Cursed Pools of Jusenkyo

Casey and Andy - Ranma reference

2011-12-11T03:16:00.003-05:00

I was reading webcomic called Casey and Andy yesterday and noticed a reference to Ranma ½. In strip 242, Andy has acquired water from the spring of the drowned girl and has the idea to sell it to transsexuals. I archive binged through the entire web comic and found it to be fairly enjoyable though it doesn't make it anywhere near the top of my list of webcomics to read (were I to have such a list).

Sorry about the long hiatus between posts. I just didn't feel like writing pretty much at all this year. I was browsing the web last night and found a few people have still been reading my blog. I encountered at the Ranma wikia (a site I was unaware it existed until just recently): Outside References to Ranma ½ which clearly had an editor that had viewed my blog since most of the references mentioned are mentioned by me in this blog and the same pictures, cropped the same way, were used. I also found out that Tvtropes has a few links to my blog as well as wikipedia (though strangely the wikipedia ones are not English language ones). Even though I have not been actively writing this blog for some time interest in it seems to be increasing since I'm getting more hits according to the stats and linked to more often and not just the Ranma posts some of my posts on Japanese culture and book commentary are being linked to quite a bit as well.

Still more comments inspired by Harry Potter

2011-10-23T18:29:00.002-04:00

- I do not like the idea of Hermione or Harry working at the ministry. The ministry is run pretty shabbily and is not really a good organization. Hermione (mostly through Harry since he's the one that would have the most influence) and Harry could capitalize on their popularity after the defeat of Voldemort to get the public to demand reforms. They could change more things from outside the ministry via politicking and their celebrity status than they could in a department position where they would have to deal with people who would want to prevent them making changes and would want to limit their influence or out right steal their work (so that they can advance higher in the ministry and to prevent Harry/Hermione from doing so).

Harry being an auror is extremely stupid. He hates following orders (and isn't really that good at doings so) and the aurors are regularly required to do things they don't want to. For example Harry could be ordered to lead a prisoner to a Dementor to have his soul sucked (that is an order that a minster of magic had given which the aurors had to do) or arrest someone even if he knows the person is innocent (for example how Hagrid was arrested for supposedly opening the chamber of secrets). Harry becoming an auror would most likely result in Harry being fired or arrested pretty quickly. I don't like Ron being an auror either but the dislike of him becoming one stems more from I feel he would abuse the power it gives him over others similarly to how he did so as a perfect and how he is shown to do so during the epilogue (Ron used magic against a muggle to pass the driving test for his own personal gain as an Auror knowing it was illegal to do so.)

Hermione entering the ministry is really a major waste of her talents. Fighting for peoples rights (things like get rid of the extremely inhumane prison conditions, improve education, make house elves lives better, etc.) are things she should and would probably do but unless she manages to get pretty high in the government she is not likely to be able to do much working in the ministry other means would probably be more effective.

- I see often enough in fan fics to really annoy me it mentioned that Hermione is a poor liar but prior to the 6th book in the series that really isn't true. She lied successfully to people on multiple occasions such as to teachers (such as Umbridge and McGonagall) and in one of the books (Prisoner of Azkaban) she spent most of the book lying so as to keep her use of the time turner secret. Though Hermione's personality did under go some changes during the sixth book bigger than suddenly losing the ability to lie (were book 6 a fan fic I would have labeled her behavior as out of character since it felt that way to me). Here is a very true quote from a fan fic I recently read:

"Boy, you really don't know Hermione very well at all," he claimed. "She's broken more rules at Hogwarts than pretty much any student at the school! And she's been lying to teachers too, from McGonagall first year all the way to Umbridge just last month!"

- Saw mentioned in a fic Hermione thinking about how Harry taught her how to properly stand while dueling. First thing I thought upon reading that was that dueling is not the same as fighting and it is not something that she really needs to know. Though the major questions that came to me when I saw that mentioned was: Who taught Harry the stances and when did that happen? If it was taught in class then Hermione likely already knows them (unless it was during a class she missed like when she was petrified) and if it was taught outside of class than who taught him? Remus taught Harry the Patronous, Snape somewhat taught Harry how to protect his mind, and Dumbledore watched Riddle's life with Harry but none of them taught Harry anything to do with dueling. Personally I was finding it to be slightly out of character for Harry to teach Hermione anything since other than the Patronous charm (and I'm not even sure about that since Hermione probably read about it and someone mentioned to make the use of the usage of the timetuner a closed loop Hermione would have to have done one - it was an interesting article I saw on a site I visited about the movie Donny Darko) every other instance was Hermione teaching him (such as in preparation for the Tri-wizard tournament, planning the DA meetings - which was her idea not his and I only bring this up because I've seen fics in which Harry created it when Hermione wasn't in the fic and fics that stated it was his idea- and even in his thoughts like at the beginning of the last book, Deathly Hallows, he thinks about how he should get Hermione to teach him some healing spells).

- I understand using the mind control curse and would understand if Harry had used the killing curse but I really don't like or get why Harry used the pain curse particularly on the Carrows (for spitting on his teacher). Using the mind control curse makes sense since it is forcing the character to do what you need or want them to do and the killing curse makes sense since if they are dead they are no longer a threat and can never cause you problems again. The pain curse though is really the most evil of the curses since it really has no practical use and it doesn't make sense to use it since other than enjoying hurting someone a large number of other curses make more sense to use.

- It kind of annoys me when fics make muggles entirely helpless and completely ignorant about the wizarding world and what is going on in it. The main reason this annoys me is because it is likely that more muggles know about and have some type of access to the magical world and magical items than there are witches/wizards total. The reason I say this is because when you consider all the muggle relatives, squibs who have left the wizarding world, werewolves which go to the muggle world to find jobs because of the bigotry of the wizarding world, government officials and past government officials like the prime minister who are informed about the wizarding world, people who find out and aren't oblivated (because they don't say anything and leave the area for example), books and stories from before the muggle and wizarding world split, muggleborns who leave the wizarding world, etc. the number of muggles who know could easily exceed the number of wizards total. Also it is the wizards that are hiding from muggles not the other way around.

- How does anyone know what happened when Harry's parents were killed? Heck how does anyone even know that Harry survived the killing curse since Harry was the only survivor (it is mentioned repeatedly that he was the only survivor) and wasn't able to talk about it. Why doesn't everyone just assume that it was Harry's parents that banished Voldemort and Harry had nothing to do with it. Who told people that Harry went to live with his muggle relatives and his having a scar on his forehead?

- People were coming up and shaking Harry's hand prior to the first book according to the first book and when Harry had barely set foot in the Leaky Cauldron for the first time he was immediately recognized by all the patrons. How did they recognize him? Since Harry was in the muggle world cut off from the Magical world none of them should have known what Harry looked like and yet there is an entire industry with comics and books about the Boy Who Lived.

Ubuntu 11

2011-09-13T14:02:00.002-04:00

For the last nine months the primary computer I use has had Ubuntu Linux running in classic mode as it's operating system. I tried a couple other versions of Linux as well such as Puppy Linux via Live Cd and eventually decided on Ubuntu as the operating system of choice. For the most part I like Linux more than I did Windows. I have had several versions of Windows (98, XP, 2000, and Vista) and I had more problems with them than I have had with Ubuntu since I've been using it.

I do have two pieces of hardware that Linux doesn't run automatically. The first being the dial up modem, which I know I could get to run but would have to download a couple programs and a driver to get to it to run, the second being the finger print scanner which I don't know if I can or can not get it to run via Linux mainly because I never use the thing and have no plans on using it so I didn't even bother to find out. The dial up modem could be useful on occasion such as traveling to some places (but really a lot of places, at least around here, have wi-fi: restaurants, libraries, some parks, government buildings, stores, schools, some entire neighborhoods, etc.) and in a power outage (have several hours of battery power on the laptop and never have had the phone line not work during a power outage) but I don't feel like taking the time to get it to run. I have had hardware not work on Windows as well for example I have a scanner that will not run on Windows Vista, it is several years old and the company didn't update the drivers for Vista. That same scanner does run on Ubuntu just plugging it in though.

Pretty much every program I used on Windows, other than the games, has a Linux program that is comparable though I do run a few windows programs on WINE. WINE is a great program capable of running most of the things I want that is not on Linux (though it doesn't play everything Windows does) including at least one program that I couldn't get to run on Vista (an older Star Trek Trivia game that Windows Vista just would not play even when set to pretend to be an older system). Programs I currently have installed via WINE are: Britannica 11 (I like having an offline dictionary and encyclopedia), Fanfiction Downloader (there is an online fanfiction downloader that is actually better in that it can download from more sites but I like having the program on the pc), Iso Buster (even though there are several programs on Linux such as K3B that can make and burn Iso's I haven't found one that saves Playstation 1 games to the computer as well as IsoBuster does - I prefer saving the games to the hard drive to play them via emulation rather than playing them from the optical drive), and a few games (Linux has games as well but Windows has a larger selection and since the games can play on WINE I might as well - though not all games can or will play on WINE). Ubuntu software center is also pretty damn convenient for finding programs to do what you want them to do.

Blog not dead but very inactive

2011-05-07T17:47:00.012-04:00

It has been a long time, nearly 6 entire months, since I last wrote a blog post. I did not intend to neglect this blog for so long it just kind of happened. While I have been reading fanfics almost none of them were Ranma fics. I still like Ranma ½ but the fan fics have far too much fanon and anime influence. I'm finding that they annoy me more than entertain me. I could have written about other things like Japan but with the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear plant problems thinking about Japan at the time was depressing.

I was reading volume 4 of A.I. Love you by Ken Akamatsu when I happened to notice that Hitoshi Kobe states that forty-chan has a Ranma complex. I find it a bit strange to call it a Ranma complex. Sure I suppose you could call a person who changes genders to have a Ranma complex but Ranma's personality doesn't change with the gender whereas this character's does.

A few things I feel like complaining about noticed in Ranma fanfics recently:
1. Stating that Chi and ki (sometimes though less often qi) are different things. They are the same thing. Similarly saying Chakra is different than ki rather annoys me since in Yoga chakra are the places where energy flows (prana -which is basically the same thing as ki) converge in the body. To be fair they are fictional universes in which the author can make it the way he or she wants but still I'd prefer if they did it in another way such as stating that there are multiple types of ki for example spirit ki and ki of the earth rather than using different languages/pronunciations of the same thing.

2. People complaining that Ranma is a god-like character. That annoys me only because Ranma pretty much is a god-like character in the manga. I wrote the post God like Ranma – writing about an over powered main character for a reason. That doesn't mean that Ranma is a faultless or incapable of making mistakes since he can. Ranma was overly skilled or powerful in the manga but he often limited himself in one way or another be it fighting defensively (defensive battles are generally harder than offensive ones); trying to avoid hurting, killing, or maiming his opponent (with very few exceptions mainly just on Saffron and that was only after he was running out of options since lesser force wasn't working); playing with his opponent or not taking his opponent seriously; being constrained by the rules of engagement (namely following the rules of the contest or limiting himself to the style); not using special techniques or his full abilities (for example he rarely hit people anywhere near as hard as he could since most fights do not have his opponents go flying with great force backwards like they did when he did hit them really hard - such as the time he hit Ryoga hard enough to go flying back into a cliff base with enough force to collapse the cliff onto Ryoga); hampered by his morals/conscience; using to little force (underestimating his opponents); etc.

3. This type of statement: Ranma wouldn't trust magic if his life depended on it.
- Ranma clearly trusts magic as much as he does anything else (Ranma is not a very trusting person though). In the manga it is pretty clear that he views magic as just another tool akin to a staff weapon or microwave. Ranma hasn't shown any reluctance to using magic (suggestion incense, magical weapons, girl repellent, etc.) That said Ranma is likely to be a little more cautious using it than say a nonmagic weapon or technology but that is only because magic is less known to him.

4. This type of statement in reviews just pisses me off: Ranma is way too knowledgeable in martial arts.
- Ranma's literal oldest memory is training. He has been training in martial arts for his entire life; religiously. He is devoted to martial arts to the point that it is the absolute most important thing he has. He'd rather die than give up martial arts and is willing to risk his life in the pursuit of it. That isn't even including that he is a very fast learner (stated multiple times).

5. I don't like the use of the terms master and grandmaster in Ranma fan fics because the titles really don't mean anything (often times people give themselves the title or they are given for some other reason other than ability level) and neither term really exists in Japanese or Chinese martial arts for that matter. They are western terms dating only back to around the 1950's.

Guess what? More comments inspired by Harry Potter

2010-11-24T01:26:00.009-05:00

1. I dislike fics in which Harry places his trust with the Goblins blindly. In the actual books I felt Harry was too trusting of most people including Dumbledore. While a certain amount of trust has to be given to everyone, for example trust that people preparing food are doing so properly, I am a believer that trust should be earned. Part of the reason I like the Harry/Hermione pairing is because she is really the only person who in my opinion has earned Harry's trust with Ron the second most trust worthy. They earned Harry's trust though Ron less so than Hermione. Harry trusting the Goblins with basically everything is very annoying.

2. Beyond the easily ignorable (because it occurred in one of the books I didn't find to be very good) betrayal by Griphook (because he wanted the sword and all goblin made items forever belong to the goblins) I don't really get fics in which Harry is extremely wealthy and decides to have Griphook manage his accounts. Just because he's the only Goblin whose name Harry knows doesn't mean a thing. Griphook was a clerk, I'd prefer someone with experience and knowledge to manage my accounts, especially if they are large.

3. The Goblin bank is often portrayed like a modern western style bank and government office (will readings, Realtor services, and lawyers can be found there in some fics for some reason). The actual books portray them more like an old style or some Muslim banks in which interest is not earned you have to pay for storage more like large Safety Deposit Boxes. Not every bank gives interest and some have very poor interest take Japan for example where it fluctuates but has generally been a negative interest (i.e. you pay them to store your money).

4. I find it very annoying for characters to constantly say things like Merlin this or Merlin that. It is especially annoying when done by muggle-born.

5. As I mentioned in an earlier post the way money is displayed is very annoying. How does Olivander make a living? The ingredients used, like unicorn hair said by Slughorn to be 10 galleons a hair, cost more than the wands he sells. Why is pretty much everything listed in galleons with very little mention of sickles or knuts (even more so in fan fics)?

6. I quoted Hermione about wizards not having logic and that remains a constant (as in it is basically the only legitimate excuse for some actions). Why did Dumbledore send the students back to their dormitories in book one when the troll was spotted? Wouldn't it have been safer to keep them all in the great hall where all the teachers can be around to watch them and not send any student toward the dungeons which is where the Troll was said to have been and is the place that some students like the Slytherins have their house?

7. Why is it that basically everyone seemed to know where Harry Potter lived? I mean the address was said during the court case, owls about misuse of magic where able to get to him, could be followed from the train station, house elf i.e. Dobby had no trouble finding him, the entire order of the phoenix knew where he was, a temporary flue connection was made to the house at one point, people would randomly show up and shake his hand pre-first book (mentioned in first book), etc. Whatever protections that were put on that house were crap the only reason Voldemort or the death eaters didn't kill him seems to be massive incompetence. Catching Harry outside those protections shouldn't have been hard at all. Yes Voldemort states, in the Goblet of Fire, that Dumbledore placed an ancient magic, to ensure the boy's protection as long as he is in his relations' care but really that didn't stop an elf nor does it stop muggles like say Petunia who was going to hit him with a frying pan (second book that occurred and they could be cursed via the mind control curse to kill him) . Even if the protections worked to stop Voldemort, which I'll go ahead and say is true since he was defeated by Harry just touching him in the first year, why have Harry still go there after Voldemort used Harry's blood in the resurrection ritual? With them both having the same blood Voldemort should have been able to waltz right into the house and kill Harry in his sleep (which is another thing I didn't get why didn't Voldemort ever try and kill Harry in his sleep when he had the chance?).

8. Fics in which Harry or Hermione trust and can rely on Minerva McGonagall annoy me. She didn't approve of the Dursleys but she also didn't do anything like check up on Harry ever. She sent first year students to the forbidden forest for detention when it was known that something fast was killing Unicorns in the forest. She didn't help with Umbridge or when they went to her with concerns about the Philosophers stone. She didn't stand up for them when the Potter stinks badges where being passed out, Heir of Slytherin thing was going on, do anything about Snape's blatant favoritism, or do anything about Draco verbally abusing students even in the great hall (she should have taken points or gave detention or something - and about that why did she take so many points away from Harry and Hermione in the first book prior to giving them detention in the forest others did not lose as many points for breaking curfew). She didn't try to help during the Tri-wizard tournament. She like Dumbledore did not seem to check new hires credentials. I wouldn't even go to her for advice since the advice she did give was useless.

9. Should what happened in the books be used in a fic or should it be made to more resemble real life when possible? For example in the books Hedwig hoots but in real life Snow Owls are diurnal and silent they don't hoot (they do make a barking noise on occasion though). Another example Harry holds his breath while ascending during the second task. In real life that shouldn't be done. Instead he should exhale as he goes up to prevent lung damage.

10. There were a number of things that bothered me in the Goblet of Fire but what annoyed me the most was that Ron Weasley was Harry's hostage during the second task. I find myself very annoyed about how Harry (and even more so Ron) tended to treat Hermione (she was a much better friend to them than they were to her). The way I see it Hermione was a true friend of Harry's the type that he could trust, could be counted on, and would do what she believes is in his best interest even if it was detrimental to her. Ron was not that type of friend. He was a buddy who was fun to hang out and do stuff with like talk about sports, play games with, and just goof off with in general. Krum didn't really know her enough to be his hostage and Harry still should have been some what pissed at Ron (I really didn't like how quick he was to forgive Ron's betrayal - should have made Ron work for it some or at the very least hit Ron a few times before accepting it).

11. Ron Weasley. I don't much like this character. He is basically a normal kid (at least compared to Hermione and Harry) lazy, antagonistic, prejudiced, a jerk, tends to be jealous/envious of others, somewhat of a mommas boy, has an inferiority complex about his brothers as well as Harry, and seeks attention. Ron really is not very different from Draco (he was pretty bigoted and cruel on occasion, he caused Hermione more pain than Draco ever did, there are more similarities as well). He had a real purpose early in the books but not so much later (in that his role was not really vital). I did sort of feel sorry for him on occasion like having to work with a broken wand, being poor, being overshadowed by his other family members, etc. but I can't really relate with him though I probably should be able to more than I do.

12. Ron had to use a family members old wand and couldn't get a new wand quickly because his family is poor and he didn't think of/strangely too proud to just ask Harry to loan or give him the money for one. A wand is the single most important thing a wizard will ever have. If the Weasley's had trouble affording one what do poor muggle-born students do (like say the working homeless)?

13. Why didn't Harry or the others carry things like a bezoar (stone from the stomach of a goat that will save you from most poisons)? With someone actively trying to kill him you'd think some preventive measures could have been put in place.

14. Hermione Granger is my favorite character in the series and the one I can most easily relate to. The things I liked most about her was her loyalty and social conscience (which caused her to create S.P.E.W for the elves, try and prepare a defense for Buckbeak, and taking Crookshanks because no one wanted him). Though I dislike some aspects of her character such as how she trusted authority figures too much, wasn't as open minded as I would like, and her pushiness. I found myself sympathizing with and feeling sorry for her when I read the books. Harry had a pretty crappy life but I did not find myself sympathizing with him as much as Hermione for several reasons but I think the main reasons were because he was too much of a sycophant to Dumbledore, he sought out the trouble he encountered fairly often, he kept trying to take on wizards far older and far more experienced than him with no plans in place and fairly poor tactics, he didn't try and improve himself so as to better himself or just increase his chances of survival unless forced, and tended to blame Draco Malfoy for everything (to the point when it was actually Draco no one really wanted to believe him anymore).

15. The use of glamour charms and disguise magic is common in fan fics but doesn't seem to exist in the actual books beyond polyjuice potion. They never use any type of glamour magic and when disguised it is either via polyjuice or just dressing up (the wizards are not good at disguising as muggles). That said I believe it is shown at least once in the movies.

16. Reading the books I always felt that Hermione was more powerful and extremely more skilled than Harry (and that in the last books in particular she was nerfed to not overshadow Harry). She was smarter, shown to do spells from different years, learn spells faster than other students (on her first try often), very good at nonverbal spells (better than the vast majority of the characters), altered spells and was implied to create her own spells (the point me spell for example), etc. Harry was not powerful or very skilled he was barely above average. I don't even see him as being more skilled than Hermione in defense against dark arts. He got special tutoring in that (Lupin, Snape -though learning to protect his mind didn't seem to really work well, and later Dumbledore but that mostly consisted of watching the equivalent to home movies on Voldemort) and preferential treatment because of who he was. Part of Harry's power may have not been his alone rather been Voldemort's since he was carrying part of Voldemort's soul and it did give him abilities such as the ability to speak snake. Hermione even taught him quite a few of them (for example in preparation for the tasks in the tri-wizard tournament and for the DA). Harry did not win his battles because of skill or power. Frankly Harry's tactics and strategy were atrocious. Harry should have been dead the only reason he survived at all is because luck, over confident and incompetent enemies, objects that show up exactly when he needed them, near dues ex machina things happening, help from others such as Dobby, Moaning Mrytle, Hermione, etc. The thing I really, really dislike about powerful, skilled, independent Harry fics (which are better than what he was in the books IMO) is that they tend to really nerf Hermione.

17. While I prefer Harry/Hermione to what was in the books (I really hate Ron/Hermione). I don't really like the book version of Harry all that much and feel that while better than Hermione/Ron it still is not a great match up. The reason for that is because Harry was not much better to Hermione than Ron was. He was a jerk that made her cry as well (like at the beginning of the fifth book). Blamed her when he really shouldn't have. Didn't stand up for her when he had the opportunity to as often as he should have and tended to side with Ron over her (and she was a much better friend to him than Ron was). Didn't really acknowledge Hermione's help didn't ever really thank her or apologize for hurting her (when she was crying in that stupid tent he could have at least tried to comfort her instead of ignoring her and being mad at her for accidentally breaking his wand while saving his life). He didn't really help her with things like SPEW unless forced by her to do so. Both Harry and Ron had fairly one-sided friendships with Hermione where they tended to use her (for example in the beginning of Deathly Hallows he thinks about how he should get Hermione to teach him some healing spells - he doesn't seem to ever think about ways he could help her). She tried to better them and help them all the time (even breaking rules and endangering herself for them) they didn't really do that for her very much.

18. Loyalty oaths (like the unbreakable one Snape made), Veritas serum, Magical contracts (like the one Hermione created or the goblet), etc. were underused and could have been extremely helpful. The order of the phoenix should have used those things.

19. I really don't like how Hermione cried so often. She was strong, independent (the most out of anyone in the series), brave, outspoken about her beliefs at one moment and then crying the next. I really don't get why the author had it that way. I don't even really get why she was crying on some occasions since by that point she really had no reason to cry.

Last 60 graphic novels I read

2010-11-23T23:11:00.004-05:00

01. Batman and the Outsiders: The Snare
02. Batman and the Outsiders: Chrysalis
03. Simpsons Comics Dollars to Donuts
04. Big Brilliant Book of Bart Simpson
05. Simpsons Comics Madness
06. Batman: Joker's Last Laugh
07. Crankshaft
08. Simpsons comics Hit the Road!
09. Simpsons comics Get Some Fancy Book Learnin'
10. Simpsons comics Beach Blanket Bongo
11. Batman Gotham after Midnight
12. Wrapped-Up Fox Trot
13. FoxTrot Sundaes
14. Teen Titans Spot light Wonder Girl
15. Marvel Divas
16. Blood + Waterby judd Winick and Tomm Coker
17. Hound of the Far Side by Gary Larson
18. The Chickens are Restless by Gary Larson
19. The Curse of Madame "C" by Gary Larson
20. Batman Hush
21. Harvey Comics Classics volume one casper the friendly ghost
22. Get Fuzzy: Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun
23. Get Fuzzy: Loserpalooza
24. The Potpourrific Great Big Grab Bag of Get Fuzzy
25. Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
26. What Would Dewey do? (unshelved volume 2)
27. Tales of the Batman by Tim Sale
28. Batman Scottish Connection
29. Batman Going Sane
30. Batman Lovers and Madmen
31. The Dark Horse book of monsters
32. Ms. Marvel Dark Reign
33. Batman King Tut's Tomb
34. Batman Secrets
35. Jeremy & Dad - Zits
36. Batman: The Joker's Last Laugh
37. Superman Emperor Joker
38. Deadpool: Suicide Kings
39.-40. Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Guilty Pleasures graphic novel
41.-42. Anita Blake Laughing Corpse graphic novels
43. Orange by Benjamin
44. Spiderman Red Sonja
45. Batman the black glove
46. Batman the cat and the bat
47. Batman R.I.P.
48. Batman Monsters
49. A God Somewhere
50.-54. Amelia Rules 1-2,4-6
55. Wonder Woman Warkiller
56. Doctor voodoo : avenger of the supernatural
57. Bart Simpson: Class Clown
58. Batman the resurrection of Ra's al Ghul
59. Batman International
60. Batman Rules of Engagement

Looking at this list it should be obvious that I enjoy reading (and the local library has a good selection of) Batman graphic novels. Of the listed graphic novels the best ones were the Amelia rules comics which I personally view as being worth buying. Simpsons is funny but the comics are not as memorable as the cartoon though a possibly reason for this could be because of how my brain stores memory since the cartoon has both audio and visual not just visual. The Anita Blake graphic novels are good as well as the first few books in that series but of the actual books only the first few books are worth reading the later books should be avoided. Fox Trot is probably my favorite newspaper comic and I was sad that it ended though the two books I most recently read are not as good as earlier strips (also annoyed me some because I kept wondering things like where is Peter's blind girlfriend Denise who didn't show up in them). I don't really like Spideman and that graphic novel did not change my opinion (I do like Red Sonja and Conan though which is why I took it out). Orange by Benjamin is very sad dealing with suicide. A god somewhere is an okay but not great graphic novel more serious than a lot of super hero type graphic novels are. Deadpool is funny I like how he breaks the fourth wall.

Collection of quotes from the internet on Harry Potter

2010-11-23T17:11:00.011-05:00

This is a collection of quotes from Harry Potter fics, author notes from people who wrote Harry Potter fics, and possible a few other places I bumped into (like TVtropes, forums, other lists of quotes). I am not in the habit of collecting or saving quotes but recently did so for some reason (not really sure why I started to when I never bothered to do so before). None of the stuff below in this post was written by me and I have no idea as to who the original writers of these are (didn't keep track of that). I don't necessarily agree with the quoted parts but I did find them interesting or amusing at the time of reading them.

Cracked on Dumbledore
Fic titled Fair Trade that I'd quote most of it about Voldemort
--------------------
Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken . . . Magic is a tricky thing. It's very precise and exacting in its requirements.

Harry looked up at Wormtail, timing his next words very carefully. As the blood began to drip from the knife in Wormtail's hand, he shouted around the gag, "I give you that blood!"
-------------------
It was a cruel joke. The most powerful wizard in history brought down by a horde of house elves armed with enchanted kitchenware. He had expected to find Harry Potter here but instead found what must be every house elf in Britain lying in ambush. He couldn't apparate and somehow his Portkey had been negated.

He destroyed another three, but then his yew wand was knocked from his hand while pots and pans dumped scalding water on him from above. The pain was excruciating.

As the tiny creatures surrounding him closed in, sinister torchlight glinted off the deadly implements they wielded.

"Why? What have I ever done to you?"

The nearest one swatted him in the eye with a ladle while raising a gleaming meat cleaver. "Mistress Hermione Granger tolded the house-elveses that yous curseded Mistress Hermione Granger to makes her tries to free house-elveses. She-Who-Knits cannot be stopping in trying to free house-elveses until Dark Wizard Riddle be dying."
------------------
Harry didn't look worried, merely holding up a hand. "Now, hold on, Death Eaters. What is this mook paying you, anyway?"

The Death Eaters looked nonplussed. "D'uh . . . pay us? We have to pay him!"

"Yeah, an' clean up after that snake of his!"

Harry nodded. "As I thought! How'd you like to come work for me instead? Five weeks a year paid holidays, medical and dental benefits, a retirement plan . . ." The Death Eaters ran forward and began kissing his hands and the hem of his robes. "I'll take that as a 'yes, we'd love to work for you.' See my secretary. Ginny, darling, draw up some more 'Crony of Harry Potter' contracts. And stick around after office hours, if you know what I mean, dear."
--------------------
The aurors stared at the scene which included a large grain thresher, three donkey corpses, a vast amount of cooking oil, a large pneumatic press, something that looked like two dead dragons and a extra large hamster that were all splinched together, some kind of unidentifiable ooze, a burning Volkswagen van, and the fragmented corpse of the former Dark Lord Voldemort, also on fire.

Tonks warily turned towards the new aurors portkeying on site. "Don't ask. Just... don't ask."
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A muggle author once wrote that there are four different kinds of homicide, Professor. Felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy.
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It's not something he would talk about. You should know that being good at chess doesn't make you a brilliant leader or strategist.
---------------------
Harry struggled to carry the two wet girls as he walked out of the lake to complete the second task in the tournament.

"Gabrielle," Fleur cried happily. "Oh thank you 'arrie. you 'ave saved my sister."

"No problem Fleur." Harry blushed when the older girl gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. "Happy to help."

"Where is Mr. Weasley Harry?" Dumbledore demanded.

"Back at the bottom of the lake," Harry replied. "Why?"

"And why didn't you bring him with you?" The old wizard prompted.

"Cause I could only manage two people professor," Harry said slowly, as if talking to a simpleton. "Hermione and a cute little French girl, let Victor rescue his own hostage."

"Mr. Weasley was your hostage Harry," Dumbledore sighed.

"What?" Harry asked in shock. "But . . . but you said the person I'd miss the most."

"And that's Mr. Weasley . . . isn't it?"

"I don't know what rumors you've been hearing but Ron a mate . . . not my mate."

"That's . . ."

"Don't get me wrong, he's a good bloke. But Hermione here supported me, helps me with my homework, and is an all around useful girl to have around. Ron? Well, he's fun but not irreplaceable. I would have rescued him anyway but it came down between him and a cute little girl, no gentleman would leave a defenseless little girl at the bottom of the lake and . . . well, I kinda thought that Ron was the person Victor would miss the most."

"And why would Mr. Krum miss Mr. Weasley?" Dumbledore asked, fearing the answer.

"Ron's a big Quidditch fan," Harry explained. "I just sort of assumed that he'd do anything for his hero . . . anything. Didn't want to think much about it to be honest."

IIIIIIIIII

"Harry," a dripping Ron yelled as he walked into the common room. "Why didn't you rescue me."

"Man code," Neville said simply.

"M . . ." Ron's eyes crossed. "Section sixty nine?"

"Yep and forty three."

"Sorry bout that Harry," Ron said with an embarrassed expression on his face. "Should have thought things through first."

"No problem Ron."

"So you're ok with the fact that Harry left you on the bottom of the lake?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"Course I am," Ron agreed. "You heard Neville didn't you?"

"I . . . but . . ." the girl sputtered.
----------------------
"You dropped S.P.E.W. like it had meant nothing to you even though you were clearly obsessed about the cause for two years. You broke the rules when hexed another student just so Ron could stay on the Quidditch team. I realize that you've bent and broken the rules before, but the times you've done that, people's lives were at risk. But this time, you broke the rules just to save Ron from embarrassment. And then you chastised me when you thought I might have cheated when I tricked Ron into believing that I gave him the Felix Felicis, doing the exact same thing you did: saving Ron from embarrassing himself. It also took you months to find out that Prince was related to Snape, something you normally would've found out in no time at all! Especially since you were so dead certain that Eileen Prince was somehow related to the damned Half-Blood Prince in my Potions Text. You only bothered to check on what happened to Eileen Prince after Snape admitted to being the Half-Blood Prince."
------------------------
"Remember, you told me the events of the cave. You panicked. Panicking is something you've never done before. But, when the Infiri attacked, you admitted that you completely forgot the simple flame hex. The same hex that Dumbledore had just reminded you about moments before. And then, when you were chasing after Snape and the Death Eaters, you couldn't land even one hex on Snape. In previous encounters with Death Eaters, you've always been spectacular. You were able to Stun or incapacitate several Death Eaters when Voldemort resurrected himself as well as during the battle in the Department of Mysteries. You should've been able to deal with the zombies without freezing up, and you should have at least singed Snape.
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many contradictions, plot holes, dropped plot points, retroactive changes in regards to previously published books, and the blatant character assassinations (of both her creations and her fans)
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Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows did not occur. So it should go without saying that this fic will not contain any "Tom Riddle, This is Your Life" Pensieve moments with Dumbledore and Harry. Neither will there be a Horcrux treasure hunt where our heroes meander aimlessly around a forest for MONTHS without food, money, or a clue! Also, this fic will not have Lobotomized-Hermione or Super-Ginny-Sue for that matter. And be sure that Parseltongue-Ron will NOT be making an appearance.
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"Anyone under the sound of a Rowling's voice forgets who their friends are, believes their worst enemies to be heroes, and their most precious allies to be scum. They hate people they should love and love people they should hate. It goes deep and lasts long, and only gets worse the longer you listen to one of them. You'd seek out and marry the absolute worst person for you, name your children after your worst abusers, and in general behave like a complete and utter madman losing all sense of right and wrong - and feeling depressed about it most of the time."
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They'd torture and brutalize each other 'For The Greater Good', get stalker like love affairs for girls that belong to groups you despise, save the lives of people who murdered your parents, commit suicide to please old men who'd kept you imprisoned and treated like a mushroom your whole life, go on long camping vacations while people who depend on you are dying, and act on all forms of insanity. You couldn't find a more effective way to destroy a nation. It's mass hysteria."
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Although he didn't share this with Hermione, Harry had become a victim of a common mental process – something occurs to you that you'd never thought of before, and suddenly you can't stop thinking about it. In this case, he'd never really paid much attention to Hermione's figure, but now that he'd seen her in this dress that showed off a bit of cleavage on her, he couldn't get it out of his mind. Oh, he'd been aware that she'd been developing over the past two years, but now it was abundantly clear that his female best friend had very nice looking breasts. His brain insisted on conjuring up an image of her in a bikini top.
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I am completely unable to tolerate Harry/Fan-girl (whoops! I mean Ginny) pairing based fics. I prefer stories with Harry paired with ANY girl whose feelings aren't based upon her hero-worship of the BWL. (In Ginny's case ever since she was a little girl.) I can't stand Ginny because the root/basis of her feelings are for the BWL first and foremost. It's disingenuous, shallow and disgusting for Harry, a boy denied love most of his life by an old-man using him as a weapon in a war, to wind up in a relationship with a fan-girl whose feelings are for the heroic image and fame of the BWL - NOT the real Harry Potter, a boy enslaved by the Dursleys and knowing little but "neglect and often cruelty" for most of his life. He needs love, not someone attracted to (lusting for) him because of his fame and/or wealth. Ginny was every bit as shallow as those young women that chase after sports stars, rock bands and/or pursue and marry 75 year old millionaire guys for their fame and money. Another reason I dislike her is that she is a textbook example of a "Mary-Sue" character - the sudden and "perfect" in every way soul-mate for the poor abused hero. However, the best argument against this pairing is to ask yourself who Ginny would have pursued and married had Neville Longbottom been the Boy-Who-Lived instead of Harry Potter. There is no denying the truth to that. Quite sad isn't it? And it proves my point entirely.

I am as equally unable to tolerate Ron/Hermione pairings. Ron had done nothing but abuse, belittle and/or hurt Hermione in some way all seven years because of her intelligence, hardworking and caring nature while hypocritically USING that same intelligence, hardworking and caring nature to help him with his homework or his own wants/needs. He did nothing but USE and ABUSE her and even in the last book he was still just as immature and uncaring of her feelings and well-being as he was in the first. He always put himself first in direct contrast to the very definition of love - where you put the happiness and well-being of the one you love before your own. Granted, Hermione was far from perfect but she NEVER intentionally tried to hurt anybody unlike Ron's own vicious verbal assaults against her where he knew and intended for it to hurt her. I reiterate, Ron was abusive and/or dismissive of Hermione and her feelings in EVERY book. So, why in the hell would this intelligent young woman suddenly be so stupid as to even date much less marry such an arse?

I can only guess that it was JKR trying to insert a little realism in that Hermione's lonely childhood because of her intelligent and assertive nature combined with 7 years of Ron's put-downs and abuse had destroyed her own self-esteem so badly that she figured that Ron was the best she could hope for. She had been reduced to absolutely zero self-respect and thus gave herself over fully to her abuser. Either that or it was the old good-girl goes for bad-boy routine in which case the stupid btch gets everything she deserves. Oh yes, he abuses me all the time so he MUST be a truly great male specimen! Let's make babies! That is one aspect of some women that I'll never be able to understand.

Whichever it is, the whole situation is utterly ridiculous for a series of books directed at children and teens. It tells them that shallow and abusive relationships are perfectly normal and a sound basis for lifetime relationships. If these pairings are JKR's idea of an ideal fantasy romance then I must truly pity her real-life experiences such that these disgustingly shallow and abuse ridden pairings are the best she can imagine. The epilogue of Book 7 proved that the ENTIRE story of Harry Potter was a tragedy to the bitter end and remained tragic for the rest of their lives.

It's also really quite sad that by the end of book 7 we learned that Harry was no "great wizard" or really even a hero at all. He was just a naive boy/young man brainwashed and manipulated by Dumbledore into suicide for a cause. It proved no different than like any other child brainwashed and manipulated by certain religious extremists into strapping themselves with explosives and blowing themselves up along with "the enemy." After all, in those adult's minds, it too is for "the greater good." I hope you'll pardon my extreme disgust with any adults using children in a war and knowingly setting them up to die. It is an ultimate evil to use a child like that no matter what the cause or reasons may be and it truly makes Dumbledore every bit as much a monster as Voldemort.

OotP, Chapter 37, Dumbledore to Harry:

“Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well - not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years.”

HBP 3, Dumbledore to the Dursleys:

"He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands." ...

"The magic I evoked fifteen years ago means that Harry has powerful protection while he can still call this house 'home.' However miserable he has been here, however unwelcome, however badly treated, you have at least, grudgingly, allowed him houseroom."

What Dumbledore did was no different than kidnapping a black infant and forcing the poor child onto a family of fervent members of the Ku Klux Klan with a threat to provide the child a home. Harry received the same treatment you would expect for that poor child assuming (s)he wasn't killed outright, don't you think? Sure, he survived but as nothing more than a horribly abused slave of the Dursleys. It was stated clearly that Harry's abuse was physical as well as mental and emotional. There was mention of Petunia striking him with a frying pan (presumably hot) in the kitchen as well as Vernon's comment about nothing being impossible to "beat" out of the freak implying that beatings were common. Then of course they also encouraged Dudley's "Harry hunting" and attacks on the freak.

Dumbledore could have done something to ensure that Harry's childhood wasn't dark and difficult but instead chose not to and in so doing he proved that "dark and difficult" childhood is in fact precisely what he really wanted Harry to suffer through. The wizarding world is rife with spells and potions compelling particular behavior. It would most certainly have been preferable and much happier for both the Dursleys and Harry if Dumbledore had at the least used a compulsion ward or charm to ensure Harry was at least accepted if not loved by the Dursleys. After all, his living with them was deemed by Dumbledore to be necessary regardless of their clearly not wanting Harry. Thus he proved by forcing Harry upon them that they lacked any real free-will in the matter; that what they wanted was unimportant anyway in the much greater need for Harry's safety. (Dumbledore's howler to Petunia "REMEMBER MY LAST!" when the Dursleys were about to throw Harry out along with prior statements peppered throughout earlier books proved that Harry's residence with the Dursleys was coerced upon the Dursleys in some way by Dumbledore.) So why then didn't he take the added step to ensure Harry grew up well since the Dursley's free-will didn't matter to him anyway? In fact, his coercion absolutely ensured the Dursleys would take out their resentment and hatred upon Harry. It was abundantly clear that he fully intended Harry's sufferance through an abusive and enslaved childhood because he needed the boy (and prophesied weapon) meek, weak and fully cowed into easy control by adults.

After all, Dumbledore fully admits that he knowingly subjected Harry to more than a decade of abuse and enslavement by his relatives with no such effort to ensure Harry's well-being. Is it any wonder that Harry trashed his office afterwards? It might be puzzling to some how later Harry did an about-face and was again "Dumbledore's man" despite the evil Dumbledore knowingly inflicted upon him. But all that was needed to fully regain and seal Harry's fervent loyalty was Dumbledore paralyzing and forcing Harry into watching Dumbledore intentionally martyr himself. He was dying already but was careful not to tell Harry that. He made Harry believe that he sacrificed himself to protect Harry and thus forever sealed Harry's zealous loyalty. It is a tactic called "martyrdom" and it has been used to seal fervent and zealous loyalty to a cause or person very successfully for more than a thousand years by cultists, Islamists and also to a historically lesser extent by Christians as well. It was also the very fate he had planned for Harry - to die as a martyr.

I strongly encourage everyone to read up on the subjects of brainwashing children, the effects of neglect and abuse on a child's personality and also children brought up in cults with figures/followings (such as Dumbledore was in the wizarding world). Only then could you truly understand how horrific of a monster Dumbledore really was in not only what he did to Harry but also how he used his position as Headmaster of the premier wizarding school in Britain to ensure generations of children (and later adults) awe of him and fervent belief in his apparent goodness and infallibility. That belief allowed him to do virtually whatever he wanted (ignoring laws at whim and even enslaving the infant hero of the wizarding world to hateful and abusive muggles) with little or no question from anyone. The only one who would have questioned Harry's placement was conveniently thrown in prison without a trial by Barty Crouch of the DMLE with the ASSISTANCE of Chief Warlock (aka Chief JUDGE), Albus Dumbledore. He admitted that he gave the DMLE "evidence that Sirius Black was the Potter's Secret Keeper" to ensure Sirius was sent to Azkaban. This is interesting since any such evidence would have to have been fabricated or exaggerated by Dumbledore since not only was Black NOT the Secret Keeper but according to canon Dumbledore himself actually cast the spell to "hide" the Potters. (It was later revealed that it was the 'Fidelius Charm' that hid the Potters, so Dumbledore would have most assuredly known who was the real Secret Keeper.) It's a very poor and/or very corrupt judge that sends people off to life-imprisonment and torture (Dementors are torture) without a trial. It was awfully convenient that the ONLY suspected Death Eater that was mentioned to have been sent to Azkaban without a trial just so happened to be the legal guardian of Harry Potter and Dumbledore's only obstacle to control of the prophecied weapon. Especially when known and confirmed Death Eaters walked away free and clear without effort by Dumbledore to ensure justice for them either.

Also, particularly take note the effect and effectiveness of isolating a child that has been exposed to extreme trauma - limiting their access only to an environment of people who hate and abuse them with the sole outside "friendly" contact and source of information being the one person who wants to control them. He ordered Harry's friends to cut off all contact for "security" reasons but there was NO reason whatsoever Hermione couldn't have remained in contact via phone or muggle post or that the Order guards couldn't have passed messages on for him at Grimmauld - EXCEPT that it would have given Harry other people he could trust and rely upon in his time of need. Dumbledore couldn't have that. He needed total control over Harry and so he blocked Harry from ALL other outside "friendly" influence except his own when Harry needed friends most in order to keep Harry dependent on him.

In essence all of this proved Dumbledore to be much like a wizarding world equivalent of Charles Manson or perhaps closer to being like Jim Jones with a touch of mafia behavior in ensuring obstacles to his plans are "out of the way." The sole difference being that instead of getting his followers to murder for him like Charles Manson and Voldemort had done, Dumbledore instead got them to die for him and his cause like Jim Jones. Harry and so many others essentially committed suicide at Dumbledore's mere "asking". Anyone up for some Kool-Aid? Do you deny that Dumbledore could have convinced a significant number of people in the wizarding world (especially many of the children) to drink? (If you are not familiar with the reference, google "Jonestown" and steel yourself should you choose to view any of the images.)

BOTH Dumbledore and Voldemort fought what is called a "proxy war" where they used others (cultish followers mostly, though in Harry's case he was simply a kidnapped and brainwashed child) to fight and die for them. BOTH of them manipulated, used and endangered or outright sacrificed the lives of others, often innocents and children - without those people's knowledge or informed consent. Just because one's ends may be deemed noble does not mean that such evil methods are acceptable to reach those ends. Why is it to be any more tolerated for Dumbledore and the "Light" to commit such atrocities than the bad guys that are doing it? In fact, Dumbledore often hypocritically used that very argument to discourage anyone from using lethal force against the Death Eaters but yet most of his own actions and intentional inaction proved equally vile and evil in result, if not intent. Knowingly enslaving an innocent one year-old infant to 15 years of hatred and cruelty as a means of shaping that child's personality for easier influence and control is but only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. How about discouraging his followers from properly defending themselves but rather instead let the enemy kill them? His total insistence upon stunning and releasing torturers and murderers only allowed them to be revived or released to later go off to torture and kill someone else. Something that is far more evil than putting down the rabid dog for what it is before it could hurt someone else. Note how the Malfoys among others were walking free at the end of DH despite the murders and tortures they had done. How many others have since then likely been tortured and killed by them in the intervening 19 years before the epilogue? Dumbledore operated under the premise that the lives and well-being of everyone else, particularly future victims, are unimportant compared to his belief in giving infinite chances of redemption to murderers and terrorists. Many good people died unnecessarily all thanks to Dumbledore's cult of personality.

I think the most telling difference between Dumbledore and Voldemort though was that Voldemort's followers had the choice whether or not to serve him. Dumbledore, on the other hand, kidnapped an infant boy and then conditioned (aka brainwashed) him through years of slavery and abuse followed by manipulation into suicide for Dumbledore's cause. In other words, Voldemort's followers had a choice whilst Dumbledore enslaved innocent children into his service. You can't get much more vile and despicable than that. Ultimately Harry Potter was nothing more than a poor kid that was kidnapped and brainwashed by the "good guys" into being a suicide bomber. (I would compare Harry to Jason Bourne but Harry had absolutely no choice in the matter and no special training or preparation beyond the brainwashing to die for everyone else.)

By the end of DH there is a huge amount of suffering, blood and death on Dumbledore's hands (arguably as much or even more than on Voldemort's and his Death Eaters) for his usage of others and refusal to use his own power (magical and political/governmental) to truly stop any of them from harming or killing others. It's much like a police officer that chooses to stand by and merely watch whilst someone rapes and murders a child - refusing to help for whatever his own personal reasons. Who is the bigger monster? The sicko doing the raping and murder or the person who has taken on the title, position and responsibility - trusted by all to protect the victim - but instead refuses to do so? Dumbledore even went so far as to not only protect such monsters from being rightfully killed in self-defense or justice but even worse invited such monsters into a school full of children. Equally as horrific was knowingly enslaving children to hateful monsters as a means of brainwashing and control. Not just the Dursleys, but also Snape. Ask yourselves about the "coincidence" of the only long-term professor outright abusive of Harry just so happened to be "promoted" to teaching Harry's best magical subject the year Harry would have left his influence in Potions class because he failed to meet the minimum grade Snape required. It was blatantly clear that Dumbledore used Snape to keep Harry abused and down-trodden while at Hogwarts and away from the Dursley's abuse. Harry was never given a reprieve from the bullying and abuse because that is what Dumbledore wanted and needed in order to shape him into a martyr who believed his own life had no value and was better to sacrifice for others more deserving of life and happiness.

That is what disappointed me most about canon. Ultimately, Harry Potter was revealed to have never been a hero at all. Instead he was nothing more than a severely used and abused victim, kidnapped as an infant from his legal guardian and brainwashed into his role of suicide for Dumbledore's cause. Those who read the series should heed its hidden warnings against adults in positions of authority over children exploiting children for their own purposes/ideals and the use of children in wars by adults indoctrinating them into certain views and then sacrificing their lives for the adult's ideals/goals.
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Grey Lord Dumbls…

Well all I can realy say was up until Harry told him about the resurrection using his blood he simply planed to have Harry March to his martyrs death and never bothered to tell him. He was at best manipulative off his rocker, but with a little circumstantial evidence and filling in all the WTF’s in the canon story line you could make a case for far worse than that.

How messed up in the head was Harry to name one of his kids after two of the people who fucked his life up the most. for the next kid why not Dolores Bella Potter, and Tom Cornelius Potter. Lets not forget Vernon they did part on good terms if I remember correctly.
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I'll never understand why so many fan-fic authors (& JKR) essentially let Dumbledore off the hook for crimes that were actually WORSE than what Voldemort had done.

All of Voldemort's followers had the CHOICE to follow and serve him. Even if the choice was 'serve or die' they still had a choice. Dumbledore on the other hand KIDNAPPED and ENSLAVED an infant boy from his rightful guardian (remember Sirius tried taking Harry but Hagrid refused him on Dumble's orders). He orchaestrated with full admitted knowledge and planning (in OotP) Harry's awful childhood of neglect and abuse as a means to shape Harry's personality. This is also known as BRAINWASHING and ENSLAVEMENT. Dumbledore even controlled Harry's contact with friendly people restricting them ONLY to himself after Harry suffered extreme traumas in 4th and 5th years - also well known tactics in brainwashing and control of victims.

One of Dumble's greatest and most powerful brainwashing and manipulations was the staging of his death. He at NO point ever told Harry he was dying anyway or what he had planned with Snape. Instead off stupifying and concealing Harry he paralyzed him and made Harry watch as Dumbledore valiantly gave his life for Harry so that Harry could complete his mission in defeating Voldemort. It's called 'martyrdom' and is a tactic that has been used for over a thousand years to seal zealous loyalty to a cause or belief. The most powerful brainwashing there is to a child raised to believe that his life is worth less than anyone else's and that he should die even for those that that hated and mistreated him because somehow THEIR lives are more valuable than his own.

In the end, Harry was no hero of any sort whatsoever. He was a boy controlled and programmed by an old man into committing suicide to defeat Dumbledore's enemy for him because he refused to even try truly fighting Voldemort or his DEs. Dumbledore not only refused to use lethal or 'hard' force against murderers and terrorists but also actively counseled others to do the same. Just let the murderers/rapists/terrorists go to hurt someone else. Both the past AND FUTURE victims' lives are meaningless when Albus Dumbledore wants to give monsters second, third, fourth, etc. chances. A hero CHOOSES to stand up to evil and fight it despite the personal peril. Canon-Harry was brainwashed/programmed and manipulated into his role and is thus not a hero at all. In fact, canon-Harry was reduced to being little more than a house-elf doing his mastah's every bidding - even unto his own death.

Ultimately, Dumbledore was every bit as much of a monster as Voldemort and had countless victims of his actions. (Particularly his preventing others from truly stopping DE's.) So why let such a monster "retire peacefully" and allowed to be known as something he is not. To conceal Dumbledore's montrosity is thoroughly disgusting. Past actions do NOT make later atrocities 'ok' just because he was some former hero. Defeating a dark lord does not make it ok to later go out and kidnap young children and make them your slaves. But that seems to be the implication you are giving here.
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“She wasn't perfect by any measure – no one was. She could get an idea in her head and worry it to death, without ever getting all the facts. She never did learn the truth about house elves during her lifetime. She had a problem about being right – she had real trouble admitting it when someone proved her wrong. It was rare that she did something wrong, but when she did, it was like getting a Malfoy to marry a Muggleborn to get her to admit it.”
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Lord Voldemort should have been competent, intelligent and charismatic; instead of a temperamental nutjob with a superiority complex.
2) A better backstory for Riddle, because I felt that the canon one is lame.
3) A serious and more focused Harry.
4) What's with the demonization of the Slytherins? Since when does ambition and cunning equate to racism and bigotry?
5) A better love interest, because the best friend's sister is cliche, not to mention the 'Lily and James Mach 2' or the 'Oedipus!Harry'.
6) Voldemort being bad-ass, casually batting away spells sent by lesser wizards or single-handedly slaughtering a group of Aurors in public without batting an eyelid.
7) Harry realizing that Snape had a creepy obsession with his mum. "You stalked my mum, you sick fuck! Die!"
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"Think about what you've seen in the Pensieve Hermione. What happened when I had to watch Dumbledore and Sirius be murdered? I was filled with such a blind rage that I chased after their killers with nothing but revenge on my mind, but when you fell at the ministry and I thought you were dead it was different."

"Harry, what does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything Hermione! Whenever anyone else is in trouble or gets hurt I try my best to help them out, but that night, I thought I had got you killed! It destroyed me; until Neville told me you were alive I couldn't function at all…"
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The wizards from Harry Potter always act as though they're far better than muggles. At best they're slightly more advanced. At their very worst they are culturally stagnant, have a Kangaroo Court for a justice system, a government as corrupt as any struggling Third World nation, Word Of God puts their combat abilities as inferior to even basic firearms, much less trained military, and their education facilities have downright pathetic safety standards which seems to be par for the course — making their purported superiority over the Muggles in every way a joke, which was probably the point.
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“The One with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches,” Harry began, reading from notes that Hermione had retrieved from her book bag. “Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… And the Dark Lord will mark Him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… And either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives.”

“And the two of you have been thinking about it and discussing it with each other?” Sensei asked.

Harry and Hermione nodded. “And using the dictionary a lot,” Harry added. “And that book that sounds like a dinosaur.”

“A thesaurus,” Hermione giggled.

“So what do you think it means?” Sensei asked.

“It’s rubbish,” Harry said.

“Could mean anything,” Hermione added.

“In order to come up with any meaning, you have to assume things.”

“To many things.”

“For example?” Sensei asked.

“The One,” Harry said.

“All we can know for certain it ‘the One’ is a male,” Hermione added. “We have to assume it’s a human or, better yet a wizard. For all we know it’s a lion.”

“Or a dragon,” Harry added.

Hermione giggled. “Harry likes the dragon idea.”

“And ‘power’ could mean loads of things as well,” Harry said. “All this tells us it the ‘One’ has it and this Dark Lord thingie knows it not. What kind of power? And the word is even more - ambiguous, Hermione told me - as it could mean a single power or many.”

Hermione then began listing things and seemed to be counting off on her fingers. “Physical? Mental? Intellectual? Magical? Economic? Political? Military? Electrical? Nuclear? Athletic? Charismatic? Persuasive? Logic? Er -” Hermione then blushed.

“Sexual,” Harry continued reading from their notes, “romantic, comedic, creative, literary, musical, destructive, constructive, deceptive, manipulative, cunning, stealth, love, the ability to make friends and influence people? The list could be endless.”

“Vanquish,” Hermione went on, “that could have several meanings as well such as: kill, defeat, drive away, scare away, frustrate and it could apply to the physical being, ideas, beliefs, philosophies and who knows what.”

“Excellent,” Sensei said. “Continue.”

“Is the title ‘Dark Lord’ unique to Voldemort?” Harry asked.

“He used it, or at least his followers did,” Sensei said, “but no. That mantle has been placed on many a leader or want-to-be leader of evil witches and wizards throughout history.”

“So it could mean a Dark Lord who has yet to show his ugly mug?”

“Indeed it could,” Sensei said with a grin.

“And approaches is wooly as well,” Hermione added. “I mean honestly? Physically approaches? Is coming soon to a theater near you approaches?”

Harry laughed. “I liked that one.”

“Approaches in time? Is growing in his power approaches? Could mean anything!”

“Very good. Next?” Sensei said encouraging his students.

“The next two phrases suggest birth,” Harry said. “As in I was born on my birthday. But that too is an assumption. I mean a legend can be born at some other time when others recognize him as a legend, right? There are other meanings as well, but these two result in far different interpretations given the rest of the words.”

“The ‘One’ was ‘born to those’,” Hermione continued. “This could mean parents. But it could also mean family, clan, community, country, a whole bunch of thoses. So, he could have been given birth physically or metaphysically by parents, family, clan, community or whatever, couldn‘t he?”

“Thrice is certain,” Harry said, “or as certain as any word in this waffle can be - three times.”

“Defied him is not,” Hermione continued. “Defied has a bunch of possible meanings and him could mean either the One or the Dark Lord!”

“Born as the seventh month dies is perhaps the most clear statement in this entire thing,” Harry went on. “The obvious choice is the end of the seventh calendar month. What calendar, though? July as we know it? But what if it’s the old roman calendar - that would mean late May or early June to us. What about the Celtic one - early July then…”

“The seventh month in the Celtic calendar, Duir. ends on July 7th in our calendar,” Hermione added.

“And all of this assumed a calendar is involved at all,” Harry said after smiling at Hermione then sticking his tongue out, to which she replied in kind. “I mean, it could mean the seventh month after some unspecified date of significance other than the beginning of a new year.”

“Excellent!” Sensei said. “Next?”

“And the Dark Lord will mark his as his equal,” Harry continued. “Well, we know this means some Dark Lord and whoever or whatever the One is, but mark as equal? Is this a physical mark? A tattoo? Is it a sign? A ring? A badge? Or is it more symbolic?”

“As in?”

“Well, let’s assume we are talking wizards, which there’s no clue whatsoever that such is the case. If a powerful wizard took on an apprentice or declared another his heir or something like that, would not that show that the other might be said powerful wizard’s equal in his eyes?”

“Bloody hell!” Sensei exclaimed. “I’ve been thinking about this rubbish for over one hundred and fifty years and I never considered that! That’s brilliant, Harry!”

Harry blushed. “Thank you,” he said softly.

“But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not,” Hermione went on, “and we are once again faced with the One, the Dark Lord and power, all of which have too many possible meanings. Next bit is the statement that this Dark Lord does not know the power the One has. What does that mean? Lacks knowledge? He does not believe in it? Ignorance? Intellectual incapability of grasping the concept? Does not understand or refuses to? It’s over his head? Could this be some non-magical power? Do wizards understand guns, for example?”

“Most do not,” Sensei said.

“So it could be technology, couldn’t it? But, then again, it could be anything.”

“Very good,” Sensei smiled.

“And either must die at the hands of the other,” Harry went on, “This one seems clear, but it’s not. It would seem to define the term ‘vanquish’ but it does not. The only thing that seems certain is one of them will die and the other will be the cause of that death. The clear reading suggests a duel. That’s what I thought at first.

“But then I remembered one of the only movies my Uncle let me see on the telly. It was “The Battle of Britain” about the Germans trying to bomb England and the Royal Air Force trying to stop them. Bombs killed people on the ground, but they were dropped from so high up that the Germans could not see who they killed. Yet did they not have a hand in the killing? Did not the pilot have a hand by flying the plane to London? Did not the bombardier when he dropped the bombs? Did not the fighter pilots when they protected the bombers from being shot down?

“A general plans a battle yet does not take part, does he not have a hand in the deaths that follow? A bad guy hires an assassin to kill a rival, does he not have a hand in that death? I read a book recently on the Norman Conquest. William was losing the Battle of Hastings when one of his archers got lucky and hit Harold Godwinson - leader of the Anglo-Saxons - in the eye, killing him. The Anglo-Saxons soon fled the field. Did not William have a hand in Harold’s death? Did not that archer have a hand in the conquest of England? The phrase does not necessarily mean to kill personally, but merely bring about the death of the other.”

“Outstanding!” Sensei said. “And the last bit?”

“For neither can live while the other survives,” Hermione said. “Harry and I agree this is the only bit that is not totally open to interpretation, but it still has more than one meaning.”

“One is that they both will die,” Harry said.

“But why the terms ‘live’ and ‘survive’?”

“We figured these words were not chosen at random,” Harry explained. “Survive means ‘live’ as in to be alive physically. I survive so long as I still breathe, right?”

“But,” Hermione added, “live can mean far more than just breathing. It can mean to have hopes and dreams and desires and ambitions and have the opportunity to bring them about.”

“So we figure,” Harry went on, “that what this means is each of them has some plans for the future, but neither of their plans can come about unless the other of them is dead and buried.”

“It’s the only bit of the whole puzzle that can have a somewhat certain meaning,” Hermione finished.

“Put it altogether and what do you have?” Sensei asked almost beaming.

“Honestly,” Hermione said, “you can have anything. It is what the hearer wants to think it is.”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “Rubbish is what it is.”
-----------------------------
I couldn't find any qualifications Dumbledore had aside from the fact that he defeated the previous Dark Lord and looking at the time line I found on the lexicon he did it while he was a professor at Hogwarts not an Auror
----------------------------
Only you would consider hiding the thing Voldemort wants most in a school full of children and only you would protect it with lethal traps that endangered those same children. Did any of the other Professors think that was a bad idea?"

"Minerva might have said something," Dumbledore said weakly.

"Then there's the fact that you don't bother investigating things, the troll, the snake, etc." Harry went on, "you hire incompetents and death eaters . . . well, you get the idea."
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Polyjuice Potion is always treated as one of the most dangerous potions in the wizarding world. You need Restricted Section access to learn about it, which tellingly is usually reserved for students in Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts. It takes months to make, and given that Hermione considers it tricky (albeit in second year, but it's Hermione) it's probably pretty easy to get wrong. And the ingredients are also very expensive.
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"Something is dangerous and needs to be restricted if you call it Potassium Hydroxide or Sulfuric Acid, but it's perfectly safe if you call it drain cleaner." Harry explained. "You just have to get into the habit of reading labels."

"I see," Albus said thoughtfully.

"It's stupid," Harry continued. "The only difference is in people's heads. The government requires me to get a licence to buy things that I can get in a grocery store so long as they have a different name."
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"Listen here, there is no fate but that which we make for ourselves. Prophecies are rarely clear unitl after they've been carried out and worrying about them is just the sort of idiotic thing that you shouldn't do."
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OMAKE: What Should Have Been

The Headmaster's office was silent as Dumbledore finished talking.

"I see," Harry said coldly. "May I have a piece of parchment? I'm also going to need a quill and a bit of ink."

"Harry I . . ."

"A simple yes or now will suffice," Harry interrupted.

"Here you are Harry," Dumbledore said in confusion. "But I . . ."

"Be silent please." Harry wrote a short note and handed it to the Headmaster, "since I doubt you respect my privacy enough to let this go without reading it."

"Voldemort, as I see it there are four people directly responsible for the deaths of my parents and godfather." Dumbledore looked up in horror. "Harry you can't mean . . ."

"Just read the rest of it," Harry said impassively.

"These people are Severus Snape, Peter Pettigrew, Bellatrix Lestrange, and Albus Dumbledore. If you will send me the heads of the first three and promise to make a sincere effort to end the life of the fourth and leave me and my friends in peace. I will in return send you the the contents of the prophecy and leave the United Kingdom to its fate." Dumbledore looked sick as he finished the letter. "Harry you can't hate me so much as this?"

"You're responsible for the deaths of my parents and godfather." Harry raised a finger. "You're responsible for my childhood." He raised another. "You're likely responsible for several other things that I'm unaware of." He raised a fourth finger. "And to top it all of you've been granting the murder of my parents sanctuary and employment here at Hogwarts where he abuses his position to torment me . . . I'm talking of course about Severus Snape. In light of all of that, how could I not?"

"I . . ."

"Now if you'll excuse me," Harry said as he stood and took the letter back. "I'd like to get this letter posted as soon as possible. Have a good evening Headmaster."
----------------
"You thought I left because of the prophecy?" Harry asked incredulously. "Something that came from that fraud, it never occurred to you that it might just be a little bit too convenient that she gave it during a job interview to become the Divinations Professor? Soon as I found out who made it I realized that my chances of having to deal with Voldemort myself ranked up there with the Cannons taking the title."

"If not that then . . . the death of Sirius?" Dumbledore ventured.

"While regrettable," Harry sighed. "I never really got to know the man. I feel bad about his death but I'm not about to sink into a deep depression because of it."
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AN: It always bothered me that Dumbledore was the secret keeper for the Order Headquarters and was able to spend time there. One wonders why Lily or James didn't become their own secret keeper, so long as they stayed in the area protected by the charm then there wasn't any way to . . . ah well, just another plot hole that's been needling me.
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To my knowledge, there are no formal age limitations, or formal competency certifications required to teach here. We don't even have breathing requirements for a teaching position.
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Talking of She WMNBN and her obsession with people stealing her ideas, has anyone read Wizard's Hall by Jane Yolen? Published in 1991, years before Harry Potter, it features a messy-haired wizard called Henry, who doesn't think he's good enough, who gets sent away to wizarding school with moving, speaking and winking portraits and meets a red haired friend and they have to battle a dark wizard trying to destroy the school. Sound familiar Jo? - DOT org SLASH wiki SLASH Wizard's_Hall The Leaky Couldron condemn Jane Yolen for being jealous, perhaps they should try to find out if she has good reason for being annoyed at someone who seems to have taken quite a lot of her ideas unless you believe in an awful lot of coincidences. As someone with legal training I DON'T.

Or perhaps THE BOGGART by Susan Cooper, published in 1993 sounds familiar. After visiting the Scottish castle her family has inherited, Emily finds that she has accidentally brought a boggart (a malicious spirit) back to Canada.

Or how about The Secret of Platform 13 is a children's novel by Eva Ibbotson, and illustrated by Sue Porter, first published in 1994. The book has gained extra significance as many readers find it similar to the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, although the first book of that series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in 1997, three years after this book was published. (They both mention a platform that leads to a different world.)

Harry Potter was a character in a 1986 movie called "Troll." In the movie "Troll" Harry Potter was a dark haired, ordinary boy that discovered magic and battled a troll. Gee, sounds a lot like Rowling's character.

Nachoman points to a certain high-budget film were a certain hotshot actor plays a blind man who takes a "tour of pleasures" in New York to then return to a campus town, the seat of a very famous boarding school. He then defends a youth who had apparently witnessed who had placed a cream-filled balloon on top of the headmaster's car. The names of the three guilty parties include the words "Harry", "James" and "Potter".

Or ( see geocities DOT com SLASH sayswamp SLASH worst DOT htm ... Many see striking similarities between "Harry Potter" and "The Worst Witch," by Jill Murphy. Murphy wrote the first "The Worst Witch" novel in 1974 when only 18. This book was made into a 1986 movie. There are so many similarities that I can't even begin to list them here.

"Comic book fans have noted that a comic book series first published in 1990 by DC Comics called The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman shares many similarities to Rowling's book. These include a dark haired young boy with glasses named Tim Hunter who discovers his own potential as the most powerful wizard of his age after being approached by magic wielding individuals, the first of whom gifts him with a pet owl."

Warner bought the rights to Harry Potter, then later bought rights to "The books of Magic," along with television rights to "Sabrina" and "Worst Witch." With billions of dollars at stake, did Warner Brother buy off people that Rowling may have copied from?

And we won't mention the huge list of similarities between The Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter books, will we Jo?

With so many things in Harry Potter "borrowed" without permission from other authors, I wonder how much of the Harry Potter stories are actually original. Methinks Jo doth protest too much, especially as she stopped a Russian publisher who tried to publish a book about a Russian wizarding school claiming it was based on Harry Potter.

Dmitry Yemets & Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass Neil Gaiman's "Hunter" is a lot more like "Potter" than the Tanya Grotter book is. Supposedly the Russian author Dmitry Yemets plagiarized Harry Potter in his book Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass because both main characters are orphans who attend wizard school and fight evil wizards. Harry Potter rides a broomstick and Tanya Grotter rides a double bass.

Now compare Potter to the "Worst Witch." Isn't Potter more like the Worst Witch than Grotter? If we follow the standard of Warner and J.K. Rowling, is she not a plagiarist? They were sure quick to sue Dmitry Yemets. Is there a double standard here?
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Flich seems to hate children, a very useful attribute for the caretaker of a school. But then, as a squib he is already an outcast in the wizarding world. Being a squib and living in a school full of children learning magic would most likely turn even the gentlest person into a kill-joy. So I'm not sure who suffers more from that arrangement, Filch or the Students. - why have him go around cleaning the muggle way instead of having the house elves or someone with magic like the say the students (that is how the Japanese do it) clean up.
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Looking back it should have been obvious how poorly those two were matched. Ron was lazy where Hermione was hard working. He was greedy and she was thrifty. He made messes everywhere while she was always neat and clean. Ron saw nothing wrong with himself whereas she sought constant improvement. But worse yet they couldn't stand each other's favorite hobbies. He hated to study and she loved nothing more, while on the other hand he obsessed over Quidditch and she could hardly care less about the game.
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Aye, he then goes on to comment how people are starting to think the job is jinxed and are wary of taking it. But you know, what Just Bugs Me about this is that Dumbledore is so indifferent to the quality of education at Hogwarts and/or so dogmatic in his adherence to traditional educational techniques and structures that he decides to hire Lockhart instead of stopping to think about a better way to deal with the situation. Hermione and Ron, when helping Harry prepare for the third task, demonstrated that a trio of motivated students can make significant educational gains in the practical Defense Against the Dark Arts subject by making use of the resources available to them (empty classrooms, free time, and a library) with no need for a teacher or traditionally structured class. Harry then goes on to show that an experienced and talented student can be a much better teacher than an unqualified adult when he spends the better part of the year instructing his peers in the ways of combat as the leader of Dumbledore's Army, and he does it for free. Hell, even that lame-ass dueling club Lockhart and Snape set up was probably a better way to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts than Lockhart's stupid class; at least students had the chance to spar with each other in a relatively safe environment. Dumbledore should have realized that hiring Lockhart would be a waste of resources and would do more harm than good and should have disbanded the class for the year and should have hired an older student who got Outstanding on his OWL on the subject to give seminars and instructions when possible (kind of like a T.A.), or he should have started his own dueling club at the beginning of the year to replace the class, or he should have left the class empty and let dedicated students use the free time to study the subject by themselves. As things stand, Dumbledore is wasting the school's money on an incompetent teacher and forcing students to lose several hours of their time per week listening to a blowhard who, by the way, forces them to buy his entire collection of works for the year (quite a financial burden on poor people like the Weasleys). The similarities with Real Life schools are depressing, to say the least.
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If Harry can buy it and it's crazy useful, OTHER PEOPLE WILL HAVE THEM TOO. I don't care if this is a belt that creates a magical shield. I don't care if it's a trunk that has a goddamn magic laser hidden inside. I don't care if it's a book that has ridiculous spells of holy hell enscribed within. I don't care if it's some super special wand custom made for Harry that instantly makes him Awesome™ at magic. If Harry can buy it or have it comissioned to be made in a place like Diagon Alley, ANYONE CAN.

There is no goddamn reason for Harry to have motherfucking blood wards on his trunk when someone like Draco Malfoy, who by all accounts has about a million times more gold to throw around on ridiculous shit than Harry does, doesn't have anything more advanced on his trunk than a lock that takes a key. CONTEXT, people. Context.

In fact, I'm going to coin a test right here and now. I'm going to call it The Draco Malfoy. This test is simple: Draco Malfoy is pompous, full of himself, arrogant, greedy, vain, and has a literal mountain of gold to throw around as spending money, with possibly more if it's something either of his parents thinks he genuinely needs. If DRACO MALFOY doesn't have it, then HARRY POTTER should not have it either. Harry should not be running around with a custom made wand if Draco isn't, because if anyone would have one, it would be Draco. Harry should not be running around with clothes that auto-transfigure into other clothes and have all sorts of enchantments like fireproofing and dirt-repelling if Draco isn't, because if anyone were to have clothes like that, it would be Draco.
---------------------------
In book 1, Dudley hits Harry at the zoo (At the snake house, just before the glass disappears) and the Dursleys don't care. Later on, they flat out tell Dudley that it's okay to hit Harry with his walking stick.

Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who viseted the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting.

Straight from the American version of the Novel, third chapter, second paragraph. Earlier in the book it also mentioned that Piers was the one who held people's arms behind their back's while Dudley punched them, so it seems like Harry at least has some experience being beaten up by the group. But we don't know anything about the reactions of the parents.

Pg 62, first book
'swore we'd stamp it out of him'
Pg 13 second book
but he still had to duck as she aimed a heavy blow with the frying pan
Third Book
Vernon threatened to beat Harry if he mentions magic near Aunt Marge

But you have to remember, there's a difference between taking a tire-iron to someone's head and smacking them around a little more than necessary. While Vernon never actually did Harry any permanent damage (from what I remember), there's nothing to say that he didn't hit Harry a little more than he should have.

But yes, I agree that the fanon level of abuse is insane-- Vernon wants his family to be perfectly normal more than anything else. He wouldn't come at Harry with a pipe (as I saw in one fic), or beat him within an inch of his life. He couldn't hide something like that.
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It was a thoughtful Harry who answered, "We may have hurried him along the road a bit but I think he would have gotten there anyway. When you look at some of the decisions he made, there really had to be something wrong with him. The whole 'trap Voldemort' stunt was doomed to failure, three first years were able to beat his traps. Then to give a twelve year old the ability to alter time was crazy, irresponsible and anything else you want to add in there. The heir of Slytherin / basilisk fiasco was followed by dementors around the school, don't even mention that bloody tournament. Then for a full year he doesn't speak to me but allows Snape into my head. I told him what Draco was up to, he put the safety of the entire school at risk trying to save one boy who'd already made his choice. His final gifts to us were all a sick joke, I can imagine him chuckling as we nearly got killed on numerous occasions trying to solve the bloody clues."

Harry's voice had gotten quieter as he'd went on, it was now barely above a whisper. "He'd arranged my whole life so I would walk into that forest and let Voldemort kill me. There was no back-up plan or 'what to do if you survive' in place. I had a piece of that bastard's soul in my head and he never told me, far less did anything about it.
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Harry Potter is one of those universes where catastrophe gets piled upon disaster for the main character and the abuse never seems to stop. Most of the victories he gains are just to have one source of pain or another stop for a short amount of time.

He is outnumbered, outclassed, not given space to maneuver, and those he counts as allies all turn on him to one degree or another: Dumbledore won't listen, Ron has gotten angry and/or jealous enough several times to cut lose their friendship, Hermione picks Ron over Harry, and Ginny is at best a minor character who has little impact, while all of the adults of their acquaintance are Dumbledore's servants first, and Harry's friends a distant second.

That is a world that requires serious powerups on the side of Light just to stay even, and I find it both wonderfully refreshing, and desirable in every aspect to see it happen.

Having Harry achieve something without getting hospitalized for weeks doing so is a wonderful change from the original material.

Of course, I love to see the light triumphant in any universe.
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Snape was Light or Dark, it's undeniable canon fact that he was a bully and loved lording his power over his students - just look at what he does to Neville.

QUOTE (Lord Raine @ Sep 30 2010, 07:06 PM)
QUOTE
Snape Being Cuddly And Misunderstood

The last book kind of shits all over this. Even Harry admits that it's true, which is why he names his kids after the guy. That's not fanon. That's you being a river in Egypt.

You should probably reword that to 'Snape Being A Secret Nice Person,' as opposed to 'Snape Being Misunderstood.' While he is in no way cuddly, he is indeed misunderstood.

He isn't misunderstood. The only reason he turned was because of Lily; he's not some pumped up crusader of light and justice out to avenge wrongs, he's a twisted, bitter man out for blood against his former boss for killing the woman he loved.

Harry doesn't acknowledge Snape as being misunderstood; he acknowledged Snape for being brave. Hell, he even tells Voldemort that Snape turned because of Lily.

Hell, his memories show that he isn't misunderstood. He was a bigot early on ("...you're just a Muggle..."; "...but she's just a..."), he willingly associated with Voldemort Youth, he took up the Dark Mark, he still hates Harry (the scene where he's confronting Dumbledore about Harry's role in the prophecy and when DD asks him if he's grown to care for Harry at all), he does not understand - or doesn't want to understand - Lily's sacrifice or her love for her family and brotherly love for Sirius (he tears out the Lily picture in the family photo in DH), he was incapable of seeing past his own hatred for James during the Occulomancy lessons to the point where Dumbledore acknowledged it as a fiasco, he taunts Tonks about Remus (Book 6, IIRC). This isn't Snape being misunderstood; this is Snape being the same man he was prior to the Potters' death, just turned against Voldemort for killing Lily.

Unless you can find canon evidence that shows he was misunderstood beyond him just being on Dumbledore's side, then he's still exactly what he was before Lily's death (just that he was out for blood and against Voldemort).

When did I say Snape wasn't brave? He was, but that doesn't change the fact that he's a bitter, spiteful man who only turned because Voldemort saw the bulls-eye he painted on Lily. What exactly are you trying to argue, LR? I never denied Snape's bravery, nor did I comment on whether he was or wasn't a hero (That's a can of worms I'm not going to open). I'm pointing out that for all Snape's bravery, he was a bitter and twisted bully whose own actions and personality caused him to be alienated and disliked by those he was supposed to work with; and that this cruelty, bitterness, arrogance and bullying character was an integral part of Severus Snape. They weren't masks or coping mechanisms; they were fundamental parts of his personality. They misunderstood which side he was on, but they didn't misunderstand his character or personality.

I mean, yeah, he spied for Dumbledore and was the 'bravest man I knew', but that doesn't mean he was misunderstood. Till the day he died, Snape hated Harry for living where Lily didn't, he hated James for loving and marrying Lily, he hated Sirius for having Lily's sisterly affection (and for his own - Snape's - actions in the Whomping Willow), he was more than happy to allow an innocent man to die (he wanted to see Sirius kissed, despite having the Map and being able to see Peter's name and wanted to take the credit of the Order of Merlin) and he hated Voldemort for killing Lily. He was misunderstood in the context of who he was working for, but he was never misunderstood in the context of his actions, character and personality.

Funny, beacuse it was Snape who followed James and the Marauders around, Snape who persistently harrassed them, Snape who kept attacking James in 7th year. I can find no textual evidence that the Marauders continuously sought out and bullied Snape.

Also, Lily specifically states that James "hexed people who annoy you." I can find no textual evidence that Snape was some woobie - the hatred was a mutual thing, and Snape had a gang of his own (Voldemort Youth). I can also find no evidence that the Marauders sought out Snape just to harrass him; the 5th year scene was one where the Marauders stumbled onto him, and the way Snape reacts shows that he isn't some poor victim; he's quite capable of his own nasty retaliation (wandless Slashing Curse when James isn't looking - a Dark curse). Hell, the spell the Marauders caught him with was his own creation - knowing Snape's character, do you honestly think Snape invented the Levicorpus curse out of benign reasons?

And really, Snape was the one who wanted to get Remus into trouble; Snape was the one who, despite suspecting a werewolf, went into the WW tunnel on the night of the full moon; all Sirius did was tell him how to get in. Hell, LILY rebukes him on this; for being obsessed with the Marauders ("What does Potter have to do with this?") If anything, it was Snape who was obsessed and jealous of the Marauders.

And every time I see 'James picked on Snape', I have to laugh. Snape was a vicious little bastard engrossed in the Dark Arts with a vengeful streak a mile wide; he wasn't some poor little woobie victim with no defenses against the mean ol' Potter. He bullied people too - he was even worse in that regard, see Mary MacDonald, whose attack by Mulciber (or MacNair) using Dark magic was laughed off as a 'bit of fun'. Also, the Potters - Lily and James - apparently had many friends who remembered them fondly; the only one who continuously badmouths James is Snape. Even Voldemort and the other Death Eaters, many of whom grew up with James in school, don't refer to James as a bully. Snape is the only one who continuously badmouths and berates James - to his orphaned son, no less.

What's with all the misgyny here? Must Lily continuously make excuses for Snape? Snape who places her on a pedestal, who attempts to control her ("I won't...I won't let you!")? Why is it Lily's responsibility to take care of Snape and excuse his actions? It's Remus who rebukes James and causes him to grow up, not Lily, but somehow Snape, who never listens to his best friend's worries, has to be coddled by Lily?

EDIT: Also, Sirius confirms that the reason James and Snape hated each other was because of a mutual hatred, because Snape was jealous of James and James despised the Dark Arts. Which part of this is "James persecuted poor Severus?"
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For The Evulz: This seems to be the motivation behind at least half the things done by members of Slytherin House — especially Malfoy. Seems rather bizarre when you remember that they're supposedly the House for the cunning, intelligent, ambitious, and rational.
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Now, in the hp series, the greatest plot hole, i feel is the weasly family strolling down right by Harry and happily saying quite loudly, the words muggle, and molly asking her sons if the platform number was right.

It makes it look a bit too much like D arranged it for Harry to meet the weasly Family. i mean having 7 children,shouldn't she know the platform and not have to ask her children if the platform was right? and she just happens to say it right when she crosses Harry.
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the biggest hole i noticed was in two books. in book 5 at the ministry fight; harry acted like Hr was the most important person in his life when she fell. Harry froze and did nothing until neville told him she was just wounded.

when sirus fell he MOVED to see if he could get his godfather back; he couldn't think when Hr was wounded and she was JUST a friend. he was able to move and think when Sirus fell, and he was his godfather.

three months later, Hr is a pariah to harry and harry barely shows any signs of grief. a year before, he was an emotional wreck over the death of a friendly rival.
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For all the twins supposed greatness, they rely far too much on the map, and their pranks are based on Humiliation and Embarrassment which quite frankly I’ve never found funny even if directed at someone I’ve never met.
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“We’ve found muggles selling ingredients that they don’t even know have magical properties. One place ships out salamander’s by the dozen, another sells valerian root and astragulus. There’s a site that sells Chinese herbs that’s going to be practically a one stop shop for us.
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At almost any part the series after book 1 to many things are happening and to many powerful people are against Harry for him to reasonbly make a difference without pulling out super godly powers from no where. Any logical, subtle actions done by Harry have to be started early, to many controlling curious people focus on every aspect of Harry's life for him to do anything once he reaches hogwarts.
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Next three meals at Grimmauld Place, she's eating on the floor," Harry explained. "Food in a food bowl, drink in a water bowl, and absolutely no hands
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Moments later Hermione stumbled out looking half dead, her hair sticking out more than usual, dark circles under her eyes. Crease marks from the pillow marred her cheek. She was wearing one of his button down white shirts that reached her knees. And to Harry she never looked beautiful.
-----------
Harry Potter [HP] is a series of lengthy novels. Its entertainment, mostly meant for young teenagers, about growing up. There are cute details of England and English culture, some social commentary on racism, a great deal of creative anachronism, and overall a sense of wish fulfillment. The Potterverse, where Harry lives, is reasonably well peopled and while I personally disliked the last two novels, the first five were reasonably good stories. There are some problems with them. Reminding ourselves that these are Entertainment, and For Kids, authors like ourselves try to find the boundaries of the setting, find the rules so we can write stories and bring the first five novels to a good ending, unlike the actual "author" did. I'm still unconvinced that Rowling wrote a word of the last novel. I see the writing styles of four different people in Deathly Hallows and the character rape taking place speaks of several someones who really disliked the characters and has great indifference towards the audience who'd grown to love them. That's the real strength of the Potterverse. Reasonably well defined characters, and interesting setting, and interesting rules (magic) which is fertile ground for fanfic authors like us.

One problem I keep running into as I read story after story is many of them are based around things Rowling (or her ghost writer) published, making it canon for the series, which does a fine job of destroying the credibility of the world they use. Now, I can either ignore this problem(s) despite them cropping up again and again, or I can write a fic exploiting it. Many of these logical flaws (catgirl slayers) end up becoming common fodder for fanfic. Some of them even turn into seriously awful flaws, Deus Ex Machinas (DEMs), like the bottomless purse of holding used by Hermione in the last book. That's poor craft, in my opinion and I lost a lot of respect for Rowling's professionalism, especially considering all those teenagers are going to notice as well, and the 20 somethings who were 10 when they started reading the first novel 15 years ago, they definitely noticed. There are many videos of burning DH on YouTube. She's still filthy rich and she's still crapping all over her fans, which is why most of US in the fanfic world just ignore the last two books and start fics with Harry coming home after seeing Sirius die in the Veil.

What are some obvious catgirl killers? Invisibility cloaks. They work and then they don't. They're rare but then they're not. How about time turners? Loan one to a 13 yo girl so she can take more classes? And they declare them a dangerous and illegal device. How about Malfoy senior. Here's a man who seems trapped in the 1790's, the 1870's at the very latest. The Mary Sues are crying out to give him a digital watch or a calendar and remind him over and over that its 1995 or 1996 in the real world and to pull his head out. Maybe take him to a military outpost and show off an airstrike and tanks and really strike fear into him. He's not dumb, exactly, but he's bigoted and blind and not thinking well. In a true revolution, he's the weak link and easiest to turn because he always goes to the advantage and the muggles are going to win. A soon as he realizes that, he'll turn on Volyshorts. Especially if you can prove Voldy's halfblood status. That would end him. Catgirls, like I said. Rowling NEVER addresses this issue and while its fun to imagine the wizards stuck in 1870's Britain, there are people outside the wards with early cellphones, laptop computers with Pentium 2 microprocessors, Windows 95 has swept the world and the Internet is all about dialup modems with 56Kbaud (48K + compression software).

Harry and Hermione and Dean and several of the other Muggleborns rarely mention the real world much, nor do they mock the backwards wizards as they realistically would. Teenagers are like that. They'd destroy Malfoy Jr. and the other purebloods by asking them simple muggle questions and then point and laugh and crack indeciferable jokes with code words mocking their ignorance. Can you imagine what Severus Snape would do if faced with a simple Periodic Table of Elements? Never happens in the books, but would have been shocking, a hilarious scene I've NEVER read about in any fanfic.

Its the flaws in the series that lead to the Uber!Harry fics, the gary-stu's that mock the whole series and lead to stories which are initially funny but often shortly after quite tiresome. The sad truth is the plotholes and DEMs make the Harry Potter world leak like a sieve. You can ignore stuff and suspend disbelief and expand a character's backstory and still write a good story in that world. I've read many of them. The good ones I'm rather impressed with. Some of the authors are considerably better than Rowling, and developed the characters well beyond and more true to their subject matter than she did, too. Deathly Hallows was awful. Half Blood Prince was disappointing at best, and character rape at worst. Many people believe Rowling was just disgusted with her fans and thus did an insulting job with writing the final Potter novel. Its all a moot point now, and the Highlander Syndrome is still the sanest response to it, if you liked the characters at all.
-------------------
After book 2, I made it a point of pride to read each book, cover to cover, in one sitting, finishing even the longest ones in about 6-8 hours. It was fine (a lot of fun, really) with books 3 and 4, and even to a certain extent book 5, but 6 and 7 were just painful. I kept having to stop and let my mind rest from the blatant character rape, logical fallacies, and so on. I still feel that books 6 and 7 could be renamed "Severus Snape" and "Albus Dumbledore," both with the subtitle "With appearances by Harry Potter as he gets f**ked over."

I never understood why Harry never took his studies seriously, ESPECIALLY after the Department of Mysteries (and the whole DA thing had been going so wonderfully, too!). Not only did it not make sense that Harry, who, one would think, should be doing all he could to learn about the Magical World so he could get away from the Durselys, didn't really go out of his way to learn anything that wasn't obviously useful at that exact moment like the patronous, but the example set for kids by having not only the hero of the story, but also one of his best friends, be the poster boys for procrastination and academic laziness (to a certain extent) is just poor. Then portraying the one person in the group who actually studies their hardest as a bossy, annoying, know-it-all (and she does) paints a very poor picture of the worth of academic learning. Added to that, the way Hermione's character is blatantly raped in book six makes it even worse, and pairing her with the person most different from her, was bad too. Then to spend more time and detail on that romance than any other, as the pair fights, and argues, and fights, gives any kid who hasn't been scared away by now the idea that fighting like that is part of a healthy relationship.

AND THEN there's the fact that Harry and five other OWL and below students hold off twice that many death eaters in the DoM, but then they, and the entire Order of The Useless "Professionals," get horribly beaten a year later.

All I can say is that after book five, nerf bats were passed around, and used liberally on Harry and friends, but not on Voldemort and his Merry Men.
----------------------
Don't even start me on that trainwreck of a final book. I mean how could the ministry be that incompetant as to allow one of you department heads to be put under the imperius? The minister was even an ex-auror and he didn't even start any policies or mandatory searches with even the top officials in his government. He wasn't any better than Fudge.
-----------------------
Minako glared at the two books before grabbing 'So you are a Witch?' , opening the cover. The book exploded in a short lightshow, while a voice sounded from the book and a holographic image of a stereotypical wizard hovered over the book.

"So you are a Witch?" the voice from the book came asking," This book will give you a rundown of the Wizarding World. All you need to know to forget the Muggle World and become a member of a better society."

With that the lightshow and the wizard disappeared leaving everyone staring at the book, before Minako slammed it shut.

Than she looked at Lesley.

"You got an Asperine?"

"Huh?" came Lesleys answer as he blinked.

Minako breathed in deep and closed her eyes, massaging her temples slightly.

"I don't know how, but that book just tried to get into my head. Some sort of compulsion to read the book and something else... Can't say what through..."
--------------------------
Harry glanced down at the book in front of him. No, he downright stared down at it, like someone had written that small childred were best cooked in peppermint sauce and served with plum pudding.

To Harry the book came damned close to that. After staring down at it for a few minuted, his mouth open and leaking a little drool down on the table, he closed his mouth and slowly looked up at Hermione and Ron, who where looking at him very strangely, while looking up from their copies of the same book.

Harry breathed in deep and shook his head, before directly looking at Hermoine.

“Hermoine,” he finally asked,” What is the most powerful weapon known to 'muggles'?”

Hermoine blinked. And blinked again. Than she looked down at the book, a very short flash of something that looked like pain going across her face.

“Uhm...” she answered and put her finger into the book.” The trebuchet.”

Harry stared unbelievingly at her for a moment before looking down on his copy of 'The Ministry's Guide to the Muggle World'.

“What makes you say that?”

“It says so on this book,” she answered and pointed at it,” page twohun-”

Before she could finish, Harry reached over and closed her book.

“Look at me,” he said and pointed at his own eyes. “What is the most powerful weapon known to 'muggles'.”

“The trebuchet,” she answered again, once again the slight flash of pain going over her face, as if she had a very brief headache.

Harry breathed in deep and looked into her eyes, slamming his own copy shut, while Ron blinked from the sidelines.

“What about Hiroshima?” he asked.

The flash came back and lingered a little longer.

“What about it?”

“What destroyed Hiroshima?”

The flash was there once again.

“The Americans.”

“Not who. What?”

Hermione breathed in deep and slowly massaged her temple.

“An atomic bomb,” she finally answered after a few moments.

Harry breathed in deep. Something was very wrong here.

“How can the trebuchet be the most powerful weapon of the 'muggles', when the atomic bomb can destroy an entire town the size of Edinburgh, when a trebuchet can only destroy a single house.”

Hermione blinked. Than she blinked in deep and looked a little more pained as she massaged her temple.

“I... I... I got a headache...”

Harry slowly nodded. Yes, there was something very wrong here.

“What did you do?” Ron finally asked from the sidelines, sounding equally confused and protective towards Hermione.

“Just a question that popped up,” Harry answered and placed his hand on the book.” And this book is very much out of date...”
------------------------------
I actually knew far more than I wanted to about pureblood customs from my various acquired memories by now. And what I'd learned disturbed me.

Like most societies that had grown old, rich, corrupt and decadent, having worked itself into a really skewed values system, the Purebloods were into sexual deviancy in a big way. I suppose when marriage was just a carefully calculated move to make in a huge social strategy game of prestige and power, one where love for your spouse never entered into it, as it was all about forming alliances or climbing social ladders, that it had a corrosive influence on the family and traditional morality.

Thus, a low birthrate, as whatever it was they were doing to relieve stress or amuse themselves very often had little to do with what produced babies.

The Purebloods weren't dying off because their wars were killing them. They were disappearing because men weren't interested in their wives, having other habits more dear to them that I didn't even want to begin to speculate upon, as the mere thought made me sick.

They probably would not have made it this far were it not for the fact that there were spells for men who had no interest in women to artificially inseminate their wives, and this had been done by Lucius on Narcissa (to name one rather well known case as an example) solely because it was 'proper' and an advantageous social move to have an heir, just like it had been a cunning move in the social strategy game to marry her.

This sort of thing had been going on for generations now.

Poor families like the Weasleys amused themselves in a more traditional manner, and couldn't afford the costly ritual components of the artificial insemination spell even if they swung that way.

This was actually a good part of what stopped them from being 'proper' purebloods, at least in some minds.

Rich purebloods like the Malfoys, however, well, from what I overheard Lucius was more interested in Draco than his wife's company, and he'd barely tolerated Narcissa enough to let her live in the same house. Perversely, he also kept her under effective lock and key so she couldn't abuse his position, bringing a scandal down on them by getting together with someone else.

THIS was what was normal and respected! At least as far as the upper crust of pureblood society circles were concerned.

I was almost reminded of that once oh-so-prevalent Chinese tradition of breaking the feet of little girls, bending them in half, and then tying them so they healed that way. It rendered them decorative, and nothing else. Walking was almost impossible, so they became largely helpless and you didn't ever have to be concerned about the little critters getting uppity.

Some people accepted some pretty wiggy stuff as 'normal'.

Apparently the explosion of halfbloods came about as every pureblood who was even remotely normal got involved in a rush to marry muggleborns or full on muggles in attempts to escape the perverse tendencies of their kin (not that I could blame them, as I would've done the same in their place).

This rush had actually made what remained of pureblood society worse as all of the good ones practically fell over each other in attempts to escape it. But I could see why those who'd done it did do it, for all of their sneering at her Andromeda was the only one of the Black sisters to have anything close to a normal marriage.

Lucius had once boasted to Crabb that he'd never even seen Narcissa naked, nor did he ever intend to. I don't know what was wrong with the LeStrange brothers but they were so interested in their twisted little games they'd never bothered to do the heir thing to Bellatrix, not even via spell.

But then, the gossip went they were always into pain in a big way, and rumors held they had a way to rewire the brain to read pain as pleasure and vice versa. And, I had to admit, that could go a long way to explaining the behavior and attitudes of Bella in the series.

She positively adored Voldemort. Why? Well, that bastard did go around causing a lot of pain, and it was commonly known among the ancient families that the poor girl had always been something of an empath. So she'd pick up on not only her own, but the pain of anyone around her.

Ick. These guys really made me sick, you know that?

As a side effect of that, and the Purebloods' traditional control of most of the power in the Ministry through wealth and connections, there were very few laws about what was legal and what was not, as far as relationships were concerned. Although Aberforth had managed to cross one, not with anything HE did, but by casting spells on the goats of another family to get them to talk about what THEY did! Airing in public what everyone preferred to keep behind closed doors.

It was a sick, sick, screwed up pureblood world.

And, what was probably most frightening of all, these guys wanted to be in a position of control so they could call the shots and dictate to everyone else what they could or could not do.

And there could be no doubt they'd be doing so to amuse themselves.
-----------------------
They both looked back down at Voldemort's body. "I can't believe it ended that way. His curse bounced back on him." Hermione commented. "I mean he basically committed suicide."

Harry's eyes widened as they shot up and looked at his friend. "He killed himself? It wasn't by my hand." He whispered to himself. His eyes lost focus for a second and then he screamed "DAMN HIM!" He turned and ran out of the Great Hall. Hermione tried to keep up but Harry Potter was on a mission of rage and he left her way behind.

Harry passed the overturn Gargoyle and pounded up the steps to the Headmaster's office. The door was closed, but he didn't even bother to check to see if it was unlocked. A "REDUCTO!" from the elder wand turned it to dust before him. He only stopped when he was standing in front of the portrait of Albus Dumbledore.

Around the room all the portraits were yelling in celebration as word had spread rapidly through the castle. Albus looked down at the young man before him. Tears were sliding past the half moon glasses and into the long white beard. "I'm so proud.." the portrait started.

"DAMN YOU!" Harry shouted and every portrait in the office instantly fell silent. "DAMN YOU TO HELL!"

The portrait of Albus Dumbledore looked shocked. "Why? This is a time of celebration?"

"SHUT UP!" Harry yelled.

"Harry, what's going on?" the breathless voice of Hermione called from behind him.

"Yeah mate." Ron added also sounding a bit out of breath.

Harry kept staring at the Portrait in front of him. "YOU LIED TO ME!" and before the portrait could respond he continued. "Either must die at the hand of the other?do you recognize those words." He asked in a dangerous voice.

"Of course Harry.."

"HE DIDN"T DIE BY MY HAND!" Harry's voice was filled anger. "The prophecy was wrong." Some small expression by the portrait caught Harry's eye and for some reason Harry instantly knew what had happened.

"You bastard." Harry said. "If you weren't dead, I'd kill you a dozen times over for what you've done."

"Harry?Harry." Hermione was trying to get his attention.

Harry turned and looked at her. Rage filled his eyes emerald eyes making them as dark as Hermione had ever seen. The concern he saw in her eyes soothed him. Without the horcrux sucking life from his soul he could feel the emotions that had been buried all along. He barely noticed that Ginny had followed and now was in the room as well. He sat down heavily in a chair. Still looking at Hermione he explained. "It was all a lie." Tears filled his eyes as he thought of all the people who died. He could see the faces of Lupin and Tonks, of Fred and Colin Creevey. "It was all a lie." He repeated in a tear choked voice.

"What was a lie?" Hermione asked.

Harry had turned back to the portrait. He spent a few seconds as his tears melted away to be replaced by the anger he felt toward the Wizard in the portrait. "Wasn't it Albus? You lied to the world. Manipulated me, my friends, Voldemort, the whole damn Wizarding World."

Tears had stopped flowing down the former Headmaster's face in the portrait but he stilled answered in his grandfatherly voice. "Whatever do you mean my dear boy?"

"Shove it you old goat." Harry snarled. "You know exactly what I mean. There never was a prophecy was there? Not a real one anyway?"

"Harry?" Hermione asked as she glanced between the portrait and her friend. "What do you mean?"

"The damn prophecy Hermione, Voldemort did not die by my hand as it said he would."

"Of course he did..I mean.." Hermione started but Harry cut her off.

"In our fourth year when Draco and I exchanged spells and you were hit, did I hex you or did Draco?"

"Draco of course but..."

"But Draco's hex bounced off my spell." Harry explained. "Same as just now. VOLDEMORT WAS KILLED BY HIS OWN SPELL!" He paused for a couple of seconds before continuing. "If his curse had hit a Death Eater, wouldn't it have been Voldemort who killed him?"

"Of course."

"Then Voldemort died by his own curse, not my spell, it was his. I did not kill him by my own hand."

Hermione's hand shot to her mouth as she realized what Harry was explaining.
-------------------
I had been thinking that the HP stories were 'happy ever after' type fairy tales for children. Then I realised that actually they are stories about the mistakes people make in relationships and about how people get caught up in dysfunctional relationships with no end in sight. I no longer think that JKR somehow failed or made a mistake and misunderstood the cannon relationships, I now think that she did it on purpose.
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why did it take him weeks to tell me about the Horcruxes, when we could've covered the material in a day? And that would've included making notes
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You know it might be a good idea to get a set of pictures of the known and suspected Death Eaters.
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With respect to Ron: Any guy who is romantically interested in a girl, and who has her ask him out, then starts up a relationship with another girl in the most blatant way possible, by snogging her in full view in the common room, and then still doesn't get together with the first girl even after breaking up with the second girl, is either incredibly stupid or an incredible jerk. While I could make a case for Ron being either or both of the above, I choose not to. I prefer to consider a third possibility – that Ron just isn't romantically interested in Hermione. (Or if he once was, he isn't any more. Maybe he's realized that she just doesn't turn him on that way.)
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You know, I've always made a big deal of Hermione sticking with Harry over Ron, but never really addressed the other side of the equation; what that said about *Ron*. Yes ... he chose his own comfort over staying with the girl he supposedly loved!
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"They no longer needed him for anything" - yep, I'll certainly agree with that. Like you I've never seen much value in Ron, other than his holding Harry back with his "she'll be right mate, just stick with the status quo!" rationalisation.
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Hermione is a major hero in the books, but any more attention to her would draw attention away from Harry, who if you think about it is not such a major hero
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What this fic really does, though, is address my unhappiness and unanswered questions with HBP's "An Excess of Phlegm" chapter. Why would Hermione be as catty as Ginny making fun of Fleur? Why would Harry leave that cattiness unchallenged? What was Hermione doing at the Burrow, two weeks into hols…don't her parents want to spend time with her? Was Harry saving Fleur from an Imperious'ed Viktor any less life-debt generating than what he did for Gabrielle? And where were Fleur and Bill sleeping that summer? Wouldn't have been under Molly's nose, unless there was an underlying reason (At least not if I was Bill, and engaged to a part-Veela.
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Why was it safe to stay at the Burrow that year when they had to stay at the Black family house the year before for security reasons?
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Actual grades from the books I believe:
Hermione achieved high academic prestige when she obtained eleven O.W.L.'s in...

1. Charms,
2. Defence Aganst the Dark Arts,
3. Transfiguration,
4. Care of Magical Creatures,
5. Arithmancy,
6. History of Magic,
7. Herbology,
8. Astronomy,
9. Potions
10. Ancient Runes
11. Muggle Studies

She received 'Outstanding' marks on each of them, except Defence Against the Dark Arts, in which she received an 'Exceeds Expectations,' which she dwelt upon; Ron found it amusing that she actually seemed disappointed by this.

Harry got 7 O.W.L.s.

SCORES:

Astronomy - A
Care of Magical Creatures - E
Charms - E
D.A.D.A - O
Divination - P (failing grade)
Herbology - E
History of Magic - D (failing grade)
Potions - E
Transfiguration - E

Still more comments inspired by Harry Potter

2010-11-15T23:33:00.009-05:00

1. Why do people like Draco and why was he not arrested? I get liking or redeeming a young, say first or second year, Draco but the later in the series the less believable it becomes. Draco is bigoted and cruel. He also committed several crimes even stated in universe to give automatic prison sentences for doing them. He was happy about the Basilisk petrifying Muggle-borns and Cedric's murder. He abused and tormented his fellow students. He cast unforgivable curses on Katie and Madam Rosmerta. He had several (at least two) unsuccessful murder attempts. He let Death Eaters into Hogwarts (though in that particular instance I wonder why it was so hard for them to get in since in pretty much every other book they really had no trouble getting in - hell they were hired to teach there a few times). Sure he couldn't bring himself to kill Dumbledore face-to-face but it was his first face-to-face murder and against one of the most respected people in the world. Had it been a muggle or muggle-born or just someone he hadn't known he probably would have been able to.

2. I wonder about Death Eater training. Do they even do real training (they do some since Draco was taught spells from others like Beatrix)? Do they practice killing say animals (or muggles which from their point of view is only a small step apart from animals) which would make them more blase towards killing in general? If Draco had done this type of training say butchering chickens and working his way up he probably would have been able to kill Dumbledore on sight when given the chance.

3. When Voldemort was on the back of Quirrell's head why didn't he go to Snape who he believed to be loyal to him for help? Later in the books Voldemort is shown to trust Snape a lot.

4. Why hadn't anyone told Harry (or Hermione) that there was an actual reason as to why not to use Voldemort's name - namely that a word can be made taboo? Had they known that from the get go they wouldn't have called him Voldemort (in Deathly Hallows Hermione and Harry temporarily stopped calling him Voldemort for no reason prior to Ron telling them to not say his name it is rather strange and the only explanation given is pretty poor amounting to something along the lines of them having got out of the habit of doing so). It seems that the various wizards/witches were purposely withholding useful information for no reason at all most of the time (a lot of useful info was withheld which would have changed things significantly such as telling them that Voldemort was trying to get in the department of mysteries and that Voldemort could fabricate visions). For that matter why does Harry or Dumbledore call him Voldemort? Voldemort was a name made up by Tom to be memorable, spread fear, etc. Had I been one of the characters in the books I would have called him Tom or Riddle after learning his name figuring that the more people know his real name the less people will fear him and be more likely to try and defend themselves (also the pure-bloods finding out he is not a pure-blood may cause some that were likely to join him to not do so). I would not make fun of him though by calling him moldymort or something.

5. I wonder about Hermione's parents. Really what do they think about the wizarding world and their daughter. Hermione, their only daughter, lives away from them for most of the year, even during breaks deciding to stay away from them fairly often (the Burro, Grimmauld Place, at school during holiday's like Christmas occasionally such as in the fourth year), and is living in a society they don't understand and aren't told much about. Even beyond that what do they think about her after she had completely removed their memories of herself and sent them to Australia (which by the way makes me wonder about the rest of her family, their patients, her old classmates, teachers, etc. - wouldn't they also be targets that could be used against Hermione)? Did she even try to convince them to move for their safety or did she just use magic to force them to do what she wanted them to? Considering how the magical world is (absolutely no hesitation to erase muggles memories or complaints -even Hermione doesn't complain like at the world cup where a muggle has his memory altered repeatedly) and how Hermione seems to not think about muggle things and ways (why hadn't she used a fountain pen or called Harry on the phone - there is a reason why I like the theory muggleborns have compulsions placed on them) and how distant she seems to be from her parents I find it likely that she didn't even try to convince them.

6. I've seen a number of fics that have Hermione's parents in them have them be against all candy since they are dentists. This annoys me. I get them having Hermione limit or avoid hard candy like suckers and gooey candy such as caramel that sticks to your teeth but other candy like say chocolate which melts quickly and doesn't leave much of a residue they wouldn't complain about very much since there are a lot worse things, like popcorn, pop, or acidic juices.

7. How would people act had Hermione's name came out of the Goblet of fire instead of Harry's or Cedric's? I figure Ron probably would have acted the way he did when Harry's name came out but other than him I really don't know. How would Harry act or Dumbledore (Hermione is one of the few people that could believably be able to think of a way around his age line had she wanted to)?

8. In the last book wearing the locket that contained part of Voldemort's soul caused problems. Why did any of them wear that locket? They knew that the diary managed to posses Ginny so putting the locket on should have been avoided for that reason alone. They could have stuck it in Hermione's bag or something instead of wearing it.

9. The Patronus Charm is a spell that bothered me quite a bit. It is said to be extremely difficult. Harry spent more time learning it than seemingly any other spell and the Wizard court was surprised that he was able to do so. Yet later it becomes seemingly very easy with at least twenty people shown being able to do them. It is stated that it is used to defend against some dark creatures like dementors and can't be used by a person who is dark. No problem with dark creatures being hurt by it but don't get why say death eaters can't cast them since I am sure they have happy memories as well. Harry didn't even use a happy memory. The whole memory of his parents thing didn't really exist since his only true memory of them was his mother's murder. The rest was from the mirror and that was just fantasy and desire.

What really bothers me though is having them used to send messages and lead people around (that and it going from being extremely difficult to not so difficult). If they could do that why hadn't anyone told Harry they could do that when he first learned the spell? Being able to communicate and have it scout places (if it can lead people around it should be able to scout as well) would have been extremely useful, to the point that it would have changed parts of the story had he known.

When this spell was introduced as being able to fight dark creatures and uses positive emotions I thought it would be used against Voldemort (or create a new spell based upon this as its foundation). Voldemort is no longer human; he became a dark creature to the point that 'love' supposedly hurts him (enough to knock him out of Harry's head at least). Using this spell to fight Voldemort would make an extremely large amount of sense since A. Voldemort is a Dark Creature. B. Love is a positive emotion. C. Makes more sense than most of the stuff that did happen in the books.

10. I like stories that deviate from the books at the Goblet of Fire story. Several things do annoy me though. Why use the same tasks so often? If your going to deviate from the original story why not create new tasks just have the person in charge of organizing the tasks chose something else. If the same tasks are used why not have the characters, like say Harry, use different methods more often. I get that each character is a Champion for their school but continuously calling them champions is annoying. I'd like to see them called contenders for the cup more often.

11. How the hell did Wormtail track down Voldemort so fast after being found out as being Ron's pet rat? Over a dozen years Voldemort had been wandering alone without being sought out or found and yet only a few weeks after his secret was revealed Wormtail managed to track him down. Also did Voldemort not know about Peter's animagus form or just never see Scabbers when possessing Quirrell? If he had known why didn't he go to him for help finding the Philosopher's stone?

12. I have read a few fan fics in which some of the characters, such as Hermione and Harry, turn to the dark side. On occasion I like fics in which the characters decide to or are forced to use tactics that are considered dark. Contemplating what actions or situations that would occur to cause them to or what motivations they have which lead them to darkness can be very interesting. I tend to like the gradual fall, in particular when there reasons/motivations for evil actions are good (road to hell is paved with good intentions) or they aren't actually dark but use tactics and actions that are dark to achieve their goals. This does happen a bit in the books given that several light sided characters use unforgivable curses - which evidently are pretty easy to use and get much easier to use the more they are used since Harry was able to use the Cruciatus curse because Carrow spit on McGonagall (I don't really get why he decided to use a pain curse rather than a disabling not painful curse or the mind control curse which he used in the bank).

Some characters are more likely to do so than other characters. Of the characters in Harry Potter I could see a number of them doing so but the two that I find most interesting are Harry and Hermione. I can come up with a number of reasons and situations that could have occurred which could be used to write a fic in which they do so. I can't fathom a realistic situation in which either of them would willingly join Voldemort (outside of doing so to stab him in the back) but can come up with a number of ways that they could be considered and/or become dark. I really like the idea of a dark Hermione and don't like Ron the death eater fics. Ron I could see betraying Harry or Hermione (he does get jealous, is envious, and wants power/attention, amongst other things) but he doesn't have the drive, intellect, or really what it takes to become a dark lord (follower like Peter I could see though).

For Harry I can picture him becoming angry and wanting vengeance for the things that happen to him. Everyone has a breaking point and it is a very sad fact that people will do and go to extreme even completely irrational lengths to get revenge and to protect themselves. He doesn't really have the drive though. He is shown to use the pain curse and the mind control curse in the books.

Hermione going dark is very interesting more so than Harry. She is caring and tries to do good (is good and my favorite character) but she did do things like create a cursed contract (the DA contract), hexed someone for her own or other peoples potential gain (to help Ron get on the team), been reading the books in the restricted section (for example the book with the polyjuice potion recipe), stole (for example the ingredients for the polyjuice), blackmailed someone (Rita the reporter), kidnapped someone (Rita), erased/altered peoples memories (her parents), sent spells at people in anger (like the birds at Ron) and lied in the books (she lied/told half truths/left out info so people would draw the wrong conclusion/etc fairly often actually so I really don't get why so many fics state that she doesn't do so)- most of which was done in the last few books that I didn't really like that much. She was picked on, insulted, called things like mudblood, and had a hard time when she fist came to Hogwarts before befriending Harry and Ron (more so Harry since Ron was one of the ones that picked on her until the point she cried) that could have eventually led to resentment and hatred. Though really it is her desire for knowledge and her drive that I see leading her on the path to darkness. I can easily see her reading a book that corrupts her (considering that we are shown a book that possesses someone and evil books are mentioned to exist this is extremely possible though I'm thinking more about the knowledge itself corrupting her) or that she learns via books or somewhere else something that turns her moral compass gray. People have done some terrible things on the quest for knowledge and she seems like a person who would desire knowledge or would champion a cause to the degree that she'd rationalize her actions on the quest for it. Her fall into darkness likely would be gradual though and probably be far more terrible than what the other characters would likely do if they turned dark. Harry would most likely be angry and kill people he is not a person that does much planning, Ron would do so to save himself or for his own personal gain but is a bit too cowardly and lacking in the desire to learn things to become too terrible, Hermione though has the intellect, drive, ability to plan, create spells, and ability to rationalize (for example she did so when she stole ingredients, breaking rules, lying) her own actions to become far worse than probably any of the characters including Voldemort (he's far too reliant on the unforgivables and is not very imaginative).

13. I have been told that fan stories that contain Harry acquiring slaves for some reason are fairly common (there was some kind of challenge or something). I have not read or seen very many of these. I find the idea interesting. What interests me the most about this type of fic is the potential cultural clashes between wizarding society and the non-magical society (muggle). I would like to see more of the cultural clash than what is usually displayed in fics or the books. That the wizarding world still has laws allowing for slavery or the option to duel someone to solve your problems makes a significant amount of sense to me. Sure dueling and slavery are outlawed in the real world at this time but just a few generations ago that was not true (and while outlawed it still happens there are currently millions of people in slavery and a few duels to the death are reported every year). There are many reasons as to why I could find this way of thinking still being part of the wizarding world. The two main reasons are the pure-blood agenda with them not viewing muggles as human (hell I wouldn't be surprised if they viewed muggles below house elves since house elves can at least do magic). The second reason is because magic users live a lot longer than non-magic users with the separation between the magical world and non-magical world occurred at a time when these types of things were not only allowed they were fairly common. Since wizards/witches have a longer life spans than muggles those in the government and in charge of things could have been in office for say a hundred years and are extremely slow to change things particularly if it is in their advantage to not change things. In the books the political/judicial/media system was pretty bad and corrupt. A class system also existed: Pure-bloods, Half-bloods, Mudbloods, Squibs, and Muggles (though the main characters didn't really care about or accept that it existed but I would bet that businesses and many people would particularly if the pure-bloods control the majority of power).

There is a lot of interesting ways in which to view the wizarding world clashing with modern society's views about things. It seems to me that wizarding society would be a much more stagnant culture far less adapt at changing since they have less reason to invent new things, access to less people in which to figure things out, and live much longer and likely to become set in their ways. Their society, at least the pure-bloods, seems to have much less taboos about inbreeding from what I have been told (I don't actually remember that from the books but I was told by someone that the Gaunts and the Blacks had close inbreeding for generations - they state that Rowling said that for the Gaunts and the Blacks family tree showed it for them).

14. In the third task of the triwizard tournament could they have flown over the maze or burned it down? The tasks really aren't that interesting for viewers. That is one way to change things for a fic, have the organizers realize that the tasks other than the dragon really are not that interesting for spectators.

15. Ron being a tactical genius in fics because of his chess skills bothers me. Yes he is good at chess, though really how good is unknown since we don't see him play against chess-masters only fellow students, but that is not a good enough reason in my mind to have him be a tactical genius leading a large group of people. Chess is played by rules and the right combination of moves to counter moves can be memorized. He doesn't seem to have a good enough grasp of psychology, awareness of what's going on around him, or show much strategy outside of chess (he also doesn't plan ahead much tending to wait until the last minute).

16. Harry is supposed to be very good at defense against dark arts but the books don't really do a very good job of displaying that. His battle tactics could use some work with his favorite spells being Expelliarmus and Lumos. I'd like to have seen him make creative use of say first year spells like the fire creating spell or the levitation charm both seem to me like they'd be very useful in combat (smoke and fire make good distractions if nothing else and levitating things seems like it would be very useful against attacks like the killing curse which can be blocked by objects).

17. The underage magic tracking was very inconsistent in the books. Hermione had done spells prior to Hogwarts like the spell to fix Harry's glasses so why didn't Hermione get warned about underage magic? Harry got a warning because magic was used in his house by Dobby who was an elf but all other times his magic went undetected. Tonks did spells in Harry's room yet no letter was sent even though since spells are monitored by location her spells should have been blamed on Harry.

18. Harry being extremely fit (or Wizards in general) is another annoying thing from fics. Wizards use magic or have elves do things for them so are not likely to be very physically fit and quidditch does not seem like a sport that will give a person lots of muscles.

19. Magic does not seem to be very good at dealing with physical appearance or hiding ugliness. It does not seem to be able to do eye repair, hair restoration, restore completely severed limbs, remove fat, and what dental work exists must be very limited. If it could fix eyes why do wizards like Harry Potter and Dumbledore wear glasses? If good dental work can be done by magic why is poor and ugly teeth (such as yellowed) mentioned? If limbs can be restored why does a wizard with a peg leg not have the limb restored? If magic could be used to reduce fat and being fat is considered unwanted why are some wizards/witches mentioned as being fat (this could be a cultural thing since thin was not always the standard of beauty)? Why would a witch choose to be an ugly hag if magic can make them pretty?

20. If the Dursley's dislike Harry Potter and magic why did they go to the degree they did to keep him from going to Hogwarts? I would think that they'd have been happy to send the reply letter which would have him be away for at least 10 months of the year. Why did they send him any Christmas gifts (They sent him some really crappy things but still why send anything at all)? The only thing I can come up with is that they really, really hate him and want to cause him pain but why would they hate him as much as they do?

Even more comments inspired by Harry Potter

2010-11-05T02:48:00.004-04:00

1. I've seen in Harry Potter fan fics the theory put that Harry did not do well in primary school because his Aunt and Uncle would get mad at him. Harry then continued to do so and be lazy at Hogwarts because of his friendship with Ron and trying to fit in. I rather like that theory but it seems that he really is that lazy, which he should have stopped being so when he learned that Voldemort is trying to kill him and so that he would make his parents proud (after all it is said that his mother did very well in school). In the first book, Harry considered his school books very interesting, and read them late into the night during the month before he went off to Hogwarts later he seems to be a serious slacker.

2. Why is Hogwarts: A History the only history book ever mentioned in fan fics? I also don't get why Hermione would want 10 copies of the book. We are told there are other magic history books (Hermione mentions reading about Harry in several of them in her very first appearance) and Harry Potter has actually read at least one of them in the books: He found the name Hedwig in History of Magic.

3. Why didn't Hermione ever call Harry over the phone or contact him via the post office? Harry gave Ron and Hermione his phone number at the end of book 2 and Ron who doesn't know very much about muggle technology calls him. Why didn't Hermione do so? It would make a lot more sense after all being muggle born the idea of using the post office or phone should be second nature to her - the use of floo powder or owl should be what she has to think about to use since she only recently had learned about their existence. Muggle means should have been familiar to the point of knowing them for longer than she could actually remember.

4. The magical money system shown in the book makes no sense based on the shown purchases. The Weasley's, namely Ron, could not afford a good wand. The single most important item that a wizard/witch will ever have or need. Wands being very expensive makes sense though in Book 1, Harry pays 7 Galleons for his wand. In Book 2, Mrs. Weasley takes 1 Galleon and a pile of Sickles from her vault to buy all of her children's school supplies. In book 3, Hermione notes that she has 10 Galleons left over after her school shopping to buy a birthday present. So she must be pretty damn well off since she has nearly 10 times as much money as left over than the Weasley's had total for school supplies and an unwanted (the store didn't seem to want the cat) magical breed of cat costs more than a wand (again the single most important item a wizard will ever need).

5. How does anyone know what happened when Harry's parents were killed? Heck how does anyone even know that Harry survived the killing curse since Harry was the only survivor (it is mentioned repeatedly that he was the only survivor) and wasn't able to talk about it. Who told people that Harry went to live with his muggle relatives and his having a scar on his forehead?

6. I've seen fan fics mention that a simple shield charm would easily stop bullets. This may or may not be true since we don't see anyone try to block a bullet with one though other than Voldemort's at the department of ministries we don't see them block any physical objects at all only energy. The thing I find annoying is the claim that any wizard/witch will easily produce a shield and automatically win versus a bullet. While I do not know the exact quote J K Rowling has mentioned that a person with a gun will beat a wizard (bullets faster than spells but the person has to be carrying the gun, prepared to use it in the situation, etc.). Though really the reason I dislike the theory wizard beats muggle with gun because of shield is because it is stated in the books that most witches and wizards can't produce a decent shield charm which is why the Weasley twins shield hats sold so well.

7. I actually liked that Voldemort split up his soul and placed it in several objects (called a Horcrux). What I didn't like at all is that Harry had one in him. Splitting your soul and placing it in an object should not be able to be done on accident and I would imagine it to be extremely hard to do (multiple steps would pretty much have to be needed and killing itself could not possibly automatically split a persons soul since if that were true Voldemort and all the death eaters would have done so dozens of times). I also didn't find Voldemort's protections on them to be very good (could have sent one or more of them to some place extremely far away from England for example) and his plans to use them to be restored to life in case he died didn't seem to really exist (if he had plans to restore himself you'd think it wouldn't have taken him so long).

8. I've seen a few fics in which a court setting is used. The thing is the court setting is usually very different from what is shown in the books. Judging by Dumbledore's memories of Death Eater trials standard practice in the wizarding world is to arrest people and lock them away with no contact from anyone until their trial. Defense lawyers/counsel doesn't seem to exist in that world either since the accused followers of Voldemort had been chained to chairs at their trials with no defense counsel or representation of any sort. Also there is clearly no right to remain silent. There is corruption or a system set in place where you can buy your way out though.

9. Why would the majority of people seem to believe that Harry was making stuff up to get attention when he was already the most famous teen in the Wizarding World and had just won the Tri-Wizard Tournament? Also with him being so damn famous that books had been written about him and stories made up about him were bedtime stories where did all the gifts, letters, death threats, and miscellaneous other stuff people would have sent him over the years go? Celebrities much less famous than he is portrayed to be get a lot of mail. If it is being blocked and processed somehow why does some manage to get through for instance the broomstick from his god father (considering everyone thought he was a killer that should have been blocked)?

10. Why hadn't Harry or Hermione or someone contemplated leaving Britain? Considering all the crap that happened and the life and death situations that occur I would have done so.

11. Dumbledore instructed Sirius to gather up the old crowd. How would Sirius do that considering the fact that most of the wizarding world including the old crowd think he's a murderer and follower of Voldemort? Even if they didn't think he was a murderer by that point (which absolutely nothing shows) how was he supposed to get in touch with them since he couldn't move around freely since the majority of people still did think him a murderer?

12. Why didn't Hermione find the Bubble-Head charm prior to the second task? That really makes no sense to me since two of the other champions used it and in later books, like book 5 when dungbombs are released, many students use it. Hell why hadn't she found other means beyond the Gilliweed which she hadn't found? Were all the books that could possibly have been useful purposely kept away from her?

13. In the books Harry and Fluer waded into the lake still wearing robes most fan fics ignore this and have them wear swim clothes like the movies which makes a lot more sense. Why would Harry not have swim trunks or something at least better than robes?

14. While I don't like that Harry had a soul fragment of Voldemort's within him did Dumbledore even contemplate that there might possibly be a way to remove a soul fragment from someone other than having the person be killed?

15. Considering Harry's upbringing in which he was called names, picked on, and had nasty taunts directed at him why would he (or Hermione for that matter who as the first book shows had problems with those types of things even at Hogwarts) find Ginny's sense of humor attractive since it largely involved making fun of others, sarcastic putdowns, and mean-spirited pranks. Harry in my opinion really should have gotten mad at her for calling Fluer Phlegm and making fun of Fluer behind her back considering how much he hated to be called names like freak and how people treated him.

16. Why was Bill's and Fleur's wedding at the Burrow? First it makes a tempting target for Voldemort but really I think it should have been in France. Traditionally weddings are held in the bride's hometown and there is a traditional French custom for the groom to call on his future bride at her home on the morning of their wedding and escort her to the wedding chapel in a procession. Even beyond that weddings are more important to the brides than the husbands and with the way the Weasley's (namely Ginny and Molly) treated her she'd want it to be held where it makes her more comfortable.

17. When Voldemort possessed Harry at the department of ministries why didn't he just kill Harry by jumping out the window or something?

18. It really bothers me how Hermione believes books (and in authority) so much even after being proven that some books are filled with lies (Lockhart's). She is also not as open minded as I would like and hadn't found some stuff in books that I believe would have been easy to find. There is a reason I like (and find it at times the only damn possible way for somethings to make sense) the theory that muggle born are placed under compulsion charms.

19. Hermione is the one that states that electricity doesn't work at Hogwarts. I'm kind of wondering if that were really a truth (after all the castle had never been retrofitted with electrical conduits, with magic their isn't much need to do so, and the ministry/pure-bloods would be against it's use even if it could) or a lie told in a book she read and believed (or was compelled to believe which is entirely possible seeing how muggle born are never shown to even try muggle means like acquiring a fountain pen which would be easier to use than a Quill and the type of magic which could do so is shown to exist - hell just give all muggle born a book with a charm like those mentioned to be in the Black library).

20. Why does Hermione completely discount the possibility that the creatures Luna talks about exist? If they are made up or not real doesn't matter, her not even thinking that they are possible bothers me. They maybe invisible unless certain criteria are met like Thestrals that only people who have seen and understand death can see which she didn't think were pulling the carts. They maybe different names for existing creatures since many creatures have many names or be from a different part of the world in which she hadn't read about. Similarly why didn't she believe that there were voices coming from the death veil? She may not have been able to hear them but she also didn't hear the Basilisk in the halls (only Harry did, which makes it even harder to stomach Ron being able to fake snake language since some of it most likely isn't within the normal hearing spectrum) which was proven to be in existence.

Minor Details

2010-11-05T00:00:00.002-04:00

Have you ever copied a fan fic or story over to an editable format and made corrections or annotations? I haven't done so with fan fiction but have been tempted to more than once. I have made annotations or comments to actual books though.

I have seen a few good fics that had relatively minor errors that individually could be glossed over (and easily corrected without changing any of the plot or feel of the story) but as they accumulated become annoying. It is not just grammatical and spelling errors but minor things from the actual work. Characters making out of character statements or actions are the most common but I find myself being annoyed by extremely minor details that really shouldn't bug me far too often.

Here are some examples of extremely minor details that recently (as in the last few days) bugged me:
- A character's canon eye color is stated to be one color but the fan fic has the eye color be different. In this case it stood out because the original work made mention of the eye color repeatedly.
- Statement about two characters both being the same age within days when the original story stated clearly that one character is 10 months older than the other.
- A character is shown to always have a clean room is even shown to be upset by a dirty room and compelled to clean the room even if the character has no reason to do so being stated in one single throw away line to always have a messy room.
- A character shown to care about their physical appearance wearing many different (some of which would have been extremely expensive) articles of clothing stated to always wear rags.
- Statement about the ease of an attack or defense (to the point anyone could do it) when the canon story stated and showed that that it is difficult for the majority of people and the ease in which the character was able to do it in the original story was to portray how good that character was.

Possible NaNoWriMo story idea

2010-10-30T23:38:00.005-04:00

A person I have been talking with about Harry Potter suggested to me to try my hand at writing a fan fic for NaNoWriMo (which I didn't manage to meet minimum word count last year and wasn't happy with what I did write). Since Ranma 1/2 is my favorite series it would be the series I'm most inclined to primarily write for but since I have been talking with someone about Harry Potter in a few dozen or so emails I could possibly write a crossover with the two series. Here are some ideas for a possible crossover between the two series with it being a Hermione/Ranma pairing (because I prefer Ranma stories with crossover girls more than canon girls or original characters and I hate the Hermione/Ron pairing).

I was already thinking about writing a fan fic which uses the spiritual and magical aspects of Ranma 1/2 which don't really show up that often in fan fics so crossing it with Harry Potter would be doable. Though for the story I think it would be best for Ranma to be unable to do direct magic like the Harry Potter Wizards do. Flying a broom, apparition, transfiguring things with a wand and some words, becoming an animagus all not possible for Ranma to do. Creating potions, using magical items and plants, ritual, and rune magic are possible for him though. I'd like for the story to be a mix of Ranma 1/2 things and people with Harry Potter things and people.

Story start six months post Ranma manga and Harry Potter prior to the epilogue but mostly happens pre and beginning manga and during the Goblet of Fire.

- The time period from the end of the manga to the start of the story was very busy, very tiring, and extremely stressful for Ranma (a few examples of the stress is his mother holding the Seppuku contract over his head demanding he do things that she thinks he should while implying not doing so would be unmanly, Happosai, the girls, random challengers, etc.). That being the case Ranma decides to get away from it all for a bit and travels to a remote area of Australia partially to train in the more destructive techniques he knows or is trying to figure out but mostly just to relax and live off the land isolated from annoying people for a bit.
- Hermione at the beginning of the story has left the United Kingdom to go find her parents who she memory charmed and sent to Australia but they weren't where she expected them to be. While fairly near to Ranma she manages to get seriously hurt.
- Ranma happens to be in the area at the time finds her and takes care of her (uses pressure points to paralyze her legs so she doesn't feel the pain of broken burnt legs. Uses water of life to temporarily heal her giving him time to prepare the items needed to actually save her life. Can't take her to a hospital since he is pretty far away from civilization. This is a bonding point and start of a friendship for Ranma and Hermione (not fall in love immediately Ranma likes Akane and Hermione likes Ron at this point). Him taking care of her will have her looking at him positively and her being grateful and talking to him while healing will cause him to look at her favorably.
- Some time passes with her healing up (can't apperate to a hospital but she doesn't know why). They come upon a cave where they happen to run across a type of aboriginal spirit called the Quinkan (Ranma and Hermione hadn't noticed/recognized the crystals outside the cave which were trapping the spirit within).
-Ranma knows the basics of how to fight a spirit and some abilities in which spirits have but he was caught off guard (takes time to create o-fudo and shimenawa) and the spirit is too powerful for him to fight as Ranma is at that point.
- Ranma and Hermione somehow, they have no clue as to how though the Quinkan does know how, enters dreamtime. The dreamtime is a place in Aboriginal mythology where time and space have no meaning.
- Together Ranma and Hermione manage to exit the dreamtime but they do so into their younger bodies more specifically Hermione enters hers shortly before the Triwizard tournament and Ranma finds himself back in China before he acquired his curse (what really annoys him but doesn't surprise him is that the curse stayed with him when he traveled into his younger body).
- The Quinkan, which doesn't perceive the passing of time like humans do, has a small connection to Ranma and Hermione which it will try to use to kill them and use the energy released by their deaths to free itself from it's prison. Weakened, still imprisoned, and from such a far distance its abilities are hampered but it is capable of changing the names on two of the papers that come out of the goblet. Instead of Cedric's name coming out of the goblet Hermione's does. Harry's name doesn't comes out, Ranma's does.

Misc things to happen
- Ranma is not respectful to people that don't respect him and will search the entire castle (because that is something that he does several times in the manga at various places).
- The Quinkan influences things to change the tournament to be harder than canon
- Voldemort changes his plans since Harry is not in the tournament.
- Happosai and therefor people with grudges against Happosai like Taro, Lucky, and Cologne (trying to get back some of the stuff Happosai stole) will show up.
- Ryoga and Ukyo will show up but the muggle repellent wards will stymie Ukyo some. Ryoga doesn't notice them, Happosai, Lucky, Cologne, Ranma, and Pantyhose Taro are not effected by them at all.
- Genma will drag the Tendo's with him (in an attempt to prevent Ranma from ending up with Ukyo or some other girl) and Tatewaki will follow the Tendo's (muggle repellent wards do work on them to a degree).
- Tengu are an enemy of Ranma that showed up after Saffron but before the time travel they are his enemy mostly because he refuses to kill or enslave them after defeating them (which they take as a great and personal insult and is to their view the only acceptable outcomes of battle). The Quinkan will influence them into attacking Ranma again.
- Ranma and Hermione play pranks on their enemies (Something Ranma canonly does but Hermione is less inclined to do though considering she did use blackmail, hexed people, and placed a curse on a contract I could see her doing so).
- Hermione learns that compulsions have been put on her (and all muggle born) and her (their) parents (muggle borns aren't given a choice to enter the wizarding world and are influenced to think less of muggles and their abilities), even more furious to learn that her memories have been altered, and filled with enough rage to be able to caste the killing curse and pain curse when she learns Hogwarts a history is a bunch of revisionist historians lies (it is after-all the type of thing that the pure bloods would be expected to have done) and that the school is purposely teaching flawed and weakened versions of magic (so that those with power can keep the others from gaining more and potentially becoming more powerful than them). For example, she has a compulsion to be respectful to authority which explains why she still is when she has every reason to not be.
- Hermione, and Ranma to some degree, will make use of the scientific method to figure out magic (since it can be experimented with and doing the same thing results in the same results it should be possible for people who can do magic to learn more about it rather than just do spells people have already done).
- Hermione will learn a version of Occlumency and Ranma's meditation and naturally strange by both muggle and wizard standard life protects him from legimancy.
- Ranma, and because of how Ranma does it, and Hermione will make use of some muggle things that are equivalent or better than their magical counterparts (like use a fountain pen instead of a quill).
- To fight the Quinkan and other things that are drawn into the mix Ranma and Hermione will have to transcend their humanity and risk losing it in the process (also no one can enter the dreamtime without it changing them some).
- Ranma has to go through dangerous (because it requires the person to be near death the first few times) and time consuming (mainly) Shinto and Buddhist rituals (as well as purifying rituals) so as to be able to astral project acquiring a spirit form to fight spirits (it is shown that astral projection is possible in the Ranmaverse by a person doings so). Accidental beneficial side effect is that it is a partial cure to the Neko-ken and removes many minor bad luck curses he had acquired (like from Gosunkugi) which stops (and partially explains) the mysterious banana peels or stray bars of soap show up for him to trip on, Akane/people near magically showing up at the most in opportune times, how he could jump on a broken fence manage to jump off in time to avoid falling only to land on another fence that just happens to also broken, and why more hot or cold water seeking him out than the other Jusenkyo victims (which was even pointed out by Genma at one point in the manga).
- Ranma's astral form is a cat girl (more girl than cat) with wings of blue ranging from nearly white to nearly black spirit fire. The reason for the cat part is the Neko-ken, the girl part is because it is shown that the curse effects Ranma's aura enough that animals sense him as being a harmless girl (during the Herb arc), and all spirits (in the manga at least) have spirit fire but Ranma's default state has the fire in the form of wings as a side effect of the phoenix pill and the fight with Saffron more specifically when Saffron was going to absorb Ranma into his egg it went both ways. Ranma's spirit form has abilities and weakness different than his mortal form which he has to learn though most are based on what the spirits in the manga were shown capable of doing including possession, spirit fire, entering dreams, transfiguration, inflict minor curses, create shields, flight, invisibility, communion with animals and nature. It also has weaknesses biggest being that Ranma's body is left defenseless when his spirit doesn't reside within it, Ranma is not the most powerful spirit having to learn how to use the abilities, spirit wards effect it, etc.
- Hermione doesn't (and is incapable of doing so because of the nature of her magic closest she could come is to die and come back like the ghosts seen in the books) acquire a spirit form like Ranma does. Instead she has to learn (mostly figure out on her own since the people who do know don't want to share) old unflawed magic which brings her closer to nature giving herself a new form with different abilities as well.
- The reason that the ghosts and spirits are so different between the two series will be explained by how they are created. When a magical person becomes a ghost they are like Moaning Myrtle or nearly headless Nick whereas when muggles become ghosts they gain more abilities. Magical people are incapable of seeing or interacting with muggle ghosts except in extremely rare cases, so do not believe that muggle ghosts exist.
- Attempts to change things that had happened using future knowledge which works to a very limited degree since people are making different choices and are being influenced by the Quinkan.

Few more comments inspired by Harry Potter

2010-10-22T02:25:00.006-04:00

1. I've noticed that it is common in Harry Potter fan fiction (I've been reading some since someone encouraged me to) to have Fred and George Weasley complete each others sentences. While I think it is fine on occasion it gets rather annoying seen too frequently and really isn't the way I remember it from the books. In the books they both did complete sentences just alternating between them on occasion (they were complete sentences not finishing the sentences). The thing is of the fan fics I have read I don't recall seeing Harry and Hermione do so; which I find to be strange since they actually did so on occasion in the books for example in Deathly Hallow p250 of the UK/British edition they did so.

2. In the last book the main trio live out of a tent for awhile and have trouble scavenging food being hungry and eating wild mushrooms. Why didn't they just go to a muggle store and buy some food? I really don't get that. Even if they didn't have any muggle money they could have still robbed someone’s house for food and memory charmed the person since they don't really seem to have moral qualms about altering the memories of muggles what with lots of people doing so during the World Quidditch Cup, common practice to hide magic from muggles, and how Hermione did so to her parents. They needed food and muggles have lots of food which they could have gotten and if they felt guilty for stealing they could have done something in exchange for it like used magic to repair some broken things at the person's house or something. Even if they were trying to avoid using magic they still could have stolen some since they needed it.

3. Fidelius charm. The Fidelius charm is a magic that hides a location. I was wondering about it and can't really figure out how you'd place it on a place with no address. #12 Grimmauld place can easily be written down but small cottage with no address in the woods next to a mountain 23 miles from the nearest road not really easy to write down. I was also wondering if a seer would be able to see the secret or could the secret be taken from someone's mind via the magic that gives access to memories? Also if Dumbledore knew the secret about Harry's parents house (which does seem to be the case since it was stated that he placed a charm on it) how is it he didn't know who the secret keeper was and if he did know why did he let things happen the way they did? I still don't really get why Harry's mom wasn't the secret keeper and just stayed in the house at all times with Harry until it was safe or other plans could be made. It is shown that the secret keeper can live in the place in which they are the keeper of the location.

4. Hogwarts seems to be a pretty crappy school for learning. Beyond just the bad teachers (defense against Dark Arts has consistently had bad teachers). I've seen mention in fics of characters going to a muggle University after graduating. The problem I have with that is that Hogwarts is very much a specialty school on magic and doesn't teach the things needed to be admitted to a university (Science, math, muggle history, literature, etc.). Even the muggle studies class probably is way out of date and just wrong judging by how little people like Mr Weasley know about muggles and his job requires he have knowledge about muggles (Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office - a job you'd think would go to a muggle born not a pureblood since they have more knowledge on muggles).

5. The Horcruxes trip Harry made with Dumbledore makes no sense to me at all. Seriously none at all. Harry suddenly freezing up when approached by Zombies when he didn't in early books when approached by Dementors which are worse than zombies. Dumbledore somehow came to the conclusion that he could drink a cauldron of something that couldn't be touched. The boat which could only carry one magical person being able to carry Dumbledore and Harry because Harry was underpowered when people were impressed about previous actions which make it very clear that he was quite powerful for example throwing off the imperious curse which almost no one could do (which was part of why it was an unforgivable), his powerful Patronus Charm which impressed a lot of Wizengamot members, etc. Lots of other things don't make much sense either but that seriously annoyed me the stuff that happened afterward makes even less sense the Death Eaters really suck at tactics.

6. I found the whole Elder wand thing to be incredibly stupid and diminishes Dumbledores abilities since it implies that he only became so powerful because he had that wand. The whole defeat someone and disarm them that they can no longer use their own wand because it belongs to them now also makes very little sense.

7. Ron being able to speak parseltongue was, I'm not sure what that was other than terrible. I can suspend my disbelief a lot but not that far. Being able to mimic a magical language so easily even one word is just unbelievable and if it was so damn easy I'm surprised that the Chamber of Secrets hadn't been opened by accident a few hundred times.

8. Why didn't Harry learn more about his family and possibly extended family? He seems to know next to nothing about them when it is something he is clearly shown to want to know and shouldn't have very much trouble finding somethings about them by talking to people who went to school with them if no other way and yet he knows a lot more about Voldemort than any of his own family members. It seemed that only Snape ever really spoke about his parents at all and he was very biased. Why didn't others give him pensive memories or talk to him about his parents or other relatives?

9. The Weasley's are poor. We are told this often in the books and that they tend to be made fun of because of their threadbare clothing. We are shown some pretty damn useless though impressive magic such as turning animals into inanimate objects why can't they use magic for tailoring? Reparo works on Harry's glasses for a long time but there is no spell for fixing clothes? On the subject of clothes. Why didn't anyone take Harry shopping for clothes? We are shown he has money and can afford it (small hills of gold whereas the Weasley's are so poor that the amount shown in their vault is so small that they really have no point in having a vault) and yet we get lines like "'taped shoes, worn, baggy T shirt and torn, oversized jeans" as a description for his clothing in later books. Someone, anyone, should have taken him to go buy clothes (a decent pair of shoes if nothing else) and he should have convinced Ron to let him buy Ron some as well just so that Ron wouldn't be made fun of for his clothes.

10. I've seen fics that use pensives for court cases and other times when showing memories could be helpful. I find this strange since we are shown that it is possible to alter the memories put in a pensive; Slughorn did so. It is possible that Snape or Dumbledore did so and were just much better at altering the memories. I personally found it suspicious that Snape just happened to leave memories in the pensive that show Harry's father in a bad light. A thing to also remember is that memory is mutable and people do and can create false memories. People generally do not remember things the way they actually were just look at eyewitness accounts and see how different they can be and people have a tendency to make themselves look better in their memories. Then there is other things like Polyjuice potion which can create false scenarios. Sure you remember the person doing so but was it actually that person or someone using Polyjuice?.

11. Why do I keep seeing mention of a Weasley temper in fics when Arthur doesn't seem to have much of one and Molly who does have one is only a Weasley via marriage (formally Prewett).

12. The subplot in which Hermione and Ron were made perfects annoyed me greatly and I am glad that it is cut from the movies (or so I heard I haven't watched the movie in which that would be in yet). The reason given way later (near the end) in the book is that Dumbledore thought that Harry had enough responsibility to be going on with. Not making Harry a perfect would have made the students less trusting of Harry since it implies that Dumbledore doesn't trust him. I kind of hate Dumbledore, I don't think he is evil, just pretty damn stupid, insensitive, and a whole bunch of other things. I know the real reason the author did so was to improve Ron and put some conflict in their relationship but I still hate it. I don't think Ron was deserving of the position (much less Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson since they - including Ron - did use their powers as perfects for their own amusement and personal gain) and Harry had every reason to be upset with that. Dumbledore should have given him the position (everybody else had thought so and was surprised Ron got it). Harry could have turned down the position if the author really didn't want him to have it and if it was too much for Harry he could have later given up the position; Dumbledore should have at least asked instead of doing what he did (but Dumbledore is a bit of an asshole practically making Harry's life bad forcing him to live like a prisoner in that he isn't given choices in a lot of things).

Potions, powders, plants, incense, and chemicals

2010-10-21T23:51:00.004-04:00

In the Ranma manga quite a few potions, powders, plants, incense, and chemicals are used by the characters including Ranma.

Here is an incomplete list (since I think I forgot some - also not listed some technological items, magical items not in powder or potion form, spirit/kami/ghost powered items, pressure points, and those from the anime or games that were not in the manga):
-knock out powder
-paralysis powder
-chloroform
-sleeping powder
-tear gas
-gun powder
-explosives
-smoke bombs
-alcohol
-stomach medicine
-cold medicine
-suggestion incense
-dream sleep incense
-hypnosis mushrooms
-mushrooms of aging
-mandrake root also called mandragora
-poison flower of enfeeblement
-flower of adoration medicinal plant
-combine the last two and you have the flower of womanhood turning the wearer into a perfect housewife
-paralysis vines
-poison snake herb
-woman repellent
-Instant Naniichuan
-rejuvenation potion
-bean throwing plant
-toushintan - fighting instinct rises can not disobey the command to fight (used on Konatsu to get him to fight Ranma)
-mosquito repellent
-forgotten by me or unnamed poisons (like the ones that were shown but not used or were avoided), unnamed antidotes (like the extremely hot one that swelled up Ranma's lips), unnamed medicines (like the one the sick boy took) and plants (like the giant plants or plant with the poisonous pollen or even just the regular not in anyway strange plants like trees and flowers that the characters used or had for one reason or another such as the flowers given by Akane to Ryoga when she thought he was sick or the ones given to Shampoo during the reversal jewel arc).

I don't see very many fics that use these types of things even though they are often used by the characters in the manga. The reason I thought up making this list at this time is because of email conversations about another series that did not really use these types of things even though the characters were students being taught how to make these types of things and wondering why these things (like many other things) aren't used in fan fiction more often.

I would expect that Ranma and some of the others who go off training to be carrying quite a few of these type of things (evidence from the manga would agree with some of these). I would expect Ranma to carry, when going on a trip in his back pack, a first aid kit containing various pharmaceuticals, herbal remedies (such as plants that would be grounded up and made into a paste to reduce bruising and swelling of which there are quite a few and many work as well or even better then the store bought ones), potions (Happosai is shown to have books on potions and Ranma and the Tendo's are shown to go through Happosai's stuff like during the martial arts dining arc or the moxibition of weakness arc), teas that serve a purposes (there are a lot of medicinal teas and Asians in particular use them often), incense (Ranma used incense a few times like the suggestion incense used on Happosai but is also shown to have and use incense at other times since we see him have it burning near him on occasion), pills (several were shown in the manga like the master student pill or the phoenix pill and over the counter medicine most often is in pill format) etc. Beyond the above mentioned items here are some more things I think he'd have in one format or another (over the counter, herbal, a potion that does it, etc.):

medicines and bandages
-pain relievers mostly over the counter such as asprin but also prescription ones like morphine
-muscle relaxants
-sleeping pills
-burn creams
-numbing creams
-antidotes
-poisons
-anti-itch cream
-anti-venom
-mosquito repellent
-stomach medicine
-cold medicine
-vitamins
-sedatives
-antibiotic ointment
-laxatives
-antacids
-tranquilizers
-decongestants

possibly these:
-stink bomb
-itching powder
-bright flash/flash bomb (made from aluminum powder and potassium percholate maybe)
-fireworks that make a loud noise
-glue like Happosai's friend used
-hallucinogens
-gas pellets
-dye packets
-stamina/energy drinks (the Japanese really like these for some reason, personally I can't stand them)

If someone, such as me, were to include these types of things in a fanfic what other effects do you suppose a potion or plant would have? Basically I'm asking you to suggest possible potions, powders, and plants properties preferably strange ones rather than say pharmaceuticals or what could easily be found in a book on herbal remedies (not looking for magic items or spirit powered items of which there also were quite a few in the manga).

Almost forgot. Aphrodisiacs of which very few were shown in the manga (at least that I remember). The only one I can remember showing up in the manga was Mamushi-zake (snake in drink). Ranma's clone in the mirror arc has this. Mamushi-zake is an old folk remedy made by soaking a mamushi (snake) in sake or other alcoholic beverage for about a year it supposedly increases sexual stamina.

Pairings and Shipping in Harry Potter

2010-10-13T00:05:00.004-04:00

In general I don't much care about pairings so long as they are believable. That said I disliked the pairings given in the Harry Potter books and do not believe they were portrayed well. I absolutely loath Hermione and Ron as a couple which is very unusual for me (don't really care about Ginny/Harry though I do think it could have been shown better in the books). The pairing I like the most and would have preferred is Hermione with Harry and there are various parts of the books that support this pairing even though it is not one of the official pairings.

I do not hate that Harry ended up with Ginny but do not feel that the books made the pairing believable. I don't like various aspects of it like how she had been infatuated about Harry even before meeting him (she was a fan girl that wanted him without knowing him at all), how she went from a person Harry barely noticed or talked to, to being his love interest so abruptly, the introduction of love potions at around that point in the story and the earlier mention that Molly Weasley had made love potions in her youth (why would any school teach teenagers how to make love potions or keep them in the school anyways seems like a recipe for disaster to me - also while it is said that love potions can not create love they can cause infatuation which can lead to love and might be able to change a budding romantic love into a familial love since the person under the effects of the love potion would have more physical reactions to the person that gave the potions than a person in which he or she is just starting to see as a potential mate; having him discover/fall for Ginny right when love potions were introduced was a poor decision in my opinion), feel more like he was lusting over her rather than in love with her, and other reasons.

While I don't particularly like the Ginny/Harry pairing (for some of the above mentioned reasons amongst other less rational reasons); I really don't like the Ron/Hermione pairing, I loath it. Having them date or shag I could see happening but don't think that they make a good couple at all (and this is not only because I prefer Harry/Hermione). I much would prefer that she be with someone else (saw a couple fics that had her be with Luna and found that to be an interesting though unlikely pairing). Without Harry Potter being there I find it highly likely that Ron and Hermione would have had nothing to do with one another at all possibly even becoming entirely hostile to one another. They also have very few common interests and both pretty much dislike to a significant degree the others most valued hobbies (she likes reading he doesn't, she views studying to be important he doesn't, he loves chess and quiditch she doesn't, he's lazy she's hard working, etc.). I really did not like that Ron got a book about charming witches like the love potion mentioned for Ginny the book makes me feel that Ron is changing his personality to get Hermione instead of doing so to improve himself that he was manipulating her. The way I saw it in the books was that Harry needed Hermione and she needed him while both care for Ron he is much less important to both of them and I know for a fact that I'm not the only person to view it that way.

Whether Rowling meant to or not she did include a lot that made me think of Harry/Hermione rather than the official couplings and included things that led me to doubt the official pairings. Harry and Hermione no matter how you look at it are shown to care for one another very strongly much more strongly than what I believe a brother/sister relationship is (and I have a brother and sisters) and get along much easier and believably than the official pairings do. I could write many reasons as to why I like this couple but don't feel like it at this time. If you want to read essays showing why Harry/Hermione make a good couple and scenes from the books supporting this pairing you can go to portkey.org and find on the forum some very good essays that show why they make a good couple using evidence from the books (I haven't seen a very persuasive argument for Harry/Ginny since the ones I did see pretty much come down to that's how J K Rowling wrote it). Even J K Rowling admits that the potential was there and that they had charged moments.

A fanon theory that I like was that Hermione believed Harry was in love with Ginny (rather than in lust which is my take on it) so she decided that Harry was taken so did not try to pursue him and decided to like Ron since he seemed to like her and she does have some feelings for him (she does consider him a friend and friendships can lead to love) even if he is a jerk to her on occasion (he makes her cry and upsets her too damn often in my opinion). As for Harry, he never seemed to be very happy with his two best friends becoming more than friends in the books but he was in lust with Ginny at the time and for teenagers especially it is easy to mistake lust for love (which doesn't mean that he didn't eventually actually fall in love with Ginny).

Tonks/Remus pairing. I have no real reason to not like this pairing it simply doesn't seem like a good pairing to me (though Lupin being quite a bit older than Tonks maybe part of it). I also dislike that both of these characters are killed off leaving an orphan. I heard that originally Arthur Weasley was supposed to be killed off by Voldemort's snake but J K Rowling changed her mind and instead decided to kill these two characters off instead which if true saddens me. Tonks and Remus were both more interesting characters than Arthur and in my opinion it’s much sadder for them to die. While not a pairing I like, I dislike that they died shortly after having found love leaving a child orphaned. Arthur is much older and had a longer and/or more fulfilling life than Tonks and Lupin. His children were all of an age in which they could have dealt with his demise and it would give Ron or Ginny a real tangible reason for revenge as well as allowing for more believable character growth for the Weasley family.

As for fan fiction ships, while I prefer Harry and Hermione (because I am convinced based on the books and movies that is the best match up in the series) I have read fics with other pairings including Ginny/Harry that I found to be much better and far more believable than how that pairing was displayed in the books. I'm okay with most pairings depending on the skill of the writer but seeing Ron and Hermione as a couple in a fic spoils the fic for me. The story could be otherwise good but I dislike that pairing so much, to an irrational degree, that it can turn an otherwise good fic into something I can't bring myself to continue reading. I really would like a warning that Ron/Hermione is a pairing in fan fics.

Few comments inspired by Harry Potter

2010-10-12T17:58:00.007-04:00

I have read through the seven Harry Potter books and seen most of the movies (did not read the mini books Monster Book of Monsters, Quidditch through the Ages, or The Tales of Beedle the Bard). I read them mainly because of the hype and because a family member bought them. While I did like some parts of the story; I don’t think that they are deserving of the amount of hype that they received. I found the first four books to be fairly entertaining but the fifth book was not as good and I simply do not like the last two books. The last few books are darker than the earlier books and contain romance but those are not the reasons I dislike them. I have read and enjoyed things far darker than those books and while romance is not a genre I generally seek out I have liked a number of romance stories.

There are some things in the last few books I enjoyed but overall I didn't like them. Personally I feel that the main three characters were dumber, nerfed in some ways, and less interesting/believable in those last few books. There is a lot I would have changed. I feel they should have prepared more to battle Voldemort especially after knowing why Voldemort is going after him (things to learn and practice: delaying tactics, distracting Voldemort, escape plans, DODGING, etc.). Hermione should have figured out Prince was related to Snape quicker, she also should still have cared about S.P.E.W, she shouldn't have hexed a student to keep Ron on the team and definitely shouldn't have been a hypocrite and chastised Harry for tricking Ron into believing that he gave Ron the Felix Felicis potion after what she had hexed someone to get Ron on the team. Harry's relationships should have changed more drastically and/or more realistically as he became more of a teenager. He should have been less trusting of Dumbledore and more upset with him (Harry really has quite a few reasons to be upset with Dumbledore and personally I found Harry to trust him more than an upset teenager believably would have). The Ginny/Harry relationship could have been done better. Change the death eater tactics since what was shown was overly complex relying on too many factors but that is true for even earlier books; I mean getting Harry for the ritual in the Goblet of Fire was overly complex and relying on way to many factors happening least of which being that Dumbledore not notice that his old friend has been replaced by a polyjuiced doppelganger. Harry had a much better showing in times of danger in earlier books than the later books (shouldn't have froze up like he did because of the Zombies since in other similarly dangerous situations he didn't and should have had a somewhat better showing against the death eaters based on previous battles with the death eaters - it pisses me off that he forgot the flame hex when the zombies attacked particularly since he was reminded shortly before and in other situations say with the dementors he didn't freeze up and I really don't see how zombies are in any way worse than dementors). Hermione should not have ended up with Ron -I hate that pairing. That's enough for now. Suffice it to say I believe the books would have been better if quite a few things had been changed. There are many other things I believe should have been or could have been changed to improve those last books while still keeping the important parts of the story but these are just my opinions and I'm sure that not everyone would agree with the changes I can think of.

I have not seen all of the movies. I probably will eventually since a family member has purchased all of them that were released and is likely to purchase the others when they come out. In most cases I enjoy the source material (books in this case) more than derivative work (movies in this case). In this particular instance I found myself enjoying the movies more than the books few reasons but the main one is probably because Hermione is my favorite character and the screen writers seemed to have liked her a lot as well.

As for the fan fiction; there is an obscene amount of it, most of which is terrible. Searching through the massive amount of it to find the well written, thought provoking, and/or funny fics is like searching through a pile of hay for a needle with no tools. As mentioned in an earlier post I have read quite a bit more than I like to admit to and prefer other fandoms to this one but have enjoyed some of the fics in this series suggested to me by others. The pairings and genre in/of the fan fics do not really matter to me so long as they are done well and believable; though I do actively avoid some pairings/genres. Some recurring themes in the fandom annoy me where as others have the potential to be interesting but most of the time are not.

Some authors like to give their fans additional information not included in the actual stories they created. This is an okay practice but one I find very annoying. I prefer that if the author feels it important enough it should have been in the work itself. Some authors re-release there work with annotations which I find to be interesting whereas others release a book containing additional information, others do it different ways. J K Rowling created a website and fairly often gave additional information via interviews. I don't put much stock in authorial intent viewing what is in the actual work as all you really need to know but give it more credence than fanon. In fairly recent correspondences via email with someone the phrase (or similar enough to not matter) "J K Rowling said so in an interview/on her website" came up far too often. Prior to the emails I had not read/ seen any of the interviews or been to her website. For the most part I didn't and don't care at all for what she said in those interviews and I didn't really have an inclination to look up all the various interviews she had given. Some of the stuff said like Dumbledore is gay really doesn't matter for the story at all so I don't see why anyone cares, other things said either contradicted a part of the story or another interview so I go by what was in the actual story unless the way she clarified it makes more sense, and some of it simply didn't make any sense to me at all (for example how she explained pensives work) in which I ignore what was said in the interviews entirely. Though her giving contradicting information didn't surprise me since in my opinion she seemed to like changing things to suit the book she was writing at the time ignoring things that she wrote before on occasion in the actual books.

Continuation of the last post

2010-09-03T18:32:00.009-04:00

1. Were the Ranma and Harry Potter universes the same for the story than Jusenkyo would likely have Repello Muggletum the muggle prevention charm on it. Jusendo would be being made into a tourist resort for the magic community. China and Japan would have there own magical communities that likely would not do things the same as the UK one. It would likely be that China and Japan have a lot more trouble and less inclination to follow the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy to the degree that they are supposed to. The Asians don't have to hide as much since Asians are in general far more accepting of magic than the western world is. While the Wizards in Harry Potter use wands that does not mean that every magical community does so it is possible that other communities use different power focuses.

2. While both series have ghosts there are differences between the two series. The ghosts and spirits of Ranma 1/2 have a lot more abilities than those in Harry Potter. They can possess people, go invisible, create spirit fire, interact with objects and people to a much larger degree, place curses, and transfigure things (paper into underwear for example or Shampoo into a cat though in that case it required more time and special circumstances). The beings that were always spirits and not ghosts (of which Peeves is the only one shown in Harry Potter and that was told in interviews who can interact with objects) in Ranma 1/2 can do what the ghost can but at least one showed the ability to create shields. Ranma has a lot more ghosts and spirits/kami than Harry Potter did. Some of the objects in the Ranma manga seem to be powered by the spirits/kami and not by magic such as the spirit wards.

3. Magic in Harry Potter was mostly point wand and say made up word/s. There were no magic wands in Ranma. Both series had potions (Ranma also had incense which is similar to potions just burned after gathering the ingredients), magical creatures (though the creatures were different), magical items (the most common type of magic in Ranma 1/2), magical plants (some different but some were the same in both like Mandrake root), divination/prophecies (the reason that the calendar was shown was because Ryoga was doing a type of Japanese numerology called rokuyo to figure out it was a good day and the sakura mochi were supposed to tell you if you were destined to be with someone though my take on that was that it showed if you were compatible not destined), and probably more. Ranma has martial arts though which does allow many similar things to magic like vacuum blades, ki blasts, pressure points with various effects, etc.

4. Technology. Dudley had a Playstation before they even came out in Japan, flying car, train, a bus, magic cameras, magical radio, and the use of a telephone like once is pretty much the extent of technology used in Harry Potter. In Ranma pretty much every bit of technology you would expect to find in a Japanese house in the mid 1990's was used (karaoke machines, rice cookers, microwaves, tvs, vcrs, video game systems, water heaters, cameras, video cameras, floor buffer, telephones -even calls to China, etc.) Several means of transport including trains, buses, boats, hot air balloon, and helicopters (planes were shown like in the first of Ranma's nightmares seen and flying over Hong Kong but not ridden in the series). A few bits of nonexistent to the extent shown in the real world tech - power armor, jet pack, and memory metal. Most of that doesn't matter for the crossover except several characters including Ranma would and did use technology in combat. It is said by Hermione that electricity doesn't work at Hogwarts (and only Hogwarts there is no reason to think it wouldn't work elsewhere and the book she read it in could have been wrong if you really want to have it there) not counting electric weapons (Kodachi's stun baton, collar for her pet, electric trap that shocked Akane, etc.) that still leaves all the other non magic and non electricity using stuff used (tear gas, gas masks, knockout powder, various weapons like swords, staves, knives, explosives, sleeping powder, chloroform, smoke bombs, etc. - guns were shown but never used by one of the non background characters).

5. Since I am not the original author I would probably change the characters, mostly subconsciously. Generally I would try to keep characters in character but with this series I just can't see myself doing that. Hermione would discover that books are wrong on occasion, some are filled with lies, contradicting information, misinformation, etc. she'd also be bored out of her mind in class while still capable of answering all the questions asked she'd no longer care to do so. Ron would be less jealous, Harry would be less trusting and more of a leader. While character development would be included I would likely change the characterization for no adequately explained reason.

6. The entire house point system is screwed up and very stupid. The way I see it Ranma will ignore it entirely. There is no tangible reward for your house getting the most points. The way to get the most points is to be teachers pets. It directly pits the various houses against one another and indirectly pits the members of the house against one another (because it ostracizes those who lose more points). Ranma doesn't much care for following rules/laws and for the most part treats people the way they treat him. He will show respect to those that do so to him. While he would break the rules he will if caught accept the punishments given if he believes they are just.

7. What house would Ranma be sorted into? I don't think it really matters particularly since the person being sorted seems to have the ability to choose the house they want. It could also be argued that he would fit in any of the houses since he has traits that fit all of them but doesn't fit any of them perfectly (also it depends on what definitions of the various traits that are mentioned because several of them have more than one meaning of which Ranma may not fit the most common meaning but does fit some of the other meanings).

8. Japan and England have different schooling systems one thing in common to both is by the age of 16 school is no longer compulsory. The holidays, breaks and length of breaks, starting time (sept first for UK and in the spring for Japan), way the classes are set up, length of the school day (Japan was longer particularly back in the early 90's when Saturday was a school day as well), etc. all differ. Just pointing this out because the changes and less class time would probably effect Ranma somewhat. Though there is no real reason as to why Ranma would have to go to Hogwarts he could interact with things/people elsewhere and acquire knowledge of magic in other ways (such as hiring private tutors - the wizarding world like the real world runs on money and Ranma has the ability though lacks the inclination to acquire a significant amount).

9. Legilimency and Ranma. First off what is legilimency? It is not mind reading this has been said (or so I have been told) by the author. What it is, is viewing memories. Legilimency also doesn't work perfectly Harry was capable of keeping a memory from Snape even when Snape cast the spell out-loud with his wand. I don't think it would work too well on Ranma since he does have practice meditating and knows how to via soul of ice suppress emotions, and Ranma's mind would probably be a very strange and confusing place for the average wizard.

10. Innuendo and Puns. The Harry Potter books have quite a bit of innuendo (not that I caught most of it until it was pointed out to me) and the Ranma manga is chock full of puns (a lot of them were lost in translation or when still kept didn't come out all that great). Put them in a fan fic if you want but personally I don't think that it is easy to do while still keeping the fic interesting.

Harry Potter and Ranma partial discussion

2010-09-01T19:59:00.006-04:00

In a relatively recent post I made mention to Harry Potter. Since I did that I have been in correspondence via email about those books with someone. I don't hate them but also do not think the deserve all the hype that they received and I did not like the last few. I have read them both because of the hype and because a couple of family members were reading them.

Harry Potter is not a series in which I read much fan fiction of but I have read probably more than I would like to admit to. I do not seek out Harry Potter stories as I do with other fandoms such as Ranma, Teen Titans, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc. The fics that I have read were read because they were A. suggested to me by someone that at least generally has good taste, B. are in a crossover with a series I enjoy (such as Ranma or Buffy the Vampire Slayer), or C. they were written/favored by an author whose work in other fandoms I enjoyed. Just because I did not like the books as much as some people think I should does not mean that there aren't some very good fanfics in that fandom (given the sheer number it is practically guaranteed that there are some good ones amongst the countless terrible or at least uninteresting ones).

In these emails a possible Ranma/Harry Potter Crossover was discussed. Below are my opinions on 10 things discussed (there are more which I may or may not post on later - probably will at least a couple since I have already started them in draft but that isn't a surety).

1. What year should the crossover occur were it to be a direct crossover (i.e. both worlds are the same)?: I suggest after 1994 because Ranma was pretending to be Ryoga's maid and annoying Ryoga in 1994 according to the only calendar seen in the manga. I'd probably choose for Ranma to show up at Hogwarts in 1995 after the summer when the DA is formed (this is in part because I disliked the later books more than the earlier ones).

2. Dumbledore is portrayed to be manipulative. In general Ranma is not portrayed to be manipulative in fan fics even though he is extremely so in the manga though his machinations are usually short term. This can be displayed in a variety ways such as Ranma joining Hermione's organization S.P.E.W as a means of manipulating her into helping him (also could be used to get her to think the way he wants her to think via pointing things out like if you want them to give money sell Okonomiyaki or something). Her desire and inability to really create or do anything for her organization could easily be used as a means to get her loyalty. This works particularly because Ranma dislikes people (which would probably count House Elves) suffering/being hurt, will help people if asked or if he thinks he should, and he would view it as a way to get her to do what he wants (he is quick to notice and exploit any advantage he can in the manga).

3. Ranma being near dementors would likely be detrimental to every single person anywhere near him. Dementors suck out joy and make you live your worst nightmares. Shishi Höködan which is known to Ranma but not commonly used is powered by depression and his worst nightmares are likely to cause him to enter the Neko-ken a state in which he is capable of cutting through pretty much anything.

4. Ranma in a straight fight versus pretty much anyone in the Harry Potter universe would result in Ranma winning. The Harry Potter wizards really don't stand a chance versus him under normal circumstances much less so when Ranma learns some of what they can do even if he can't do what they can. This is one of the main reasons as to why I thought the crossover wouldn't work well. There are ways to work around this and ways to make it still work but Ranma versus Voldemort and all his death eaters at once I'd still give Ranma better odds of winning. Hell Akane versus Voldemort I'd give better odds for her than him especially were she to have seen a wizarding duel prior to encountering him. That is just my opinion though but it is based on what is shown namely tossing one spell at a time, the wands are easily seen used to launch spells which can be knocked out of their hands or broken and the way that characters had dodged spells in the books.

5. Harry Potter is sometimes in fics displayed as a prankster usually because he hangs with the Weasley Twins on occasion or because his dad and friends were. In the actual books he is not a prankster and it would be out of character for him to do so especially if the other person hadn't done something to him. Ranma is more of a prankster than he is though this is generally not displayed in fan fics. Ranma's most common pranks are the use of ventriloquism (for example on Ryoga when she said kiss me in presumably Akane's voice), disguises (like how he pretended to be Ryoga's maid and messed with Ryoga for awhile), and sneaking up on people to see their reaction (most commonly Akane but has done so to others like Cologne, Gosungki, and Happosai as well).

6. Like Ranma the Harry Potter fandom is full of fanon such as Hermione's parents names they like the Tendo's deceased matriarch were never given first names or most everything on some characters like Daphne Greengrass who was only briefly mentioned in one of the books. The use of fanon to some degree is pretty much unavoidable but it is my opinion that some attempt to avoid using common fanon should be made.

7. Starting the crossover later in the series means that Ranma would be behind all the characters, for the most part, in classes on magic. Deaging Ranma and having him start at the beginning is the most common solution for this problem. That is by no means the only solution, particularly when you take into account the existence of time tuners. That said Ranma has no reason or desire to learn some subjects and has no need to learn everything every class has. If Ranma studies it like he does martial arts (hours on end straight through the night for days at a time learning it well enough to be able to match people who had been practicing the style for years) several years worth of studying could be compressed into a matter of months. Astronomy could probably be skipped entirely; considering how a Japanese highschool teaches math arithmancy would not be all that difficult; muggles studies would be a waste of time (I'm also of the opinion judging by some of the Wizards complete lack of knowledge that class would be highly inaccurate also what Ranma considers normal probably differs significantly from both muggles and wizards); history of magic could be substituted by a book with the highlights; divination is mostly an art that Ranma already has somewhat and makes use of (danger sense which includes warning him about indirect dangers like the magic Sakura Mochi Akane made); Potions, Herbology, and care for magical creatures do not need to be taught completely since after the basics are known carrying reference books and using them as needed would suffice for most situations (once you know the basics on cooking a cook book is generally all you need to later make recipes). A lot of the stuff taught in schools is useless trivia that will never be used, school is also extremely repetitive going over things far more often than the people I know ever needed, etc. cut the filler, trivia, and busy work teaching mainly that which is needed to be known and the amount of time needed to do so goes down significantly. Encyclopedic knowledge of spells and stuff taught is not needed (that is Hermione's thing).

8. “Brilliant,” said Hermione. “This isn’t magic — it’s logic — a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever.” Remembering that quote is a good idea since a lot of things done by the wizarding community do not make much sense such as allowing the Goblins control of all the currency when we are told that A. The Goblins are very greedy, B. The Goblins had periodically risen up and gone to war with the Wizards, C. The Goblins are resentful of the wizards for the actions of the wizards like not being allowed to carry wands, D. the economy requires money and the Goblins can easily mess things up since they control the economy to a significant extent. That is also in part why Voldemort was capable of getting support from non-human magical creatures, he treated them better than the ministry did. Ranma has a tendency to think out side the box (he will exploit any weaknesses and make use of loopholes), is rash/impulsive, but still has more sense and treats supernatural creatures better than the average wizard. Remembering that quote I find to be extremely useful when I read the books because it is how I explained some stuff that didn't make sense.

9. I rarely care for and usually ignore things in interviews (my view is that only what is actually in the source material counts anything said elsewhere maybe of interest and while having more authority than fanon is still not canon). I would use some things said by the authors. I would like to point out that people who can do magic do not always get a chance to since some likely can not afford to be taught, not every country in the world probably does things the same, some can be disallowed from using it, and this quote from the author - There is a character who, in desperate circumstances, manages to do magic quite late in life. This is very rare. [quote from Barnes & Noble chat #1, 1999]. I mainly bring this up to point out why Ranma may not have been contacted at some point before about the ability to use magic - late bloomer, different means of contact, something Happosai did, etc. can be used to explain it were that route be chosen.

10. There are a number of inconsistencies within the books and her comments for example from her comments she has stated that there is something like 3000 wizards and witches in Great Britain. Other statements include saying that there was around a thousand students at Hogwarts which was in a later statement said to be 600 students. Wizards are said to live longer than muggles so the numbers really do not makes sense. 20% of all witches and wizards in the country are between the ages of 11 and 18 and the muggles out number magic users at more than 25,000 to 1 in the UK. Inconsistencies in the numbers both in the work themselves and via comments made elsewhere by her are not the only inconsistencies for example in Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix Harry, Hermione, and Ron take seats in the back row of the Quidditch stadium. A moment later Hagrid approaches them coming through the nonexistent rows behind them. I would pretty much ignore any perceived inconsistency (like those seen in the Gambling King arc of the manga with Ranma betting something he didn't know about for another decade) and I would take liberties with the story to better suit my story (while I advocate avoiding common fanon I also do not believe you have to keep everything as it was in canon).

List of stories containing vampires made in 7 minutes

2010-08-24T00:36:00.007-04:00

I am currently reading a nonfiction book about vampires and decided to think about all the stories containing vampires that I could remember in a short period of time. Upon completion of the list it occurs to me that I have encountered a significant number of stories pertaining to vampires; some of which I consider good others not so good. If I really thought about it I could probably come up with more, this is obvious since I have thought of a few more after the arbitrary time limit I imposed on myself while making the list. I am somewhat tempted to comment about each one but I simultaneously don't feel like doing so.

Watched, read, or played:
Blood the Last Vampire
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel
Vampire Princess Miyu
Slayers Oav
Chibi-vampire
Saga of the Noble Dead series
Bunnicula
Dracula
Vampire Hunter D
Hellsing
Sesame Street's the Count
I am Legend
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter
Underworld
Blood Rayne
Marvel comics Dracula
Batman versus Dracula
Blood Road
Blood Memories
X-men Apocalypse versus Dracula
Blood + Water
Vampire Huntress
Salem's Lot
Harry Potter
Castlevania
Fred Saberhagen's Dracula
Blacula
The Lost Boys
Blade
Akira Toriyama's Cowa
Blood and Rust

Didn't watch, read, or play and for most have no intention in doing so
Vampirella
True Blood
Twilight
The Vampire Chronicles
30 Days of Night
Rosario Vampire

Reasonable out of character moment

2010-08-23T03:00:00.004-04:00

I have the vague inklings for a scene in a piece of fiction that requires one of the characters to have a very out of character moment so as to advance the plot and get the characters out of a rut they are in. In this instance it is for a Ranma fan fic and the action I want is for Ranma to kiss Akane. They have many near kisses in the manga and a few that don't count (mouth covered with tape, character was temporarily insane, etc.). They are bound to eventually manage to kiss without being interrupted. I have no intention of the fic being a Ranma and Akane shipping fic but them advancing their relationship to kissing and light petting would be beneficial to both characters and would make a later pairing I have in mind easier to accept and smooth out some of the potential problems. Both Ranma and Akane are not confident about relationships and both have very good reasons. The hanging out and going on dates aspect doesn't really bother either of them. Akane has gone on dates with Ryoga and implied to have gone on one with Ranma and Ranma has gone on a lot of dates for various reasons. Physical intimacy of any type even holding hands though causes them both problems. Interestingly since Akane is shown to be a pervert basher it is Akane who seems to have less problems with becoming physical than Ranma does -she has goaded him like after he was kissed by Mikado, teased him about it - like on the way home from the Romeo and Juliet play, she has dreamt about it -spring sleep incense, and implied that she'd be okay with it so long as they were in private - like her comment when she dragged him into a closet to hide from his mom and he thought that she wanted to go in there for a very different reason and hugs her. That said Ranma has clearly put some thought into it as well but is much more hesitant about it and of the two all evidence points to him having to initiate it.

I have come up with a number of scenarios in which Ranma would initiate the very first real kiss, which is the most important one. After that kiss, kissing will become a much easier thing for them both to do and while I find it unlikely for Akane to give the first kiss she would very likely initiate subsequent kisses. It would be a serious confidence boost for both characters as well and open up new avenues in their lives (Ranma for example would be a lot less likely to freeze up when Shampoo or Azusa kisses him - she did that in the manga).

Here are some of the scenarios I have come up with:
1. A joyous occasion in his happiness he grabs her up and kisses her. The reason I am hesitant to use this is because on the few times Ranma was really happy like after he got his strength back he did not do that (though it was actually what Akane seemed to be expecting since it looked very much like she was going for a hug).
2. A desperate situation such as immediately after being returned to a human after Akane was magically turned into a doll. Had the other characters not been around and interrupted I could easily see both of them making out after that; probably would of gone beyond kissing and light petting to a point that neither of them are ready for.
3. Magic or possession. This sort of happened in the actual manga but is not a solution I like. Feel it is too heavy handed.
4. Drugged. Given a hallucinogen such as LSD and kissing her in his inebriated state. Again more heavy handed than I would like and to likely for Akane to notice that he is out of his mind and therefore not likely to count it.
5. This is very similar to being drugged but I like it somewhat more. Ranma does extreme overtraining; mentally; physically; and spiritually (ki); which is something he has done in the manga. The self induced sleep deprivation, hunger, mild heat stroke, and various natural chemicals running through his body (adrenaline, endomorphines, etc.) cause Ranma to enter a mental state in which he can't tell dreams from reality (sleep deprivation, fever, etc. can result in hallucinations similar to those which can be gotten from psychoactive drugs like LSD) and he remains lucid enough for Akane to not be able to notice when he grabs her up and kisses her. With her the next day initiating a kiss.
6. A misunderstanding causes it. Something similar to Akane dragging him into a closet or some place private and Ranma thinking she wants something like that rather than whatever her real reason for doing so.

Drugs, extreme emotion, extreme physical state, etc. can and do cause people to behave in ways that they generally would not but while they can all be used to create a reason as to why a character is acting out of character for a short time none of them really fit for the story idea I am currently contemplating. I almost want to go with they are home alone and bored so one of them decides to initiate a kiss but that is extremely unbelievable. The solution I think would be the most interesting would be via a misunderstanding but can't think of a real good one.

The Polysyllabic Spree

2010-08-23T01:02:00.002-04:00

My brother really likes the author Nick Hornby. Since he likes the author I have read several of Nick Hornby's books as well. I found them to be fairly good though I did not like them as much as my brother did. On one of my frequent trips to the library I came across the book The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby and took it out. The book contains several essays that were originally in a literary magazine. While I am not entirely sure that I have never read a literary magazine I don't recall doing so.

I have read next to none of the books that Nick talks about in his essays and for that reason I probably have a more negative view on this book than it really deserves. Part of the reason I have not read them is because some of the books mentioned were not released in my country, are self help books to stop smoking (I never picked up that habit), are on sports like Cricket (I don't understand that game), and are biographies (that is a genre I rarely read). I like how he starts his essays with a list of books bought and books read. The books bought list is usually longer and while that maybe the case for me on some months most months it wouldn't since I prefer to read a book from the library before buying it. That doesn't mean I don't buy books without reading them first I do. I also make impulse purchases and use online trading services to acquire books I have not read before. I probably spend too much on books but the main reason as to why I am trying to read more books than I buy is simply because I don't really have the room for more books.

I like that he doesn't limit himself to critiques on the books and has it more like an informal blog where he tells us about other things in his life or his opinion on other things. While not much of a gossip (I barely can be bothered with remembering actors and actresses names much less anything about them) I like it because as I had mentioned last paragraph I haven't read the vast majority of books he talks about. He does make some comments that I'd like to comment on.

...I became depressed by the realization that I'd forgotten pretty much everything I've ever read.

He then goes on to comment about how it is actually a good thing because he can reread them as if they were new. I often forget the title and the author but I can remember the plots and some details. Just skimming through something I read in the past is usually enough to recall it. While I have reread some books it is not something I do frequently. Even though some books are worth a second or even an eleventh read through there are so many books in existence that I generally pick up a new book rather than reread a book.

He makes a good point about paperback books. Prior to their invention books could sit on shelves for years until they become popular. Paperbacks and books in general nowadays pretty much have to sell well in their first year or they will go out of print and not develop a readership even if they are very good books their shelf life has gone down significantly. This is true for other reasons as well since the paper quality is much reduced and there is acid in the paper the books physically do not have the same shelf life as well.

Usually, books have gone out of print for a reason, and that reason is they're no good, or, at least, of very marginal interest.

In general I agree with that statement but the stated reasons are too commonly not the reasons as to why a book has gone out of print as often as it should be. I have seen pretty good books go out of print for other reasons such as the publisher went bankrupt, they were translated poorly, they were not marketed/advertised well, executive meddling, and piss poor cover designs (sure there is a saying don't judge a book by its cover but that doesn't stop people from doing so). In the case of manga and some foreign novels especially other factors besides not being good are the main reason that they are out of print. The poor quality not good works don't even get considered for translation so are much less likely to ever make it to this country outside of fan translations. A number of publishing companies went belly up, difficulties in acquiring the copyright, and especially poor marketing have killed some very good and extremely popular books. By extremely popular I mean in their home countries they sold more than a million copies, had a long series of manga and novels written about them, had multiple films and television series on them, were re-released dozens of times, etc. but because of mainly stupidity they either were cut short or are out of print here. Even here they were popular amongst those who actually new about them (some have had petitions asking for more that acquired large numbers of signatures) or sold out their first printings but still went out of print.

Every time I read a biography of a novelist, I discover that the novels in question are autobiographical to an almost horrifying degree.

I don't know how accurate that statement is because I haven't read very many biographies of novelists; though it did apply to the last one that I recall reading about Lewis Carroll best known for Alice in Wonderland. A lot of the scenes are based on places he had been. Someone (a mysterious they) said write what you know so that likely does explain why many novels are autobiographical in nature. Personally I would try not to contain aspects of my life. A lot of my life is boring and the rest I generally wouldn't want to share with others. I wouldn't even want to use life experiences for settings and background.

Another thing that he mentions that I found interesting was that he doesn't particularly like his own writing and doesn't like to receive books from editors and other people simply because they find them similar to his own writing. He rather be given books with the comment that this book is nothing like yours but is still a very good book take a look. I can understand that. I too don't really like my own writing, to the point that my fiction writing embarrasses me enough that I don't let other people read it.

Sky Blade - Sword of Heaven

2010-08-06T15:43:00.004-04:00

I recently read the first two volumes of the manhwa, Korean term for comics and print cartoons, titled Sky Blade - Sword of Heaven. I had picked them up at a local comicbook shop on clearance and upon finishing them I looked online to see if I could find some more volumes. I was disappointed to find out that only two volumes were released in English by the now defunct ADV Manga and there are no online fan translations of the series (at least none I could easily find - though I did find a Korean role playing game called Sky Blade which is based on this manga).

I really dislike it when I start a series and am unable to finish it for one reason or another. It's very annoying when there is a lot more of a series written but you can't read it because it is no longer being translated. In this case I don't really mind all that much because while not bad the series is pretty mediocre at least what I had read. I am far more upset about other series for example the Slayers Novels only the first eight where translated into English (volume 9 and part of volume 10 can be found online) and those I really want. I like the Slayers novels considerably more than the anime (and it is one of if not my favorite anime) or the various manga.

Sky Blade is a martial arts story with a fairly clueless and seemingly unskilled (learn fairly quickly that he isn't unskilled actually a prodigy just not interested in fighting) protagonist who manages to get in embarrassing situations with the three most powerful, and supposedly beautiful, female warriors in the land which promptly decide that he has to die because of that (well two of them the third just wants to kill him for his energy).

Nature of Ki Blasts in the Ranmaverse

2010-08-06T13:21:00.005-04:00

I've seen ki blast be used in various ways in Ranma (and other) fan fiction involving ki or energy blasts. As I had mentioned in one of my very early posts the ki blast arc is mostly a joke arc. The attacks are basically puns with the attacks working like the literal meaning of the idiom they are based on (there are hundreds of Japanese idioms that involve the word ki in some way- This is not surprising when you take into account that the Japanese language contains over 11,000 known usages of "ki" as a compound).

Here is an explanation quoted from someone on a forum (I am unsure as to which forum or the individual who originally wrote this):

The shishi houkoudan is based on the idiom 気が重い which means being bummed out/depressed, but literally means the ki is heavy. The perfect shishi houkoudan is based on 気が沈む, being gloomy/ melancholic, but literally the ki sinks, (hence the downward arrow on the scroll and Ryouga understanding when he sees the fish toy sink) that's why unlike the normal version the perfect shishi houkoudan drops down from above. The mouko takabisha is based on 強気, confident/aggressive, but literally strong ki.
After Ranma figures out the shishi houkoudan and before deciding on the mouko takabisha he tries out a couple of different puns/idioms/emotions, but they aren't particularly useful as attacks: Not feeling like it/ "the ki doesn't progress": The ball of ki sticks to his hands instead of flying away. Distracted/ "the ki scatters": The ball of ki scatters harmlessly.
Confused/ "the ki strays": The ball of ki comes back and hits him.
Impatience/ "short ki": a series of very small balls.

The power of ki blasts appear to be based on the strength of the emotion that they are being focused through and the amount of ki used. Shishi Höködan uses depression and Möko Takabisha uses confidence. Other emotions could probably be used as well such as anger/rage or fear. If a character can't focus on one emotion such as depression they aught to switch to a different emotion since that is exactly what Ranma did in the manga. Physical strength appears to have little to do with the power of the blasts -Ryoga's regular ki blasts did not decrease in size during the time he was made younger and Miss Hinako is not the physically strongest character.

It probably is possible to use multiple emotions to power the blast and make them even larger so long as there is no conflict between them. I got this idea from the Rumiko Takahashi anniversary special which has multiple characters from her works interact. In the short Ranma appears to use a Shishi Höködan Möko Takabisha the way I see this working is because Ranma was depressed that he (well technically she) was groped but still had enough confidence to toss a confidence based one.

Ranma's standard Möko Takabisha has no charge up time and can be launched pretty much instantly. Ranma doesn't have to yell Möko Takabisha, nor does he have to be any special stance to throw it. The picture below shows Ranma throwing a blast over his shoulder mainly by accident without yelling Möko Takabisha (I do not know why I have not seen a fan fic in which Ranma is somehow restrained and tosses one out of his head or finger).

The blast can even be thrown as an extension to a punch.

These standard ki blasts are pretty hard to dodge when you consider they require next to no time to prepare (may need time to get in an emotional state but once in that state they can be launched repeatedly) they generally have a fairly large diameter with the standard blasts being larger than Ranma is tall, and they pack a punch (blows through brick walls with ease).

Ranma and Ryoga are not limited to throwing just one or two they can throw them repeatedly for quite a while.

While the power of the blast appears to be determined by the strength of the emotion it appears to be possible to vary the amount of ki used (Miss Hinako's blast became much more powerful when she accidentally drained ki from a bust of Principal Kuno). This means if they want a weaker blast they can be done by using less emotion or less ki (Ranma after all did throw a lot of very little tiny blasts while practicing). The reverses is true as well stronger emotion or more ki built up more powerful the blast - means Ranma can throw more powerful blasts if he feels the emotion stronger (imagine how powerful they'd be if he channeled his fear into a blast while near cats) or if he spent more time building up his aura prior to throwing them (Ranma has demonstrated the ability to build up his aura for example during the time he was at a hot spring island and it is an explicit ability of Ranma's in a few of the games such as Hard Battle).

Normal people in the manga probably can't see ki blasts at all or if they do they most likely see them as shimmers of heat. The reason I think this is because most people can't see aura's and we are shown that ki blasts are hot (not hot enough or possibly just not around long enough to cause things to combust - since fire requires both heat and time around the heat to start). This is shown in a few ways. Nabiki calls Ranma's little ki Blasts balls of hot air, Akane mistakes the heat from a hair drier for Kasumi's aura, Ranma and Ryoga's ki blast while children burnt the mushrooms of aging, and the way the Hiryü Shöten Ha works requires auras to be hot.

Ki does have some blow back Herb used the bounce back from his ki off the ground to do his flight trick and Miss Hinako used Ranma's ki to throw herself high into the air and to propel herself through the water.

The shape of ki blasts can be altered as well Herb used ki blasts shaped like crescents to cut.

Ki blasts maybe used as a steady beam by continuing to feed energy into the technique though this isn't really shown in the manga (Herb did have a whip like ki blast) but is shown in the anime.

Ki blasts are not compressed balls of air if they were they wouldn't have been able to pass through Ryoga when he didn't lose focus on the emotion. They would have hit him regardless of his emotional state.

Ranma can toss more than one at a time as demonstrated by the Möko Takabisha double.

I can think of a large number of possible variations to the technique as well as the battle auras and applications for the technique which causes me to often wonder why I don't see more in fan fics. Possible other variation smaller faster moving but higher density blasts. Doing a perfect Shishi Höködan and then taking all the energy wasted in the column and making a much more powerful blast. A barrage of small blasts. Using ki blasts as suppression fire. Propulsion as it had been in the manga occasionally (Ranma had Ryoga launch him farther by hitting Ranma with one, this type also appears as a move in the games, like Battle Renaissance, where Ranma uses the ki blast to propel himself like a canon ball into enemies). There are a lot of possible variations and times in which this would be very useful in combat but it is rarely shown in fan fics in other ways than how it was first shown. I sort of understand that because Ranma, hell most of the characters, rarely use ki blasts - many reasons for that such as too powerful takes away from the drama (I believe that is the reason stated by Takahashi in an interview for why Ranma doesn't use some techniques all the time but don't quote me on that since I'm not completely positive she said that), Ranma's tendency to fight at around his opponents level and in their style, it is over kill for most engagements, can be countered by ki blasts which makes it somewhat less useful against some opponents, etc.

The Shishi Höködan is focused through the emotion of depression. Since the technique is powered by depression and Cologne calls the technique a terrible one and that it's foolish to fight with it, some fans have adopted the stance that the Shishi Höködan actually induces despair, causing a martial artist who learned and uses it to become more and more depressed and melancholy. This is not the case. Cologne used the metaphor of two lions clawing at each other even as they tumble down a cliff. This is clarified to mean it's pointless to duel with the Shishi Höködan (as the worse you're doing, the more powerful it is — but the better you're doing, the less powerful it is, so the fighters just end up seesawing back and forth until they pummel each other senseless). Ryoga and Ranma prior to him deciding that depression isn't really an emotion that fits him (though considering how his life is you'd think it would be, Nabiki and Kasumi even comment on how his life is pretty bad) had to go out of their way to make themselves as miserable as possible for the fight. Ryoga's personality remained unchanged in subsequent stories.

I am annoyed when people attempt to place the characters on a hierarchy based on ki strength. There are a number of reasons as to why this bothers me. The first being they tend to place Saffron and Rouge's Ashura form on the scale when neither of them used ki attacks they used raw fire (as well as lightning in the case of Rouge). Second they tend to rank Miss Hinako very high on the scale when I find it debatable that she should even be considered since, while she has tossed some pretty powerful ki blasts, it is not her ki she's using she has to drain it from someone else to toss them. Third most of the characters don't toss around ki blast often or like the already mentioned Rouge and the not mentioned Ryu Kumon they aren't tossing around ki (Ryu tosses around vacuum blades and Tatewaki tossed around air pressure waves). Fourth some clearly powerful people like Happosai and Genma don't go around tossing ki blasts even though they can create massive sky scrapper sized auras. Fifth because of the nature of emotion focused ki blasts a less powerful person could toss a much larger blast than a more powerful person by simply reaching a depth of emotion that can not be matched by the other character. Sixth, and the last reason I'm going to give for now, Takahashi did not attempt to do so at all. Characters did not try to generally match each others power they tended to use techniques/skill/trickery instead (and in several cases it is quite clear had the character been using lethal force, brute power, strength, raw speed, etc. they could have overwhelmed the opponent) and several of the characters clearly limited themselves (such as not using lethal techniques).

Every Dog has a Gift

2010-08-06T03:10:00.001-04:00

Every Dog Has a Gift: True Stories of Dogs Who Bring Hope & Healing into Our Lives by Rachel McPherson (who started The Good Dog Foundation) is a book that contains several stories about dogs helping people. As I have mentioned before I like dogs. Personally I feel dogs do not receive enough credit for their contributions to society. This book mentions a few of the ways dogs have and do contribute to society but no where near all the ways that they do. Dogs have been helping people for thousands of years in a large number of tasks. For example (my list not purely from the book): autism service dogs trained to handle the challenges of autism; seeing-eye dogs for the blind; dogs offer comfort to people at funeral homes, hospitals, and nursing homes; dogs locate trapped or missing people; dogs locate bombs and drugs; dogs are/were messengers during war; dogs help people hunt; dogs protect peoples property; dogs help in corralling other animals; dogs offer friendship/companionship to people; dogs provide entertainment; dogs encourage people to exercise; have been experimented on; went to space; dogs are substitutes for children to many people; etc.

This book contains a few waffy (warm and fuzzy feeling) stories but not really that many. I feel that the author could have and probably should have included more. The best thing about this book is that it gives you some information about raising service dogs that I did not know before. It is a much easier task according to the book than I believed it to be.

A photo gallery with some picture of dogs from this book can be found at: Tarcherbooks

Inspirations for Ranma ½ manga 5

2010-08-06T02:23:00.004-04:00

I recently noticed that the original Japanese title of volume 19 part 3 and VIZ volume 17 part 3 is a reference to the novel The Catcher In the Rye by J. D. Salinger. VIZ called it Catcher in the Rind whereas the Japanese version is translated Catcher in the Watermelon Patch.

I have not read that novel or if I did I don't recall doing so. I have a list of books I'd like to eventually read and that book is on it though.

Ranma's disguises

2010-08-04T22:12:00.010-04:00

I've seen people on various places on the internet criticize Ranma's disguises. That annoys me because I don't think they are bad. I'll admit that they could probably be improved but given how little time Ranma spent on them they do seem to be pretty good. For instance while pretending to be Ryoga's fiancée Ranma spent little time preparing but she did wear a dress, a wig, glasses, put on make-up (face powder), and spoke using feminine word choices. What more could she really have done except maybe put on contacts so she'd have a different eye color? It's not like he had the time to add prosthetics or detailed make-up work, realistically Ranma's disguises are about the best a person can do given time constraints.

The main reason I view them as being good is because they did what they were supposed to - fool the person that she/he (this is one of the times that English not having a good gender neutral pronoun annoys me) was attempting to fool. The most interesting thing about it is that Ranma himself, in the manga at least, was surprised that it worked the first time he did so. Since it was proven to work he did so again and again. Ninja, the historical spy/assassin type, commonly used disguises to infiltrate and considering how many aspects of ninjitsu Ranma displays him doing so makes sense. The thing is most of the reasons as to why the disguises worked for ninja is because the people who they were being used on didn't know the person in the first place (which is the case for some of the ones Ranma uses). The only person who seemed to always be able to see through them was Akane which is very strange when you consider that she can't figure out Ryoga and P-chan are one and the same when she has been given many clues (such as Ryoga's desire to get the cure) and knows the nature of Jusenkyo as well as anyone else in the series; though it could be an indication to show how she and Ranma are connected (the Japanese have a term for the connection between two people who have been around one another for a long time and can seemingly sense them from their connection to one another but I can't recall it at this time).

That is another thing I have seen that annoys me -when people deride Ranma's disguises I've seen the claim that even the guileless Akane can see through them. What manga were they reading by chance? Akane is not guileless. She tends to be less deceitful than most of the cast members and is generally honest but she has displayed various degrees of guile. Some examples of her displaying guile: Her lying to Ranma's mom about Ranma's identity when he was pretending to be Ranko. Her going along with the plan to pretended that she really was married to Ranma to convince Ukyo to leave. Her convincing Ranma's mother to take Ranma bra shopping as revenge for insulting her. Going on a date with Ryoga for the sole purpose of making Ranma jealous. Lied to Miss Hinako about Soun being married. Akane can be and is deceptive and willing to be dishonest even though she tends to do so less often than other cast members.

Of course if Ranma had bothered to spend more time thinking and planning (he is fairly impulsive) he would have made better disguises or decided a disguise wasn't needed at all. The thing is even if Ranma didn't have a reason to do so or did come up with other ways to do what he wanted to he'd probably still don a disguise. Ranma finds it to be fun to put on a disguise and mess with people, he has even stated that he was enjoying doing so on occasion.

I don't see Ranma putting on a disguise in fan fiction very often and when I do see him do so it is most commonly disguising himself as a sailor senshi or Ranko. This is one of the many things Ranma does in the source material that I just don't see in fanfiction as often as I think it deserves. There are a lot of reasons as to why he would do so and has done so. What in particular I'd like to see more often is Ranma impersonating people in authority for example a police officer or ranking person in some type of organization, heck even pretending to be a secretary to get information on a business/the government would be interesting. I've had an admittedly not put much thought into story idea about Ranma being hired as a political impersonator, thought it would be funny for an assassination attempt to happen only to find that the small caliber bullet used doesn't have enough force to penetrate Ranma's skin (considering the amount of damage Ranma can absorb small arms like those carried by the regular police in Japan and most commonly found on the Japanese black market simply wouldn't be able to penetrate) or for Ranma to impersonate a celebrity because they pissed him off (Ranma is shown to be perfectly willing to mock people like he did Mousse's fighting style by implying that it was just like a stage magicians). While I could see Ranma doing so as a means of identity theft (like Ryu Kumon did to Ranma) those types of fraud I more associate with Nabiki (I keep expecting to see a fan fic in which Nabiki is doing identity fraud and remittance scams, they are far too common in Japan at this time, but have yet to see one even though it is something I find extremely likely for her to do).

Ranma enjoys doing so, his disguises aren't bad considering the amount of time he generally puts into coming up with them (very little), they work on his intended targets and Ranma would make a very good method actor. I was rereading the arc in which Ranma disguised himself as Yoiko Hibiki (Ryoga sister) and if I didn't know better I'd have believed that Ranma was Ryoga's sister, he got pretty caught up in playing the part. Ranma being an actor or into role playing in fan fiction simply doesn't occur very much yet Akane being an actress, going to school to be one, or wanting to be one shows up more frequently than I think it should especially when you consider that at the beginning of the Romeo and Juliet arc she clearly did not want to be one even tried to convince them to chose Ranma instead of her until she learned of the part they wanted her to play (she only wanted to be that one character because of past experiences and had zero interest in becoming an actress playing any other character).

Another thing that somewhat bothers me is that Ranma in fan fiction rarely uses any alias other than Ranko (which I have already mentioned on this blog is not one I find likely for Ranma to use again because of the memories associated with it). In the manga he has used several for example: Yoiko Hibiki and Kew. I would think that more fan fiction writers would think of giving him a different alias on occasion.

Underwear thieves of the animal world

2010-07-28T14:23:00.000-04:00

See the cat in the pictures above wearing panties and near a pile of panties, his name is Oscar and he is a 13 year old British cat that steals panties (and other things but prefers panties) and brings them home to his owners. This cat is not the only animal I've read about stealing panties. I recall reading about a bird that made a nest out of panties and some baboons at Knowsley Safari Park in England breaking into luggage and taking the underwear.

Happosai in the Ranma ½ series is a pantie thief and were he to see one of the various articles about animals stealing panties I could easily see him acquiring some animals and teaching them to get panties for him. Cats would be a good choice since there are a lot of cats in Tokyo and the person who stops Happosai when he is on his raids the most often is Ranma, a person who has ailurophobia. Though as far as I can recall Happosai doesn't know that in the manga.

On the subject of ailurophobia (ailouros - Greek word for cat; phobos - Greek word for fear):
1. I've seen Nekophobia used a few times in fan fics and find it to be strange for some reason (Neko is Japanese for cat).
2. Scientists in Japan have created mice that have no fear of cats.
3. Some megalomaniac people have supposedly had a fear of cats. I've seen mention that Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Julius Caesar, Mussolini, and Napoleon all feared cats (though in some of the listed ones I believe that is myth not fact).

Avoiding associations with other stories or fandoms

2010-07-27T03:02:00.003-04:00

In my last post I mentioned how I didn't want people to think I was taking a technique from Naruto. This led me to thinking about other things I might want to include in a story and how I would not want it associated with other stories, particularly stories I dislike. People would associate things with other things regardless of how I portray it but I'm wondering if there are some writing techniques I do not know in which to make people not think the idea was taken from somewhere else.

I don't really like Harry Potter all that much but there are things I would use in a story that people who like Harry Potter a lot would think I got the idea from. For example how could I include Ranma visiting an apothecary, using potions with ingredients such as mandrake root or Orachi/dragon blood, and magic items without people thinking of Harry Potter. Pink or Link had mandrake, there were potions such as Happosai's rejuvenation potion, lots of magic items like the semi-sentient fire breathing staff, Ranma bought the girl repellent from and was going to get the memory restoring Shampoo from an apothecary in China, etc.

Another example: If Ranma hunts and kills/traps various Kami/Yokai how to make it so people don't think that it is from one of the various series such as Inuyasha that does that and if Ranma then uses them in a fight how to make people not think of Dragon Quest Monsters or Pokemon? Hunting and trapping creatures was in the manga for example the oni.

At the moment the only way I can think of to get people to not associate it with other stories is to remind the readers that the action or a similar one happened in the source material and that the other more popular or at least more saturated series having them is just coincidental.

Konatsu's Body Duplicating Technique

2010-07-27T02:41:00.004-04:00

An easily overlooked but potentially awesome technique in the Ranma ½ manga is Konatsu's legendary body duplicating technique. It is easy to overlook since it is only shown briefly in a volume very close to the end of the manga. Here is what is known about it: It is legendary according to Ranma and Konatsu can create multiple duplicate bodies all of which can take separate poses.

This is a technique I would like to use were I to write a Ranma fan fic. A thing that I would not want but can't really think of a way to avoid is for people to think I copied it from Naruto since that is a series I dislike and it was in the Ranma manga. While there are other series in which people have the ability to make duplicate bodies (hell this series has multiple other ways in which to do so the anime has Cologne's Splitting cat hair technique, Happosai had an incense that could do so and Ranma acquired some magic that allowed his shadow to be independent of him; the manga has the mirror which made clones and the spring of the drowned twin water; if I remember correctly one or more of the games had this as an ability; etc.) I find it most likely that people would think I am taking the technique from Naruto (it is currently fairly popular and has a large number of fan fics).

It would be extremely likely for Ranma to learn this technique. Ranma has demonstrated the ability to learn techniques after only seeing them done once and it is likely that Ranma would hang around with and probably spar with Konatsu on occasion. While having multiple bodies would be very convenient for battle most of the ways I would use it would be outside of combat.

I think the technique should not be very easy, in fact fairly difficult, hence earning being called legendary. My usage of it would have each clone be fully independent but upon destruction or recall what they learned is dumped into Ranma's mind. Ranma at first would only be able to create one for a limited time (instability of the ki matrix or some other such explanation) with practice though the length of time they can exist and the number of them he could create would go up. The hard part is creating them, the more ki used the longer they last and more damage they can sustain. Ranma would figure out ways to do so quicker and easier such as making smaller ones like creating tiny ones like the Goddesses in Ah My Goddess do, I really like the Ah Mini Goddess manga and anime, (for many tasks he would prefer child size ones) and using an object as a battery such as a straw doll to contain the ki (it is shown in the manga that objects such as the principal's statue can hold ki).

Further variations of the technique would be shape changing them such as making a clone into a dog and for disguises. Instead of putting on a wig, dress, and make-up he could create a new body entirely or create an overlay over his own body.

Ways it would be used:
1. To do chores such as shopping or cleaning faster.
2. Training
3. Combat - mainly as a distraction though since Ranma would need time to create stronger longer lasting ones. Full size clone or clones very little damage taking ability last around thirty seconds takes seconds to make want one strong enough to take damage, last longer, and be able to actually fight takes time to create.
4. Plausible deniability i.e. be in a highly noticeable place while at the same time committing a crime such as searching someone's house (which he does a number of times in the manga).
5. Spying - again something he does multiple times in the manga.
6. Dealing with multiple things happening at once.
7. Catch up on his reading.
8. When he needs to be at more than one place at a time such as when he wanted to help Akane with the Dojo Destroyer and wanted to be on the date with Shampoo to get what he thought was a cure for his curse.
9. Manipulating people.

People who could tell the clone, at least this type of clone, from the real Ranma: Happosai, Genma, Konatsu, and Cologne and would be able to dispel them though they might use different means to do so. Hinako draining them would destroy them but she won't be able to tell them from the real one.

Windows vista problems

2010-07-16T00:59:00.002-04:00

I occasionally use a laptop that has Windows Vista on it and find problems. I usually can find solutions to the problems via the internet. After fixing the problems I recently found on the laptop I decided to create this post in which to list the problem and the solution mostly for my own reference in case I encounter the same problem again (quicker to find here then search the net for the answer again and easier to find on the blog then in a text document on the computer).

1. Can not delete a folder on the desktop. Receive the error Could not find this item.
Solution:

Open up Command Prompt (CMD)
type in cd then the location of the file ( c:\users\jeremiah\desktop)
type in dir /x
next to the file I want to delete it will say the files 8.3 name [ex. (SUPER~1]
type RD then [(SUPER~1] - could try DEL then the file name but that didn't work for this folder

2. Programs list is reset to defaults during logon.
Solution:

Open Regedit
Find: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
In the right-pane, create a new DWORD value named StartMenuInit
Double-click StartMenuInit and set 3 as its data

10 entirely pointless questions

2010-06-26T02:00:00.007-04:00

This post has no real purpose and I don't really expect replies but I felt like making it anyways. I recently did a few surveys on a site (while simultaneously reading a different site) and thought what the hell why not make a little pointless survey of my own. I would not really recommend doing online surveys unless you happen to be very bored, they generally do not pay well (not worth the time) but occasionally you get other items - I've gotten some items such as Pringles potato chips 100 stack before the stores did, a dozen cans of dog food, and amazon gift cards. I also generally am not what they are looking for in survey takers since I buy generic, shop stores not on their lists of stores (often shop local stores not national), don't frequent restaurants often (again when I do usually not chain restaurants), my largest expense is books, don't drink pop or alcohol, not planning a big purchase, infrequently shop for things like clothing and electronics, etc.

1. How many physical books are in arm reach of where you happen to be sitting (no counting e-books)?
- 164

2. What is the last beverage you drank before reading this (or currently are drinking)?
- Iced Tea

3. What website did you go to immediately before (or concurrently are on in another tab/window)?
- Cockeyed.com How Much Inside more specifically How much inside a million dollars

4. What is the last movie you watched?
Alice in Wonderland

5. Last video game played?
- Slayers RPG for the SNES

6. In general do you buy generic or name brand?
Generic

7. What type of food does your favorite restaurant serve?
No favorite. Lebanese, Japanese, Mexican, American, Chinese, Indian, Italian, etc. is all alright by me.

8. Do you prefer action stories or cerebral ones?
I prefer reading stories that make me think rather than stories that appeal to emotion but I generally put too much thought even into stories that are not supposed to be thought provoking at all.

九 (kyū). Error missing question.

10. Why did I write this post?
?????

ДЕВЯТЬ, devet, θʹ, IX, nueve.

Did you see that movie?
I did. While an alright movie I didn't think that it was that good.

5 comments inspired by Batman Comics

2010-06-15T03:10:00.002-04:00

1. I read comic books and see superheroes wasting their time too often. For example, Batman or Superman going after nonviolent jewel or car thieves or basically any petty crime. Those are the types of things that people without the resources or abilities of those superheroes (like the police or less gifted superheroes) should be able to handle. It could be much better spent going after bigger game such as drug cartels and the banks that fund them. Here in the real world a lot of the crooks make the laws. I really would like to see Batman go after a major bank to get them for the money laundering that they do/allow or a crooked politician. A lot of banks do it here in the real world such as Wachovia who was found to have a few months ago laundered drug cartel money (the banks punishment was a fine for 160 million dollars).

2. It is stated in a few of the Batman comics that Bruce Wayne decided to take the form of Batman to cause fear in criminals who are supposedly superstitious and cowardly. Fear is a fairly good tactic to use which can give you a pretty good advantage but it has some pretty big negatives as well. Fear can cause madness, recklessness, and cruelty. People who are afraid are far more likely and be willing to go to irrational lengths to get rid of that which they fear or cause pain and terror in others to feel powerful so as to compensate for the fear. Abused people tend to abuse people. People who fear a monster all too often become monsters themselves.

3. While I usually can make sense of comic book logic sometimes no matter how I think about it it makes no sense to me.

4. Batman's cape length is very variable. Sometimes it is reasonably sized other times it is multiple times longer than he is. Sometimes it can do things besides hang there and look cool. I really want to see him trip over his cape of completely impracticable length sometime. By happenstance I happen to have just finished reading a book (The Best American Comics 2008) that had a comic by Matt Groening (best known as the creator of the Simpsons) that mentioned that superheroes should be tripping over their capes. It is strange how often serendipity works like that. I happen to just read something or write something and then encounter it in other works after not having seen it mentioned before or recently. I realize that this is in part because having recently encountered it I'm more likely to notice it when I encounter it again but I still find it amazing how often this type of thing happens.

5. How many times has Batman/Bruce Wayne fallen in love and then lost it for one reason or another? Batman finding love only to lose it or they can't be together for some reason happens quite often (because she is a cat burglar -Catwoman, because her father is a few century old international terrorist and assassin - Talia al Ghul, because she is a vigilante that rips criminals hearts out of their chest - Midnight, etc.). People must really like the drama added by romance. While I generally don't dislike it I occasionally find it distracting and often find it unnecessary believing that the story on its own without the added romance is sufficient. I wonder if anyone has made a list of all the people he fell in love with throughout the comic books?

Ranma's Slave

2010-06-14T22:36:00.003-04:00

I recently read a fan fic in which Ranma enslaved Akane against her will. While not what I consider a good fic it did inspire some thoughts. The first thing I thought was that Ranma would not enslave anyone. Upon further reflection that is a personal bias of my own. Ranma is shown to be willing to trick, manipulate, bribe, blackmail, and even use mind altering substances/magic to get people to do what he wants in the manga. It really is not that far fetched to believe he'd enslave someone. I can't really think of a reason as to why Ranma would do so though. I can't see him up and deciding to enslave someone without a reason and if he did he's extremely likely to feel guilty and let them free after a short time (Lima Syndrome). I can think of quite a few reasons as to why Ranma would kidnap someone though and I suppose that could count as enslavement, though I generally do not associate them as being the same (just like prison is enslavement). The most likely reason he'd kidnap someone is probably to get a tactical advantage (while Ranma hadn't actually kidnapped anyone in the manga, unless you count things like tying P-chan to the Charlotte cup, it does happen a number of times in the manga and Ranma is pretty pragmatic when it comes to combat).

I started to think about Ranma having a slave. The first idea that came to me is that someone that is very submissive gives themselves to Ranma; voluntarily becomes a slave to him. None of the cast members are submissive they pretty much all are fairly aggressive except for possibly Kasumi. I have no idea as to how Ranma would react if this happened, besides finding the situation to be extremely weird. How he reacts is likely to be majorly influenced by the person who wants to be enslaved and their reasons for wanting it. On his own I figure he'd view it as being a Daimyo/Samurai type relationship since that is probably the most familiar to him.

After thinking about it some more I thought why would someone enslave themselves. I can think of a lot. In most of the world for most of known history slavery existed and it was often enough better than the alternative. It was sometimes easier, better, and occasionally you had more rights/privileges than the alternative. I don't want to defend slavery since I find it to be immoral but given a choice I would rather have been a slave than an extremely poor free person depending on place and time in history. Slaves were property so they were often taken care of and had more protections than expendable poorly paid laborers. Depending on the time and place there were more laws protecting slaves than free persons (you could get away with killing a free not land owning person a lot easier than an owned slave for example).

I'm getting off topic the fic was about Ranma enslaving someone against their will. I can think of a number of ways to do this most of which I can not see Ranma doing unless the situation was extremely dire. The most likely ways I see him doing so is via accident using a magic item he doesn't really understand following that having kidnapped someone and letting Stockholm syndrome sink in. One thing from the fic I can't see happening at all is Ranma physically taking advantage of someone sexually (even in the form of kissing). Ranma places an extreme amount of importance on kissing (not at all uncommon in Japanese society where kissing is considered an extraordinarily intimate act) and has some intimacy issues (it requires more trust and openness than he's willing to give).

It is not unreasonable to think that if Ranma did not consider the being to be human he'd enslave it. After all the majority of people do not view our enslavement of animals as being morally wrong or even view it as slavery (cows, dogs, horses, etc.). What if Ranma enslaved a Kami via kotodama (also written kototama; a Japanese belief that mystical powers dwell in words and names)? Ranma somehow finds out a kami's true name and uses that to enslave the kami (this is a pretty common belief throughout the world; the ancient Egyptians for example had similar beliefs). Ranma knowing about kotodama is extremely easy to explain first he is shown to go to Shinto shrines multiple times and second in many Japanese martial arts, such as aikido which the founder of the style (Morihei Ueshiba) used kotodama as a spiritual basis for his teachings, it is considered a fundamental part of the art (using a kiai to gather inner energy or spirit is a form of kotodama). Seeing this written could be pretty interesting if for no other reason than almost every fan fic I can remember reading focuses on the physical aspects of martial arts neglecting the spiritual and religious aspects that many martial arts, particularly Japanese styles, have entirely (other than using ki blasts). I don't think I could write it though too many moral issues and a fic like this, at least if I tried to write it, would likely be too philosophical.

Thoughts on fanon

2010-06-11T23:00:00.004-04:00

I was recently thinking about fanon, canon, and authorial intent (author's intention that may or may not match what is shown in the material). A thing that really annoys me is the large amounts of fanon being mistaken as canon and even more so the fanon which outright contradicts canon.

I do not hate fanon, in fact I like it quite a bit and have my own pet theories for events not fully described in the source material. I realize that they are not strictly speaking canon but they all at least do not contradict canon. I also acknowledge that they are just my theories and interpretations rather than what is strictly in the source. Good fanon expands upon canon, fills out parts not needed for the original story, and occasionally explains inconsistencies in the source material.

Below are seven things all of which are fanon, the reason that these aren't on my other list is because while fanon they do not entirely contradict the manga.

1. The engagement is to unite the Tendo and Saotome schools of martial arts.
- The reason this is fanon is because it is commonly assumed that the reason for the engagement is to unite the two schools of martial arts but the source material never says that. This particular bit of fanon rather annoys me because I never interpreted it that way. The way I always viewed it was that it was a joining of the families and that both families had a practitioner of martial arts was coincidental. Had it been about joining the schools no marriage is needed, they could just train each other in their respective styles and Akane would be the only viable choice. That is not the case, Ranma was given a choice by Soun at first and later they were okay with the engagement being switched to Nabiki (until Kasumi pointed out that Nabiki plans on selling the dojo, house, and land to have fun). That doesn't mean that martial arts has nothing to do with the engagement though since Soun and Genma's training together probably is what made them decide to unite their families and the Tendos need a male heir to run the dojo (the Japanese are more sexist than many other countries and a dojo run by a woman would not attract many students).

2. Ranma was 15 at the start of the manga.
-This is one of my favorite theories. In Ranma's grade level (first year; USA equivalent to 10th grade) it is not unusual to be 15 (it depends on what day your birthday falls on) and Ranma's age is not given in the manga until the mushrooms of aging arc where he states he would lose a year were he to eat the 17cm mushroom rather than a few months implying that he only recently turned 16.

3. Nabiki's characterization.
-While many of the characters in fan fiction are fairly different from how they are portrayed to be in the manga, Nabiki's characterization in particular rarely resembles anything like how she is portrayed to be in the manga. She is almost universally made to be a much nicer and less self centered person in fan fiction even though the way Nabiki is in the manga is how some teenage girls in Japan really are (what with enjo kōsai and such). One example, of the many possible, of how her fan fiction characterization differs from her manga incarnation is in fan fiction she will keep her word particularly in business deals. That bit of fanon is straight out contradicted by the manga for example Principal Kuno hires Nabiki for one of his schemes she does not keep her word instead she takes his money and then runs.

4. Characters having knowledge of things that they should have no way of knowing at all.
- This is not a case of fanon so much as an error in keeping track of who knows what. The reason I'm listing it as fanon is because I occasionally see the same errors made in multiple fics. For example I recently read a fic in which Kasumi had first hand knowledge of what happened during the battle with Saffron even though she was a few thousand miles away at the time or Nabiki having knowledge about the Senkens, particularly the Yamasenken, even though she never even met Ryu Kumon and didn't see the battle (only Akane, Genma, and Soun did). Nabiki in particular has this error apply to her in fan fiction sometimes explained by her having minions (which she does not in the manga - though it can be argued that some characters do for example Kodachi in the form of her Gymnastics team who she even had help her in battle) and manga Nabiki does not search for things to blackmail people (Ranma is much more likely to do that since he has searched multiple peoples places) and is often out of the loop (she did not know Happosai weakened Ranma until she looked over Tatewaki's shoulder and read it).

5. Shampoo's people, the Joketsuzoku, are matriarchal and treat males as second class citizens.
- This bit of fanon probably comes from the fact that VIZ calls her people Amazons and that term is associated with certain things. Pretty much everything about how her people are governed and most of their culture is fanon since almost nothing is shown or told to us in the manga. Though Cologne is not called matriarch ever and a society that was extremely matriarchal would not allow Mousse to be as strong as he is or get away with doing what he does.

6. Ukyo hires other people to work at her restaurant when she isn't there.
- Again a bit of fanon I like in that it explains how she can go to school, take trips (like the one with Ryoga to a spring), and go on trips with Ranma and still keep her shop open.

7. Ranma considers Nabiki's clothing to be better than Akane's.
- I've only saw this in one fic but it was strange enough that it caused me to pause and is probably the thing I remember best about the fic. I can see Ranma saying so to purposely anger Akane but other than that I find it very unlikely since Akane cares a lot more about clothing than Nabiki is shown to and half the stuff Nabiki wears is shown to be Akane's.

Batman Gotham After Midnight

2010-05-29T01:20:00.005-04:00

I recently read the graphic novel Gotham After Midnight and as far as Batman stories goes this was not very good and was unoriginal. The story has Batman fight many villains Catwoman, Clayface, Killer Croc, Man-Bat, Scarecrow Axe-man (no idea as to who that is think they made him up special for this story just to be another villain for Batman to fight) and the Joker who are all being controlled/being used as distractions by the main villain of the book. Most of the characters are out of character to some degree, somewhat explained in the book for some characters but other like Batman are out of character for no discernible reason. I honestly thought that they were going to have Batman be under some mild mind control to explain why he was acting the way he was but they didn't. There is a subplot romance and an extremely predicable twist at the end of the story.

As for the art; didn't like it. Too abstract at times, too strange at others, too difficult to figure out what the hell was going on occasionally, and there seemed to be panels that had images unconnected with the storyline entirely.

Nightmare! Incense of Spring Sleep

2010-05-24T00:11:00.003-04:00

I have watched the newest Ranma Oav, Nightmare! Incense of Spring Sleep, since I have last mentioned it (this is the third mention of it on this blog). It can now be downloaded from several places such as BakaBT. While I like that it exists and would like to see more Ranma anime made, I like the manga a lot more. There are several things I liked about the Oav. Thing I liked the most is Akane's dream sequence in which she was a soldier, don't really know why, it is just what stuck in my head the most.

There are two things in particular I did not like. The first is Ranma flashing Happosai to stop his panty raid. I like fan service as much as the next person but I disliked it because it seemed forced and tacked on purely for the fanservice. Flashing someone to get an advantage is a tactic Ranma would, and had, used; though in the manga Ranma does not do that to stop Happosai's panty raids. The most common means by which Ranma stops Happosai's panty raids in the manga is a surprise kick to the back of the head knocking Happosai face first into the ground (see picture below); Ranma never had any trouble stopping Happosai's panty raids. The second thing I did not like was that Nabiki added the mosquito repellent to the debt Ranma owes her. The reason I disliked that is because Ranma being in debt to Nabiki is one of the things that the anime added in that annoys me the most. In the manga there is nothing even implying that Ranma has any debt to Nabiki and when she does manage to get money from him he pays it off immediately (it is also much more difficult for her to get money from manga Ranma than his anime or fanfiction counterparts). While on that I also disliked that it had Ukyo and Shampoo in debt to Nabiki when neither of them are in the manga. In fact Ukyo and Shampoo are far too dangerous for Nabiki to even try to swindle (damn near got her killed when she tried it in the manga).

Dowry

2010-05-22T23:55:00.003-04:00

A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage.

The giving of dowries is an extremely old practice that is thought to predate writing. While not very common in this time period this practice still exists in several places. Similar practices exist that are not called dowry. Take for example in the USA it is customary for the bride's family to pay for the wedding; some people view this as being a dowry.

A country that still has the practice of giving dowries is Japan. It is not uncommon for the parents to give a dowry of some type. A famous example would be Princess Sayako who in 2005 left the Japanese royal family and becomes a commoner through marriage. The Japanese government gave Princess Sayako 152.5 million yen upon her marriage as a dowry (the legal limit according to imperial law).

I have made some attempt to learn about dowries in Japan with little success (though there is also a similar practice called Yuinou (or Yuino) where the two families exchange betrothal gifts). The reason I have attempted to find out info on them is because a couple characters in Ranma 1/2 have dowries most importantly Ukyo. Some people claim that Ukyo's engagement is invalid because she gambled away her dowry prior to Ranma's father stealing it. The thing is a dowry is not needed or required for an engagement/marriage. Having one and the size of the dowry does show how wealthy/important the girl is but it really does not matter for the engagements/marriages at all. A dowry does not really go to the guy/his family. What a dowry really is is the girls inheritance meant for taking care of her and her children. The girl generally becomes part of the new family (transferred from her family registry to his) and it is a means of giving her inheritance to her. From what I read in the case of the girl dying without having children or divorce it's customary to give the dowry back to her family. Of course I can find very little on modern dowries except that they still exist even though they are of less importance. Most of what I found was about them in Edo Japan (if I find out more I will likely edit this post).

Ranma given foreknowledge versus Saffron

2010-05-20T00:44:00.007-04:00

This post is inspired by a conversation I had with someone on a forum. Alternate universe stories are pretty common, most commonly they are asking and then answering the question what if? For example what if Mary Jane was bitten by the spider instead of Peter Parker or what if Superman was raised by Lex Luthor. On this forum someone asked the question what if Ranma had battled Saffron going into the battle knowing what he learned during and immediately after the battle, basically another fight with Saffron.

There is many ways that could go. The first thing I thought was that Ranma would not let Saffron attain his ascension, child Saffron can not stop Ranma. That said I'm going to assume that Saffron has already attained his adult form and that the battle in question is the final battle versus Saffron. A lot of people view Saffron as the most powerful character in the manga, even going so far as to call him a god. Calling him a god doesn't bother me in the least since by many non monotheistic religious standards (including Shinto) he would qualify as a god (or Kami). To me it is very debatable that he is the most powerful, energy wise Herb, Happosai, Miss Hinako depending on whom/what she drains of power, Rouge in her Ashura form (a literal goddess/demoness in several religions) could probably match him or even beat him in raw power were they to really try to do so. Skill wise a lot of the characters beat him in that. Physical abilities other than healing and flight he is beat by a lot of the characters as well.

I am going to assume that the scenario (get Akane to the water) and local is the same and that Ranma has not had prep time. I also want to point out that in this battle Ranma knows about Saffron's attacks/abilities and Saffron is clueless about Ranma's (which is an extreme advantage for Ranma). Though Saffron still has several minor advantages in his favor in that as a being who can fly Saffron has an advantage for aerial combat. Saffron's regeneration beats Ranma's healing ability (which is still pretty impressive). Both are under a time limit Saffron in that he is burning himself out since his transformation was incomplete and Ranma because he has to get Akane to the water before her eyes close. Saffron still has more knowledge and practice with the magical staffs than Ranma does (recall Ranma didn't even know how to turn his on). Saffron has the advantage in that he knows Ranma's goal and can focus his entire concentration on Ranma whereas Ranma's concentration is split between fighting Saffron and getting Akane to the water (to the point that he tried to break off the battle and get Akane to the water) also Saffron knows where Ranma is trying to go whereas Saffron can go any where and attack from any direction.

Another thing I want to point out before getting to how I think the battle will go is that Saffron's statement about how his blast should have killed Ranma and his idea about how Akane blocked the blast is pretty meaningless. The reason I state this is because Saffron does not know of Ranma's abilities such as his ability to take physical punishment or what Ranma's heat tolerance is and he was just guessing. Saffron is not the first character to think that Ranma should not have survived their attack take Mikado very early in the manga, he too could not believe that Ranma survived his attack. It is possible that Saffron's theory is correct about Akane taking the heat (not that that theory makes any sense by real life physics but going by real life physics Saffron shouldn't exist either) but personally I don't like that theory since Ranma still took the physical impact (impacted the rock with enough force to compress it) and Akane was very small at the time and most of the heat would have just continued around her (Akane was like six inches tall the blast was several times her size she was not big enough to stop it). While I'm on the subject of that blast, it might have missed Ranma entirely had he not dropped Akane forcing him to change direction (Ranma stopped dodging/running in favor of catching Akane, hell he stopped paying attention to Saffron entirely in favor of catching her).

Okay here is how I think the battle would go. Ranma would pretty much curbstomp Saffron. The reason I say this is: In this scenario Ranma knows about Saffron's healing ability and that killing Saffron will only cause him to be reborn so Ranma is a helluva lot less likely to hold back. Which is something he did in the manga, once he decided that he was running out of options he sliced off Saffron's wings instead of going for a killing blow. This time Ranma would turn on the ice staff and just slice Saffron to pieces (in the manga Ranma did not know how to turn it on only did so accidentally) and Saffron has no way of stopping Ranma from doing that since he did not get the fire staff until later in the battle.

Big lead up, very disappointing fight. The reason the fight is so disappointing is because Ranma's advanced knowledge causes it to be a curb stomp. Were this a true second battle where both Saffron and Ranma have some idea as to the other opponents abilities; both are unarmed, or both are armed with the magic staffs from the beginning, or one armed with one of them the other unarmed; neither have a time limit or one of them under a time limit; etc. the battle would and could go very differently. Personally a second battle between them could go either way, hell that's how it was in the manga. Saffron had an upper-hand, then Ranma did, then Saffron, etc. the battle was much closer than most fan fics I have read make it appear to have been.

Were this a fight versus Herb than my opinion would be very different. Herb unlike Saffron was curb stomping Ranma for the majority of the time, it wasn't ping ponging between them. Even were you to give Ranma post battle knowledge prior to the battle against Herb it would not really matter. Even post manga knowledge (giving him further adaptations/better understanding of the Hiryu Shoten Ha and knowledge of the Senkens) without preptime and I'd still give Herb better odds of wining than I would Ranma (without preptime because given enough preptime the odds would/could change drastically).

Defcon Levels

2010-04-21T01:27:00.006-04:00

War and the prelude to war is a common theme in writing. The reason for this is likely because people have pretty much always been fighting wars (several going on right now, not that most people would know it, at least in this country, since major media does not find war and the causalities of war as interesting as a celebrity's social life). I have seen several war movies and read books that include wars. In general it is not a genre I read often.

One thing I have encountered repeatedly in fiction is the use of DefCon levels. I find it very annoying when they are used inaccurately since it is very easy to find info on them. The three most common ways I've seen them used inaccurately are:

1. The mention of them prior to their creation in November 1959.
2. The use of them by another country that doesn't call their states of combat readiness DefCon levels using a different term entirely.
3. The most common one getting the order wrong. The correct order is:
DEFCON 5 - Normal peacetime readiness
DEFCON 4 - Increased intelligence & strengthened security
DEFCON 3 - Increase in force readiness above normal
DEFCON 2 - Further Increase in force readiness
DEFCON 1 - Maximum force readiness.

Most recently I was reading a fan written story that used them incorrectly making a big deal about DefCon 4 (nuking a US city caused it). It's not really, DefCon 4 has occurred fairly often (most of the Cold War) with most people completely unaware. Defcon 3 has happened a few times but not often (September 11 attack caused level 3). The current DefCon level is 5.

Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted

2010-04-08T12:30:00.001-04:00

TokyoPop American manga Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted written by Nathan Johnson and Matt Yamashita and drawn by a multitude of artists. The graphic novel has six chapters. The first and last chapters are stand alone stories, mostly comedy, with the middle chapters being interconnected and less comedic more dramatic.

I like the Ghostbusters and pretty much always have. I've watched the movies several times and like the cartoons. I did not see them in the movie theater though (the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater came out later than Ghostbusters did). I had watched some of the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters on television prior to seeing the movies (and I have not watched the Extreme Ghostbusters ever; did not even know it existed until sometime last year). This book supposedly comes directly after the two movies (the first movie being significantly better than the second) but feels more like the cartoon series than the movies (which is a good thing).

Chapter 1 titled The Theater of Pain has the Ghostbusters called in to deal with a haunted theater that has the latest musical attacked by ghosts. This leads to the cast and crew members quitting and Ray, Egon and Peter take on the roles of stage manager, lead actor and director. Reading this particular story made me wonder a few things. Mostly what did people do about ghosts prior to the Ghostbusters (since there are a lot of ghosts in this particular story) and if ghosts were getting jobs would they have to pay taxes?

The middle chapters are interconnected with a few short storylines. I don't really know how to (or more accurately don't care enough to bother trying too; which amounts to the same thing) give a synopsis of them without giving too much away (not that I really care if I do give away the entire plot since I'm not being compensated for writing this in any way). The most important part of a review is the reviewer's opinion but to adequately discuss something all the people involved need to know enough details to do so hence at least a small summary is needed since chances are any reader of this post will not have read the book. The reviewing I do is not what I would consider to be good and often is secondary to something else I want to discuss. If I were planning on reviewing something I'd keep things in mind while reading/watching it. Anyway I did like that it showed a boring day for Ray in which he got fake calls (one from a spirit medium who wanted to buy ghosts from them, another from an old lady who just wanted someone to talk to, and another from a best man at a wedding who was convinced that the person his friend was marrying was a ghost).

The last chapter is called The Devil Wears Nada. In this chapter the Ghostbusters must stop a fashionista from turning everyone who wears her clothes into unwilling slaves of Heel, the Sumerian god of deception. Two things I want to comment on: This story illustrates the main reason I am against the transgender behavior that is cross-dressing namely if it becomes too common place it loses the humor value (women cross-dressing in the majority of Western society just does not have the humor value as a guy doing so because most of the traditionally men's clothing such as trousers, men's shirts, and even underwear have become socially acceptable for both genders to wear and has therefore lost the majority of the humor value). The second comment I want to make is: In the story it is extremely, and I mean extremely, easy to convince large groups of mostly women to change clothing outside in broad daylight (and by change clothing I mean remove it entirely and put on some other type of clothing, in this case beige coveralls).

While I generally do not pay much attention to the art style of graphic works (I really do not give artists their due); I do not like the art in this book. It changes some with the different artists, not maintaining an overall consistency, but that in itself is alright. Some of the artists are better than others but overall the art work is not that good. Though there is at least one page I did like to a pretty good degree, and it is not so much the drawing as the idea pictured that is good. Here is the part I'm talking about:

Slayers SNES translated

2010-04-07T23:49:00.008-04:00

I just found out that the translation for Slayers RPG for the SNES is now available. This is a translation that I've been wanting for a long time (though I have already played and beat the game in Japanese with a little help from a FAQ since I was not patient). This translation took a long time and multiple groups had taken it up but not to completion. This translation was a joint project between Matt's Messy Room and Dynamic Designs. I have not played the game in quite some time but do remember enjoying it. If I remember correctly the game play is similar to the Dragon Quest games (in that it is a turn based RPG). Generally I'd play the game now since I have been waiting for this game to be translated for a while but I am doing other stuff at the moment and may comment upon the game or the translation at a later date.

The patch can be gotten from the Dynamic Designs website. The translations for the Ranma RPG is on that site as well.

The rom can be found pretty easily using Google. One site that has it is Rom Nation.

Here is the front and back covers for the box:

-addon 6/20/2010 I finally have gotten around to playing this game with the patch. If you download the rom from the site I mentioned that has it you will need to remove the rom header from it using a program such as NSRT for it to patch correctly.

-addon 7/27/2010 Having played this game again; I found it to take much less time and to be significantly easier in English. The only part that is of any difficulty is locating a key needed to open the final dungeon located on a lake. As I have mentioned before the best thing about using emulators is the ability to fast forward doing so during the easy battles in this game saves a considerable amount of time (also allows you to quickly level up making the game even easier) and using the same tactic repeatedly works for the majority of the battles. As for the storyline it is alright but not great; the Mazoku's plans to use Lina clones to increase their dwindling numbers is not that bad an idea.

Star Trek Archives V2 Best of the Borg

2010-03-28T12:23:00.002-04:00

The graphic novel, Star Trek Archives Volume 2: The Best of the Borg, contains two Star Trek The Next Generation storylines. The first storyline, The Worst of Both Worlds, is alright though very contrived. The story is based on the episode "Best of Both Worlds". It takes up the majority of the book. The other storyline, Operation Assimilation, is awesome.

The comics that this book comprises were written back in 1993 before First Contact or Voyager's portrayal of the Borg. The first invasion by the Borg was great television (Televised not in universe). The Borg were unstoppable and they turned you into them. The Federation didn't stand a chance, a single Borg cube took out an entire fleet of ships and the Federation could not do anything to stop them. Sure the Enterprise won the battle in the end but it wasn't because of skill, abilities, or anything like that. They won because the Borg were massively over confident and the Enterprise crew had gotten extremely lucky.

In the first story the Enterprise is sent through a rift in space into a parallel universe where the Enterprise did not manage to get lucky and defeat the Borg and Captain Picard is still Locutus of Borg. The character interaction is pretty good between the two universe's crews. One universe crew has it as a desperate last stand with most of the Federation already conquered; the other crew had defeated the Borg and were confident that they could do so again. There is also an interesting sub plot involving O'brien who in this universe had his family die but did not in the main universe. The reason I say it was contrived and why I do not think the story to be as good as it maybe is, is because as I mentioned the first time they defeated the Borg was basically luck. In this story we are eventually told that it was Picard who opened the transdimensional rifts in attempt to find help. He was able to exert his will over the entire Borg Collectives mind net. I just do not like that he was able to do that. The Borg has trillions of drones all of which were unable to exert any will but he was able to do so. Sure it mentions that he could not do anything against the fail safes but still it is one guy managing to overcome what trillions failed to do. They attempted the exact same plan they used to defeat the Borg the first time. Amazingly it works, with minor modification. Sleep command doesn't but telling them to eat does. Evidently if all the Borg connect to the power sources at the same time it drains the ships systems to the point that they fail entirely.

The second story is in Second Person format which usually is not very good. It is difficult to write stories in second person (you, you're, and your) and most are bad. That said it is an excellent story. This story is about a Romulan commander out in the boondocks who is upset with her place in things. Shows that the Romulans are in many ways similar to the Borg but the Borg are even scarier because they consume you; mind, body, and soul. This story does the Borg real justice as an unstoppable horrific force and the book is worth getting for this story alone.

Star Trek Archives The Best of Peter David

2010-03-28T00:05:00.003-04:00

Star Trek Archives The Best of Peter David is a collection of Star Trek the original series comics written by Peter David. The book contains three stories originally contained in 5 comic books. Peter David is one of my favorite authors so it is no surprise that I would enjoy this book.

The first story titled Retrospect is about Monygomery Scott's (Scotty) love of his life, other than his even stronger love for ship engines, Glynnis Campbell. The story starts with her dying (a surprise to Kirk and McCoy who did not even know of her existence) and then goes backward in time showing their relationship. In the story 5 and 10 year marriage contracts are mentioned (they were married at one time with a five year contract and then she mentions extending it for another five years or maybe splurging on a ten year contract). The idea behind termed marriage contracts makes sense to me, given the number of and increase in divorces, but still disturbs me somewhat. I am of the opinion that marriage should not be entered into without considerable thought put into it and should be for life. I am also of the opinion that marriage is mainly a religious rite. Civil/legal marriages have little meaning to me.

The second story, The Return of the Worthy, is about a group of insufferable geniuses whom were found cryogenically frozen for a little over 300 years on a planet. The group is cocky and boastful as all hell but they really are as good as they believe themselves to be. They were specifically chosen for their abilities and had saved and influenced many cultures before being tossed across the galaxy by Apollo (Greek God seen in the original series) and forced to freeze themselves to survive. On their planet of origin, Karimea, there is a legend that they, The Worthy (the name they were given prior to their departure from their world), will return in the time of their greatest need. This appears to be the case since things on their homeworld have gone bad in the intervening years. Sadly they arrive too late their entire civilization has destroyed itself. The last part of this story criticizes the Federations noninterference law known as the Prime Directive (the Karimea had told the Federation to go away and leave us alone). In the end Kirk tricks the Worthy into continuing their original explorations and helping species the Federation can't or, more accurately, won't.

The last story in the book, Once a Hero, is about the death of a security officer. The story starts with Captain Kirk trying to compose a eulogy for the recently deceased officer who died saving Kirk's life. The Captain is having a very difficult time doing so because he knows next to nothing about the officer; he had to query the computer just to learn his first name. He goes around asking crew members about the deceased officer but no one on board knows much about him either. He ends up starting with the generic Star Fleet recommends for cases like this then goes off tangent and talks about how they are just words. You can't really honor someone whom you do not know and that he was just another nameless security guard. I found this one pretty interesting because of the question 'What would you say about someone who gave their life for you and you didn't even know them?' is an interesting topic.

Devil Hunter Yohko Ranma Reference

2010-03-24T23:54:00.000-04:00

I watched Mamono Hantā Yōko (Devil Hunter Yohko) several years ago. It is a fairly good, short (6 episode), anime about a boy crazy sixteen year old girl who finds out that she is the 108th devil hunter in her family line. Her mother, Sayoko, would have been the 108th, but did not because a Devil Hunter must be a virgin to take on the power and responsibility. Even though the anime is short there are significant changes between the first and last episode. The most obvious is the art shift as the anime goes along the main character looks younger and the tone changes some possibly to appeal to a younger demography.

It has been recently brought to my attention that there is a Ranma ½ reference in the anime that I did not catch when I had watched it. Evidently, as can be seen in the picture above, behind the alarm clock that wakes up Yohko there is a stack of Ranchi ⅓ manga. They even match the older style manga of Ranma ½.

Subtitled vs Dubbed

2010-03-22T23:18:00.000-04:00

People argue about a lot of things. One thing I've seen a considerable amount of arguing about is as to whether subtitled is better than dubbed or vice versa. While the amount of debate has gone down considerably since DVDs generally contain both versions now it is still debated frequently on anime forums, chat rooms, boards, etc. It is not limited to anime; this debate extends to basically any foreign film. If you were to look for them you'll likely find dozens of very well done posts on this on many websites/blogs/forums. Some examples are these articles: anime news network, USA Anime.

In general I prefer subtitled over dubbed. This is not always the case since there are some dubs that are of excellent, and in some cases, even better quality. This is not limited to anime or even Japanese films. When I watch a Russian, Hong Kong, or Swedish film, I prefer to watch it subtitled. I often feel that a lot is lost in translation (and for live action the mouth movements not matching the voices can become very annoying). Some sub titles are pretty bad though particularly those done in Hong Kong.

Some examples in which I consider the dubbed version to be better or prefer to watch it dubbed:
-Lupin III TV series and movies generally since a lot of the references were for things in the seventies that make no sense to me and the dub is more current. I also like the voices more than the Japanese ones.
-My Neighbor Totoro. In this case I do not think the dub is superior to the original language I just prefer to watch it without the subtitles. This is true of a lot of the Ghibi films.

Some examples in which I consider the subtitled version to be better and do not watch it dubbed ever:
-Love Hina. I found the voice acting in the English version to be very aggravating.
-Ranma ½. I prefer the original Japanese voices.
-Detective Conan/Case Closed. I just do not like the dubbed version (the changing of the characters names really annoy me for some reason and the cases require an understanding of Japanese culture that doesn't translate well).

CSI: Intern at Your Own Risk

2010-03-13T00:06:00.009-05:00

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Intern at Your Own Risk story by Sekou Hamilton with art by Steven Cummings is a Tokyopop graphic novel. I may have liked this book several years ago but with my current mindset and knowledge I found the book to be a bit dull, predictable, and rushed. The story is pretty similar to the television show with the difference being that it is about teenagers interning at the CSI lab rather than the actual CSI members. The first thing I want to say is that I would not want these investigators investigating my demise. Forget that if I was dead I likely wouldn't care. I would not want them investigating the death of anyone.

There are a few things in particular I disliked about this story. The first thing being the internship was supposed to be based on test scores but the main character gets in because she was female; evidently they could not have all the interns be male. That annoys me because it is supposed to be based on merit not gender. Sure it is common in real life and the character in question probably was the best for the position (another one cheated, one was creepily obsessed with blood, etc.) and it is shown that it means a lot to her and she is deserving of getting a break (poor, no mother, few friends, etc.). I just dislike that she was placed primarily in the position because of her gender. The next annoyance was that the person who cheated to get into the program is not punished for it in any way. The third annoyance is that they implied they would have dismissed that the assailant was female if the person had been sexually assaulted. This bothers me because, while nowhere near as common, females do on occasion sexually assault (aka rape) people as well (this is assuming there was no semen found, though even if it was the killer could have been female and the victim just had sex earlier). Those are the things I found most annoying though there were other things that I found annoying as well. Mainly the assumptions made; for example just because a body is posed in a respectful position that does not in anyway prove that the killer was close to the victim, just because the killer adequately cleaned the crime scene of forensics evidence does not mean that the killer has a background in forensics since the killer could have gotten lucky or just watched a lot of crime TV, why didn't the killer wear the gloves to pose the body since the killer did for the other cleanup and the actual crime, etc.

The art was so-so. The first chapter is available on the Tokyopop website so you can check the art for yourself. I think that the details, which were supposedly important to forensics, were not always consistent and a couple characters looked a bit too similar. I did like Kiyomi's (the main character) expressions; particularly the one in which she is looking at the computer screen intensely before they figure out how to zoom in on the picture she is studying.

Inspirations for Ranma ½ manga 4

2010-03-10T13:18:00.003-05:00

The above pictures are of Rodin's famous sculpture The Thinker and female form Ranma thinking from the Ranma ½ manga. The pose is used several times in the manga; I chose this particular one because Ranma fan fiction generally claims Ranma would not wear a dress like that. The pose is used frequently in art and generally meant to convey introspection. It is considered an immediately recognizable icon of intellectual activity.

Scrabble Journey

2010-03-07T12:20:00.002-05:00

I rather like the board game of Scrabble but did not like the computer game Scrabble Journey anywhere near as much. The game is pretty different from the game of Scrabble, very little strategy is needed, and the points are entirely meaningless. The game does have a story in which you are trying to become a member of a travel club; to do so you first have to make a trip around the world in less than 80 days (teaches some geography). You have multiple routes to take, some are easier than others (supposedly, the game is very simple) and the game board changes for each locale but always starts on the left side of the board and ends on the right side, some boards have obstacles you have to spell words around (example of one of the boards pictured above downloaded from the internet).

When I play Scrabble I tend to use four letter words most frequently. I do this because my spelling is not as good as I would like it to be and if I am unsure of a words spelling I generally avoid using it. That is probably the most frustrating thing about the game Scrabble (that and not finding the letter you need). Since my vocabulary is considerably better than my spelling and I know many polysyllabic words, I often come up with words but avoid using them (though even when I do attempt to do so I often can not find a place in which to place the word on the board). This game likely would increase a persons spelling abilities more than their vocabulary since you can guess how to spell words as long as you want without a penalty (though you get more points the faster you do so).

When I write on a computer I make frequent use of the spell checker and like that it exists (though I do not use auto-spellcheck since the programs are not intelligent and often assume that the misspelled word is a different word entirely). My freehand writing suffers from cacography unless I take great care and spend a considerable amount of time to avoid it. Cacography, for those who do not know or have not derived its meaning from my usage of it, is the antonym of calligraphy (beautiful handwriting) and orthography (correct spelling). From what I have read cacography is becoming more and more common since most people nowadays use spell checkers and type things out rather than write them (many schools no longer even teach their students how to write in cursive since it is generally not needed in modern society).

I consider my vocabulary to be very good and rarely encounter words I do not know, though on the occasions in which I do I generally can derive the words meaning from the context it is used in. In speech, both written and spoken, it is best to avoid the over use of uncommonly used words since the point of language is to convey information and ideas. Those who do over use uncommon words or are circumlocutory tend to (but not always) do so to obfuscate information or are being ostentatious. That is not to say using uncommon words or being verbose is bad, it is the misuse and over usage of them that is a problem. I recently heard on a radio program about how a scientist had written a book that would have been ground breaking and years ahead of its time (can not recall the author or book at this time) but because of how he wrote it it was mostly indecipherable and therefore ignored.

In the game Scrabble Journey there is a hint object and the hints it gives is often for very uncommon words (at least to me) for example these seventy: tuque, ti, wadi, jezail, suq, nodi, dado, dehort, tyee, zax, nissus, jees, jeu, uric, ugsome, gadje, arbute, elide, azonic, edhs, jeux, crinums, ructions, alane, ogee, trock, abaka, reeky, ansae, naoi, jiao, epos, guaco, egis, khi, yapok, aurated, adze, zas, qis, delf, vena, brede, uretic, ziram, godet, pirn, xenic, indri, uric, nixe, kyar, gie, japer, fordo, kinin, ileal, gyral, azo, giga, rya, neap, liri, acini, otic, thiol, howk, kobo, xis, and cwm.

The reason I made the list of words is because I was curious as to their meaning and looked them up in a dictionary. I downloaded the free version wordweb dictionary (since I wanted to use an offline software dictionary) for the express purpose of looking them up but not every word was in that dictionary (spell check doesn't recognize a lot of them as well). Though every word is in the Scrabble dictionary.

Five random things on Japan 8

2010-03-06T16:55:00.001-05:00

1. Even though Japan's surrender in August 1945 (with the surrender ceremony held on September 2, 1945) there were still many soldiers who were unaware the war had ended or refused to believe that Japan had surrendered. The most famous of the Japanese holdouts is Hiroo Onoda. He was a Japanese soldier that did not know that World War Two was over and kept fighting in the Philippines until 1974. More about him can be found on wikipedia and No Surrender Japanese Holdouts.

2. Company presidents in the United States commonly make 100 to 200 times as much as the lowest paid employees do. In Japan they are not paid nearly as much; they are generally paid 10 to 20 times more than the lowest paid employees in the company.

3. In 1923 there was an enormous earthquake in the Kanto region of Japan (which includes Tokyo) that killed around 140,000 people. To remember and prevent a disaster of that scope, September 1st had been designated, in 1960, as Disaster Prevention Day in Japan. On Disaster Prevention Day people listen to safety lectures and practice fire and earthquake drill are held. How effective these drills are is very debatable since all the participants were informed of the drill days in advance (which is very common for drills held in Japan, some schools, besides the days in advance warning, even give via intercom 5 minute warnings that a drill is about to happen). Random drills maybe more effective preparation but they have the annoying side-effect of disrupting class and being disorganized.

4. A bit on Japanese names. In Japan the family name comes first followed by the given name with no middle names. Names are usually written in kanji and often have a meaning. Since the kanji can have many different pronunciations it is common for people to write their names in kana form as well as the kanji form to avoid confusion. There are rules in naming your children, only officially sanctioned kanji can be used and the government will not allow names deemed to be inappropriate. It is very difficult to legally change your name, though not impossible. The easiest way it to convert (or pretend) to Buddhism and acquire a Buddhist name.

5. In the Heian and Kamakura period, it was common for samurai warriors prior to dueling to tell one another their full names, social rank, and to boast about their (and their ancestors) battle prowess. This had several purposes such as unnerving their opponent, raising their reputation, knowing whom they were fighting, etc. --This is what Tatewaki was referring to in his first battle with Ranma when he said it is custom in the Ranma ½ series.

Filthy Lies webcomic Ranma reference

2010-03-05T13:23:00.002-05:00

There are good webcomics and bad webcomics; most are somewhere in between. The defunct webcomic Filthy Lies is closer to bad than good. While it does have a few alright strips; I would not recommend that people read it. I can't relate with any of the characters. It is pretty vulgar, blasphemous, crude, and distasteful. One thing it does have going for it is a Ranma reference though, see the strip above that has a picture of a pig that looks like P-chan.

Well on the subject of Webcomics; My preferred method of reading webcomics is in large chunks offline. I most often use dial-up and require the use of the phone so reading them online is more of an annoyance. I tend to first check to see if a torrent of a webcomic exists (provided it is without good annotations). If a torrent does not exist I tend to downloaded it with the webcomic downloader Woofy. Which is more annoying than via torrents since many have to be add in manually and the program is no longer updated (or downloadable from that site). If I can't download it with Woofy; I'll use a program that saves websites like HTTrack Website Copier. That is even more annoying though since those programs download more than just the comic (which is time consuming on dial-up but I do occasionally have access to higher speed via other peoples computers and will download them on theirs).

Old Dogs are the Best Dogs

2010-03-05T01:08:00.005-05:00

Old Dogs are the Best Dogs is a book written by Gene Weingarten with photographs by Michael S. Williamson. The book is a collection of photos of old dogs with a short statement about the dog(s) pictured. I did like the photographs taken; they looked very natural and managed to capture the emotion/personality of the dogs. Some of the comments/biographies on the dogs were pretty interesting, for example, the dog named Junior is/was Mayor of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky - a very low population area that had a stunt to raise money to pick a mayor who, or whatever, got the most votes which cost a dollar per vote won.

While I did enjoy the book I found it to be sad for a few reasons: because they are of old dogs which implies that the dogs will have departed from the mortal coil by the time (or shortly after) I gain knowledge of their existence, some of the biographies are sad, and the largest reason of all two dogs close to me have recently passed on; Blue and Bear.

As for whether or not old dogs are the best dogs, that is up to personal preferences. Many people prefer young or middle aged dogs. Some reasons as to why people would consider old dogs to be the best are because they have been with those dogs for years, old dogs are less active dogs, and because the dog and you both have gotten used to each others quirks. I don't really have a preference for dogs be it age or breed; I like all dogs.

Introduction from the book: The last word: Why old dogs are the best dogs
Old Dogs are the Best Dogs slideshow: Washington Post 12 pictures.

10 things that bother me (that are mostly trivial)

2010-03-02T23:25:00.009-05:00

The number of things that bother me is astronomical. I figure that is true of most everyone. There are a lot of very annoying and sad things in the world. I could list hundreds, even thousands of things very easily. I'm not going to do that. What I am going to do is complain about some pretty trivial things (as opposed to things of actual, or at least greater, importance like: my country having a larger percentage of its people imprisoned than any country in the known history of the world; that the wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation; problems with health-care; historical revisionism -manipulating and misrepresenting historical evidence; etc.).

1. The number of people that do not realize that there is a difference between an opportunist (using the definition taking immediate advantage, often unethically, of any circumstance of possible benefit) and a person who is manipulative (such as a con artist).

2. Find it annoying when people say because a person can be manipulated they are not manipulative or use that as a reason to say that they are not good at manipulating others. All that proves is that the person has something that is exploitable.

3. Really annoyed when people cherry pick things to fit their arguments ignoring things that contradict their argument.

4. The claim that someone cheated when there were no rules stated or implied. This is particularly annoying when the character/person in question does follows the rules if rules are stated.

5. The use of combat levels in fiction. While it is undoubtedly true that a person can be more skilled, knowledgeable, or experienced the use of combat levels is annoying and pretty stupid. Taking various things like skills, tactical ability, and physical stats into account is good but remember that those things only increase the odds; they do not make the battles into sure things. A lucky strike, underestimating an opponent, being tired, use of weapons (longer reach, blades, increased hitting power, etc.), being surprised, use of poisons, or many other factors could lead to a superior fighter being defeated by an inferior fighter.

6. Related to #5: Just because a person lost a battle or has trouble fighting their opponent it does not mean the person is less skilled than the winner. There are many things to take into account such as: was the character limiting himself in some way, playing with his opponent, distracted, fighting a defensive battle (usually harder), trying to prevent the attacker from being seriously hurt, purposely letting the opponent get hits in, using a newly learned fighting style or tactic, was the intent even to defeat the opponent (people get into fights they do not want to fight or for a purpose other than defeating the opponent), did one character have a force multiplier (such as weapons), etc.

7. Stores rearranging their items for the purpose of making customers search for items longer in the hopes they will pass up and purchase something they would not have done so otherwise.

8. Companies including less product for the same price but repacking it so that this is not obvious.

9. Stupid shopping cards. I dislike that stores require you to give them information so as to get objects at the price they are supposed to be at. It is very good for the stores since it makes it easier to track shopping patterns, they can list two prices: one with card and one without so as to trick customers into believing that they are saving money when they are not, and I don't really like that they know exactly what items I purchase (view it as an invasion of privacy).

10. Lies in food labeling. Things like the over use of natural (produced without direct human intervention) which is often no different than those that are man-made and in many cases is not actually natural at all (take oranges/orange juice for example, an orange is a hybrid cultivated in ancient times, no orange is truly natural). Also just because something is natural doesn't mean it is good for you after-all arsenic and mercury are natural substances (also sadly a study I saw showed that an extraordinary amount of herbal products from China contain Mercury). I had just read a document called Food Labeling Chaos by the Center for Science in the public interest (in pdf format) that listed some of the problems with food labeling and possible solutions to the problems.

Alternative Interpretations

2010-02-24T01:26:00.004-05:00

People have different interpretations for things. That people interpret things differently than I do makes perfect sense; after-all people have different perspectives and information than I do. Sometimes I can see as to why other people interpret things the way they do, other times it makes no sense to me at all.

Something's are very easy to interpret differently for example:

What is your opinion about Akane's knowledge of Ryoga liking her.
1. Akane truly is clueless about Ryoga liking her.
2. She is aware that he likes her but is deliberately ignoring the fact that he likes her.
3. Some other reason.

-My opinion is that Akane is fully aware that Ryoga likes her but she does not like him (in that way) so acts like she is clueless about his liking her (that and she is a bit scared of him because of his lack of control when he tried to give her a hug).

What is your opinion on male form Ranma and Ryoga's physical strength?
1. Ryoga is physically stronger.
2. Male form Ranma is physically stronger.
3. Their physical strength is close enough to being the same that the difference is so minor as to not matter.
4. It is more complex since there exists more than one type of physical strength and Ryoga maybe stronger in one type and Ranma stronger in another (absolute strength, dynamic strength, elastic strength, explosive strength, one-repetition maximum, relative strength, specific strength, starting strength, strength deficit, strength endurance, static strength, etc.)

-I'm going with their physical strength is close enough to each others so as to not matter. It does not really bother me when people have Ryoga be stronger than male Ranma, even massively stronger, in fan fiction but it does bother me on forums, wiki's and character descriptions on websites. The reason it bothers me is because the source material is rather inconclusive as to which character is physically stronger (it is also did not really care about being all that consistent about strength and toughness though both characters are shown consistently to be physically stronger and tougher than real humans and the majority of humans in series judging by bystanders reactions and comments). Ryoga really does not have any physical feats of strength not duplicated or exceeded by Ranma (even in female form). The original set up in which Ryoga's strength is showcased also showed that Ranma was extremely strong as well (after-all female form Ranma also had no trouble lifting the umbrella, Akane, and jumping an inhuman distance carrying them). That Ryoga can not control his strength was never an indicator of him being stronger than Ranma in my opinion just a further example that Ryoga is not as skilled as Ranma (who generally can control his strength).

Now for some that make no sense to me:
I was chatting with someone last week who said that Ranma was a real bastard for picking on the weak by sneaking up on and breaking a balloon near Gosunkugi's head. They forgot entirely that Gosunkugi had been stalking Akane and secretly taking photos of the school girls (Akane only really but from Ranma's point of view he just sees a guy crouching next to a window with a camera secretly taking pictures of school girls). They then went on to say that all the stuff Gosunkugi did (stalking Ranma, trying to find out Ranma's weakness to use it against him, joining up with someone who annoyed him -Tatewaki, stalking his fiancee, etc.) was Ranma's fault for picking on Gosunkugi (when said picking on him was surprising him while he was secretly taking photos of girls). How the hell did they get that interpretation from the manga?

It annoys me when I see people claim Ranma is a bully. Ranma is not picking on them for no reason, he usually has a legitimate reason for his actions (not doing so to be mean), and the characters he does it to have done things at least as bad (and usually much worse) to Ranma. Personally I found pretty much (though not) everything Ranma did to others to be justifiable considering what the other characters were either doing (like Ryoga trying to date Akane and Akari at the same time) or because of the things that the characters did to him that were much worse.

The fanfic version of Ranma that is trusting, open, doesn't read, is sexist, doesn't use weapons, lets people push him around, is uncultured, is a braggart, doesn't apologize, and is not manipulative; is a very different interpretation for Ranma than I got reading the manga. My view is that Ranma is very manipulative, secretive, doesn't brag often, is not sexist, uses weapons often, is shown reading often, is probably the most cultured person in the manga, does apologize, and only lets people push him around when he has a reason to (the whole arc in which he got kicked out of the Tendo's house was because he would not let Happosai push him around).

Frédéric Chopin's Birthday Concert

2010-02-22T18:59:00.007-05:00

I went to see a Frédéric Chopin's Birthday Concert, it is, or more accurately would have been, his 200th. I generally am not a concert goer; be it Rock, Country, or Classical. I will go to one if sufficiently bugged to but am unlikely to go to one without being persuaded to do so. This is mostly because I am not a very big fan of music in general (I do not download or purchase music; I don't have an mp3 player or a collection of music cds).

I can generally tell if the music being played is being played well (I'll notice things like wrong notes if I'm paying attention); I just am not interested in it the way that some people are. If I had been interested in the concert I would say it was very good. It was a free concert. I sat near the very front. I was given a free rose. I was in a place that is aesthetically pleasing (marble pillars, dozens of statues, stained glass windows, exquisitely carved wood work, paintings, live flowers, candelabras, etc.).

While I am not really interested in music concerts; I am glad that organizations like Opera Circle, Master Singers Inc, and City Music have some free concerts. I think culture and music should be available to anyone who is interested even if they can not afford it.

While sitting and listening to the music I started to think about how what I was experiencing would have been available to a very small class of people for most of history. Instruments are expensive, to become good at them takes years of practice (for most people), to go to a concert would have taken a lot of time (given the means of travel for most people for most of history), etc.

There are a lot of things that most people living in this time period in first world countries take for granted. Take salt, for example, it is so common that most people eat far too much of it (easy to do considering how much is put in foods), there were times in the past that it was so rare that it was used to pay soldiers and used as currency (blocks of salt called 'amole tchew' አሞሌ ጨው served as currency in Ethiopia in the 18th and 19th centuries). Sugar like salt is common place (again in damn near everything) but it too was rare in the past (in Victorian Europe poor people would purposely darken and damage their teeth to look like they had eaten a lot of sugar like the upper class did - was a time in which making art out of sugar was common amongst the upper classes). Hell food in general, there were many times throughout history in which food was difficult to obtain (if a person were to time travel from the past to our time in a first world country the thing I think would most amaze them is the amount and variety of food available).

Ranma's manipulative nature

2010-02-19T15:50:00.002-05:00

Manipulation is a form of social influence. Everyone does it to varying degrees and it, like any tool, can be used for good (such as persuading an unhealthily obese person to lose weight) or for ill (such as conning people out of their life savings). There are many different types, degrees, reasons, and ways to manipulate people.

I bring this up because I often see, in Ranma ½ fanfiction, Ranma not being very manipulative when the manga incarnation of Ranma is extremely manipulative. He is far more manipulative than any other character in the series (the anime version is less manipulative). As far as I can tell there is not even one volume in which Ranma does not at least try to manipulate someone in someway. In fanfiction, Nabiki tends to be portrayed as the most manipulative character; probably because she is (manga version) avaricious, opportunistic, unscrupulous, fairly hedonistic, and borderline sociopathic (she shows absolutely no remorse for her actions). A lot of the traits usually ascribed to Nabiki in fan fiction (such as spying on people to find out their secrets, being manipulative, setting up elaborate plans, knowing what is going on, etc.) apply a lot more to Ranma than Nabiki.

I do not view all of Ranma's machinations in a positive light. That said I do usually, though not always, see them as being justifiable. In fan fics I often see Ranma resort to violence too quickly and too frequently. That is not his standard modus operandi. Ranma will usually try to be diplomatic (talk things through) and when that fails (usually because the other person really has no inclination to talk things through) he tends to resort to things like manipulation and deception before proceeding to violence. Violence, in most situations, is his last, not first, resort.

In a related note; Ranma's interpersonal skills are often viewed as being a lot worse than they are shown to be in the manga. While there are some situations in which his social skills are inadequate (mostly in situations involving romance or the possibility of romance) they are for the most part very good. He can explain things (most people do not listen or hear only what they want to hear which is not his fault -example Ranma tried to explain to Akane about the pressure points on Miss Hinako with the use of a visual aid we are shown that Akane selectively edited the conversation), he tries to be diplomatic (for example with Ryoga, Ukyo, Akane, etc.) that the other people have no inclination to talk it out is not his fault (this is something he has actively complained about for example in one volume, volume 11 by Japanese/online scan count, he tells Akane "when have you ever let me explain things before hitting me" after she said why didn't you explain it). He has no trouble socializing with people at school (hangs out with two kids). One of his faults though is he doesn't know how to socialize with girls as well as guys (probably because he spent most of his life around guys not girls, he was shown to have gone to an all boys school). For the most part he talks to girls as if they were guys for example guys would slap each other on the shoulder which is what Ranma did to Akane at least once. A couple other things which may contribute to people viewing him as having poor social skills is that he is out of touch with popular culture which is a hindrance amongst teens (he is a martial arts nerd) and he sometimes speaks without thinking about the ramifications of his words (he gets in more trouble from telling his honest opinion than he does when he lies). The fact that he is capable of manipulating people implies he has better social skills than many people assume.

Before I get further side tracked, here is a list of some, not anywhere near all, of Ranma's machinations:

1. Being a matchmaker.
- tried to set up Cologne and Happosai, did setup Ryoga and Akari, was going to teach mirror clone how to properly pick up guys, etc.

2. Fake or create an injury to garner sympathy
- multiple times, for example the time he purposely hit himself with nunchucks to garner Akanes sympathy

3. Donning a disguise and pretending to be someone else
- all the time, pretended to be Ryoga's sister, maid, fiancee, etc.

4. Blackmail
- Few actual attempts for example tried to blackmail Nabiki with what he thought was a love letter. Has searched multiple peoples rooms looking for things to use against them (for example he searched Nabiki's room multiple times). Very much implied that he would blackmail people were he to find things to blackmail them with and had a reason to do so.

5. Emotional blackmail
- Fairly frequently for example with Picolet Chardin III told him, paraphrasing, if you love me you'd tell me the secret of the technique.

6. Threats/intimidation/coercion
- Few times for example threatened the Cherry Tree spirit with an axe.

7. Enjo kōsai
- Going on dates to get stuff such as his date with Tatewaki or Shampoo.

8. Bribes
- Rarely uses this since the majority of characters do not want anything he is willing to give. Example: To get Tatewaki's love (to win the competition) she gave him many objects such as a handmade scarf, love letter, bottled water, etc. or Happosai to get him to lower his guard.

9. Teasing/Seduction
- Teases people commonly. Was attempting to seduce Akane to get rid of the Dogi.

10. Drugs
- Tried to slip Tatewaki and Densuke drugs in their food, used chloroform on Happosai, got Happosai drunk, etc.

11. Elaborate plans, some involving many people and multiple steps
- In an attempt to get Happosai to change Taro's name he came up with an elaborate plan that involved writing a play, using suggestion incense, drugging Happosai, getting multiple people to work together, etc.

12. Guilt trip
- Made people feel guilty to get them to do stuff. For example, Akane when he pretended that he destroyed the instant man spring water.

13. Ventriloquism
- To mess with Ryoga, Akane, and once he went a step further than just the voice and used an unconscious Tatewaki like a literal puppet to force him to apologize to Kodachi.

14. Pretending to be beaten or apologizing then attack when guard has been lowered
- Pretended that Ryoga beat up an innocent normal high school girl to get him to lower his guard, pretended to bow and beg to Shampoo before attacking her, etc.

15. Scare tactics
- Used rubber snakes and other supposedly scary items on the school girls.

Okay I feel I have listed enough to make my point, Ranma is extremely manipulative. That is no where near a complete list and the labels/order for them is somewhat arbitrary. The thing is they are not one time things or isolated incidents this is common behavior for him. He is always manipulating people and playing head games. It is even a major part of his fighting style; he uses distraction (like look over there), underhanded tactics, fake incapacity, duplicity, trash talk, insults, etc. all the time. He exploits character flaws and weaknesses (to list them all would take a really long time) but basically if a person has a weakness (such as an addiction to women undergarments, anger at seeing breasts, an exploitable curse, etc.) he will use it against them (provided he has a reason to). He is shown to actively seek these types of things out (like searching Nabikis room). Because of how manipulative he is (and how much the characters around him are jerks) he is constantly suspicious of other peoples behavior and motives for example Happosai's friend Lucky and Nabiki (the open and trusting Ranma seen in some fan fiction is nothing like how he is in the manga).

Since this is a post on how manipulative Ranma is I will now say that not only is Ranma manipulative he is actually pretty good at messing with people. Ranma's machinations usually work on their intended target (he reaches his intended objective, though he is somewhat shortsighted on occasion and neglects to plan for what happens after he reached his objective). When they do fail or backfire (usually after he reached his intended objective) it is generally for one of these reasons:

1. His morals (or sense of honor) kick in. This results in him realizing how much of a jerk he is being, starts feeling sorry for his victim(s), and begins to feel guilty for his actions.
- This is actually why people like Nabiki are able to get one over him and what prevents him from being a monster. If this didn't happen things like Happosais death would have happened (when Happosai was weakened by Ranma, Ranma felt sorry for him and did not finish Happosai off or let the fathers do so). Basically he is too sensitive to other peoples feeling, if a girl, Ryoga, or even Happosai start crying or something he will feel sorry for them and try to help them (no matter how much trouble they had caused Ranma earlier).

2. Third party interference.
Things like Akane revealing that it is really him in disguise or Soun and Genma interrupting.

3. Opponents or allies taking unexpected and unforeseeable actions.
- This is a major problem for any plan. You can make plans based on the most logical thing a person would do or based on past actions but people do not always do the most logical things and can screw up your plan no matter how well made it is. For example Happosai deciding to kill baby Taro instead of taking the much easier and more logical route and giving him another name or his allies (Mousse, Ryoga, etc.) deciding to back-stab him.

This was actually one of the very first posts I had intended to write but I kept putting it off. While I do feel that this post serves its intended purpose of pointing out that Ranma is very manipulative it still doesn't really feel complete to me. I sort of feel like listing the justifications and context for Ranma's actions (as I had stated the majority of his manipulations are, imo, justifiable based on need or the actions of others and context is important because Ranma comes off as being a much worse person when the context for his actions are left out). I was thinking about explaining how being primarily opportunistic (Nabiki) is different from being manipulative (Ranma), though there is overlap (major difference being that one waits for a situation to come about and takes advantage of it, the other will do that but also will create a situation to take advantage of if one doesn't already exist).

Some thing else I felt like putting in the post but wasn't sure where to put it (that is why it is here at the bottom) is the fact that Ranma, and the majority of the cast, are teenagers. From a biological stand point. The prefrontal cortex doesn't finish developing until around the age of 25. Teenagers rely mostly on the amygdala which is the primary seat of emotion in the brain which leads teenagers to over-focus on the emotions of the immediate situation. The prefrontal cortex which is still developing in teenagers deals with initiation, planning, sustaining attention, organizing action, inhibiting reactions, shifting from one task to another, and regulating emotion. What that basically means is that I would expect fanfiction that has an older Ranma in them to have him be even better at manipulating and tricking people. At the time of the manga Ranma is impatient and somewhat shortsighted. That is something I would expect him to grow out of. While his plans generally work up to the point he thought them up he often failed to plan for what happens after he reached his immediate objective (or that it might be better to wait a little while before implementing his plan or think them through longer). While he is extremely good at improvising (for example in the battle with Herb he improvised a change of the Hiryu Shoten Ha based on it principals and correctly anticipated Herbs actions) it would still have been advantageous for him to have contingency plans already set in place.

Ash Wednesday

2010-02-17T13:21:00.001-05:00

For Lent this year I have decided to give up meat for the third consecutive year in a row. The decision to give up meat yet again is influenced largely by the fact that my brother and one of my sisters have become vegetarians and my other sister is a vegan. That and I don't really have all that many other things to give up. I don't gamble, smoke, drink, take drugs, or do much of anything that people generally give up. I could give up something easier than meat such as snacks or fast food but seeing as to how I do not eat snacks very often (of the junk food variety) or eat fast food often (usually eat at home and when I do eat out it generally is not fast food) that is not really a sacrifice (there are also many other reasons as to why it is good to give up meat and in general I don't eat a lot of meat - no where near the average amount for people in my country).

Even if you are not a Christian or a religious person it is good to occasionally at least attempt to give up a vice or get rid of a bad habit (a lot of people make New Years resolutions which is similar), even if it is only for a short time (to prove to yourself, if no one else, that you can -though it is better to not start up a bad habit or vice once you have given it up). It need not be a vice or something you consider a bad habit though; giving up something that consumes a lot of your time for a little while can be beneficial as well. If you spend four hours a day watching television or surfing the internet giving that up for awhile may open up new interests or increase communication with friends and family as you try to fill the time.

Besides giving something up for Lent it is customary to pray more often. I do not consider myself to be a very religious person and do not spend very much time praying at all. You don't really have to believe in God to benefit from prayer. Prayer is in many ways similar to meditation and has many of the same tangible advantages (reduces stress, opens blood vessels, lowers blood pressure, etc.). So if you are religious try praying more during Lent (and try combining it with breathing exercises of meditation), if you are not religious try meditating occasionally. Oh and by prayer I do not mean asking God for things like to win the lottery; God is not a genie.

Mardi Gras and Animal Crossing City Folk

2010-02-16T12:00:00.006-05:00

Mardi Gras is not a big event for me. The only thing I do to celebrate this day is eat a few Paczki. I have told myself that I want to go to a Mardi Gras event some time, just to experience it, but whenever Fat Tuesday comes around I never do. There are several events in the local area, none of which are free, there is even a jazz club, a pizza place, and a restaurant named Mardi Gras. Part of the reason I don't, besides cost, is because the events all are things I do not do. I don't drink alcohol, dance, listen to jazz music, and am not really very fond of Cajun food. While there are at least two places that has Mardi Gras events (New Orleans food, Jazz music, etc.) on a nearly weekly basis I haven't gone to them either.

What I did do was play Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Nintendo Wii. I got a Wii for Christmas the year before last and Animal Crossing last Christmas. I don't play the Wii very often, partly because my favorite game type is role playing (not a huge selection of RPG's on this system) and partly because I haven't been playing video games all that often in general lately. For those who may read this and not know, Animal Crossing is a life simulator set in a small town populated by weird talking animals with very strange wildlife and fossils (the fish, bugs, fossils of dinosaurs; live in completely different parts of the world in real life). I have not been playing the game regularly, instead I've been playing about once a week for an hour or two at a time. The game celebrates various holidays, including Carnival (yet another name for Fat Tuesday). To celebrate a peacock named Pavé shows up and wants various colored candy. To obtain the candy the townsfolk play various games like Rock Paper Scissors with candy as the prize if you win. The game would probably be more fun if I played in the day time but I tend to play it during the middle of the night (around 2:00 A.M.) after all the shops have closed. I've caught a lot of fish though.

I've played the Gamecube version and this version and am unsure which version I like more. It is basically the same game with a few differences. I would have liked them to have added even more stuff. I found it easier to obtain objects in the Gamecube version and the characters in the Gamecube version would ask you to do stuff more frequently (this version they keep asking for stuff I don't have and can't get like a green desk or something, in the other version they tended to make me run from character to character more frequently). This version does have the city, less sea bass, and somewhat better graphics though which is a plus. The thing that I liked the most about the Gamecube version as opposed the the Wii version was that you could play some old NES games in the game (they even gave you one when you first started playing), they appear to have gotten rid of this since you can now buy the games via the Wii's wifi connection (not really helpful since I don't see a point in paying for those games since I can get the originals cheaper used at some stores and am on dial up internet).

I don't generally read fan fiction based on video games but I did read a very good Animal Crossing fan fic called Lets Play: The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing. The fan fic is a different interpretation than what most people would think of playing the game. It is not a happy story at all, it is in fact very dark. I occasionally like reading dark, depressing, overly serious stories. I also have a tendency to notice the darkness in stories meant to be lighthearted or frivolous. In the actual game I've noticed somethings I consider dark. One thing is a gyroid runs the auction house; I've been contemplating, though haven't actually done, putting up gyroids for auction so that guy would be a slaver. Another thing is that the Happy Room Academy guy can enter the house anytime he wants and even says he has thousands of keys.

Year of the Tiger and Valentines Day

2010-02-14T12:00:00.002-05:00

This year Valentines day and Chinese New Year happened to fall on the same day. Of the two holidays, Chinese New Year is the one I care about more. Valentines day is mostly a day for couples if you are single it doesn't have nearly as much importance (except for depressing a lot of people that are single).

I generally do something like go to a Chinese restaurant or event on Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the tiger, I contemplated getting some tiger lilies to celebrate it but didn't see any (the stores only had valentines type flowers like roses and tulips). While I mostly write about Japanese culture on this blog I have interest in other cultures such as Chinese as well. This year I went to the local Asian area and watched some performances.

The first performance, and the one that draws the largest crowd, was the lion dance. The lion dance is exactly what it sounds like: performers mimicking a lion's movements while in a lion costume. The lion did a dance, pretended to take a nap, licked itself clean, and then stopped at various stores (the place I went to was a Chinese mini-mall) to "chai ching" (picking the greens). The business had put up "Ang Pow" (red envelope) filled with money to a head of lettuce and oranges and hang it high above the front of their doors. The lion, followed by a much smaller lion with children inside it approached the oranges first, tasted them, then spit them out into the crowd. After it tried the oranges and found them distasteful it walked around near the crowd and ate red envelopes that the people in the crowd put in (the troop had a table set up before hand with empty envelopes for this purpose) and would occasionally spit up hard candies into the crowd which children would run around to get. After the lion finished its round of the crowd it noticed the that their was lettuce hanging from the ceiling. The lion then jumped onto some chairs so as to reach the lettuce, examined it curiously, made like it was going to eat the lettuce, changed its mind, then grabbed it quickly. Like the oranges it did not like the taste of lettuce and spit out the lettuce leaves but not the money. The lion dance is supposed to bring good luck and fortune to the people and businesses and the dancers receive the money as reward. I've seen this group of people do the lion dance many times now and it is always enjoyable (just a couple pieces of trivia: Japan does lion dances as well called Shishimai and some kung fu places practice doing lion dances).

After the lion dance, a different group (all children who are learning to dance) did various traditional Chinese dances. They were not as good as the group doing the lion dance (the lion dance group was professionals who get a lot more practice) but were still pretty good (though it was obvious that the place they generally practiced at was larger than the area they had to perform in). I would have liked to get the names of the dances but there was too much noise and I was unable to hear them. One of them was a fan dance, another was one in which they appeared to be picking rice, another was an umbrella dance, another one had the children dressed in military uniform with a lot of saluting, and one dance was clearly based on the tale of the Monkey King (there were a couple other dances as well).

Following the children dancing was a Taiko performance. Taiko means big drum in Japanese. The group performed several drumming pieces (if I remember correctly two of the pieces they played were called fireworks and thunder storm). Japanese drumming is pretty cool, you can feel the vibrations through your feet. The group performing it was Icho Daiko. They also offer classes on how to play the drums and a workshop in which you make your own drum. If I had the money for it I would do that because it is really cool. To match the rhythm in one of the pieces they were singing 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 in Japanese which does sound like a song.

Next was a group playing traditional Chinese musical instruments. They were pretty good and they had a child prodigy of 6 years old playing a Zither of some type (possibly a Guqin). I did not stay for this very long though because I had some other stuff to do. There were a few more performances such as a kung fu demonstration and another lion dance but I did not stay for them. I then looked at some of the booths set up, got a couple Chinese American newspapers (really not that interesting except a couple articles about orphans in India), my name written in Chinese calligraphy, and then went to an Asian bakery I frequent fairly often. I plan on going to another free performance in the area in May (they will have a dragon dance which I've never actually seen live) and a performance held at the main branch library (I've gone to this a few times before and it is pretty entertaining last time they had some Chinese Yo-yo performances as well as dances and food).

Becoming Batman

2010-01-22T00:41:00.009-05:00

Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero by E. Paul Zehr is not a guide to becoming Batman. It would be a more interesting and significantly longer book if it was. The book concentrates on the physical aspects, namely could someone physically fight crime as Batman is depicted to in the comic books.

Were it a guide to becoming Batman it would likely suggest subjects to study such as forensics, criminal psychology, chemistry, and other sciences one would expect the worlds greatest detective to know. It would explain how to hide the expenses for the gadgets (planes, cars, helicopters, etc.) from the government and possibly depending on continuity the embezzlement (Batman had paid for the Justice Leagues watchtower by hiding it in his companies space budget in one of the animated series). How to avoid being arrested for taking the law in your own hands/assault and explain away the purchases of things like bullets used in the vehicles. It might cover how to explain away injuries acquired fighting, after-all, people would start to wonder how all the injuries came to be (this is done with varying degrees of believability in the comic explanations like falling down the steps while drunk, totaling one of Bruce Wayne's cars to explain the damage done by Bane, and in a spoof saying he was into BDSM). It would explain how to build a state of the art cave underneath your house in secret (the best explanation I have seen was in a Batman novel, not graphic novel, in which he had people, multiple groups each doing a different part, shipped in from a foreign country under the cover of darkness blind folded and in a 18 wheeler then returned them to their home country done this way so they did not know where in the world they were or exactly what they were doing). Though there is other things I have not mentioned.

That said, it is not a bad book and is fairly informative. Though some would probably say needlessly so and it uses rhetorical questions far to often in my opinion. It reads like it is meant to be a text book that uses the Batman angle to make it more interesting for the students (considering the publisher, John Hopkins University Press, that may very well be the reason for the books existence).

The book is divided into five parts. Part one titled Bat-Building Blocks talks about body composition (things like lean body mass, fat, genetics, etc.). This part of the book in particular is very science heavy, explaining things like how cells are made, genetics, nature vs nurture, hormones, etc. ultimately this part of the book states that many factors that are a key to physical performance (such as oxygen uptake) have a genetic performance (usually around 20-30% but in some cases up to 50%). What that means is that your maximum physical potential is in part predetermined by your genetics.

The second part of the book is called Basic Batbody Training. This part of the book is on physical training and goes into quite some detail on how muscles work, limits of toughening the body, and how many calories and what foods Batman would likely need to eat. What I found most interesting in this section of the book is the discussion on the difference between strength and power. It states that strength is the ability to lift large forces regardless of the speed of contraction whereas power is effort at high speed. Makes mention that it is possible to be very strong but not powerful though a certain amount of strength is needed to be powerful. The part on bones is alright most interesting part of that is that while you toughen some bones correspondingly other bones weaken. States that Batman would take vitamins, supplements, have an athletes diet (higher carbohydrates than a non athlete around 60% carbohydrates, 25% protein, and 15% fat), and because of energy expenditure would have a high calorie diet (estimates 3,500-4,000 calories a day). One part of this section I do not agree with. It mentions the importance of calcium and says we should all drink our milk. I like milk, drink quite a bit, but milk is really not as good a source of calcium as it is touted to be. For example: One 12 year study, by the American Journal of Public Health, found that women who drank more than a glass of milk a day (the USDA recommends three per day) had a 45 percent greater chance of a hip fracture. Women who got the same amount of calcium from non-dairy sources had no increase. This is not the only study that points to milk not as good a source of calcium as it is generally thought of there are others as well. The reason speculated for that is that they are getting too much protein (which milk has). The human body uses calcium while processing protein, the amount of calcium in milk is not high enough to counter the amount of protein the average person eats which leads to the body leeching calcium from the bones.

The third part of of the book is named Training the Batbrain. It starts by explaining how the brain and nervous system work (somewhat) and how training optimizes reflex pathways and motor learning. It then talks of over-training and how you have to practice often to maintain the skills. The next chapter (Each part is divided into multiple chapters) deals with the type of martial arts training Batman would likely learn to fight crime. It starts out mentioning, often seen on forums, that Batman has studied 127 martial art styles. The authors sees this as hyperbola. That it is impossible to master that many styles, is pointless since you wouldn't gain deep understanding or competency, and that he does not think there are that many truly different styles (though there are subdivisions of martial arts that would put the number into the hundreds). I sort of agree with him on that. The thing is I think it could be done, not grandmastery or even mastery in each style, but it is possible to study the styles to find out how they differ from one another learning the strengths and weakness's of each. Mastery is not needed but knowing the styles could help you prepare to combat those styles (much easier to do when you have an idea as to what your opponent is likely to do). The book mentions that most modern day styles are really not good at combat; having been made less martial (Judo for example had open hand strikes and kicks before it was commercialized). Suggests that Batman is most likely to learn Ninjitsu, not the fake version, the actual version that was in Japan during the 18th century that involved espionage and assassination. He would need a style that involved multiple styles of combat including punching, kicking, throwing, grappling, joint locks, and weapons. Most fighting styles specialize in one type such as Judo having throwing and grappling but no striking. The last chapter in this section deals with the question can a person go around fighting without killing his opponent. Books answer is much easier to kill but could be done provided he was skilled enough.

The fourth part of the book, Batman in Action, deals with the damage Batman can do and still continue doing what he does, hardening the body (which was discussed in part earlier in the book), and night shift work. The first chapter in this part talks about the weak spots in the human body, power of a punch/kick, and taking a fall. Talks about body hardening techniques such as hitting an object repeatedly. Then goes into some detail about changing bone density, hardening the skin, and changing the perception of pain. Mentions that Batman is unlikely to do extreme body conditioning because of his suit and some of the side effects (like a loss of manual dexterity). Since I find this very interesting I will mention the part about Mas Oyama, the founder of the karate style Kyokushinkai, who did extreme body conditioning and would have found the breaking point technique seen in the Ranma manga as training he would have done. He repeatedly punched hard objects until the skin broke and tendons were exposed, doing this repeatedly led to callus forms anchored to the tendons (he also did this to other parts of his body by kicking or throwing himself at hard objects). Mas Oyama wrote a couple books that I might look at called What is Karate and This is Karate simply because I find his body conditioning interesting, though I would not do it). The last part talks about the circadian rhythms and how Batman could not only sleep for an hour a day as he is sometimes portrayed to do in the comics. Though the book does not mention the drug Modafinil an anti-sleep drug that allows you to stay up safely for almost two days while remaining practically as focused, alert, and capable of dealing with complex problems as the well-rested; or really any other drugs besides steroids that Batman could theoretically use.

The last section of the book is called a mixed bag and is about whatever else the author felt like talking about. He mentions injury and recovery, gender differences between males and females, and how long could Batman do what he does. Talks about broken bones healing, torn cartilage, having to retrain to get back into shape, and other things. Asks if Batman would use steroids (not likely). Mentions that Batman could not keep up his life style for very long probably only a few years a decade at most.

Interview with the author by Scientific America: Dark Knight Shift: Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long

Somewhat related forbes article about the estimated costs Batman inures: Being Batman

Eat this not that

2010-01-16T23:03:00.001-05:00

While at the library I saw the book Eat This, Not That! Restaurant Survival Guide and decided to check it out since I have seen it mentioned on several websites. I generally do not read diet/nutrition/health guide books, since I view many of them as scams and I do not go on fad diets. I have in the past decided to lose weight and then did so, but I did not consult books, go on a fad diet, or join a gym. I increased the amount of exercise I did via a self-made exercise plan and cut my calorie intake (though I did not count my daily calorie intake, I simply made choices that I knew were, or suspected, were less calorie intense - which is actually the point of this book - and avoided some foods such as cookies and dressings/condiments).

The book will have very little influence on what I eat because I do not go to restaurants very frequently (no where near 4 times a week as the book indicates the average American does) and the ones I do go to are, for the most part, not listed in the book (in fact I have been to very few of the restaurants listed in the book and I have no idea where the majority of them are located were I inclined to go to them). The exception to this is the month of December in which I go to restaurants much more frequently though still not four times a week. The reason for that is several people in my family have birthdays in December, including me, and like to go out to eat for their birthday and Christmas. Part of the reason is that I can get free food (for example free burrito from Moe's southwest grill, free ice-cream cone from Baskin Robbins) and discounts at other places (buy one get one free from places like Hometown Buffet). Even if I were to go to restaurants more frequently I find it very unlikely that I will remember the books suggestions when I do go or if I do would want what it suggests (for example: I dislike chicken).

One of the most interesting things, in my opinion of course, is the chart in the introduction of the book which lists the changes in calorie count for various foods in the last twenty years. The chart says that there has been, on average, a 190% increase of calories in french fries, a 75% increase in cheeseburgers, and a 630% increase in a cup of coffee amongst other food items. I knew many foods are less healthy now than they used to be (high fructose corn syrup is in everything, even things like meat and bread and the amount of salt has increased and been put in things that do not need it) but did not think the calorie amount would have increased so drastically.

On the list of the top 20 worst foods in America, I have not eaten even one of them. Prior to reading this book I did not even know that the cheesecake factory served foods other then cheesecake and similar goods. As for the list with the top 20 best foods, I have eaten five of the listed foods though two of those food items I have only eaten once as far as I can recall. The book has a list of seven habits of highly obese people, many of which I have. I tend to use large plates, eat too quickly, chew less then they recommend, and eat everything on the plate (I always view it as wasteful to not eat everything on the plate and if people are going to I feel they should doggy bag it). I do not do the other ones though, I will use chopsticks if they are around, I prefer to view scenery rather than look at the food, and I don't skip breakfast.

The book really does not like the foods I tend to eat the most often calling them empty calories (those foods being pasta, rice, and breads). It also really does not like milkshakes (to the point it calls them abominations and says that they should not even be drunk occasionally) and most ice cream which are often the primary, most often only, reason I go to fast food restaurants. I will go to Steak and Shake and get only a milk shake or go to Wendy's and get a frosty and nothing else.

If you are counting your calories you would probably be better off visiting the books website or another similar website such as Calorie lab. Though you have to keep in mind that the listed calorie or fat count may not be the actual amount in the foods. The reason I say this is because companies lie about calorie count on occasion (Study: Restaurants Lie About Calorie Count), they try and trick you by having the serving size be something like half of what they actually give you (or is a smaller amount than you would eat for example I have never eaten just two slices of pizza), and the local restaurant may have changed things from the standard (put more condiments on or done things like add sugar to the foods, like pizza dough, for the kids meals because most kids really like sweets).

The book has quite a bit of interesting trivia that I did not know prior to reading the book for example:

1. Subway is the largest chain eatery in the world even larger than McDonald's.
2. Many basic things are loaded with many more ingredients than you would expect (knew that but not the amounts) for example Wendy's Chicken Nuggets has 30 ingredients, their frosty has 14, Burger Kings chicken fries has 35 ingredients, etc.
3. The colors red, yellow, and orange stimulate hunger (which is why fast food places tend to use those colors) whereas purple, blue, and green tend to subdue it. This deserves special mention because red, yellow, and orange are the primarily used colors throughout the book so if that is to be believed reading this diet book would actually make you hungry.
4. Burger King sells 6.6 million burgers a day.
5. Kentucky Fried Chicken's food is the most popular request by death row inmates (personally I don't see why since I really dislike chicken).

Did not reach writing goal

2009-12-02T01:39:00.002-05:00

In the month of November I set a goal for myself to write at least a 50,000 word story (chosen subject was a Ranma fanfic). While I did make an attempt to reach that goal; I did not. I would have liked to have done so but I didn't. This doesn't overly bother me. I'm not exactly happy with what I wrote but at least I wrote something, which is better than nothing. With some editing and expanding upon what I did write, I may consider it as not bad.

There are several reasons as to why I did not reach my goal. The largest contributor was illness. I was sick and had trouble concentrating on things for nine of the thirty days. Some other factors were distraction (I'd sit in front of the computer and instead of typing I'd browse the internet), indecisiveness (in that I could not decide what story I wanted to tell and kept changing the story), writers block, and what contributes to me avoiding doing things more than any other thing: my innate laziness. I'm pretty lazy, for example with this blog I've told myself in the past that I should write at least one post a week so as to acquire regular readers but I keep putting it off even though it is a reasonable goal. This is very obvious when I take into account that I have started, but not completed, more than a hundred posts (I've got a 107 posts, on many subjects, in draft at the time of writing this).

In case anyone happens to be wondering the story I ended up starting, it is a continuation of the Ranma manga that becomes a crossover with X-men Evolution. It's not quite the same as I speculated earlier in a post about an idea for a Ranma X-men Evolution crossover story but does contain some aspects from that post. I still have not decided as to whether I want to post it online somewhere or not but if I do it is unlikely that I'd post any of it until some time next year. This is in part because I want to re-watch at least part of the series so as to get better characterization (I have not watched any of the X-men Evolution series in awhile). That which I did write focuses solely on the Ranma characters with a partial meeting between the Ranma characters and some of the X-men and the Brotherhood.