Okay. Here I am again, back in front of my familiar screen, at my usual post-dinner hours.
It's been a long week and a half, yet so very short. Long in that I neglected going online in favour of watching all thirty episodes of Chor Lau Heung (Chu Liu Xiang - screw the pinyin, it was a TVB series and therefore in Canto). Short in that I watched it as if addicted, never wanting to stop yet painfully unable to divert my mind from it whenever that suave bastard was not in front of my eyes. Freaking...
But it's over now. Depressingly so (of course the usual nagging question comes to mind: What am I going to base my existence on, now that I've made my way through that whole saga?). But I think I'm getting over it now. I don't feel as lost as before, when I spent ages watching something or reading something. It's a relief, almost. And that grown-up voice in me says "good, just in time for school to start again". That's true. I could really use some "getting down to work", especially since, I'm sorry to say, I didn't actually get much done these holidays. Sure, I've made some notes on Maths, I've read the two chapters on water in my Chem textbook and I wrote my response to Coco Avant Chanel, but that's nothing. I haven't even touched those two essays, and I'm pretty sure my Modernism one is due when we get back! And of course the one on Margaret Thatcher takes heaps of work - there are so many sources and things to put together to make an argument! Argh. I don't even feel as relieved about having finished Emma than I thought I would!
But oh my God that was a surreal experience, watching CLH. I can't believe how much it consumed me. You have no idea. It's like being cut loose from the world and hearing your blood sing in your veins. Actually it's probably not advisable to take that word for word. Perhaps I'm still experiencing the aftereffects of watching it. It's more like exhilarating yet sombre at the same time. I imagine this is what it must feel like to stand in front of the Mirror of Erised (if it indeed existed beyong the world of Harry Potter). You can't drag your eyes away, you want to sit there and be drawn into it, and when you walk out of the room your mind continues to mull feverishly over it.
Now I shall go over the end of the story and hopefully get it out of my system:
Can you believe the other girl... no wait, there are too many girls involved here, let me just clarify them for you from the beginning.
Okay, so the main dude, CLH, is like this perfect guy (as I mentioned in my previous entry - you should probably read that first because I'm writing now as if you've already read it) and he lives on a boat and seemingly just does nothing all day apart from occasional saving-the-day. On this boat also live three girls, who he picked up before the story opens because they had lost their family or something like that. (Of course, it would seem to me as though life on that boat would be orgy-tastic, but no, he just treats them as sisters and they're all one happy family).
Early on, it's sort of hinted at that one of the girls (she probably is the most prominent out of the three) is sort of in love with him, but she's sweet and keeps quiet and just sighs once in a while.
As I've already said in the last entry, CLH meets this other girl and gets close to her as they try to solve the mystery of who's killing heaps of people and framing him. And she gets herself killed in her final (successful) attempt to clear his name and find the real murderer. And that was sad and all, as I've definitely already ranted about.
I was thinking about her death, and the idea that entered my head that I felt really epitomised it was that after her death, the guy would never be completely happy again. Except once I touched on that, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I'd recently used that idea to describe another couple in a different story, so I kept scratching my head about which one. Then I remembered that that's what I'd said about Boy's death in Coco Avant Chanel, 'cause once he died poor Chanel lost her lover and it also seemed as though she was doomed to live the rest of her life with a hole in her heart (though I won't deny that one of the reasons I wrote it in my response was 'cause I had nothing else to say).
But seriously, they were so good together and it was almost as if him, the one who always left girls swooning after him, would settle down. They were joking about getting married and everything! If only she didn't have to die. Or if only there was an alternate ending.
Anyway, back when CLH and that girl were together, I preferred her to the other girl who was in love with him from the boat. Except then she died, and he had a hard time for a while before he got back to his boat and found a note saying that so-and-so had kidnapped two of the girls from his boat. So he and the third boat girl who is still in love with him (but respects that he's still mourning his dead girlfriend) run off to try and save them... and after staying a while in the king's palace, finds and kills the kidnapper (who is cruel and scheming etc.), but not before the king's daughter falls in love with him, which sort of speeds up his departure.
So then, as I said, the guy who killed his girlfriend is still alive and scheming how to get CLH killed, so he goes and tricks the dead girlfriend's sister and after they got over their misunderstandings they were getting close too... At this point I was on the side of the poor boat girl, as in love as ever but silently bearing watching them holding and hands and taking walks together. That sister is seriously useless at times and can't protect herself or anything, despite supposedly having practised martial arts for ten years in seclusion! And because of this seclusion, she has poor social skills and doesn't get along with anyone on the boat, just sticking to CLH at all hours.
Finally, there's another scheme to frame CLH and to cut a long story short, boat girl gets slashed by a sword saving CLH in a fight where he was obviously going to lose (it was just a matter of time), and I'm left feeling rather annoyed because every girl that I want CLH to be with dies, and now the only romantic option left is for him to go with the dead girlfriend's sister, who is the worst of the three. Perhaps it's a good thing that the story closes with him wanting a bit of solitude after defeating his final enemy so I won't have to see them two together. Then again, it could be a bad thing because then I'm left with the impression that them two will find each other whereas if the story continued he might find someone that I approved of. Oh well. I don't suppose the author actually intended for his saga to be a romance.
However, as a last thought, I'm disappointed that she never got to hear him talk about them together, not even jokingly. He never really acknowledged that they were, after all, anything more than brother and sister (by default of living on the same boat). He even sort of kissed both of the sisters - the first one properly and the second one sort of subconsciously, murmuring the name of her dead sister afterwards (something I rejoiced in; I don't want him to forget her).
So! I hope you followed all that, with the mutlitude of girls who fell in love with him who I didn't bother naming, instead referring to them as things like "boat girl", "girlfriend" and "girlfriend's sister". XD Or perhaps you just skipped that whole section. I wouldn't blame you if you did.
Um... what do I say now? Well, firstly, I've discovered that there is ultimately no way of fighting something that consumes your thoughts as this did. You just have to ride it through. Also, as much as it feels like it's "the real thing" and you're never going live after it... well, that's just nonsense. It's just infatuation. I've always had a thing for fictional characters. None of them is the real thing. I think that when I finally encounter it I'll know.
What-the-fuck that was the most vague thing I've ever said. I have no idea what I mean. At first I was sort of talking about being unable to get out of the well of thoughts, and then I sort of moved onto being in love... (which I am not so whatever).
Oh my God I can't believe there are only two more days of holidays. I want people to talk to, but I don't want to leave behind this glorious interlude of nothingness!