(no subject)

[mayoraasei]

On Friday I was sitting in Phys Tut by myself, because the rest of my group couldn't be bothered turning up, which is okay, because I don't get anything done with or without them there. So anyway, I was there, onto the last few questions of the tut sheet (because I skipped half of it), when some guy decided to sit down on my table. He then proceeded to explain how to do the questions to me. It was the first question, and it was on circuits - and I've seen that question before, so I had the answer all written down...anyway, it went something like this:
Him: You know how to do the first question?
Me: Yes.
Him: Okay, this is how you do it. You add the resistances of these two because they're in series...
Me: Yeah...
Him: And here, you add the reciprocals because they're in parallel. So, what's 1/R plus 1/R?
Me: 2/R...
Him: No, it's 2R on R-squared, see.
Me: Which is 2/R...
Him: No no, it doesn't work. *Calls the tutor, who was busy, so he sits there and thinks for 5 minutes* Wait wait, 1/R plus 1/R is 2R on R-squared, which is 2/R, see.
Me: ....*twitch* Yes...
Him: And if you add this and the other resistor together, it's 3R/2, which is less than 2R, get it?
Me: *major twitch* Yes... (I got it before you came along)
Him: The resistance is less, so the current is greater, get it?
Me: *starting to get sarcastic* Yes...
Him: Want me to explain it again?
Me: *vein pops* No thanks.
Him: You sure? Here, I'll explain it again.
Me: ........


Well, it is funny, in retrospect.... He always takes the long way to questions ~~; Last time when we were doing a water pressure question, he insisted on using Bernoulli's equation when it was just a simple "pgh" question ==; And he has this idea that he knows a lot more than us...gaah.

I was reading the last volume of Count Cain (in Chinese) yesterday.


It wasn't as sad as I half-expected. Erm...I didn't even start sniffing. It was over really quickly. Summary of main points (there's bits with Merryweather that I can't be bothered putting in):
Justice tells Riffael that she's the one who can control him and bring out the persona "Riff", and so he kills her. Before she dies, she tells him he will regret it...A while later, with Cain running up to stop the Judgement-thingy-ceremony and Jezebel watching, Riffael attacks Alexis, but Jezebel instinctively threw himself between them and gets wounded. Riffael tries to continue but notices that half his arm has rotted away. Alexis then reveals the last twist of fate: Riffael died in the fire ages ago, and is therefore the longest-lived corpse-puppet. Erm, I can't remember the sequence of events from here, but it's something like this...

Alexis continues with the resurrection of his sister, with Clehadol (I prefer "Clearheart" to the romanisation ^^; But that's just me) acting as the medium. Clehadol stops in the middle, unable to proceed because of the insanity of the whole thing. Cain breaks in on the scene and Alexis approaches Cain and invites him to join the Delilah. He embraces the seemingly-stunned Cain and we see that Alexis is holding a knife at Cain's back. Suddenly, Alexis stiffens, and then we see that Cain has gotten in a step earlier and pricked his father with a long pin, dipped in some poison, as usual.

Meanwhile, Riffael is confronted by his made-up persona, Riff. In the subconscious, Riff takes a knife and "kills" Riffael, with Riffael screaming, "This is ludicrous, a fake personality can't supplant the original!" Riff replies somewhat coldly that, "Riffael died in the fire a long time ago....etc....The person who gave me life was..." (Cain)

Riff runs into Jezebel, supported by that...guy, whose name I can't remember (it's the guy who looks like a kid, but now he's in a different body or something). Jezebel says a bunch of things, about how special he felt Cain and Riff's relationship was, and he gives something to Riff to give to Cain (? I think?) Then he asks Riff if he wants to live for longer, but only for a day. Riff says yes, and Jezebel takes out a knive and slashes his own throat. The blood revives Riff (erm, random exotic Delilah ritual, as usual).

By now Cain has left where Alexis - who was obviously dying - had been. He sits down and wonders if he was going to be by himself again...then suddenly Riff the shining knight - I mean, loyal servant, appears. The building is starting to collapse, and Riff says his last goodbye words, etc, etc, and pushes Cain away. His eyes widen when he sees that Cain is gripping stubbornly onto his shirt(?) Anyway, Cain has this wry smile on his face and says if Riff thought he could really get away with not fulfilling the promise, "of being with him even beyond death".

Everything disintegrates in a gigantic cloud of dust, and I think you get a glimpse of Clehadol peering through it all and looking shocked.

Back to Merryweather, and Uncle whatshisname supports her claim to heirdom despite there being any solid proof that Cain was indeed dead. The uncle flashes back to Cain's last letter to him, which details that he realised that Merryweather was not actually born from his father, so they were not related at all. Cain thought he could never love anyone who was not related to him, but he was wrong. In fact, he says he loved her because "none of the cursed blood of the Hargreaves family flowed in her veins".

The final conclusion to the major part of the plot comes with Merry visiting a mausoleum built by Cain (I think?) and being accosted by Augusta, possessing Alexis' body. Augusta/Alexis explains that she was the main villainess behind the mess. She had manipulated Alexis to hate Cain and derived pleasure from watching the father and son try to kill each other. She even went as far as to kill herself, knowing that Alexis would then do anything he could to bring her back. She tries to take possession of Merry, except all of a sudden the stone statues on either side of a coffin starts moving and she/Alexis is forced into it. The lid slams shut, with her screaming venomously, "Caaaaaiiiin!!!!" and we see that the face on the coffin is that of Alexis. And so, Cain finally gets his revenge...and I guess there's some twisted satisfaction in that, considering the price paid by Cain...

Fast forward a few years, someone runs to tell Merry that there was a black-cloaked man somewhere on the estate... Merry runs there and sees the tea party Cain promised laid out for her, and she bursts into tears.

The black-cloaked man is revealed to be Clehadol. His monologue reveals the last details of what happened before the building completely collapsed: we see Cain locked in Riff's embrace, his arm stretched before him and Julianne's ring on his palm. Clehadol's monologue suggests he took the ring, and had either heard a real voice or through his ability as a medium, heard the instruction for him to prepare the tea party.

Erm...here, the impression I got from the Chinese translation was a bit different from the direct translation someone did from Japanese:
Chinese: "They looked no longer bound by master and servant...Of course, it's not love either."
Japanese: "Of course, it's not a thing that matters in love."
I think the implication is vastly different here.

And also:
Chinese: I will never forget that scene...etc, because like the first time I met him, he was smiling beautifully.
Japanese: he was smiling elegantly, as always.
Not that it matters with that one, Cain is always beautiful ^0^

The last page is a beautiful close-up picture of Cain, with a faint smile on his face. And in italics, on the bottom..."And bids you all adieu"


I thought that Augusta (Alexis' sister) being the criminal behind scenes was just too far-fetched... It seems a bit ridiculous, even for the British of the 19th century, to assume that when you die, you'll still be around to watch anything. If she really enjoyed watching other people suffer, surely she would have chosen a more insured way of being around =P

Read excellent Japanese translations here



Whew, that was long. I've also been watching HxH (anime) I'm finally into that...argh. The characterisation has been a bit different in the anime, some of which I'm not exactly glad about, but can't really complain ~~; It's just that characterisation is hardly the mangaka's weak point, and some of the lines/scenes the anime slides in have fairly different implications for the characters' personalities...this is what HSC english does for me >.< For example:
- Gon puts himself forward quite a few times. In the manga, he only intercedes when things totally gets out of hand, and usually he doesn't do it intentionally. He is not supposed to be someone who's supposed to have a brain, to put it simply. On a side note, he has a really shrill voice sometimes ==;;; It scares me. But not as much as Yuki's voice scared me.
- Kurapica appears weaker in the anime ==; I do not like that. His major good point is that he's cool-headed and always in control of the situation. That's what makes it so dramatic to see him unnerved later on in York Shin city =__=;
- Killua actually comes in a lot more in the beginning. I guess...I'm not as picky about his personality =P

Ugh. /End long post.