Stay safe this Christmas, my friends!
Wishing you all a blessed Christmas, my friends and your loved ones! I barely had time to finish this drawing, but now I finally have a break from work and studies, so I’ll start writing my next chapter for Forget-Me-Not.
The pandemic is getting so much worse in a matter of weeks, and it feels like we are back to square one. 🙁 No matter what, please stay safe and take good care of yourselves!
Hello and Happy New Year!
My warm wishes to you and to your family. Thank you for making the “Candy Candy” fandom such an interesting environment with your creativity and integrity.
Can’t wait to read the next chapter to your story. Your newest “Candy Candy” fanart is amazing!
Hello @Jesse! Thank you for your encouraging words, and my warm wishes to you and your loved ones as well! I’m writing the next chapter. To compensate it will be longer this time. Thanks for your interest 😘
Happy new year to you too! 🎉🥳
Happy New Year, @Ms Puddle! Love your new drawing of Candy. Best Wishes!
Hello @DanielleV! Thank you very much. Best wishes to you too! Living in the west coast, I’m now in the last hour of 2021😉
Season Greetings!
Many thanks for generously sharing another of your brilliant artwork with us, Ms Puddle. I hope you will also consider drawing Stear at some point in the near future. I would like to see your perspective and artistic approach to this amazing character. Apart from Candy and Albert, Stear is one of my favourite characters in this story by Keiko Nagita. I’m pleased that the author gave him much more depth and made him less of a comic relief as in the anime. Stear is a very complex character this is much more evident in the manga and the novel.
Have a Happy New Year!
Please read my final sentence as follows (I forgot to add a word…):
“Stear is a very complex character *and* this is much more evident in the manga and the novel.”
Thank you @Lakewood! Can’t believe it’s already the last day in 2021! In some places they are already celebrating the new year 🎉🥳
I like both Stear and Archie too, and I actually think Nagita-sensei could have let Stear live or given Archie a better partner in life lol… I dislike how the brothers’ roles were diminished in the anime version, and like you, I’m so glad the two characters got elevated in the novel.
Sooner or later I’ll draw Stear and/or Patty. They are my favourite characters apart from Candy and Albert. Best wishes to you in the new year! 🙏🤗
That’s awesome, Ms Puddle. Looking forward to it!
Best wishes in the new year for you too!
Best wishes to you in the new year too!
Hello Ms Puddle,
How are you? Did you have a good time during Christmas? Did it snow in Vancouver?
My husband and I spent Christmas in Finland and it was absolutely beautiful. We were planning on going to Quebec but the flight tickets were a bit too expensive as we had decided to book the last minute. We’ll probably go next year, if all goes well.
Really enjoyed reading your new fanfiction series. You’ve created such depth and intricacy within the already rather complex relationship between Candy and Albert. That’s alright though because that intensifies the suspense. Your illustration of Candy is beautiful too.
Have fun and also have a Happy New Year!
Hello @Leda, thanks for asking. I have enjoyed my break so far. Yes we have White Christmas this year, and in fact we got another few inches last night.
What a delight to hear that you and your husband spent your Christmas in a beautiful place like Finland. Must be gorgeous❣️ The number of COVID cases in Quebec is rapidly rising every day, so I’m glad that you decided not to go.
Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging words to my fan-works. 🤗 I’ll continue to do my best. 💪
Are you going back home soon or will you wait till the new year? In any case, happy 2022!
Pleased to know that you’re enjoying the Christmas break.
Regarding COVID-19, it’s a health hazard wherever you go. That’s the reason why vaccination is essential along with wearing protective masks and maintaining social distancing as much as possible.
My husband and I were planning to be back home for the New Year but it’s so awesome here in Finland that we’ve decided to extend our stay. We were fortunate enough to be able to maintain the same lodgings as the guests who had been planning to occupy had cancelled their booking the last minute due to COVID-19 restrictions in their own country. It appears that each country has implemented its own restrictive policy based on the gravity and severity of the situation in their own land.
So glad to hear that you and your husband are enjoying your extended stay in a beautiful place, @Leda! I wish I had the guts to travel too lol… Anyway, happy new year 🎉 and have a safe trip back home 🏡
Thank you for your concern and kind wishes.🙏❤️Have a fruitful and beautiful 2022!✨
Hi there! I’m so glad to have received an update surrounding the progress of your work. This version of Candy, as drawn by you, is superb. I’ve been reading your recent fanfic too and it makes sense why Candy’s mood in this current drawing would be rather pensive.
Please take very good care of yourself and your loved ones. The pandemic, unfortunately, is far from over as the new Omicron variant appears to be even more contagious than the Delta one. It only remains to be verified via credible scientific research whether it’s as lethal. Hopefully, it is not.
Best Wishes!
Thank you @Halcyon Days for your positive feedback to my fanfic and illustration! 😍
The surge of Omicron cases around the world is truly alarming, but the latest reports seem to suggest it might be less lethal than Delta. Yet, I agree people should take precautions and continue to practice social distancing, even for those who are fully vaccinated.
Best wishes to you too! 🤗
Certain pharmaceutical companies are planning to distribute vaccines purported specifically to target the Omicron variant in due course, most possibly in 2-3 months. Pfizer has announced its intention to have the vaccine ready by March the latest.
True, @Halcyon Days, and more oral medicines are being administered in the hospitals too, I read. Let’s hope these will be game changer. 🙏
Let’s hope and anticipate that this new year will also bring the end of this global pandemic.
Have a Happy New Year!
I really hope so, @Halcyon Days!
Hi Ms Puddle!
I’ve been reading some of you fanfiction during the holidays. Your talent in writing is amazing! I’m going to dive in reading LNF as I only had the time to reads sporadic chapters due to other responsibilities.
I wish and your family all the best for the year 2022!
Meant to say – [I only had time to read sporadic chapters..].
Btw, your most recent Candy-theme fanart is so beautiful.
Many Thanks!
Thank you @Christine. So glad to hear you like my latest drawing of Candy. 😘
Hi @Christine, thank you so much for reading LNF❣️ It’s my first and the longest, thus most special to me. When I read it again I knew I could have improved it, but I decided not to. Instead, I just revised here and there to keep the plot. Thanks again for your interest!
Best wishes to you and your loved ones in 2022 as well! 🤗
That happens to most if not all of us who tend to write a lot. I feel the same way with you when looking back on the work I used to publish as a PhD student back in the day.. I sometimes wonder how on earth those examiners granted me my doctorate. Joking aside, I think it would be best not to beat ourselves up and take it as read that humans are innately imperfect and there’s always room for improvement. Perhaps that’s the charm and beauty of it provided that we’ve got the self-knowledge and good intention to evolve and eventually improve.
Hi @Christine, I’m truly blessed and humbled to have visitors like you commenting on my blog. Many of you have great achievements in life, and to know that my fan-works are being appreciated means a lot to me. 🤗 Thank you! Happy new year to you and your loved ones! 🥳🙏
The respect and appreciation is mutual, Ms Puddle. It’s a pleasure and an honour to visit your awesome blog and enjoy discussions with you.
Happy New Year to you and your loves ones!
Thanks again, @Christine!
Superb fanart! You make Candy look so stunning. If only Igarashi and Nagita would also focus on “upgrading” Candy a bit when it came to her looks. LOL
Have you taken the “booster shot” yet? I’m not eligible for it yet because I’m under 50. Who would have thought that being a “boomer” would turn out to be an advantage? For the time-being, I’ll have to wait but at least the middle-aged members of my family (50-year-olds and over) along with the elderly have managed to get the aforesaid booster shot. In some countries, the age factor is not a requirement but in my country it sure is..
No I’m not old enough lol, @Valkyrie. Last time I checked (roughly two weeks ago) the booster shots were available for 65-year-olds or older.
I heard that the vaccination centers were quite crowded these days. 🙁 So even if I were eligible I’d rather wait.
Thank you @Valkyrie for your positive feedback, and I’m so glad you think I have “upgraded” Candy 🤗 That being said, I do think Candy is beautiful inside and out in CCFS. At least Albert agreed that she was beautiful (even though he teasingly added “probably” right afterwards). The adjective he used was 美しい, and for your information it’s equivalent to “beautiful” in English, not just “pretty” or “cute”. We don’t usually describe a friend as beautiful, do we? For Albert to say that in his letter to Candy, he’s either flirting or they are already more than friends, IMHO. 😉
Both Candy and Albert regarded each other as being beautiful in terms of looks and character. If there are still a few desperate fans who continue to try to convince themselves that Candy and Albert viewed each other in a paternal or fraternal way, they are nothing but mindless and insignificant morons. Unfortunately for those pitiful creatures, Keiko Nagita disputed and eliminated their ludicrous claims by stating that it’s up to Candy to choose between Terry or Albert, hence, placing Albert just as much of a potential suitor for Candy.
Correct. The irony is that the Albert-fans don’t even have to try to prove that Albert constitutes a strong possibility to be “Anohito” because Nagita has already done all the work for them. Needless to mention that the textual evidence of the CCFS destroys all those asinine Terrfan claims. With that being said, whether certain ageing Terrfans want to admit it or not, the author of the CCFS has given an equivalent opportunity for Terry and Albert to be “Anohito”. No matter how hard those mentally, psychologically and physically decaying Terrfans try to prove otherwise, all they achieve is making a complete arse out of themselves (yet again..) as well as shooting themselves in the foot with their lamentably unlimited imbecility.😉
You’ve all made perfectly valid points. At the end of the day, not a single intelligent and logical individual gives a damn what some foolish old Tfans have to say. They can keep frothing at the mouth all they want but based on indisputable textual evidence and the author’s own words during official interviews, Candy’s lover during the Interbellum could be Albert or Terry or perhaps someone she met later on in her adult life. The author has already specified in the preface of the novel that ambiguity has been deliberately established and maintained throughout the novel with regards to the identity of Candy’s lover so that the readers can imagine whomever they want. Besides, this story is not about any of the male characters in Candy’s lifetime but about Candy herself and she’s the protagonist of this story. Period.
Indeed, @Irana93, the story is not really about who Candy’s husband is but about Candy herself and her resilience.
Sometimes I can’t help but recall what Alcott once said about her character Jo,
“I won’t marry Jo to Laurie to please anyone.”
While I think Alcott’s “Little Women” is a real classic, I don’t like its ending either, not because Jo married a middle-aged professor, but mainly because Laurie married Amy. Critics said it was Alcott’s deliberate choice to provide an ending that was unsatisfying.
Sorry, I have digressed. My point is, Nagita sensei intentionally kept Anohito’s identity ambiguous with reasons. She herself said she was michievous (I forgot her exact wording) and did not want to disappoint some fans. However, based on her clues in the novel, I interpreted her words as “not to disappoint the Terry fans”, lol, because Nagita sensei apparently wants to keep her original plot (Albert as Candy’s destined love). Yet, ultimately, Candy is the protagonist. This story is called Candy Candy after all. Whom she married does not matter as much. It matters that she was happily living with the man she loved.
That’s just my two cents, of course. 😉
I agree with you. It’s more than apparent that Nagita was referring to certain hysterical Tfans when writing about not wishing to incur disappointment or disillusionment upon them. She simply wanted to satisfy all her readers and based on all that ongoing and long-term pestering she had received from obsessed Tfans since the 1970s, I wouldn’t blame her.
Unfortunately, I honestly think that the invention of “Anohito” achieved the opposite, don’t you think, @Irana93? It gave some fans false hope, IMHO.
Perhaps that was Nagita’s intention-to create ambiguity-because she simply couldn’t bear those obsessive and persistent Tfans pestering her after so many years. Think about it.. It’s like a parent in a shop (or any other public venue) who simply tosses that candy or toy at his/her nagging toddler in order to get that kid to stop embarrassing him/her in public. In a similar way, some of those Tfans behave like hysterical spoilt brats but sadly with the body of middle-aged or elderly creatures. All they cause is embarrassment to others by desperately craving negative attention; hence, that’s the reason why so many people, nowadays, avoid any form of online or offline interaction with them- apart from perhaps being occasionally polite to them in public but that’s really it.
Yes, @Valkyrie and @Lynn. In fact, I see Albert had a higher chance to be Anohito simply because Anohito could recognize Candy’s beloved orphanage (pre-reconstruction) at a glance and that Anohito and Candy were well off living in a suburb during the interbellum.
It’s beyond any shadow of a doubt that Albert has a very strong chance of being Candy’s beloved partner during her adulthood and there’s nothing those poor old hysterical Terrfans can do about it. Some of them have reduced themselves to a pitiful spectacle in their attempt to trash Albert and oust him from being “Anohito”. Nevertheless, their attempts are futile and all they manage to prove is that they’re even more idiotic than originally fathomed. They have been rendered a mere laughing stock by older and younger generations alike within the CC community. Even those who have never been involved in the CC community and have simply commented on the CCFS on social media have realized how deranged and dumb some of those Terrfans are due to their hysterical outbursts and relentless whining. The Terrfans have been stigmatized as a raging lunatic bunch of clowns by the general public and they have no one to blame but their own asinine selves. As for the Albert-fans, they are by far much more sensible, reasonable and logical-at least the greatest majority of them. Most of the Albert-fans enjoy the CCFS but without allowing this story and its characters to interfere and thus superimpose their real personal and social life.
Hi @Lynn, it’s very unfortunate for them to be so deeply affected by a fictional character. They really need to get a life.
These are all highly intelligent comments and thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us!
In spite of the obvious toxicity of certain deranged old fans, it’s good to know that the majority of people within the CC community are sensible and civilized thus acknowledging the ambiguity in Nagita’s “Candy Candy Final Story” novel in tandem with respecting perspectives which do not necessarily align with their own.
I would definitely agree with @Lynn that the world has far greater matters to delve into than fret over and get into inane altercations over the identity of Candy’s lover in the 1930s.
@Ms Puddle is right and those who obsess over imaginary characters should get a life and a real one-that is.😉
I couldn’t agree with you more, @Lynn. Either they are too stupid to understand what Nagita wants to say or too stubborn to admit what is right in front of their eyes. Either way, it’s no use getting into arguments with them. They are rather to be pitied than to be angry with.
Nagita has been giving clear hints about Anohito’s identity ever since the French translation of CCFS was published. At the presentation of the book in Paris she said that Albert made her heart beat faster while at the same time she added that she felt pity for Terry. She also confirmed that the relationship between Candy and Albert was no paternal or fraternal. Moreover, she has fully approved the subtitle of the second volume which unmistakably presents Albert as a main character of the novel. (It still makes me laugh when I recall the declaration of Tfans that Prince on the Hill was Terry…) When the Spanish translation came out, the hints in favor of Albert became more apparent, to the point that some deranged Tfans asked for the letters of the Epilogue to be transferred to Section 3 and Terry’s brief note be placed to the end. LOL.
Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster is a novel which strongly inspired Nagita while she was writing Candy Candy. The similarities are obvious. Arechi Manga has recently published DLL in Spanish along with its sequel, Dear Enemy. What is interesting about it is that this edition also contains a preface by Nagita herself, and a letter from Candy to Judy. That addition can be considered as another clear hint by Nagita about Anohito.
Well said!
Accurate comment, @Fay, and I couldn’t agree with you more.
Some of those Terrfans (not all of them, apparently) deserve nothing but pity as they have reduced themselves into a pathetic commingle of bitter and vile little creatures which are getting older but none the wiser. Most of them are in their 50s-60s and they’re behaving like rabid old mutts frothing at the mouth and drooling over a mere fictitious character which is incapable of paying their bills or saving them from serious diseases which will eventually befall upon them due to their old age, if they haven’t been afflicted already.
That said, there are far more serious issues to deal with than getting into feeble-minded and tediously lengthy arguments over fiction.
Our world is being currently overwhelmed by a severe pandemic which has most certainly incurred irreversible repercussions in all possible aspects of human life and the environment. Instead of focusing on real-life issues and investing one’s “passion” into the real world with real people, some of those Terrfans (again, not all of them) refuse to accept the fact that they are mentally and psychologically disturbed. Instead of seeking help, they are constantly lashing out at unknown and non-existent “enemies” which dwell rent-free in their poor old paranoid and diseased minds. The reality of this situation, however, is that no one gives a rat’s a$$ about their obsession over some silly and insignificant cartoon character. Even a child would laugh at them and mock them for their unlimited stupidity as such nonsensical behaviour would be too infantile and asinine for even a child of a very young age, let alone a grown-a$$ adult who’s middle-aged or elderly.
The bottom line is that whilst it’s perfectly fine and normal for people to demonstrate a healthy enthusiasm for fiction and fictional characters, there ought to be a fine line between discerning fact from fiction and avoid the overlapping of those aforesaid two elements. Appreciating fiction and any other form of literary or artistic expression is most forthcoming provided that it does not become weaponized against other people who do not agree with them for one reason or another.
Eloquently elucidated, @Fay and @Lynn. It’s actually quite hilarious how some of those deranged Terry-fans have achieved the exact opposite in their pathetically desperate attempts to demean Albert’s character and the Albert-fans.
Their irrational rage and spewing of bile against a multitude of people online has even turned them against some well-known YouTuber admin
and other folks on social media (i.e. FB, Twitter, Instagram) who are independent and neutral to this ongoing ‘feud’ within the ‘Candy Candy’ fandom. They are humiliating themselves on a continual basis.
It appears that the imbecility of certain Terry-fans is not only fathomless but it’s also as a ‘gift’ which keeps on giving because their overtly cheap pettiness is elevating the Albert-fans who are, in turn, appearing as reasonable, moderate and civilised in comparison.
I mostly agree with you ladies regarding those Terry fans. Indeed, the more they rant the more they will be ignored. They really should devote their energy to something else. It’s totally fine to express their love or admiration for a certain fictional character, but it doesn’t mean they can demean or belittle the other characters or their fans.
As @Fay said, Nagita sensei’s endorsement of Daddy-Long-Legs and its sequel (in which Master Jervie paid for the reconstruction of the orphanage, wink wink) speaks volumes. In the old novel, the one who paid for the reconstruction was Mr. Brighton, and in CCFS it’s changed to Albert for a reason, IMHO. 😉
Hello!
Have you been enjoying your Christmas break so far? Even though the pandemic is still around, at least we’ve got ways to tackle it such as vaccines and medication. Let’s focus on maintaining the proper safety measures and we’ll get through this.
Many thanks for sharing your fascinating blog with us and looking forward to the next chapter of your new fan-fiction.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!🎄🎁⛄
Yes you’re right @Aurora! We should focus on doing our best to protect ourselves and our loved ones. 💪 Happy new year! Let’s hope that things will be better, sooner or later.
I’ve been enjoying a very quiet Christmas break so far. No parties and not going to any crowded places. How about you?
I will definitely continue writing my fanfic. Thanks to people like you, who keep on encouraging me. 🤗 Thank you very much 🥰
Same here.. Focus is on quality time with my beloved folks (close family & friends). If there’s anything ‘positive’ about these dire times is that some of us have realized what really matters and that’s the people who inspire and fulfil us. As for you, your talent is amazing and we’re grateful that you are generous enough to share it with us.
Perfectly stated. Nothing more and nothing less.😉
Well said!
Well said, @Aurora! Apart from that, another “benefit” is that I don’t take things for granted anymore, like getting together with my family members or seeing my friends on a regular basis.
Thanks again for your encouraging words concerning my fan-works. I’ll do my best 💪🤗
That’s definitely the best way to move forward, Ms Puddle. Having a positive outlook on life is essential, especially during these trying times.
So true, @Aurora! I couldn’t agree with you more. 🤗
Albeit rather belated, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
On an additional note, please accept my appreciation regarding your outstanding work surrounding story-writing and illustrations. Your most recent work on the CC/CCFS characters is remarkable, to say the least.😊
Thank you so much for your kind words concerning my fanfic and fanarts, @Irana93❣️
Thank you @Irana93! No worries, and may things get better in the new year 🙏🤗