kittydesade | (no subject)

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learning: german

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1. David hat viele Fragen, weil er in Deutschland studieren möchte.
2. Er studiert vielleicht vier Semester dort, wenn die Uni nicht zu teuer ist.
3. Nicole sagt, dass es nichts kostet.
4. Dann studiert er, wenn er einen Studentenjob finden kann.
5. Nicole sagt, dass es gibt leider wenige Studentenjobs.

... I don't have enough time really to complete this writing assignment. Although if I get through my work emails I might do. Hm.

Oh science, why are you so weird. No, seriously, a glow in the dark dog? I think this article would have made a lot more sense to me if they'd tied in the glowing with the Alzheimer's/Parkinson's treatment potential. But they didn't. They just gave me a glowing beagle.

Closing tabs. Also have finally been dicking around with customizing the layout for my DW journal, since the latest round of DDoS attacks on LJ has prompted another round of people going 'fuck this, I'm moving to DW.' Yay? Yay ish! And offering to help monitor for responses and whatevers dealing with the slowness of DW ended up getting me possibly recruited to write FAQs and Guides and things for DW. I have no idea how I get myself into these things, I swear. No, wait, I know. It looks shiny. And then I go "oh yeah, I could totes do that." And then I go, "crap, what did I get myself into." BUT, even with allowing for that, actually, working on some non-fiction/copy editing/copy writing should be very good mental floss for between scenes in the evening, so I'm not trying to do an additional twenty things at once.

I swear I had something else to talk about here. I could froth over the current state of US politics, which is basically everyone whining and screaming at each other about how they can't have their way and no one actually thinking about the increasingly mob-like population of most of the rest of the country who are suffering because of it. But I don't want to froth. I want to be cheerful. Bele Chere is coming soon, I can't decide if I want to work it or if I want to take a freaking day off. I think I will end up coming in, if for no other reason than I can always use the extra money before Dragon*Con.

Oh! The other thing. I want to take this as a challenge, but I'm not sure how. Help? Thoughts? Anyone? Admittedly, I have almost everything for the next several fic challenges lined up. Most of my SFBB/NovelBB/Original BB is done, none of which qualifies, I'm doing Black Ice collection for Nano, and while I could try doing another fantasy novel for it, I don't know what world I'd set it in or if I would just have to make up a new one in September. Oh, and Horror Big Bang, which I signed up for ages ago and at some point I need to input those dates, is already half written too. And also does not involve fantasy. So, thoughts? Or would anyone else like to take up the challenge for me?

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(ps: this is

denise under my "personal" account; you seem awesome, so i am adding you. *g*)

Awww, why thank you! I'm working on it. :)

And adding you in return!

It's a bit like how dwarves - save for the ones in the Dragon Age games, which seem to have American accents - all seem to have Scottish accents for no other reason than that just seems to be the done thing.

(P.S. this is Sash's mun from LJ. *waves*)

I wonder if it's gotten worse since John Rhys Davies played Gimli. Which always makes me blink when I remember how, when I met him, he TOWERED over me. Very Hagrid-like.

Hi! *waves* LJ choked on its own vomit again, for me at least.

I wouldn't be all that surprised. Lord of the Rings left quite a mark, I think.

Ditto for me, alas. It always works just long enough to get our hopes up and then conks out.

Both in literature (I was reading an article an author I like linked on her twitter about how fantasy worlds are often British-sounding) and in movies. Yeah.

Rassum frassum long string of curse words LJ. Stupid damn DDoSers. Why can't they put their talents to something useful, like crashing ... um. Hm. Something. Kim Kardashian's web page.

I'm a massive fan of both the books and the movies. Looking forward to see what happens with The Hobbit. Guillermo del Toro was directing at some point, but now I think it's back in Peter Jackson's hands?

Anyway, Martin Freeman certainly looks the part.

Probably because we all get so upset. Isn't that why most hackers do things? That and to make some sort of statement.

I think so, yeah. And, me too. Both sets, actually, the animated and the live action one, I think they both did the novels justice in their own way. It should be interesting.

Apparently it's the statement thing. Something to do with politics. Ka-bleh.

I think that given the length and detail in the story, it would be difficult to do it total justice - at least not without running the risk of making each film about six hours long. Probably more.

I suppose it's too much to hope for them to either get over it, or for LJ to finally figure out how to stop/block them.

Definitely, although Peter Jackson tried. But there is material that can be cut and replaced with simple visuals, really. Which he did a very good job of doing, I think.

Probably. probably both. Silly, foolish people. There's a rumor/article somewhere I saw about how this is all in response to some blogger's comment on the Norway massacre.

One of the great things about film, really. Being able to work in pictures rather than words, though you get those really fantastic writers that sort of tie the two together.

Well, they've managed to get a reaction. Whether or not it's the one they wanted remains to be seen I suppose.

Oof dinner. I had a lot more time when I didn't care about what I ate. Ah well.

It is. Especially if you have a good director, or a good cinematographer, or both. Someone who can communicate things through image, setting, lighting, and what and how they choose to frame it as well as telling the story by action and words.

Hah, found it. Yeah, I have no idea what's going to happen, between this and the last one. It feels like the last one wasn't that long ago, either.

Definitely both.

Film crews are made up of triangles: director, cinematographer and editor; director, cinematographer and production designer being the two main ones. The idea being that if they're in constant communication then the film should succeed, at least from a technical point of view.

The last one wasn't really that long ago. It was, what, April-ish?

That makes sense. I don't know so much about filmmaking, but I've developed I guess a more nuanced appreciation since I was a kid. Which is in and of itself interesting to note.

Not that this stops me from enjoying crappy action movies, but they have their own requirements.

Digging a bit reveals that the last one started on March 24 and they were still having problems on April 8. It looks like it peaked in April. I'm not sure if this is a problem to do with less security now that they're over in Russia or greater profile or what. Irksome.

I only really know this because I went to film school, which sounds a lot more fun than it actually was. At least after the first year.

Crappy action movies indeed have their own rules. Sometimes you just want to go see something with lots of explosions, yanno? Which is one of the ways I've justified seeing all three Transformers movies.

I think a lot of school type things are that way. The more you pick things apart to learn how they work and therefore use them yourself, the less mystery-type-fun they have. Some things, anyway. (Either that or I'm totally wrong on the source of un-fun.)

Yup. And those movies are an excellent source of explosions. And giant robots. I long for the day when Michael Bay realizes he needs less humans and more robots. I could really have done without half the human interaction plotlines in the third one, including that half hour of Shia Does the Darndest Things.

That and the practical stuff depends largely on everyone knowing what everyone else is doing, so if someone drops the ball it tends to snowball very quickly.

Also, directors - or maybe it's just student directors - are douchebags.

Epic giant robots! Zombie elves from space!

...actually that last one could be really interesting. But I digress.

I don't mind Shia so much. Not much of a Megan Fox fan - is it just me or does the woman put out the most epic bitch vibes? - though. In fact, most female characters in those sort of movies tend to be terribly flat, personality-wise. Which is unfortunate.

That sounds... unpleasant.

I was actually going to write mecha space elf porn at one point. Still tempted, sometimes, to write space elf mecha fighters. Not sure what I'd write it for, though. Maybe next year.

I don't mind Shia in general, but it seems like lately his role in movies is to flail and be shrill. I wish he wouldn't do that. And it's not just you about Megan Fox. It's definitely not just you. She seems to act or at least present herself like everything's high school and she has to be Queen Bitch.

There is a dearth of female action heroes. Sucker Punch was decent in that respect, at least. Though, liking Sucker Punch seems to be an unpopular opinion.

More frustrating than anything else. But fun too, especially when you got in with a good group of people.

You must! You must simply because something like that needs to exist.

I suppose it didn't bother me so much because usually the guys in those sorts of movies are portrayed as being these über competent, unshakable in the face of danger and the unknown types and, sure, they have their place in the world just like everyone else but it's nice to occasionally see someone that would react more like, say, me in that sort of situation. I mean, giant robots from space? That is both awesome and terrifying.

I loved Sucker Punch! Visually, it was epic. Then there's the fact that the girls were both badass and yet vulnerable/flawed. Relatable and sympathetic.

...though the first time I saw it my reaction was mostly along the lines of: OMG so pretty! *Homer Simpson!face*

XD I will work on some kind of outline, story concept, sketch, something, then. Because the concept is all I have, which might be good for other authors but I like to have a story on which to hang my shiny.

That's true. I think on the whole I prefer ... maybe it's just that he's the younger more loud Arthur Dent type, rather than, well, Arthur Dent. Which was a comparison made in another movie recently, damned if I can remember which. Although these days, Giant Robots from Space would be met with THAT'S SO AWESOME THIS IS TEN TIMES BETTER THAN TRANSFORMERS. And then we'd get stepped on.

I loved it too! I had a post around here somewhere gushing about it (although, heh, I had a similar reaction to all the trailers) but it basically boils down to your overall message is that you already have everything you need to be epically badass? ROCK. Especially since it was largely directed at girls. Movies could use more of that message, even if not always so blatantly. But it was so pretty...

I can definitely understand that. Flying by your pants is all well and good but it's...comforting? Knowing that there is some kind of overall plan, at least.

James McAvoy also did a pretty good job of it in Wanted.

You are, unfortunately, probably right about the giant robots thing.

I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more movies like it - Sucker Punch, I mean. I also liked how the whole three separate realities things - something that could get very confusing very quickly - just worked.

...I kind of want a giant stone samurai now.

Even if it ends up deviating from that plan, at least there's a plan to deviate from. I never liked reading or writing things that just sort of ambled for the length of a novel.

I still haven't seen that. I keep going back and forth on whether or not I want to.

It was really well put together. Mind-bending in just the right way so that it wasn't too much effort to follow for watching, and pretty riveting. And then with enough stuff that you can think it over afterwards.

XD I want the mecha.

It seems to happen a lot with TV shows. One of the things I really liked about Supernatural was how they'd planned out the whole arc.

It's a fun movie, I thought. Good cast. Nice music. It was directed by the same guy that did the Night Watch films, I believe, so it had a nice gritty feel.

I like movies that make me think. It's one of the reasons I really liked Tron: Legacy - I wasn't actually going to see it at all at first but then I did and, well... the rest, as they say, is history.

I did like that, at first. And now they're extending it into the sixth and seventh season, and from everything I've heard they're just sort of... rather than taking step by step tangents off the main line they're rolling off the rails into fangirl/boy territory. I haven't seen any of season six.

I... hm. I don't remember. Internet! Enlighten me. (The internet says yes.) I did like the Night Watch films. I'm kind of dreading the third, though, I hear it's going to be Hollywoodized.

The boy and I were going to see it I think from the moment he said "Hey, they're finally making a Tron sequel!" But it definitely met and even exceeded my expectations.

I like how season five ended. I thought it fit well with the overall tone of the show; bittersweet but then I don't think a truly happy ending was ever really on the cards for the boys. It just didn't seem realistic.

Season six - I decided to look at it mostly out of curiosity's sake - is okay in pieces, I guess. However, there really isn't much more you can do after you avert the apocalypse so it seems rather...redundant. But there's Crowley, which is nice. Crowley almost makes it worth it.

I wasn't even aware that they were making a third movie! Which reminds me, I really need to read the last book.

My little brother had been having a rough time so I offered to take him out to cheer him up. He wanted to see Tron. So we saw it.

...I then saw it again a week later with my best friend.

I keep hearing terrible terrible stories about plots I would more normally trust in the hands of other writers, but a sequence of "Let's put the Winchesters in the most ridiculous, hilarious situations possible" doesn't fill me with hope.

And no, I don't think there would ever be a happy ending for them, really. But if they had to do a season six, I think they could have tried to ease back to something closer to season one, give it some symmetry and give the rest of the world a bit of a break. They don't seem like they're able to say "No, that's it, we've told a good story but it's over now," either, which doesn't inspire me to watch. Endings are important, equally important to know where they are.

That's what I keep hearing! I don't know if it's going to be like that Akira atrocity they kept talking about that finally got killed, or if it's actually going to happen, but I hear they're working on it.

And the books are wonderful. I'm going to try and start reading them in Russian soon, to expand my vocab and solidify my grammar. Which will be incredibly, incredibly slow. But hey.

Excellent. ... Actually, I only think I saw it once in theatres. But there was a whole lot of watching the old one, too. And a lot of counting down till the DVD release.

The "Eve" storyline had a lot of potential. I haven't seen all of season six yet - I think I might just sit through it just because I hate to leave things hanging - but I have heard some horror stories. I also don't think I'll be buying the DVD box set.

I saw the first movie. Thought: "Ah, this is interesting" and then went looking for the books. Funny how many books I've wound up reading because of that.

It was a bit of a dark horse, wasn't it?

That irritated me just on the basis of, really? You're going to make the hithertofore benevolent Mother of All the mother of demons? I try not to see women bashing in everything but that was either bad planning and writing or latent misogyny. Possibly just the former, but it irritated me. Even if they couldn't use Lilith again they could have gone with something else.

I did pretty much the same thing. Do pretty much the same thing. So far the only one I've regretted is Last of the Mohicans.

Just a wee bit. On the other hand, at least lately, those tend to be more fun.

Again, it might have worked better if they'd found a way to incorporate the Eve idea into the fourth/fifth season, as a sort of: "Oh dear, the wheels have really come off and shit is about to go down" thing rather than trying to make it stand on it's own. They could have then substituted Lilith for Eve. It would've certainly worked a lot better, given how Lilith is, canonically, the mother of demons/beasts, if I remember correctly. At least in my humble opinion.

They didn't seem especially fond of female characters on the show, no. They either pop up for an episode or so only to disappear into the aether afterwards, or they're killed off brutally. Which is unfortunate. I was rather fond of a couple of them.

I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more of them. Movies like X-Men and Transformers are fun and all but sometimes it's nice to be caught off guard. If only to stir things up a bit.

You do remember correctly, and they really should have. Or possibly not tried to retroactively explain all the monsters at one fell swoop. Bad, bad writing.

If all the rumors about all the screaming about the girl characters on the show blocking the fans' enjoyment of the boys is true, I do feel a little sorry for them. Trying to accommodate fans and treat their characters realistically at the same time. On the other hand, I haven't encountered that much screaming lunacy and misogyny. On the gripping hand, I also don't venture into fandom very much, and that's exactly why.

Still a little irked that they wrote Cassie in as this special girl in season 1, and then when they circled all the way back to Dean's significant beloveds in season... 5 and 6, I think it was, they didn't even give her a line mention. Oh, just. irked at the sloppy writing as the show went on in general.

I'm hoping that we'll see a trend swinging back to thoughtful movies soon. Really hoping. There's a few young actors I wouldn't mind seeing get to stretch.

To be honest, I hadn't really given much thought to where they'd come from aside from the occasional pause to consider just how shapeshifters came about. Because - and again, it's been a while since I saw season...1, I think it was, or possibly it was one of the shapeshifter episodes where they sort of alluded to the fact that a shapeshifter could have at least one human parent - they weren't the generic horror movie monster and most of them seemed, well...sort of tragic in a way. And batshit, but that more or less made sense.

Now that's just utterly ridiculous. Fandom, much as I love it, is something that really shouldn't be indulged if it can be avoided. Oh, there are some lovely ideas that pop up from time to time but considering the sort of stuff that seems to happen - usually in dark corners that most people with any inkling of sense avoid like the plague - it's probably best not to really take the risk. It's just not worth it.

I found Lisa an odd choice for Dean's "the one". I get that they were trying to give him a family and everything - a part of me still wonders if Ben mightn't have actually been his - but it did seem a bit contrived.

I suppose you run that risk when you get on, particularly if there's no longer a plan. Things also tend to get a bit random at times, and unfortunately no amount of Mark Sheppard can really fix that.

I'm sure they will. Although I've often found that the ones that are the most fun to pick apart often don't really intend to be. Or maybe that's just me.

... Damn, now I want to go back and rewatch season 1. If only for the research into the initial lore into the monsters and seeing how that diverges, if it does, from how they portray and describe them in season 6.

It isn't. And it seems to be a lot of what they're doing in the 6th season, or at least, it felt like they took a bunch of fanfic, looked at the common elements, and did that. All the alternate world type things, Western world and swapping into the actors world. They already did the meta commentary with Chuck and the books, and that was actually pretty well done, I thought. That worked, especially in the context of him being a prophet or possibly actually God. Adding on more was heavy handed.

If they'd laid more of a groundwork for him having more connection with her other than "she's bendy" I could have bought it. But when he went back, there was no sense that he had any connection to her or wanted one, and when she told him the kid wasn't his, that neatly tied that off. And then they brought it back. While they left behind the one girl he was established to have a connection with. Which might have been for actress reasons, I think it was, but they still could have mentioned.

Pretty much. I love Mark Sheppard to bits, but I'm not touching season 6.

If nothing else, they don't get in the way of having a good time. And if they're tightly or solidly written, you can take that and extrapolate all kinds of things from it.

I think they keep pretty much to their mythology, though they do introduce some new monsters - some of them I'd have actually liked to have seen earlier like dragons.

I'm sure they did something similar in Heroes at some point. In fact, both shows seem to have suffered from a similar problem, which is that they ...went off the plan, I guess. Although Supernatural at least had a plan to begin with!

I think that they could have found some sort of way to make it work, Dean's love interest thing I mean. If nothing else I would have bought him meeting someone else and settling down with them more than I bought the Lisa thing. Really, I just didn't feel it.

It's a delicate balance, it seems. You want a story that gives you enough wiggle room without there being massive plot holes, which just ruin the story!

LJ needs to stop going crazy and falling asleep. It irks me. .... and of course the second I type that the power goes out to half of downtown. I wonder if that's the universe's way of telling me it could be worse.

I know they keep forgetting stuff, or at least it seems as though they do, but I don't know if they rewrite stuff.

They did. Heroes had a stellar first season and then... I don't know what happened. Any semblance of reasonable, coherent, and skilled storytelling went straight out the window. And nuance. I missed the nuance, the deftness. I hear it tightened up later, but by that point I had become so disgusted I stopped watching.

They probably could have. I think there's a number of ways they could have made things work, they just didn't choose to. For whatever reason.

Yes! Exactly.

It always makes me sad when a story with such potential goes to waste. Or, in this case, is fucked up to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.

*giggles* Tolkien, CSLewis, and the part where most fantasy is theoretically set in a version of... the middle ages, ish, and the non-British English-speaking countries just didn't exist back then. And you can't have a movie/series made by US/UK/Canada/Australia and... in a different, middle-ages applicable language. And I'm back to Bujold with her Sharing Knife series which is set in an alternative 'verse of the midwest. Imagining THOSE books in a Brit accent does not compute.

Also, we do have witches bb.

That would be my guess. Maybe going back as far as ...

... well, too, there's the perspective that we're all writing this from English, most of the people debating this are writing this as native English speakers, so the default paradigm is English Literature. I'd have to go into a study of Spanish/Latin American literature to know what the equivalent is. But, yeah, certainly the bulk of world popularized fantasy comes from English speaking countries. So.

Mmm, we do. I don't know if we all want to dogpile on this bandwagon, though?

Oohhh ... mmm magic realism. :D Now I want to get faster through Pratchett and get to Allende and Marquez >.>

That is a good question. If I get a different idea, I actually may do a double - 10K in the triptich, and whatever happens separately. (Wut.)

XD I'd be tempted to do a double except I've already got MORE than enough on my plate. Maybe if things calm down soon enough. Maybe not.

Yeaaaaah. And I hope to get back into the frelling writing groove. ANY TIME WOULD BE GOOD, SELF. Ahem.

:)

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