, but 83 chapters in or whatever and it still makes no sense. -.-;)
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Today wrote 1/3 of a paper, then lost interest and gave up. Now I have to write the rest of it. *siiiiiiigh*
Generally am in a horrible mood. Don't really know what to do with myself. Part of me wants to go home to be done with this sucky end of the semester, but the going home part is really what has me stressed out in the first place, and then once I get home I'll have even less of an idea of what to do with myself. Really really don't want May to come. I'll end up restricted to the house, with nothing to do but surf the Web. At least, here, aside from mounds of homework, there are interesting things to do, and people to hang out with. Plus I've been rather off the ball lately, so there are reasons some people could be frustrated with me, and I don't want to go deal with that.
I'm trying to think of one thing I'm looking forward to this summer: there's nothing. Don't even know if I've got my job. I'll probably end up doing retail, and I'll be lucky even to get a job doing that. How can I make this summer anything other than torture? Find a summer romance? LAWLZ.
The only high point of my day (of... the entire weekend) was playing more Balinese music. There were five of us who showed up a little after 7, and Marc had brought in two pairs of kantilan and ugal. Apparently the larger Balinese instruments (jegogan and calungan) he wanted to bring in didn't fit into his car, so we're using the ugal in their place. (Meaning we're playing the two instruments' parts on one instrument.) The ugal is much bigger than the slenthem - I can't kneel at a comfortable height to play it, so I sit up a bit. My knees were freaking killing me afterward (which is not unusual anyway).
We practiced for a while, then a guy came in and banged on the kethuk, which only plays a steady beat for this piece, but is really hard because it's kind of off the beat from the rest of us. XD But we learned a lot for an hour and fifteen of practice, and we're performing it tomorrow in class, which is exciting. It's a sweet piece.
This is a bad picture of the kantilan and ugal, seeing as they're toys, but it's the only one I could find (ugal is the larger one):
Speaking of music, performance on Friday went pretty well. We went first, and messed up the first berimbau variations, unfortunately (which is funny, since last time we messed up the end xD), but although I think the mistakes were noticeable, overall it sounded good, so maybe no one cared too much. :P At any rate, I had an entire semester of learning berimbau, and that's pretty darn cool. So however the performance went, I'm glad I got to do it. "Kudani" went really well; way better than last year, I think. Even when there were mistakes, enough people got it right that the mistakes weren't noticeable. I think what looked strangest was the swaying Keith wanted us to do - for some reason my row simply couldn't figure out how to do it in unison, and the other row didn't seem to be swaying at all. :P
But the show was mainly good, so yay. ^_^
These days, I've kinda realized that the only thing that can pull me out of a bad mood is music. Especially playing the hand drums. If I can go and play the drums, I end up having a much better night. And of course, in spite of being a sucky musician, I get a huge thrill out of playing the gamelan instruments or anything else that I have an opportunity to play. Like in Japan, when I got to take a koto lesson. I don't have a particularly good ear, but I learn eventually, and anyway it's so interesting and fun. I don't know what this means for me. In grade school, I never paid much attention to instruments. I was much more interested in singing. But I don't have much of a singing voice. With instruments, you can learn to play them, and tune them, so people without singing skills can also make music. This makes me feel like I should really learn how to play piano, or guitar, or something - some Western instrument that would a.) teach me to read music better, and b.) be something I could continue to play after graduating (since very few people keep gamelan ensembles in their apartments, I believe ;) ).
But this raises the question of whether or not I can teach myself. If the summer sucks enough, maybe I'll finally try. That's my one hope.
---------------
I'm really interested in the Earth X subplot in which Belasco turned out to be a warped and brainwashed version of Nightcrawler. Arguably he wasn't the actual Belasco that Dante wrote of (because he finds that Belasco encased in ice, so Mephisto's real reason for transforming Kurt into "Belasco" is unknown, I think), but he believed himself to be, so it amounts to more or less the same thing. A poster on CBR put up this image, which is small but the writing is legible. It's such a compelling storyline.
First of all - what could possible be a worse fate for Kurt than to become a real demon (sort of), to forget about those he loves, and to be their tormentor? It's definitely a fear of his, that at some point he'll lose his humanity. (I mean, to me the demons in MU aren't demons in the Biblical sense. I tend to look at them as mystical creatures, rather than satanic, since comic books are the last place I go for lessons in theology 9.9 Besides, plenty of world religions and folk cultures feature demons/goblins, etc. as mostly wicked, but also mischievous and not inherently evil.) I love the idea of Kurt being confronted with such a terrible fate (provided he overcomes it and we don't lose our funny, fabulous elf).
And I absolutely adore the idea that in tormenting the X-men, he's unconsciously trying to get them to save/redeem him. A part of him is still Kurt Wagner, an X-man, who feels he needs to be with the X-men. But his feelings cost countless friends their lives/freedom.
Lastly, if he were the same Belasco that abducts and warps Illyana, then that would complicate matters even further. Kurt is like a big brother to Piotr and Kitty. Illyana is Piotr's sister and Kitty's best friend. Kurt has never done anything but shower Piotr and Kitty with love - he was the one who believed in and took care of Piotr after his post-Acolytes madness, and who's been there more for Piotr after Kitty's "death" than Kurt? Kurt has always been taking care of Piotr. As for Kitty - she's rather more independent than Piotr, but Kurt's been a support for her too, multiple times (and vice-versa). He really adores his Katzchen. So to discover that it's a distorted version of himself that caused the two of them such pain by torturing Illyana - that would create a huge rift between them.
Kitty, I feel, would probably come around pretty quick to drawing a line between Belasco and Kurt. But Piotr would probably have a harder time, since he gets so emotionally invested in things, and family issues have been a huge plague on him. I'd love to see how such a revelation would be handled.
I think I've gotten a little incoherent now, so I'll sum up with this - I think an adaption of this plot in 616 would be really interesting. I don't think it's likely to happen, because Belasco is a character who shows up in many titles, not just X-men (in fact probably not as much X-men as some other titles), and because most people want Illyana to have been abducted by the actual Belasco. That's understandable. On the other hand, I think the writers could swing it if they got creative enough, in a way that keeps the two Belasco-incarnations separate.
I'm thinking of writing fic myself (but ignoring real!Belasco and putting Kurt!Belasco as the abductor of Illyana). I started thinking about it because Mephisto's been stalking Kurt for a few years now, and Manifest Destiny was said to be tie-in to Second Coming, so if Kurt snuffs it on Wednesday, the interim between his "death" and "resurrection" will likely have something to do with Mephisto.
But I think I may be the only fan who likes this idea. XD I'll write it anyway, of course. Earth X with a 616 spin.
(Nighty never gets a happy ending, does he?)
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WOW, it's almost one a.m. Should probably get started on that paper >.>
*off to make tea*
Is it just me, or does the plot of "Loveless" make absolutely no sense whatsover? (Is there even a plot? It keeps being hinted that there is, but 83 chapters in or whatever and it still makes no sense. -.-;)
-----------------
Today wrote 1/3 of a paper, then lost interest and gave up. Now I have to write the rest of it. *siiiiiiigh*
Generally am in a horrible mood. Don't really know what to do with myself. Part of me wants to go home to be done with this sucky end of the semester, but the going home part is really what has me stressed out in the first place, and then once I get home I'll have even less of an idea of what to do with myself. Really really don't want May to come. I'll end up restricted to the house, with nothing to do but surf the Web. At least, here, aside from mounds of homework, there are interesting things to do, and people to hang out with. Plus I've been rather off the ball lately, so there are reasons some people could be frustrated with me, and I don't want to go deal with that.
I'm trying to think of one thing I'm looking forward to this summer: there's nothing. Don't even know if I've got my job. I'll probably end up doing retail, and I'll be lucky even to get a job doing that. How can I make this summer anything other than torture? Find a summer romance? LAWLZ.
The only high point of my day (of... the entire weekend) was playing more Balinese music. There were five of us who showed up a little after 7, and Marc had brought in two pairs of kantilan and ugal. Apparently the larger Balinese instruments (jegogan and calungan) he wanted to bring in didn't fit into his car, so we're using the ugal in their place. (Meaning we're playing the two instruments' parts on one instrument.) The ugal is much bigger than the slenthem - I can't kneel at a comfortable height to play it, so I sit up a bit. My knees were freaking killing me afterward (which is not unusual anyway).
We practiced for a while, then a guy came in and banged on the kethuk, which only plays a steady beat for this piece, but is really hard because it's kind of off the beat from the rest of us. XD But we learned a lot for an hour and fifteen of practice, and we're performing it tomorrow in class, which is exciting. It's a sweet piece.
This is a bad picture of the kantilan and ugal, seeing as they're toys, but it's the only one I could find (ugal is the larger one):
Speaking of music, performance on Friday went pretty well. We went first, and messed up the first berimbau variations, unfortunately (which is funny, since last time we messed up the end xD), but although I think the mistakes were noticeable, overall it sounded good, so maybe no one cared too much. :P At any rate, I had an entire semester of learning berimbau, and that's pretty darn cool. So however the performance went, I'm glad I got to do it. "Kudani" went really well; way better than last year, I think. Even when there were mistakes, enough people got it right that the mistakes weren't noticeable. I think what looked strangest was the swaying Keith wanted us to do - for some reason my row simply couldn't figure out how to do it in unison, and the other row didn't seem to be swaying at all. :P
But the show was mainly good, so yay. ^_^
These days, I've kinda realized that the only thing that can pull me out of a bad mood is music. Especially playing the hand drums. If I can go and play the drums, I end up having a much better night. And of course, in spite of being a sucky musician, I get a huge thrill out of playing the gamelan instruments or anything else that I have an opportunity to play. Like in Japan, when I got to take a koto lesson. I don't have a particularly good ear, but I learn eventually, and anyway it's so interesting and fun. I don't know what this means for me. In grade school, I never paid much attention to instruments. I was much more interested in singing. But I don't have much of a singing voice. With instruments, you can learn to play them, and tune them, so people without singing skills can also make music. This makes me feel like I should really learn how to play piano, or guitar, or something - some Western instrument that would a.) teach me to read music better, and b.) be something I could continue to play after graduating (since very few people keep gamelan ensembles in their apartments, I believe ;) ).
But this raises the question of whether or not I can teach myself. If the summer sucks enough, maybe I'll finally try. That's my one hope.
---------------
I'm really interested in the Earth X subplot in which Belasco turned out to be a warped and brainwashed version of Nightcrawler. Arguably he wasn't the actual Belasco that Dante wrote of (because he finds that Belasco encased in ice, so Mephisto's real reason for transforming Kurt into "Belasco" is unknown, I think), but he believed himself to be, so it amounts to more or less the same thing. A poster on CBR put up this image, which is small but the writing is legible. It's such a compelling storyline.
First of all - what could possible be a worse fate for Kurt than to become a real demon (sort of), to forget about those he loves, and to be their tormentor? It's definitely a fear of his, that at some point he'll lose his humanity. (I mean, to me the demons in MU aren't demons in the Biblical sense. I tend to look at them as mystical creatures, rather than satanic, since comic books are the last place I go for lessons in theology 9.9 Besides, plenty of world religions and folk cultures feature demons/goblins, etc. as mostly wicked, but also mischievous and not inherently evil.) I love the idea of Kurt being confronted with such a terrible fate (provided he overcomes it and we don't lose our funny, fabulous elf).
And I absolutely adore the idea that in tormenting the X-men, he's unconsciously trying to get them to save/redeem him. A part of him is still Kurt Wagner, an X-man, who feels he needs to be with the X-men. But his feelings cost countless friends their lives/freedom.
Lastly, if he were the same Belasco that abducts and warps Illyana, then that would complicate matters even further. Kurt is like a big brother to Piotr and Kitty. Illyana is Piotr's sister and Kitty's best friend. Kurt has never done anything but shower Piotr and Kitty with love - he was the one who believed in and took care of Piotr after his post-Acolytes madness, and who's been there more for Piotr after Kitty's "death" than Kurt? Kurt has always been taking care of Piotr. As for Kitty - she's rather more independent than Piotr, but Kurt's been a support for her too, multiple times (and vice-versa). He really adores his Katzchen. So to discover that it's a distorted version of himself that caused the two of them such pain by torturing Illyana - that would create a huge rift between them.
Kitty, I feel, would probably come around pretty quick to drawing a line between Belasco and Kurt. But Piotr would probably have a harder time, since he gets so emotionally invested in things, and family issues have been a huge plague on him. I'd love to see how such a revelation would be handled.
I think I've gotten a little incoherent now, so I'll sum up with this - I think an adaption of this plot in 616 would be really interesting. I don't think it's likely to happen, because Belasco is a character who shows up in many titles, not just X-men (in fact probably not as much X-men as some other titles), and because most people want Illyana to have been abducted by the actual Belasco. That's understandable. On the other hand, I think the writers could swing it if they got creative enough, in a way that keeps the two Belasco-incarnations separate.
I'm thinking of writing fic myself (but ignoring real!Belasco and putting Kurt!Belasco as the abductor of Illyana). I started thinking about it because Mephisto's been stalking Kurt for a few years now, and Manifest Destiny was said to be tie-in to Second Coming, so if Kurt snuffs it on Wednesday, the interim between his "death" and "resurrection" will likely have something to do with Mephisto.
But I think I may be the only fan who likes this idea. XD I'll write it anyway, of course. Earth X with a 616 spin.
(Nighty never gets a happy ending, does he?)
------
WOW, it's almost one a.m. Should probably get started on that paper >.>
*off to make tea*