Nope! Still Not on the Obito Train
Even after the past few chapters, I can’t say I feel any more sympathetic towards Obito than I did a couple of weeks ago. I mean, I get it, he went through some traumatic shit, but does losing the girl he had a crush on really justify giving up on the rest of the world? On all the people who cared about him and provided for him in the past? The way that he betrayed Minato in particular, and (let’s not forget) KILLED THE THIRD’S WIFE makes it difficult for me to feel like he’s anything short of a selfish monster.
I have been pretty understanding towards most of the villains in this series (with Danzo being the notable exception), even Sasuke when everyone was saying that he was a brat for leaving the village and later for turning his rage and lust for vengeance against the Leaf. Sasuke lost his whole family and set himself on a quest for revenge only to find out that his life’s ambition was a lie and that he’d been manipulated into killing the person who cared about him most in the world. I found his turn to the dark side compelling and tragic.
Obito’s turn felt too Star Warsy to me. As a matter of fact, it was almost exactly the plot of Star Wars, with the old wrinkly guy in a cloak, artificial body parts, and everything.
Let’s recap the situation: His former teammate killed the girl he had a crush on, then he went on a rampage, and now he thinks it’s okay to hurt and kill everyone who cared about him and whom he used to care about, so that he, and I guess whoever else is left alive at the end of this war, can live in a fantasy world where Rin is still alive and presumably loves him back. Sorry, Obi, I won’t be too broken up about it when Kakashi cuts you down, but I’ll be very upset if you end up taking him with you.
Thoughts?
The Loneliest Whale in the World.In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem:
She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.
Just imagine that massive mammal, floating alone and singing—too big to connect with any of the beings it passes, feeling paradoxically small in the vast stretches of empty, open ocean.
“A cryptozoologist has suggested that the 52-Hertz whale could even be lonelier than we realize, a hybrid between two different species of whale, or the last survivor of an unidentified species, plying the oceans in a doomed search for another of its kind, singing its broken song.”
(Source: erickimberlinbowley)
“This magic keeps me alive
But, it’s making me crazy
And, I need to save you
But, who’s going to save me?
Please forgive me for whatever I do
When I don’t remember you.”
.:I remember you:.
Excuse me while I leave something non-Superjail! related here~ My dash keeps throwing art of these two at me and I had to draw them myself to get it out of my system~
*forever sob*
I Remember You
The Ice King was the one who gave Hambo to Marceline when she was a little girl. That was too much, Adventure Time. That was just too much.
Plotholes in Looper
As many people have pointed out, there are dozens of gaping plotholes, glaring inconsistencies, and paradoxes left unresolved in the movie Looper, but as Lucy Lawless once said, “Whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it.”
Looper is such a fun ride, you have to put all that nitpicking aside and just chalk it up to wizards.
For those of you who have already seen the movie, who do you think makes a better time traveler bent on destroying / preserving the future? Bruce Willis? Arnold? The T-1000? Or Marty McFly?
I had a friend who died of cancer in April, and he spent his last year in exactly the kind of state Walt was talking about here. He was only 28, had a loving family, and wanted very much to live, but even when he first got his diagnosis (it was already at Stage 4 when he found out and the cancer literature said he only had a 2% chance of surviving five years) I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to spend his remaining time traveling, going out, spending time with his friends and loved ones on his own terms.
I cared and continue to care about him a lot, and I wanted him to beat the cancer as much as anyone else, but his last year was so full of pain. It was difficult to see him so weak and miserable. I wish I could have taken him to Vegas or gone on a roadtrip somewhere or something. Instead, he was a prisoner in his own body, and we lost him anyway.
Presented with a similar set of choices, what would you choose? If you chose not to seek treatment, do you think your loved ones could understand and respect your decision?
Blargh!
So I’ve been keeping to my promise to write a page everyday. Even when I came home drunk at 2:30 a.m. the other night, I fired up my computer and started spewing (not quality material, but part of the process) while I had some ramen with sliced beef, Chinese broccoli, and an egg.
Unfortunately, being drunk and exhausted as I was, I hit my laptop’s power button by accident while the file with everything I’d written was open, and after I restarted, I found that the file had been corrupted, so I just ended up destroying a couple of days’ quality work product and one night of drunken rambling.
I’m going to have to try to recreate the quality stuff in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, I actually managed to put together a solid short story that I’m proud of last night, so I think this process of forcing myself to write something no matter what it is, or how banal, is working out.
Writing a Book
Neil Gaiman once said that he would make sure to write one page everyday, no matter what and at the end of a year, he would have enough material for a book. That’s how he was able to write books he didn’t have time to write.
I’m going to give that a shot. 365 days, one page each day in the early morning or at night after I get home, then a month of editing to make sure the whole thing makes sense and hangs together properly. Then I’ll see what I end up with. Whatever it is, I hope it’s worth reading.
