Composition: "How Did You Spend Your Winter Holidays?"
This year I spent my holidays at home, like I always do, with my family (my uncle from South Italy came to visit too, so the house was quite crowded - and also full of smoke).
Winter break started really early for me this time; I ended a tre trainin traineeship at the end of November and have not worked since then. December would have gotten very boring, but I was lucky and caught the flu! So I did not have to do much on Christmas day even if we had the whole family here at lunch, and I also managed to be sick on New Year's eve, so I was able to stay home without having to come up with some half-assed funny excuse for missing a pointless party.
Since I had so much free time, I was able to catch up with something I had been neglecting in the last months, that is to say some fictional series that caught my interest some time ago:
I liked them very much because they are full of pretty gay boys fine examples of contemporary pop culture.
- The End
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Let's start with the tv show in the middle, Supernatural. I think everybody knows it; I first heard about it some years ago through fanficrants, fandom_secret and fandom_wank (guilty XD;).
Short summary: Sam and Dean Winchester are two brothers who fight demons and other assorted monsters, following the steps of their father. Kind of like the X-Files only with less aliens, more gore and no het!ships whatsoever. At least XF had Mulder/Scully (my OTP of OTPs, but I digress). Don't get me wrong; there are women in the series, but they have the bad habit of dying v. soon/being possessed/being demons or other nasty things, and generally not meaning much plot-wise besides being "lust interest #something". At least the older women are cooler. The men too.
As the seasons proceed (they are halfway through the 4th), more bad guys appear, more good guys appear, and also some shady guys appear! I don't want to spoil, but since we're talking demons here, let's just say angels will be there too eventually, to thicken the plot, add some Religious Issues™ to the show, and create a whole new level of subtext I'm looking at you, Castiel, and the Looks you send Dean. Don't stop kthx.
As fandom goes, you can guess which one is the most popular pairing. But it's just brotherly love under a different light, really!!!1! *cough* Anyway, the brothers are dorks but clearly love each other and would die for each other, as they say multiple times during the show; the rest is obv. left to interpretation.
[note to self] Fandom's scary, find the ship manifesto and start reading fics from there, hoping there's something good and IC.
All in all, it's a good show, if you like the genre. I find most of the character likeable except Ruby, and although some episodes can be WTF-inducing, there's still a plot that unravels and keeps them together (even if I think the Heaven and Hell thing is a bit tough to handle, but who cares).
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Now let's do manga #1 (on the left); it's called Silver Diamond. I already knew the mangaka, Shiho Sugiura, from one of her previous works, the very underrated Kohri no Mamono no Monogatari (The Ice-cold Demon's Tale). Sugiura-sensei has a very unique and recognizable style (and it's beautiful!), and her mangas are usually of the fantasy shounen-ai/shoujo variety. SD fits that category too and is her current WIP, published in the monthly Ichiraci.
Short summary: 17 year-old boy Rakan finds himself face to face with an exiled man (Chigusa) from a parallel, desert-covered world and discovers he has the power to save it by making plants grow there again. If I told more I would spoil too much! Anyway, as the story progresses Rakan finds new allies in the other world who help him fight the prince, and this way he also discovers some secrets about his own past and his family heritage. Oh, and there are Feelings between Rakan and Chigusa ♥
SD, as also did Kohri, follows a very simple storyline with the two main characters (one naive and good hearted, the other mysterious and with a dark past) meeting in a fated encounter and choosing to start a journey together, that brings them closer as time passes and secrets are revealed. In both stories they find two other trusted allies/friends who join their battle for their own reasons (and I think in SD these guys are also developing Feelings oh yes I do, while in Kohri they have the cutest backstory ever, omg!) and a group of other people that finally understand that they're good people and decide to help them out.
Despite the simplicity of the plot, I find both manga a very good reading - you can't help but like the characters and tag along with them in their journey, to see how things turn out.
There's only a tiny little problem with SD: it's been licensed in the US and so scanlation have stopped. They're available up to vol.8 (just join free_manga and check the tags), then you can just admire the pretty pictures if you can't read chinese D: I think there's some summary around, but I haven't found it yet.
On the other side, Kohri is currently being scanlated by Storm in Heaven.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Well, the third title is obviously D.Gray-Man and I think everybody's reading it already so I won't bother saying anything! Besides, I'm still reading vol.8.
Winter break started really early for me this time; I ended a tre trainin traineeship at the end of November and have not worked since then. December would have gotten very boring, but I was lucky and caught the flu! So I did not have to do much on Christmas day even if we had the whole family here at lunch, and I also managed to be sick on New Year's eve, so I was able to stay home without having to come up with some half-assed funny excuse for missing a pointless party.
Since I had so much free time, I was able to catch up with something I had been neglecting in the last months, that is to say some fictional series that caught my interest some time ago:
I liked them very much because they are full of pretty gay boys fine examples of contemporary pop culture.
- The End
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Let's start with the tv show in the middle, Supernatural. I think everybody knows it; I first heard about it some years ago through fanficrants, fandom_secret and fandom_wank (guilty XD;).
Short summary: Sam and Dean Winchester are two brothers who fight demons and other assorted monsters, following the steps of their father. Kind of like the X-Files only with less aliens, more gore and no het!ships whatsoever. At least XF had Mulder/Scully (my OTP of OTPs, but I digress). Don't get me wrong; there are women in the series, but they have the bad habit of dying v. soon/being possessed/being demons or other nasty things, and generally not meaning much plot-wise besides being "lust interest #something". At least the older women are cooler. The men too.
As the seasons proceed (they are halfway through the 4th), more bad guys appear, more good guys appear, and also some shady guys appear! I don't want to spoil, but since we're talking demons here, let's just say angels will be there too eventually, to thicken the plot, add some Religious Issues™ to the show, and create a whole new level of subtext I'm looking at you, Castiel, and the Looks you send Dean. Don't stop kthx.
As fandom goes, you can guess which one is the most popular pairing. But it's just brotherly love under a different light, really!!!1! *cough* Anyway, the brothers are dorks but clearly love each other and would die for each other, as they say multiple times during the show; the rest is obv. left to interpretation.
[note to self] Fandom's scary, find the ship manifesto and start reading fics from there, hoping there's something good and IC.
All in all, it's a good show, if you like the genre. I find most of the character likeable except Ruby, and although some episodes can be WTF-inducing, there's still a plot that unravels and keeps them together (even if I think the Heaven and Hell thing is a bit tough to handle, but who cares).
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Now let's do manga #1 (on the left); it's called Silver Diamond. I already knew the mangaka, Shiho Sugiura, from one of her previous works, the very underrated Kohri no Mamono no Monogatari (The Ice-cold Demon's Tale). Sugiura-sensei has a very unique and recognizable style (and it's beautiful!), and her mangas are usually of the fantasy shounen-ai/shoujo variety. SD fits that category too and is her current WIP, published in the monthly Ichiraci.
Short summary: 17 year-old boy Rakan finds himself face to face with an exiled man (Chigusa) from a parallel, desert-covered world and discovers he has the power to save it by making plants grow there again. If I told more I would spoil too much! Anyway, as the story progresses Rakan finds new allies in the other world who help him fight the prince, and this way he also discovers some secrets about his own past and his family heritage. Oh, and there are Feelings between Rakan and Chigusa ♥
SD, as also did Kohri, follows a very simple storyline with the two main characters (one naive and good hearted, the other mysterious and with a dark past) meeting in a fated encounter and choosing to start a journey together, that brings them closer as time passes and secrets are revealed. In both stories they find two other trusted allies/friends who join their battle for their own reasons (and I think in SD these guys are also developing Feelings oh yes I do, while in Kohri they have the cutest backstory ever, omg!) and a group of other people that finally understand that they're good people and decide to help them out.
Despite the simplicity of the plot, I find both manga a very good reading - you can't help but like the characters and tag along with them in their journey, to see how things turn out.
There's only a tiny little problem with SD: it's been licensed in the US and so scanlation have stopped. They're available up to vol.8 (just join free_manga and check the tags), then you can just admire the pretty pictures if you can't read chinese D: I think there's some summary around, but I haven't found it yet.
On the other side, Kohri is currently being scanlated by Storm in Heaven.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Well, the third title is obviously D.Gray-Man and I think everybody's reading it already so I won't bother saying anything! Besides, I'm still reading vol.8.