Category Archives: Fangirlism and Snark

I either fangirl the heck out of it or I snark the heck out of it

Sasukin Skywhiner

Okay, I'm past chapter 400, and my gosh, Sasuke is more annoying than Sakura now. He's even more annoying than Anakin, dammit. How does this whiner have such a big fanbase? Anyway, here is some general snark for what I've read so far.

Firstly, the Kakashi Gaiden:

chefs kiss

I actually spent £7 on Volume 27 just for this. Minato is the best thing about the series. He's such a cupcake! So wholesome! Dammit, Kishimoto.


Yah yes!

Also, I watched Tsunade's Infinite Tsukuyomi dream, and why do you do this to us, Kishimoto? Why?! Tsunade's tsukuyomi dream is forever my headcanon!

Anyway, on to the snark...

Continue reading →

Attempting to Fix Sakura Haruno – Part 2: The Actual Fix

Part 1: How did Sakura even qualify as a genin?

So just to clarify, it's been a loooong time since I watched/read Part 2 of Naruto, so this is just in the context of Part 1.

So the biggest problem with Part 1 Sakura is that she is 95% Sasuke-stalker, 5% self-absorbed brat. Let's start fixing this.

Our first proper introduction to Sakura is when she joins Team 7. Kakashi asks them to introduce themselves. Sasuke and Naruto answer as they originally did, and then it's Sakura's turn.

"My name is Sakura Haruno. Things I like... Well, I really like my best friend Ino, and my parrot, Mr Feathers," she says, with a big smile on her face. "My hobbies... Well, my dad is a master pastry chef, and on weekends--" She stops suddenly, remembering that both her team-mates are orphans. She looks over to Sasuke, who is looking into the distance, seemingly oblivious as usual. Naruto is just looking at her with a big goofy grin on his face. She hesitates a moment, then continues. "My dad teaches me how to make all kinds of fancy desserts, and my mum is a master woodworker, and she's teaching me how to carve traditional figurines."

"And things you dislike?" Kakashi prompts.

Sakura looks despondent for a moment. "What I dislike is that I'm really bad at both of them."

We see a still of her standing next to her burnt and misshapen pastries, and another of her next to a hideously deformed kimekomi doll. In the background though, we see the respective parent smiling proudly at their beloved daughter.

"That's why my dream is to be Continue reading →

How did Sakura Even Qualify as a Genin? Attempting to Fix Sakura Haruno

I used to be a big Naruto fan. I used to watch the anime, and my gosh, the flashbacks, the monologues, and the pointless explanations of what just happened, and then another character explaining what just happened again in case we forgot in those last 5 seconds. Holy carp. [Edit: Naruto Kai is a thing, but even with all the filler and padding removed, it still drags.] I got through some of Shippuden, and I then went on to the manga because the dubs were taking too long, but I didn't get all that far.

Anyway, I got a little fed up, because it seemed every story followed the same formula of: baddie does bad guy stuff, Naruto gives a pep talk, bad guy decides to be good. This must be where Dhar Mann got his formula from.

So I was watching Abridged recently, and it made me curious about what actually happened in canon, so I decided to start reading the manga from the beginning, because ain't no one got time for those flashbacks, yo. And boy, did I forget just how bad of a character Sakura is. I'm not just talking about her general uselessness throughout Part 1. Her whole character sucks. She is literally a terribly written character, and an awful role model for girls. Kishimoto writes females badly in general, but he really messed up with Sakura.

And I don't for one minute buy the excuse that he's "bad at writing good female characters". What a cop out. What an absolutely lazy, pathetic excuse for a cop out.

I've seen reports that he even said he didn't bother to improve Sakura as a character because the fans hated her anyway, and if that's true then feck off, Kishimoto. You don't get to blame the fans for your crappy writing.

Here's how you do it: write a good character. Make them female. That's it. That's all you have to do.

If Itachi and Sasuke were sisters, their character arcs would still be the same. Genderswap Naruto, Kakashi, Neji, any male character at all, and nothing would change but their appearance. They would still be well developed characters. So why can't he do the same for the female characters? Because I think in Kishimoto's mind, females are less than males. That's what I think anyway.

Kishimoto's guiding principle on writing female characters
Kishimoto's guiding principle on writing female characters. Continue reading →

Prequels Review and Fix

My old review was a bit of an incoherent mess, so I've fixed it up, and also FIXED THE PREQUELS. You're welcome! Okay, so there are things about the prequels I hate that others seemed to like, and vice versa, so all I can say is I've fixed the prequels to my taste. Okay, here we go!

We'll start with the things I liked.

The Good

Qui-Gon Jinn

Okay, so I did mention in my other post that I enjoyed Episode I. It was good. I especially loved Qui-Gon, he's just such a wholesome character, probably my favourite Jedi. I really like the idea of a chaotic good Jedi.

The Memes

I really only watched it for the memes.

The World-Building

I loved how much more fleshed out the Star Wars universe became. Even if others didn't like the politics, I really loved that side of it. A big complaint I had about the OT was that we didn't get to see what life was like for those living under the Empire (remember, Tatooine was ruled by the Hutts, the Empire hadn't bothered with it just yet). So for me, the world-building of the prequels really brought the whole galaxy to life. It's still stupid that every planet only has one biome (Tatooine = all desert, Hoth = all tundra, Naboo = all beautiful temperate forest, Dagobah = all swamp, etc etc), and though it does bug me that they all have Earth-gravity, I do get the limitations of filming, so I'll give them a pass on the gravity issue.

Now onto the things I didn't like. Plus, I'm fixing them to make them more appealing to me. For the record, this is not the same as my alternate universe headcanon, which uses Episode IV's original plot as a starting point. This is just my fix for the official canon prequels. Now really, buckle up, it's a long ride! Continue reading →

Echo Base, This is Rogue Two. I’ve Found Them. Repeat, I’ve Found Them.

Topps Vader and Luke trading cards

Eeeeeeeee! I found them in an organiser pocket, buried right at the bottom of my wardrobe! I'm so glad I found them! I didn't even remember having a Vader card, just the Luke one. And yep, that was the picture. I was wrong about it being portrait, though. Eeeeee! I was so happy when I saw it!

So the cards themselves are from a series of 10. Vader is Continue reading →

Star Wars: The Black Series Figurines

I've been looking at these for a while. Since I don't really have anything else to spend all my savings on, I decided I may as well treat myself and indulge my fangirlism. I bought the Luke Dagobah figure (it seems there is... another version of this also that has Yoda and the backpack, but it was unavailable when I was shopping). Its face sculpt seemed the best out of the ESB Lukes, otherwise I would have got the Bespin Luke. Impressed by the quality, I decided to buy the other two Skywalkers. Leia is TINY next to Vader.

Anyway. I have lots of photos. Lots and lots of photos. Enjoy!

figurines Continue reading →

I Watched Project 4K77

Project 4K77 is a restoration project of the original cinematic cut of Star Wars (now Episode IV). I was really curious about it, so I found a copy, which took me a full 4 days to download and the resulting 24GB file was too big for my old netbook to handle, so I spent another 3 days trying to burn it to DVD, which failed, but I did get a working 4.2GB VOB file, so eventually I got to watch it! I've since put it through HandBrake to get a 720p at 3.98GB. And yes, it took literally days.

encoded

My computer is so slow!

The image quality was really good. One thing that stood out the most was Luke's hair colour was consistent. It bothered me on the DVD release that his hair would range from honey blond to dark brown from scene to scene. In this one, his hair colour stays within the honey blond range. Comparing the DVD to 4K77 side by side, you can really see the difference.

Continue reading →

Star Wars Memes

lucas, joineth me on the dark side
A similar meme already exists, but I couldn't find a high quality image, so I remade and expanded it, complete with the missing hand. I was trying to think of a more archaic way to say "that's not true" and ended up messing up the quote in this roundabout way. Sorry.


DisneyLucasFilm.... You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Continue reading →

I Watched All the Prequels and Rogue One

Okay, I did it. I'm not sure if I'm glad I watched the prequels or not. I will say that I really enjoyed Rogue One; I'd say it's right up there with the OT (you see, DisneyLucasfilm, you can produce quality films when you try).

Rogue One was a little confusing at the start. I wasn't quite sure what was going on and who was who, but that might be partly because I was sold a defective disc, so it kept skipping for many scenes early on. But once I got past that, I found the characters interesting, and the storyline compelling — even though I knew the Death Star plans would make it to Leia.

Continue reading →