Raiyuu

@Dagger: I actually hadn't considered it as evidence of Light slipping - I'd been looking from the writer's point of view and thinking "this is a bit like Ocean's 12/13 - it just couldn't match up to the sheer brilliance of the original". Looking at it from within the Death Note world, it makes more sense to think "this is Light's hubris catching up to him - [i]he [/i]just couldn't match the brilliance of his earlier plot thanks to an extended period without competition". @BK: Spot on. Even after four or five years, Light still has L on the brain. He can't see Near as anything other than a substandard L copy, which is why he's constantly underestimating the crazy kid. I can't help thinking that the [spoiler]L mask[/spoiler] was a deliberate move by Near to reinforce this impression, goading Light into complacency. And he really [i]is [/i]complacent - the Light of the first arc would [i]never [/i]have [spoiler]announced his victory even a second before the fact. Whatever happens after the cliffhanger - and I know, obviously - that announcement was final proof that Light isn't the genius he once was. He's just desperate for another moment of recognition like he had with L at the last second, but he's taken far too big a risk to attain it[/spoiler].

Is this a good time to admit I'm very disappointed in the climactic plot? I won't argue that the episode wasn't incredibly well done. (Plus I'm loving Near more with every second of screentime.) But when you strip away the layers, forget all the [spoiler]dicking around with real notebooks and fake notebooks[/spoiler], what Light's plan - [i]Light's [/i]plan, the straight-A super-genius that out-manoeuvred L - boils down to is [spoiler]getting everyone in a room and having Mikami peep at them through the door[/spoiler]. Compared to the plan that [spoiler]took out L[/spoiler], that seems awfully low-tech to me. What made the first arc ending so satisfying - [spoiler]despite the fact that I was on L's side[/spoiler] - was Light's manipulation of events and people. He successfully predicted the actions [spoiler]he himself would take if his memories of the Note were removed[/spoiler]; he made excellent use of [spoiler]Misa's advice on killing Shinigami, and of Rem's growing affection for Misa[/spoiler], to steer events such that [spoiler]L's death at Rem's hands[/spoiler] was the [i]only possible conclusion[/i]. With the final plot ... okay, he predicted that Near would try and [spoiler]mess with Mikami's notebook[/spoiler], and he made absolutely sure he was right by observing whether Near [spoiler]changed the date of the meeting[/spoiler]. But when the meeting was declared as a closed-room affair - one way in, one way out - I expected something brilliant and Machiavellian to obtain Near's name. I didn't expect "[spoiler]I'll get my pet Kira-Gollum to open the door a bit and look at them[/spoiler]". There are just so many things that could go wrong with that approach. Light deserves anything Near pulls on him next episode. He just wasn't [i]trying [/i]with that plan.

[b]Method 21a: Start ten trillion threads [/b]Run out of threads with which to up your post count? Start some new ones! But make sure they're all along the same lines - you don't want people just thinking "so-and-so started loads of threads today". You want people thinking "OMG where did all those game threads come from". When they work it out your name will become synonymous with that subject. [b]Mentors: [/b]ChibiHorsewoman (game threads), Adahn (pretentious pseudophilosophy)

Anyone want me to change the thread title to "I Forgot What You People Look Like ([b]2007DB[/b] Heavy)"? I mean, seriously, dude. I'm not going to delete your posts as off-topic if they don't contain more pictures of you.

Does my writer's notebook count? I have to carry it everywhere so I can write down phrases, images or ideas that come to me in random places (usually on trains but sometimes in a crowd on Regent Street in the rush hour - try finding somewhere to stop and get your pen out while being swept along at 100mph by impatient holiday shoppers).

Mythologicly. Ever taken a moment to wonder WHY you've been banned numerous times? It's because your grammar is bad and you don't use capitals at the beginning of sentences ... and your post quality is just poor in general. You're just lucky the regular members jumped in and upped the quality of this thread. Shape up or you're heading for another ban. That'll be what, number four?

[quote=r2vq][color=#007520]Either way you will be ninja'd. [url="http://youtube.com/watch?v=VbhXGIQRl0s"]Ah screw it, who am I kidding. I give you, [u][b]revenge[/b][/u]!!!! Too bad it aint as embarrassing as mine. T_T[/url][/color][/quote]I AM KYON IRL!!! No, but seriously. I'm actually Gambit from the X-Men. [center][img]http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g110/Raiyuu/FBGambit2.jpg[/img] [left]Yay uni fancy-dress parties. [/left] [/center]

The RIAA's stupid threats of lawsuits are a subject for a whole thread on their own ... or for this thread when Premonition solves the problem by burning his/her hard drive (because in my experience, that's the only way to get rid of AOL and not have it sidle in every once in a while wearing a fur stole and pretending to be Firefox).

[quote name='r2vq][color=#007520']If you want to see ugly, you should see me when I'm half drunk and in the dark... NEVAR AGAIN. I really should untag that from Facebook...[/color][/quote][url="http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g110/Raiyuu/n514939749_34760_2867.jpg"][u]Yes. Yes you should. Anyone might find it.[/u][/url] *awaits retribution* In fact, I might hold off posting any of me and see which stupid embarrasing photo r2 picks from Facebook to exact his revenge.

I was expecting some kind of man-trap to slam shut on Aaryanna as soon as she posted. This whole thread was basically an Aaryanna honey-trap! The only question that remains is what did CHW want with her ... and why didn't the trap spring...?

I think this problem is the symptom, not the disease. The disease is AOL. Cure the disease and the symptom will disappear. By cure I mean obliterate.

I found interpretive mime artist [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zajDLCsDxeM"][u]Johann Lippowitz[/u][/url] through YouTube. Don't be put off, it's funny. My favourite is the mime he does for 'place' as in 'take me to the place where you go'. There are also videos of him miming to 'Torn' amd 'Wherever I Lay My Hat'. And I have to plug [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so1qPxHujMM"][u]The Stannett Report[/u][/url] because a) YouTube is in desperate need of some good old British humour that [b]doesn't [/b]require foreknowledge of WoW, allyourbase or any other obscure game reference and b) because I'm in it. Ten points and a signature shout-out to whoever guesses which character is me. Don't forget to watch all three parts now!

My university household joint-owns a goldfish named Bernard (in honour of this man): [center][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/monza3/hens_bernard2.jpg[/img] [left]We also had a Boo and an Egon - but Bernard hogged the food and starved Boo to death, and Egon got sucked into the filter. [/left] [/center]

My hair is brown, and it's prett much straight until it reaches my ears, and then it starts being curly. Well, sort of. My fringe has a tendency to corkscrew when I haven't had it cut in a while... I'm mostly attracted to girls with dyed hair. I like it when there are a few prominent streaks of green or dark red or electric blue through the fringe. It excites my indie sensibilities.

I like to focus my hadouken into a narrow radius, allowing for precision cutting instead of widespread immolation - my hadouken is to all of yours what a laser cutter is to a Molotov Cocktail. I've used it to scratch my tag into the surface of Pluto, just to give NASA something to think about when Voyager gets there. It's also handy for slicing vegetables, making paper snowflakes and performing non-intrusive brain surgery. Remember Prick Wizard? Dude used to be JJ ... I surreptitiously lobotomised him after the whole MAMA debacle.

I don't think there's any problem with you posting this here, but you may get more informed reponses in the Art Studio - people here might have a better idea of what subject matter to go with, but Art Studio denizens might have good advice on format, styling, etc... I'll leave it up to you. If you decide you're not getting the responses you want here, PM me and I'll shift you over to the Studio.

[quote name='Ikillion][color=DarkRed][size=1][font=Trebuchet MS]I tried to always give him some kind of an accidental reason for being that like "Maybe he is hungry?" or "he could just be strolling down this...exact same road as this person". This time felt kinda blah though because "Oh hey there, I just happen to be hiding in the exact same bush you are for absolutely no reason since there hasn't been any emergency or anything as far as I am supposed to know" Didn't work out too well. It did make me laugh though.[font=Verdana][size=2'][color=black][/quote]I think you're still missing the point ... on this, and every other occasion he's popped up seemingly at random, he's there because he's undercover, doing whatever his 'job' is. I assume he became a waiter at the party precisely so that he could gain access to those flowers, or Alice, or Wei, or whatever it is his organisation has him investigating/capturing/killing this week. Likewise, he kept 'coincidentally' running into Gai because they were both investigating threads of the same mystery. In this particular episode, he's actually the one with a valid reason to be there, while Kirihara is the one that's ended up in the right place and right time mostly by accident. That is, I assume he's deliberately infiltrated the Triad and deliberately 'got lost' and found himself in the flower garden ... while Kirihara just sort of went wherever Alice dragged her and ended up discovering evidence significant to the VI952 case more by luck than judgement. [/color][/size][/font][/font][/size][/color]

@Ikillion: Wei's ability is more like [spoiler]being able to make his blood explode than just generally blowing holes in people. It was described as a matter-teleportation ability like Jean's in episode 1&2 so perhaps he teleports his blood and the surrounding matter to ... wherever. Slitting his wrists is necessary to make it effective, rather than being his remuneration[/spoiler]. I'm not sure we've seen him remunerate yet. As for Hei being coincidentally in the right place, where were you for the rest of the series? The narrative position is one of my favourite quirks of the series. We never see Hei's preparation or infiltration, we (so far) never see his organisation's motives; he's sort of identified as 'main character' by his prominence in the OP sequence but we're forever only catching glimpses of his movements through the eyes of whomever we're following for that episode, whether it's the police or Gai/Matsukichi the wax-eared detective. Barring the bits and pieces of backstory we keep being fed for Hei, Mao and the gang, they're set up more like antagonists than anything else. They're the perennial bad guys that just keep popping up to get in Kirihara's way. Tangents aside: hopefully with Kirihara face-to-face with Hei's "Li" persona she might start putting two and two together; hopefully with Alice's [spoiler]stone flowers and resultant drug bees[/spoiler] we might get some more explanation about the Gate (the flora of which seem to be its main interest to most characters...). And yes, I've spent two days this week with HOWLING spinning round and round and round on my mental turntable.

Now I'm confused. There's clearly something of [spoiler]Orochimaru in Sasuke - he pulled the snake-arm move on Suigetsu and Juugo, and now he's developed crazy armoured-snake-defence powers to stop himself becoming one of Deidara's works of art. Yet Orochimaru is also in Kabuto? Is it a physical part of Orochimaru's body that Kabuto implanted in himself, or did Orochimaru transfer part of himself into Kabuto in a last-ditch attempt to avoid being subsumed by Sasuke, in which case the crazy eye would be a physical manifestation of the bit of his power inside Kabuto... *gasp for air*[/spoiler] Or is Kishimoto just quickly introducing a new villain for the post-Akatsuki arc...? [spoiler]He has some of Orochimaru's power, but is determined to be his own man[/spoiler].

Giraffe necks on sharks? Lol. You do realise that if adaptation / evolution theory is correct, crazy stuff like that won't ever happen? Because why would a longer-than-usual neck (or any neck at all, since sharks don't have them) help one shark survive over another?

I'm self-taught through a mixture of books, software and websites, and I'd call myself semi-fluent ... I could take directions to places or buy things in shops or restaurants, but not hold a deep and meaningful conversation. I'm sort of fluent in tourist Japanese. Oh, and I could probably talk about Bleach since I translate the manga weekly so I have a good grasp of the series specific vocab in there. My biggest asset is the BBC's Japanese Language and Culture set, which is a bookshelf-busting workbook and a 6-CD pack. Get the book [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Language-People-Course-Book/dp/0563519495/ref=sr_1_14/026-0137225-1578864?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180521830&sr=1-14"][u]here[/u][/url] and the CDs [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Language-People-Audio-CDs/dp/0563519517/ref=sr_1_15/026-0137225-1578864?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180521830&sr=1-15"][u]here[/u][/url]. Websites I've found useful include: [url="http://www.kanjistep.com"][u]Kanji Step[/u][/url] (useful for picking up basic kanji - use the kanji-a-day mailing list, it's great for learning the essentials) [url="http://www.thejapanesepage.com"][u]The Japanese Page[/u][/url] (also has kanji lists with stroke orders, plus on and kun readings in kana and romaji; also has good concise lessons on the basic grammar points) [url="http://www.learn-japanese.info/"][u]Nihongo o Narau[/u][/url] (grammar lessons with printable worksheets - again, good to pick up the basics) [url="http://japanese.about.com/library/blgrammar.htm"][u]Japanese Grammar on About.com[/u][/url] (once you've picked up the basics this site is good for ironing out any points you aren't sure about - has lists of fully conjugated verbs and adjectives which I found really useful) Hope some of that might be helpful.

That picture isn't supposed to be serious. It's a humorous look at what we might turn into given humanity's favourite habits - big index finger for operating the TV remote, filtered respiratory system and detoxification pouches to better deal with smoking and drinking, that kind of thing. It's suggesting our limbs will atrophy because all we do is sit around on the sofa eating pizza all day...

Dodeca: as Sylar was [spoiler]lying on the floor "dead", we saw a montage of clips from earlier in the episode flash through his eyes, ending with the image we were seeing right then - Sylar lying on the floor "dead". His precog powers bringing him 'up-to-date'[/spoiler]? The scary person Molly doesn't want to think about will likely be the villain for the next volume.

I like playing "Spot the Parody" in Hayate. You can usually tell when they're poking fun at something because they bleep out words like "Gundam" but working out which series they're referencing is pretty fun. Besides which it's quite well done for a just-for-laughs series. I especially like Sakuya and Isumi's hardcore corporate bodyguards and the continuing restatement of the exact figure of Hayate's giant debt...

[quote name='Gavin][size=1']Yeah you can blame that one on us Raiyuu, and really it?s not as bad as it sounds.[/size][/quote]I was quoting it as a good thing. No more "smoking or non-smoking, sir?"