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spottoI haven't posted here in a million years.
So here's a post!
I shall now update you on my fandom and life.
Fandom's doing great.
Life is dandy.
You have obtained the knowledge of Spotto's life, congratulations.
Okay, now with a little more detail:
I have decided to stop being so one-dimensional with anything I EVER do. I swear I cannot do two things at once, EVER. I cannot multitask. I cannot daydream and listen to music at the same time. I cannot like two fandoms at one time. I cannot do anything of the sorts. If I am latched, distracted and focused upon one thing, I always stick by it and I don't let go until it's gone or undesirable. The first thing I will do to tackle such an issue is fandom. Why? Well fandom isn't that important, so if I screw up nothing really will get affected, so it's a suitable test subject. That's why we experiment on rats and not humans. Anyway, let me explain to you what's going on with that.
Obviously, from the design of this blog and from my many LJ icons, I am clearly very deep into the fandom of Negima. I quite enjoy the manga, what with its many deep and fulfilling characters, scattered throughout the well-done plot. Yet if the spotlight is shining on a particular character I care not for, for an extended period of time, logically my interest will start dwindling until characters I do give a rat's ass about show up. Since Akamatsu likes putting the overload of characters he introduced in the manga on a bus and then only focusing on a few a time, it's no wonder that this happens often. If I started enjoying this manga when it first started I would probably have dropped it long ago, if only because Kazumi didn't appear for six volumes. However, it hasn't been that long since she hasn't been around, and thankfully my favourite characters aren't the ones left alone in the real world. The fandom is still healthy at this point. It even started getting better because of the amount of panels Ako is getting. I very much enjoy Ako's character, but sometimes the scenes would feel a little more deep and meaningful if they weren't naked all the time. When Nodoka hugged Yue, were they naked? No. They were wet, but not naked. Yet Akira and Ako need to be naked here, and I am seriously questioning what Akamatsu's assistants are doing with their anatomy. I'm not exactly enjoying fanservice at a serious time and to top it off the curves look very awkward and out of his style. Oh well. It is Negima after all...fanservice is just a part of the manga.
And because of such actions like putting favourite characters on a bus, I was pretty much soul-searching for another fandom to waste my life on and came upon something called Hetalia. I actually knew its existence from Akira long ago, about two months or so ago, but I didn't really put serious thought on the fandom until recently. There weren't that many scanlations, but despite the lack of actual canon fodder, there was an unusual amount of fanon stuff. Fanarts piled everywhere, countless amounts of Japanese fanmade videos, and several entertaining fanfics. This fandom even introduced me to the world of roleplay, where instead of just reading one person's ideas of ink on paper, it's many people's ideas for many characters originally created as ink on paper! There were even forms of roleplaying, from the standard linear roleplay to art roleplay, to even a whole new world of the magical minds of these random females and possibly males rambling on the internet. It was just too much.
Finally, I could use that account I had on nicovideo for something. At first I just wanted to see what the world of Japan had to offer of Negima, since I personally thought most things westerners provided through this fandom was just pure crap. I don't really mean fanfiction or fanart really, though some are particularly awful, but there's not that many videos whatsoever made by someone from some place like the UK or America that seemed professional and even entertaining. Do I want to watch the sixteenth video of Asuna dying, that same clip where the whites of her eyes disappear and she falls off the tree being overlapped by annoying emo music? No. I did notice how well-done MADs were, which were usually created by the Japanese. So that's why I went through the tedious registration form in Japanese just to get on nicovideo. I actually never knew there was a guide to sign up on that site, seeing as I just used Google Translator to do everything. Then I couldn't figure out how to sign in for three weeks. How silly of me to keep plugging in my username in the what I thought was the username box, when in fact it was the box used to insert the email. Silly stupid Spotto.
So it was much to my excitement that Hetalia practically had an infinite amount of well-made Japanese fanvids of it. I wouldn't call them all well-made however. Many of them had excellent art and the creator could easily have had a site of some sort showcasing such a skill, but in a video it had to be directed properly, and not all of them were like that. Several of them seemed more like slideshows of pretty art that they drew, rather than some sort of proper video. While clear-cut animation wasn't necessary for me to consider a video a good one, it at least needed some sort of meaningful story. The song should reflect what the story is about, like a movie. You're clearly taking up five minutes of my life, so it better be good. At least with fanart you just stare at them for a few seconds and move on (unless it's such a good picture that you stick it on your MSN wallpaper for the next three months). Same thing with parodies of OPs.
I saw a parody of the Negima OP done Hetalia style. When I first saw it I was obviously very excited. Two of my favourite fandoms combined would make anyone jump up in glee, but this was not done very well. Instead of actually following what happened in the OP, the creator just kept using the beginning technique of making characters pop up in the screen. No desks piled up on each other, running through them, or people falling off them or anything, just popping up in that style. It seemed very lazy, and looked like I was ripped off of my five minutes. I saw a very short preview of another version of this OP and that looked rather promising, since the preview appeared right after the creator's previous project, which was excellent. I'm not sure if this ever got finished, but it clearly had great potential so I'm quite eager to see its final result if it has one.
Regardless, I had finally found a fandom I could latch onto if I ever was in Negima withdrawal. The only downside to this fandom is actually its biggest upside. The huge amount of fanon that came with it hindered my imagination. Since my favourites of Negima had very little spotlight and not too much fanon, I used my imagination to make up for the rest. I love doing something like that, but if a fandom already fills that hole for you it gives you this empty feeling. In Hetalia, it seemed like every single character had some sort of following and thus tons of fanon along with it. I've only managed one daydream with this fandom, and I pretty much just used history. It didn't seem like something original. (It was of several things that happened during World War II, particularly of Korea) That's why most of my mind is still chock full of Negima by-products. I'm still imagining Kazumi as a crime organization leader who uses social torture rather than physical threats to get what she wanted. Yes, I do watch too many crime dramas. As a child her parents wanted to get rid of her since they were aiming for a boy, and they didn't have the financial means to carry more children. They decided to hire someone to off their kid for them, and make it look like an accident of some sort, but the man who was hired took pity and decided to raise Kazumi himself, tricking the parents to thinking that he actually did end up killing her so he ended up in a win-win situation. He had money and a kid, without lifting a finger.
I think that if I can envision these nation characters as actual people rather than nations, then maybe my mind can lift off, but for now the area of effect seems extremely small and limited.
This has been Spotto. I apologize for the boring post and my somewhat formal typing. I don't know why I am writing like this, oh well. Farewell for now!
So here's a post!
I shall now update you on my fandom and life.
Fandom's doing great.
Life is dandy.
You have obtained the knowledge of Spotto's life, congratulations.
Okay, now with a little more detail:
I have decided to stop being so one-dimensional with anything I EVER do. I swear I cannot do two things at once, EVER. I cannot multitask. I cannot daydream and listen to music at the same time. I cannot like two fandoms at one time. I cannot do anything of the sorts. If I am latched, distracted and focused upon one thing, I always stick by it and I don't let go until it's gone or undesirable. The first thing I will do to tackle such an issue is fandom. Why? Well fandom isn't that important, so if I screw up nothing really will get affected, so it's a suitable test subject. That's why we experiment on rats and not humans. Anyway, let me explain to you what's going on with that.
Obviously, from the design of this blog and from my many LJ icons, I am clearly very deep into the fandom of Negima. I quite enjoy the manga, what with its many deep and fulfilling characters, scattered throughout the well-done plot. Yet if the spotlight is shining on a particular character I care not for, for an extended period of time, logically my interest will start dwindling until characters I do give a rat's ass about show up. Since Akamatsu likes putting the overload of characters he introduced in the manga on a bus and then only focusing on a few a time, it's no wonder that this happens often. If I started enjoying this manga when it first started I would probably have dropped it long ago, if only because Kazumi didn't appear for six volumes. However, it hasn't been that long since she hasn't been around, and thankfully my favourite characters aren't the ones left alone in the real world. The fandom is still healthy at this point. It even started getting better because of the amount of panels Ako is getting. I very much enjoy Ako's character, but sometimes the scenes would feel a little more deep and meaningful if they weren't naked all the time. When Nodoka hugged Yue, were they naked? No. They were wet, but not naked. Yet Akira and Ako need to be naked here, and I am seriously questioning what Akamatsu's assistants are doing with their anatomy. I'm not exactly enjoying fanservice at a serious time and to top it off the curves look very awkward and out of his style. Oh well. It is Negima after all...fanservice is just a part of the manga.
And because of such actions like putting favourite characters on a bus, I was pretty much soul-searching for another fandom to waste my life on and came upon something called Hetalia. I actually knew its existence from Akira long ago, about two months or so ago, but I didn't really put serious thought on the fandom until recently. There weren't that many scanlations, but despite the lack of actual canon fodder, there was an unusual amount of fanon stuff. Fanarts piled everywhere, countless amounts of Japanese fanmade videos, and several entertaining fanfics. This fandom even introduced me to the world of roleplay, where instead of just reading one person's ideas of ink on paper, it's many people's ideas for many characters originally created as ink on paper! There were even forms of roleplaying, from the standard linear roleplay to art roleplay, to even a whole new world of the magical minds of these random females and possibly males rambling on the internet. It was just too much.
Finally, I could use that account I had on nicovideo for something. At first I just wanted to see what the world of Japan had to offer of Negima, since I personally thought most things westerners provided through this fandom was just pure crap. I don't really mean fanfiction or fanart really, though some are particularly awful, but there's not that many videos whatsoever made by someone from some place like the UK or America that seemed professional and even entertaining. Do I want to watch the sixteenth video of Asuna dying, that same clip where the whites of her eyes disappear and she falls off the tree being overlapped by annoying emo music? No. I did notice how well-done MADs were, which were usually created by the Japanese. So that's why I went through the tedious registration form in Japanese just to get on nicovideo. I actually never knew there was a guide to sign up on that site, seeing as I just used Google Translator to do everything. Then I couldn't figure out how to sign in for three weeks. How silly of me to keep plugging in my username in the what I thought was the username box, when in fact it was the box used to insert the email. Silly stupid Spotto.
So it was much to my excitement that Hetalia practically had an infinite amount of well-made Japanese fanvids of it. I wouldn't call them all well-made however. Many of them had excellent art and the creator could easily have had a site of some sort showcasing such a skill, but in a video it had to be directed properly, and not all of them were like that. Several of them seemed more like slideshows of pretty art that they drew, rather than some sort of proper video. While clear-cut animation wasn't necessary for me to consider a video a good one, it at least needed some sort of meaningful story. The song should reflect what the story is about, like a movie. You're clearly taking up five minutes of my life, so it better be good. At least with fanart you just stare at them for a few seconds and move on (unless it's such a good picture that you stick it on your MSN wallpaper for the next three months). Same thing with parodies of OPs.
I saw a parody of the Negima OP done Hetalia style. When I first saw it I was obviously very excited. Two of my favourite fandoms combined would make anyone jump up in glee, but this was not done very well. Instead of actually following what happened in the OP, the creator just kept using the beginning technique of making characters pop up in the screen. No desks piled up on each other, running through them, or people falling off them or anything, just popping up in that style. It seemed very lazy, and looked like I was ripped off of my five minutes. I saw a very short preview of another version of this OP and that looked rather promising, since the preview appeared right after the creator's previous project, which was excellent. I'm not sure if this ever got finished, but it clearly had great potential so I'm quite eager to see its final result if it has one.
Regardless, I had finally found a fandom I could latch onto if I ever was in Negima withdrawal. The only downside to this fandom is actually its biggest upside. The huge amount of fanon that came with it hindered my imagination. Since my favourites of Negima had very little spotlight and not too much fanon, I used my imagination to make up for the rest. I love doing something like that, but if a fandom already fills that hole for you it gives you this empty feeling. In Hetalia, it seemed like every single character had some sort of following and thus tons of fanon along with it. I've only managed one daydream with this fandom, and I pretty much just used history. It didn't seem like something original. (It was of several things that happened during World War II, particularly of Korea) That's why most of my mind is still chock full of Negima by-products. I'm still imagining Kazumi as a crime organization leader who uses social torture rather than physical threats to get what she wanted. Yes, I do watch too many crime dramas. As a child her parents wanted to get rid of her since they were aiming for a boy, and they didn't have the financial means to carry more children. They decided to hire someone to off their kid for them, and make it look like an accident of some sort, but the man who was hired took pity and decided to raise Kazumi himself, tricking the parents to thinking that he actually did end up killing her so he ended up in a win-win situation. He had money and a kid, without lifting a finger.
I think that if I can envision these nation characters as actual people rather than nations, then maybe my mind can lift off, but for now the area of effect seems extremely small and limited.
This has been Spotto. I apologize for the boring post and my somewhat formal typing. I don't know why I am writing like this, oh well. Farewell for now!
