The diary of a Giraffe Hunter

Meme. Meme meme meme. Meme?

2015-02-11T05:29:13Z

Stealing from jjpor and lost_spook because I can!

Ask me a question about one of my fics. It can be absolutely anything in any project and I will answer it the best I can -- even on current progress/plans.

If you'd prefer, you can also ask about my writing for a particular fandom, my writing as a whole, etc.

Keep in mind that my writing hasn't happened in a couple of years though :P
(Fics can be found on Teaspoon, AO3, and FF.net

Catching fire.

2013-12-06T06:55:53Z

So, turns out you don't need to read the books or watch the first movie in order to understand the second. I wonder how does that work to people who actually did bother with the above? Does it feel like an unnecessary introduction? Hmmm.
Anyway, good parts = Jennifer Lawrence is ♥. Also Woody Harrleson. And Lenny Kravitz and Elizabeth Banks although there isn't enough of them in the movie. Actually, there isn't enough Woody, either. Instead we have two guys with the charisma of a dead shoe. Dear lesser Hemsworth - even your brother has more charisma than you do, and I thought he had no charisma at all. As for Josh Hutcherson, don't get me started.

Movie-wise... omg. Why is no one trying to make YA movies actually movies? It's something that plagues most of HP as well, although I did feel 5 and 7 (as in DH part one, definitely not part 2) managed to transcend that, especially DH1. But seriously. The scenes are disconnected. Everything that isn't about the hero is shut out - and it's frustrating in a movie like Hunger Games, because the world actually has a crucial role in both the plot and the message. Well... show the world, then, don't just paint some broad strokes and be done with it! Grrr. Make us care about the world. Stop hinting then cutting away to some uninteresting nonsense. That's the thing. At 2.5 hours, it both felt too long and too short, because they decided to focus on all the wrong things (Josh Hutcherson. Honestly. Josh Hutcherson). It's time YA adaptations stopped being afraid of being movies and departing from the source material, in favour of actually being movies.

Don't get me wrong, it was actually quite quite entertaining, just frustrating because you can see there's stuff beneath the surface that they don't dare touch because, apparently, someone has decided that it's not that kind of a movie. Exactly the same problem as Goblet of Fire and DH2. Sometimes you need to care less about your hero and more about their surroundings.

Also, when that hero is Jennifer Lawrence, I'm okay. ♥ Although, really, if charimas-less Peeta would have let Woody take his place, I would have been so much happier.

This is still not an update. It is, however, a meme!

2013-12-03T08:20:30Z

Because I made a post but then I realised... not much point to it. I mean, I'm busy, my students need to learn what university level is, I hate my roommate, I have a rat in my apartment (seriously. And unlike the previous one, this bastard is fucking clever.), same old same old.

So instead, a stolen meme! From lostspook, naturally.

Give me a topic, and at some point in the next few weeks I'll ramble about it. It can be anything from fandom-related (TV shows, books, computer games) to life-related (aspirations, identity, political beliefs) to pizza preferences* to whatever you want.

My rambles will probably be brief, or not, depending on the subject.

Also, I reserve the right to decline prompts that I don't feel equipped to meet.

*I don't like pizza. Honestly. Also, I think I've ranted a lot about my political beliefs so you guys probably know all about them as it is, but feel free to ask anyway.

By popular demand, my opinion of Day of the Doctor.

2013-11-28T09:10:32Z

This is the first Doctor Who episode I've seen since the 3 episodes I've seen from s6 - I have not seen the show regularly since The Big Bang. And y'know what? I felt like I've already seen this episode 3 times.

It's the law of diminishing returns. You see this in long television shows without an arc-plan where the same creative team stays on for years and years. I should know, I am/was a Stargate fan. There comes the time when the writers simply exhausted everything they had to say about a certain world, certain characters, certain situations. There are a lot of ways of countering it. Sometimes they add characters, kill old ones, make a radical change in setting... You see this in Doctor Who so much. Change the Doctor. Change the companion. Change the setting - is he stuck on Earth or having a setting? Are we doing episode of the week or is there an arc? Is the Doctor happy-go-lucky or PTSDed or bored or having a meltdown? That's why Doctor Who has been so incredibly successful even after years and years. It's so easy to change everything.

And there comes the time when even that isn't enough. There comes the time when the head writer needs to realise the problem isn't the format, or the characters, or the setting. It's him. There comes the time when the writer needs to be honest with himself and realise that he's said and done everything he ever had in mind for the show. And it is time for him to move on from it.

Because the show isn't bad. That's the thing. That's the most awful thing about it all. It's not bad. Steven Moffat has not driven it to the ground. It's not atrocious, or the acting ridiculous, or the setting boring, or the characters uninteresting (well, this was my first encounter with Clara and she came off as the a one-note Feisty Moffat Companion (TM), but let's focus on the Doctor here). It really isn't that. It's that he's not even trying anymore. There is something admirable in going for something completely ambitious and falling on your arse. But that's not what Moffat is doing. He's foregone ambitious. Now he's just telling the same old story, again and again and again. Using the same old tricks, again and again and again. The thing about using a formula is that you know that it works. But as long as you use the formula, you can't try anything else. You can't fail - but you can't shoot higher than what the formula allows you to. Steven Moffat comes off as a writer who is too afraid to fall on his arse. He's too afraid to shoot for something completely different and fail. He's being complacent.

The show isn't bad. It's just stagnant and mediocre. Which is worse than bad.

My opinion of Day of the Doctor? Dear Steven Moffat, it's time for you to leave Doctor Who and go pursue something completely different. Give the show to someone else. Someone with their own ideas and dreams, someone with their own ambitions, someone who will dare try, even if it means they might fail.

Five ways in which Elysium completely fails as a science fiction movie

2013-08-14T05:32:57Z

"Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology." - Isaac Asimov

This post isn't about how Elysium fails as a movie, although I could write a loooooot about that too. No, it's about how it fails, specifically, as a science fiction movie. It probably comes not just because I spent 90% of the movie going 'really?!', but a) if you remember my reaction to Star Trek Into Darkness, the mishandling of science fiction lately really is starting to get on my nerves, and b) because, like when often is the case when people who are not interested in science fiction are exposed to science fiction, I heard a lot of good things about Elysium, which not only caused my disappointment, but made me think about how it fails as science fiction specifically.

5. It's unoriginal. And I'm not talking about the mountains of cliches and generic dialogue in the movie, although that was grating, too. I'm talking about the fact that the entire setting seems to be lifted from Asimov's Caves of Steel and the Naked Sun. It really does feel like Neill Blomkamp saw the movie called I, Robot and how it presented itself as an Asimov adaptation even though it had nothing in common with Asimov's book and its message was actually the opposite of Asimov's, and realised that... no one these days actually reads Asimov. So he can pretty much steal the entire setting of the robot books and no one would notice. Unfortunately, it seems like he was right. Except that he only stole some of it, which caused problem #4...

4. There's no metaphor/ the setting makes no sense. A major part of science fiction, after all, is the metaphor about our own lives, societies, etc. Except that in Caves of Steel, the metaphor about the classes/ rich vs. poor was entrenched in more than 'the poor are oppressed'. Oh, yeah, all those reviews that said the movie makes a political message? I'm sorry, but 'oppressing the poor is bad' is not, in fact, a political message. It's not even a political point. It's superficial lip-service. Again, in Caves of Steel there was actually a political message. There was a point. There was thought behind the world. But since Blomkamp simply reduced everything to the most simple elements, it was all lost, and therefore nothing makes sense anymore. In what way is this relevant to today's society, other than the fact we, too, have poor people who are not being helped by rich people? It isn't. And it really doesn't help that the setting is inconsistent. Which brings us to #3:

3. This film is not about societies. The best example for that is the point (or lack of) about robots. We get robots as the faceless representatives of authority, who, being robots, enable the oppression of the poor masses due to not having a heart, bothering to listen, or put a toe out of protocol. They can't - they're robots. Look what society is turning into! (The metaphor, of course, should be when people behave that way, not when technology replaces the human element, unless your movie is about the dangers of technology and not about how people screw over each other). ... Except that in the end, it's the exact same traits of the robots that bring about the happy ending, cos now that they've been reprogrammed, they automatically use the rich people's resources to help the poor. Yeah... not a very consistent message. I mean, if the movie would have been about how rich people choose to programme their robots/ use their resources, fine, the ending would have made sense. But the very long sequence in the beginning meant to show us how it's the robots themselves which are the problem... yeah. Inconsistencies. And that's one example - the entire design of the movie suffers from the same inconsistencies (and I won't even start about the point plenty of people have already made about how all the oppressed are Latin@ and black... except for the white hero who saves them all). And it isn't just inconsistencies with the science fiction message (and here I'm probably turning away from why this is a bad SF movie and into why this is a bad movie) - it's inconsistencies with the message itself. We keep on getting flashbacks about Matt Damon's childhood and how the Good Nun Who Raised Him told him that he shouldn't aspire to go live a better life but he will have a good thing that he was meant to do etc etc etc. The most obvious kind of indoctrination that is meant to stop people from protesting over the way society perpetuates those mechanisms that keep them oppressed. Except that it is presented as a good thing. So, the robots and Evil Jodie Foster With The Inconsistent Accent And Mismatched Lip Movements* are the oppressors, but apparently society-at-large has nothing to do whatsoever with it. And that's what is called the political understanding of a shoelace.

2. Speaking of people... there aren't any in this movie. Calling the characters here 'one-dimensional' would be a compliment.

1. Going back to the Asimov quote - there's no reaction. At all. Not to the technology. Not to the society (other than 'the rich people are oppressing us!'). Not when Matt Damon is implanted with a huge metal exo-skeleton. Nothing. It's the trademark of the worst kind of action movies, but this is supposedly something more. Or at least that's how plenty of people treat it. Why, I have no idea.

*I know, I said I won't talk about how this is a bad movie. But this was so jarring. I think Foster originally played her with a French accent and then they decided they didn't want it in post and re-dubbed her dialogue? So half her dialogue is in a French accent cos apparently you don't need to re-dub it consistently, and the part that isn't in a French accent is horribly and jarringly unsynced with her lip movements. It's like, dear god, people, if you're going to re-dub only half her dialogue... re-dub the parts where you don't see her lips moving!!

pitry @ 2013-07-03T12:15:00

2013-07-03T19:15:58Z

So, I, uh, got roped in by lost_spook to do trope bingo. Which is probably not completely clever seeing as I'm not here for half of the month (I'm going on the trip with Tsilhqot'in in two days!!!!! OMG OMG OMG and HORSES.) and the fact that the last time I wrote a fic was in January and since then I dropped out of hp_friendship because I wasn't in the right mindset to write for the past two months. I think I need to re-read HP or something to get back into the mindset, but I don't have the time because at any given moment I have about 10 linguistics books and/or books about First Nations people and history and culture looking at me accusingly and telling me I need to go read them.

So this is probably unwise. But LOOK I HAVE A CARD. And it is PERFECT.

character in distress	au: apocalypse	au: fantasy	kidfic	handcuffed / bound together
trust and vows	wingfic	secret twin / doppelganger	sharing a bed	transformations
unexpected friendship	bets / wagers	FREE ★ SPACE	au: space	deathfic
poor communication skills	language and translation	au: college / highschool	coming out (of the closet)	au: alternate gender norms
in vino veritas / drunkfic	au: other	au: mundane	au: romance novel	presumed dead

and looooooook at that first column. And then from that bottom square up in a diagonal line. Why hello there, Bruce/Selina who will probably be meeting Lois Lane and possibly Clark Kent down the line.

I need a Bruce/Selina icon. Sigh.

Star Trek Into Darkness waffling + overly geeky analysis

2013-05-24T05:34:49Z

So! Movie's entertaining, yay!

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

... Don't say I didn't warn you.

I cannot believe they threw in this scream. This brings the TPTB type of fanwank into a whole new level. Also, the whole Spock/Kirk role reversal was hilarious - putting Kirk in the radiation chamber. And he knocked Scotty unconscious! And and and the hand on the glass. LOL. Also there were Tribbles! THEY HAD TRIBBLES IN THIS MOVIE! It's hilarious.
Not-so-hilarious-stuff:
It started looking like Uhura and Sulu and Chekov would actually have something to do in the movie, but turned out they didn't. Meh.
Speaking of wasting people, meh @ Noel Clarke's role. I was really excited when I heard he's in it, but this was disappointing, to say the least. Mickey deserves better!
Benedict Cumberbatch... well he didn't win me over, let's say that. I still dislike him a lot. And he still looks like a lizard. Also, Khan was a Dalek.
Which brings me to the overly geeky analysis, which starts in complains about one thing I never thought they would a) do and b) that I would complain about. The DS9 reference.

There's this thing about science fiction, that it reflects the attitudes and beliefs of the time it's written, pretty consistently. I could complain about the writers over what they did with Section 31 - I mean, hell, they sure do deserve it if only for being the guys who wrote the Transformers script - but I actually think this isn't as much their fault as the side effect of this tendency in science fiction. The reason the Section 31 plots in DS9 worked and here they're a detracting factor from the movie is because of the change in our society between then and now.

DS9 played a lot with the question of what to do when facing an enemy that wants to destroy who you are and at what point you're doing it yourself. It was a major theme long before they introduced Section 31 - they had it as soon as they truly introduced the Changelings. But then, that was society back in the 1990s. The changelings weren't Daleks. They didn't want to destroy the Federation because they're evil - they were once-peaceful-people who became persecuted and developed the strategy of annihilating those who could prove dangerous before they get the chance to annihilate them. Villains, sure - but villains with rationale and depth and not Daleks. The same thing came up with the Section 31 plots. It wasn't just taking a stand that at some point, what exactly are you fighting for? But also tied in with the Romulan subplot (which seriously tackled this question with In the Pale Moonlight) and bothered to show the complexity of the Romulans and their actions as well as Section 31's convictions.

Needless to say, the other part of the DS9 equation, the Bajor plot, proved a thoughtful examination of the line between freedom fighters and terrorists and where exactly does it pass.

A 2.5 hour movie doesn't have the time to develop the complexity of 7 seasons of a show. I'm not expecting this at any way. And if TDKR showed us anything, it's that sometimes throwing in this kind of complexities can muddle the water and confuse the audience even more - although I'm still amazed at the sheer number of people who said they were taking a right-wing conservative approach, when what they were doing is point out that people with good intentions who take a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach and don't much check the hidden agendas of their new friends can be manipulated by people with bad intentions. But sure, that part of TDKR was a mess so it makes it easier for this point to disappear in the general confusion.

At least they tried.

Like I said, STID had Section 31, but never tried to examine their convictions too much. They threw in some of the classic DS9 'destroying the Federation values in order to protect it' but it was only ever a plot twist, only ever a mcguffin to get to the next cliffhanger or to enable Khan's next actions. Khan himself, as I complained, is a Dalek. He's not an enemy with a reason or motivation, he's a caricature villain who simply wants to destroy everyone. There were shades of the war on terror, but again, it was the most simplistic shades of the war on terror. No examination, no complex narrative, just the way for the next explosion. The terrorist is a mcguffin to set up the plot, which is - hunt down the terrorist. It's all about the hunt. The rest is pretence of complexity, but as soon as you give it a second look, you see the smoke and mirrors and here are the strings.

In the end, the movie is a homage to Star Trek 2 and a blockbuster, which is fair enough, because that's all it ever aspired to be. The problem is that by doing that they reminded me that there was once something more into it.

Meme

2013-05-20T22:07:39Z

Bet you didn't see that one coming. Stolen, as always, from lost_spook

I have 45 works archived at AO3. Pick a number from 1 (the most recent) to 45 (the first thing I posted there), and I'll tell you three things I currently like about it.

Mmph. Iron Man.

2013-05-07T20:56:24Z

Opening - just in case you've forgotten Shane Blake is the director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the opening is set to remind you of that fact. Not to mention that Guy Pearce looks A LOT like Val Kilmer.
I'm one of those odd people who actually didn't like KKBB.

The entire first hour (or so) - reads like a cliche h/c PTSD fanfic. Also, RDJ is very unsuitable for this kind of PTSD portrayal. He was fine in Iron Man 2 (I actually didn't hate this movie unlike apparently everyone else in the universe?) portraying the whole 'I'm miserable' thing, but here it was just embarrassing. Probably the embarrassing writing though, I mean - "oh look! I can't sleep! I have nightmares so my accidentally-controlled-in-my-dream suit almost kills Pepper!" I mean... REALLY?

Second act - actually really good. It had the annoying-kid (♥ ♥) who was a combination of genre savvy and meta and actually got RDJ to act like RDJ rather than badly portrayed PTSD. And it also had... THE MANDARIN! (♥ ♥ & hearts; ♥ ♥ ♥). Ben Kingsley was wonderful and their take on the Mandarin was excellent. Huzzah!

And then the third act was... well... Lethal Weapon 2. Seriously. Including the boat and all. I swear it's the same shots even.

Also - not enough Rhodie - he was barely in this movie until the third act and then he disappeared again. Horribly underutilised. :(
All the characters were plot devices. I know, I know, it's Iron Man, what do I expect... but honestly, even Pepper had more personality in the previous movies than in this one. It's just sad.
RDJ's 'thing' has officially tired me. I've lost all patience for him, I think.
Eurgh, the bad guys. So they discover that the brain has regeneration properties... from a plant... someone needs to explain them something about plants. And then Guy Pearce becomes a dragon and breathes fire. And his dragon tattoos regenerate with his body. Oh, yeah, and he's shot and dropped off a huge height and bombed and whatever and he still survives, and then Pepper (!!!) kills him. Cos being injected with these regeneration particle thingies teaches you how to fight, apparently. See: Characters-as-plot-devices.
Also. All the suits were stupid.
The post credits scene though was ♥. Yes, more Bruce Banner please.
Speaking of Bruce Banner/ the Avengers.... er. Look. You acknowledge the events of the Avengers. You need to actually have an effect on society. I know the Marvel movies in general ignore this thing called 'society' - the Avengers itself is the proof of that - but this is just ridiculous. A huge ass alien invasion that almost destroyed a huge city... and nothing? The world continues with - extremely bad thought of - political conspiracies by the American VP? Seriously?

Look, it's a comic book movie, I know it is. But I guess this is why I prefer the Nolan Batman movies over MCU - I do like it when there's at least a pinch of realism and anchoring in the real world. Although it does seem like they stole a LOT from TDKR even more than I realised from the trailer - I mean: our superhero loses everything, finds himself far far away from home where all his resources are no longer available, has to rebuild himself from scratch, and in the end he lets go of his superhero persona and all the gadgets that made him a superhero. Which movie are we talking about again?

Blargh. At least we had a REALLY good dinner afterwards? :D

pitry @ 2013-04-11T13:51:00

2013-04-11T20:51:10Z

“I think you’ll see that, going forward, anything can live in this world,” he said. “[Nolan’s] Batman was deliberately and smartly positioned as a stand-alone. The world they lived in was very isolated without any knowledge of any other superheroes. What Zack and Chris have done with this film is allow you to really introduce other characters into the same world.”

So, erm, is it too much fangirling to hope that they're gonna abandon any ideas about Justice League and go the Superman vs. Batman route? THAT ONE I'd want to see.

OMG YOU GUYS

2013-03-19T05:19:28Z

Watch this watch this watch this.

Stolen writing meme

2013-03-17T21:42:37Z

from lost_spook, or as she is known in these parts, She Who Gets Meme Stolen From.
Because why not? It's more enjoyable than syntax!

Give me a number and I'll answer the question (or try to anyway):

1. Which is your favorite of the fics you’ve written for [name of fandom]?
2. Favorite piece overall?
3. Which was the hardest to write, in terms of plot?
4. Which has the most “you” in it, however you’d define that?
5. What is an image/set of images that you’re particularly proud of?
6. Idea that you always wanted to write but could never make work?
7. Least favorite plot point/chapter/moment?
8. Favorite plot point/chapter/moment?
9. Favorite character to write?
10. Favorite line or lines of dialogue that you’ve written
11. If I’m showing off just one of your pieces to someone, which one should it be?
12. What WIPs do you have going now? Are you excited about them?
13. Are there any things that might have happened in any of your stories, but you changed them at the last minute? (So-and-so dies, they don’t actually kiss, main character has long extended ballet-based dream sequence, etc.)
14. Would you want to write canon for any of your fandoms (like be hired by showrunner to do an episode)? Which one?
15. Does font matter to you when you’re writing a draft?
16. 3 favorite comments ever received on fanfic.
17. Any mean comments? How’d you deal with it? Who laid the smackdown?
18. If you could go back and revise one of your older stories, which would it be?
19. Do you make up scenes at work/on the bus/at the gym? Who are the characters that pop up the most? Do you write them down?
20. Go nuts, and talk about writing. Or write me a little ficlet-whatsit using a character/image/line I shall now specify—

pitry @ 2013-01-26T00:01:00

2013-01-26T08:01:46Z

*cue jokes about lens flares and lightsabres*

Well, I actually enjoyed the Star Trek reboot (minus the lens flares) so this is good news.

I think.

....cue Star Trek/ Star Wars crossover jokes?

End-of-year writing meme!

2012-12-27T07:01:05Z

Because, apparently, I'm the only person who's doing it this year, but I'll do it anyway!

Fics written:

Harry Potter:
A Hero for Any Other Day (Harry/Draco, 26K)
Let's Kill Wormtail (Sirius/Remus, 7K)
The Mirror of Erised (Trio gen, 92K)
The Knock-on Effect (Ron, 5K)
Saturdays are for Football (the Rest of the Week is for Everything Else) (Blaise Zabini and Dean gen, 4K)
Inter Arma... (next-gen gen, 140k)
Between Dreams and Reality (Hermione/ Harry/ Ron, 2K)
Add Some Colour to these Grey Walls (Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet gen, 2K)
Young, but Daily Growing (many pairings, 3.5K)
Disorganised Crime (Harry and Neville gen, 6K)
The Sceptic's Guide to Spotting Impossible Beasts (Hermione and Luna gen, 2K)
Holding the Fort (Neville/Luna, 20K)
Ginevra ferch Molly (Neville/Ginny, 2K)
If I Knew You were Coming, I'd've Baked a Cake (Dudley and Lavender Brown gen, 8.5K)

Doctor Who crossovers
Feeding Frenzy (with Despicable Me, 700 words)
Ginger Beer and Strange Men (with the Famous Five, 750 words)

TDKR
Livin' on a Prayer (Bruce/Selina, 4K)
The Superhero Dilemma (Those Five Months of Hell) (crossover with the Avengers, Selina/Natasha and gen, 2.5K)
Heroes Wearing Masks are Also People (The Superhero Dilemma Revisited) (crossover with the Avengers, Bruce/Selina, 6K)

+ 3 stories that await reveals.

Total: 22 fics

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

More. I got bitten pretty seriously by the HP bug this year! ... but it looks likw school is taking over that :( I still have a part three to War Is Over and Inter Arma that just... isn't being written.

Where did you publish/archive your stories?

AO3 and FF.net. Didn't really write DW this year. I guess I'm officially out of the fandom? :(

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2011?

I did not expect to be bitten by the Batman bug, so that came as a surprise (lol, all the stuff I'm working on now is Batman too...). Related, of course, is being bitten by the specific Bruce/Selina bug! I'm not a shipper damn it! Except that apparently I am?
Also, I actually wrote an explicit story this year, which is all shades of surprising.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Inter Arma. Not just because it's huuuuuuuuge. I actually feel as if for once I managed not to drop the ball. The ending makes sense! And it's not a disappointment! That's a first for a plotty fic of mine, I think. And not just the ending - the pacing really worked, I think the Scorpius plot came out really well, considering how late into the game Surprise!Voldemort was put in the story it actually paid off really nicely, and I'm really happy with what I did with James and Harry's relationship. It feels ridiculous to say these things but I really am rarely as happy with the net result of a fic as I am with these things in Inter Arma. So, for a change, I give myself the kudos :)
I'm also very fond of Disorganised Crime and Livin' on a Prayer.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

Hmmm. Well, this year we have a clear winner, I believe. Livin' on a Prayer.
(Although, seeing as I participated in a few fests this year and these tend to get more comments, if I go by comments alone it's probably Disorganised Crime).

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

Let's Kill Wormtail. It's a PG Sirius/Remus and I care more for them as friends than as anything more so I'm pretty out of tune with anyone else who ships them, so as a result, yeah, no one quite liked it except for me (well, and my beta! She was very enthusiastic about it ;) ).
Also, The Knock-on Effect didn't seem to attract much attention but I think it's really good, so I don't know if it's because people don't like Ron? I dunno.

Story that could have been better?

The annual "all of them"! More specifically, my YT fic, which I feel IS good, but could have been better, it suffered from the fact that half of it was written before my paper-writing rush and the other half after; Ginevra ferch Molly was a pinch hit that suffered from me not really clicking with the prompt (and in the end got a more enthusiastic response than Holding the Fort which was 10 times as long and written in 3 days because I was totally inspired to write it); and probably The Mirror of Erised which, granted, was written to allow me to experiment with some things and not because I was dying to tell the story, but really, there's a thin line between experimenting and bullshit and I probably crossed it at some point there. Don't get me wrong, I still liked most of what I did with it, but yeah, more editing and paying attention to the actual plot would have done wonders.

Sexiest story?
Well.... Between Dreams and Reality is actually explicit, and Young but Daily Growing is skirting that line, which is frankly quite bizarre from me and is probably a one time thing, but there you have it.

Most fun story?

Disorganised Crime!

Story with single sweetest moment?

Hmmm. Neville/Luna kissing on Holding the Fort, probably, cos I'm silly that way. Also, I think when Neville and Harry talk about Neville's love life in Disorganised Crime.

The story that made you cry?

My stories don't make me cry.

Hardest story to write?

Ginevra ferch Molly. Short deadline because it was a pinch hit and when I got the pinch hit it was like "yeah no problem" but I just wasn't getting it. I think I did well considering, but still. :|
Also, the Doctor Who/ Famous Five crossover is VERY far from what I wanted it to be :( I think it's cute but I wanted to make it more plotty! Ah, well. Maybe one day.

Easiest story to write?

LOL Livin' on a Prayer. Written and published within 24h of watching TDKR. It says something about me that my knee-jerk canon fix-it is to undo the one bit of optimism and superhero mentality in the film and make everything MORE depressingly unescapist and hopeless in a canon that's known for being these things already, doesn't it? and I'm writing another one of these now. LOLOL.
Also, Saturdays are for Football. Now that's an oddly successful pinch hit, I sent it to the mods 16 hours after getting the PH request... and I was working that day AND I actually passed it through my beta first. Which is even more extremely odd because I've never written Blaise Zabini before and only wrote Dean as a peripheral character. But yeah, the prompt worked really nicely with my general "you think everything is over just cos Voldemort's defeated?!" take of post-canon HP, and people seem to really like it (and I'm very happy with it. Hurrah! all around).

Most overdue story?

There are people waiting for War Without End. :( Which I promised when I finished posting Inter Arma. Which was back in June. Sorry, people, it will be done... but not soon in any way.
Also, the TDKR fic I've been writing on and off since September. But that one's actually gonna be finished soon. What can I say, this one is not a complicated multichapter multi-plot mess. Also, I'm in a bit of a Batman phase atm.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

A lot, actually. What did I learn from them? Hopefully, how to be a better writer.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?

Finish all the fics I want to write!

More specific goals:
Fine. Actually finish War Without End, but I don't know if it will happen.

OMG HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?!

2012-12-14T04:19:56Z

UChicago gets a package for Indiana Jones.

♥ ♥ ♥ (and I love how no one knows WTF this is and where it came from).

Academic boycotts

2012-12-06T20:39:48Z

So the PM's office cancelled the participation of a professor from Tel Aviv university in a meeting between Israeli academics and Angela Merkel because of criticism she voiced at the government.

... Somewhere in there, I'm sure the irony is very funny. Somewhere. From where I'm standing, it's just a reminder of the lose-lose situation of Israeli academia.

pitry @ 2012-11-29T10:11:00

2012-11-29T18:11:50Z

Syria cut off its internet and it looks like a lot of the phone systems are down too.

Yuletide-letter-thing!

2012-10-19T05:38:09Z

(feels oddly early this year, I must say!)

Hello, dear Yuletide author!

First of all, hurrah! I'm getting fic! Thank you, oh dear Mysterious Author. First for being willing to write in one of my fandoms, which is always a joy, and then for taking the daunting task of writing for a complete stranger. So, once again - hurrah!

Let's get the general things first: Optional details are definitely, completely, and utterly - optional. I'm a pretty easy person to please, honest, so as long as you don't put one of my squicks in, I feel pretty confident in saying I'll be happy. If you feel like doing a little bit of stalking just in case, my fics on AO3 are a pretty good representation of my taste, including my bookmarks there (if you're into Who in particular, I have a very long list of favourites on Teaspoon which could also give you a good idea of my tastes).

General likes:
-Gen, femslash, slash and het are all welcome. A gen story which acknowledges that people have relationships in life is more than welcome - my personal philosophy about gen is that it means the focus isn't on relationships, not that there are none, and that's usually the direction I go in my own fics.
-Character interaction and friendship. I chose these fandoms and these characters because it's their interactions that fascinate me most and in the case of the television shows, made me come back for more.
-You'll have noticed (or not) that I've picked 4 characters for each of my fandoms. While I will be completely and utterly ecstatic if you manage to pull them all into it - you really don't have to. I love them all, but if you're more comfortable with writing a subset of the characters, or if you feel the story calls for it, go for it. Shoehorning characters just to fill in the character quota isn't the best of ideas in my opinion, and I think that struggling with a fic will make you enjoy writing it less, and I don't want that :(
-I'm okay with darker fics, lighter fics, bittersweet fics are awesome, even a bit of fluff every once in a while. Not so hot on h/c though. Not sure why. I love humour, I love drama, honestly, go for it. Open endings are ♥, it doesn't have to be all wrapped nicely if the story doesn't call for it.
-I'm generally a multishipper, so unless I explicitly rule a pairing out, feel free to write it. I do have automatic fondness for canon pairings, but I'm ready to be sold on your OTP :)

General dislikes: If you go the shippy direction, generally I'd rather the fic would go fade-to-black and not be explicit. If you do include explicit sex, I'm okay with the milder kinks like blindfolds, but please nothing more hardcore than that. At any rate, I should warn you about my squicks: please no non-con/dub-con, incest, underage, BDSM, and no power imbalance in the relationship - I really like when the partners in a relationship are equal.

And now that I've bored you to death theoretically, I'll continue to do so about every fandom in particular!

21 Jump Stree - Doug Penhall, Harry Ioki, Judy Hoffs, Tom Hanson

Ah, The Original Team. I love all of them, I love their friendship, I love their various bickerings and how they get on each others' nerves and just how fiercely loyal and caring for each other they are. I definitely ship them in various combinations. This definitely does not have to be a case!fic - the idea of coming up with case!fic and writing it within the Yuletide time frame would leave me petrified. But I won't say no to case!fic, as long as the emphasis is on the characters.

Some possible prompts: Judy and Harry after THAT bit in season 4 where the writers made them miss the other's character-important moments :( I love their friendship and I'm forever frustrated at that poor decision and I'd love some sort of tag/ missing scene/ their first time working together again when they're both back.
Harry and Doug when Doug was living with Harry! We've seen just a bit of how they drove each other nuts, and it's ever so amusing.
Doug and Tom. Generally Doug and Tom, because, well, ♥
I actually ship Judy/Doug a bit, so if you feel like writing something in that vain, maybe related to Besieged, go for it!

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - Danny Tripp, Jack Rudolph, Jordan McDeere, Matt Albie

I'm actually of the small minority who liked Studio 60 more than 30 Rock. Okay, so Sorkin's characters are overly eloquent and he was using it as his personal mouthpiece to air all the things that annoyed him in Hollywood... but it was still extremely entertaining, mainly because of the characters. I love their growth during the season, and I love the way they learn to appreciate each other and work with one another.

I'd love anything Jordan - Jordan's worst date with Danny (and the attempts to correct it afterwards, by either of them), Jordan getting one over Jack, Jordan coming back to work post-show... You may have noticed, I love Jordan. I'd also love Matt and Danny friendship, Matt and Danny and Jack - I know they sort of cleared the bad blood between them during the show, but there's still so much potential for entertaining bickering left. Crisis on the show! Everyone going on strike! Matt finds himself forced to go on stage and perform! Okay, that last one will just be disturbing, but hilariously so.

Terminator: Salvation - Blair Williams, John Connor, Kate Brewster, Kyle Reese

I admit I was somewhat disappointed with the film, because they didn't really focus on the thing that interests me the most in this situation - John who's known since birth he will be the leader who would save humanity, but how does a real person deal with that? I have a thing for failed messiahs - I admit I'd be really happy with something post-canon that shows just how pants he is in being the leader of the resistance, and various ramifications of that on him and his relationships with everyone else.

That said, the fic doesn't have to concentrate on John - this is a group of such interesting characters, and exploring their relationships in light of the resistance would be awesome - Kyle Reese learning to be the resistance fighter we've seen in the first Terminator movie; a fic that explores Blair's character, why did she have so much faith in Marucs; Kate's role in the resistance - she's supposed to be the co-leader, but we actually haven't seen a lot of her in the film; I'd love a friendship fic between Kate and Blair, especially in light of Kate's position and Blair's actions.

I also think this is the only fandom I have a caveat for relationships - please no John/Kyle, due to the incest thing. I'd love any fic that explores their relationship both as resistance leader and subordinate, friends, or father and son (and how Kyle would react to hearing who John really is!), but no romance between them, please.

So, that's it. Enough with my waffling. Except to mention once again - optional details are optional, really really. As you saw, I threw a range of character situations and details at you. That's because I really will be happy with any fic in these fandoms, and I think that the best way to make sure I enjoy the fic is that you enjoy writing it. I really think that's the most important bit.

Stolen meme is, as always, stolen

2012-09-30T19:14:01Z

From lost_spook, because she has the best steal-worthy memes.

Reply to this post by giving me [a] character[s]/pairing from one of my fandoms and one word/short quote; and I'll write you a ficlet.

Mind you, it might take me a while. Or, perhaps, not that much of a while, depends on how much phonology I can take... ;)

More TDKR ramblings.

2012-09-23T07:05:12Z

I think I'm the easiest person to convert in the world, or: Okay, Nolan completely convinced me about the whole IMAX thing, and he wasn't even trying (well, he wasn't trying me specifically, I suspect he's trying to convince the world in general).

Here's the thing about 3D - it doesn't work too well for me. My glasses have a very high number (like, really high number. I'm pretty much blind without them). So putting on 3D glasses a) annoys me and is uncomfortable like hell, b) gives me headache and c)my eyes/brain/whatever can't catch up with the action when the camera is moving fast so I see half the movie blurry.

IMAX manages to give me the effect that's supposed to come with 3D, without the headache and the blurryness.

Also... it's incredible how easily you see what was shot on IMAX and what was converted. And he's right - what was shot on IMAX simply looks better. The focus is a lot smaller, which makes the whole background unfocused by the bits that are in focus are so incredibly sharp and look so gorgeous. So, TDKR on IMAX - looks gorgeous!!

As for the film... *sigh of relief*. When I rewatched the Avengers I was really disappointed - it doesn't hold up on second viewing. Once you're out of the SHINY!! zone, you realise the scenes are barely connected and it's completely the "and then and then and then" type of storytelling which I just hate so much. TDKR - holds its ground on second viewing. In a way, it's even better. Now that we got the annoying plothole out of the way, I'm not sitting there pissed off about it and how it undermines the entire fucking story they've been telling for 2.5 movies (!!! okay. I'm still a little bit pissed off about that ;) ) and I could enjoy the second half of the film for what it was. I still think the first half is so much better, but I enjoyed the second half much more. And whoa... Bruce/ Selina. ♥ Seriously, the entire film lifts up in every scene they're together. And there aren't enough of those :((((

I aten't dead!

2012-08-25T13:46:33Z

... I'm just moving a few continents (wheeee).

Expect your regular Pitry services to resume in a couple of weeks (hopefully less). In the meantime, we are happy to offer some reruns. :D

pitry @ 2012-08-17T15:40:00

2012-08-17T12:40:14Z

Lynch in Palestinian teenagers right at the centre of Jerusalem.

I wish I could say I am surprised. But I'm not. That's the scary bit.

It's this impotent rage, really. Y'know, there's always these ideas about how you can say enough and it will stop, but that's not going to happen. The amount of people who are disgusted by the racism and the violence and the occupation and who care enough to say something is growing smaller by the day. People in supposed positions of power in education either have to stay quiet or get fired, like the head of the citizenship studies in the ministry of education who tried to fight the nationalistic tide there. They're brainwashing the teenagers in school and put much more emphasis on teaching them to be soldiers - and nationalistic, violent soldiers at that, they're harping on Iran Iran Iran 24/7 to distract from everything else, the people who were trying to protest were too scared to point out the connection to politics so yeah, that's shot to hell and now they've been taken over by the people who care more about saying how the ultra orthodox need to serve in the army than figure out how the militaristic approach is killing civilian society and since the rest dare not go political they just go along with it and there is nothing nothing nothing that can be done. Educating doesn't help. Protesting doesn't help. The Supreme Court is already being taken care of by the government. Knowing history doesn't help, if you don't understand it you're bound to repeat it and that's where we're going.

And now for something completely different...

2012-07-31T18:21:11Z

Anyway, to stop my string of whinage about life/syntax/moving/politics/me being silly (delete as applicable) I shall... *drumroll* rec fic!

At first I was like, "but I never rec fic!" Then I realise I actually do - only in Calufrax and not in my journal. Seeing as this is not Doctor Who and I don't know of any comm that's relevant, I think this is the place. I realised that most of my flist couldn't possible care less about HP or TDKR, but a) you lot do like friendship fics, so reccing from hp_friendship could possibly work, esp. as almost all of you have read HP (except for justice_turtle, but he's just weird that way). The Batman recs... well... I feel like it. Y'know, exciting, new film released I actually cared about enough to read & write fic just as everyone's starting to!

Aaaanyway. From hp_friendship

What Always Has Been is a lovely Neville & Ginny-centric fic about how they were friends all throughout Hogwarts (while the Trio continually ignored and underestimated them, cough). It's very real, very sweet, it actually remembers that Ginny was possessed by Voldemort and that it's going to have long time ramifications, and it's just lovely.

Mad Dogs and Scotsman is the tale of how Emmeline Vance helped Moody get over being locked up in his own trunk for 9 months in GoF. Now, I know what you're going to ask: Who the hell is Emmeline Vance. That's the best thing about this fic. Emmeline Vance is one of those throwaway names, she's mentioned about twice in OotP then we're told she was killed in the beginning of HBP. So basically, an OC, and the author managed to write a very real person (and a great fic) in such a short fic (about 2000 words) and really bring life to this character. Also, it's awesome.

The Secret of Black Hall is for ~~lost_spook~~ the Enid Blyton fans out there. Very very Blyton-esque fic about the two canon Squibs (Mrs Figg and Filch) when they were kids during WW2. It also treats a bit how it is being a Squib, which really isn't something that's done often enough.

Within A Morning Star is long. Okay, very long, 15K. It's also all OCs. And it's really worth it. The premise is to look at a bunch of fifth years in Hogwarts during DH, ie what the kids who aren't the Trio and/or the DA are doing during the war. It was gorgeous and very very realistic. It doesn't take shortcuts and it doesn't make excuses and at the same time it doesn't condemn people for being, well, people. Also, it doesn't feel like 15K because it's made of very short segments.

Five People Who Insisted on Being Friends with Severus Snape is just... aaaah! It's canon Snape! As a child! And then he grows up! And it's all in character! And touching and brilliant and very Harry Potter, and yeah, go read it. It's made of 5 segments, each a different relationship with someone in Snape's life, and there are some really cool gems in there (for example, any and all interactions with McGonagall). Did I also mention how IC and canon-y Snape is in this? It's very hard to fine fics about Snape as he is in canon*, so I completely cherish this one.

And lastly from that fest... The Peculiar Resilience of the Refugee is a great Petunia centric fic taking place post DH. Petunia and Dudley can't go back to their old lives, so they ended up living among wizards, in this case Madam Rosmerta from the Three Broomsticks. It does a good redemption job on Petunia and confronts her with some of the unpleasant stuff she did and remains loyal to the character. Hurrah!

*As long as I'm rambling about brilliant touching incredible canon Snape fics, Pasi's Into the Fold. It's loooooooong (seriously. 160k or so. I'm a filthy hypocrite, I can write huuuuuuuge fics like War is Over and Inter Arma, but I rarely read them. This one I read over one weekend and couldn't stop. It's got everything. Really. If you've ever enjoyed Snape, go read this.)

And now for Batman.

The Devil is in the Details by Irony_rocks - gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous fic, I'm not sure I have enough words for just how gorgeous it is. Post TDKR, it follows Selina, and then Selina and Bruce as they get together. It completely replicates their chemistry, it's very in character, it has Lex Luthor(!!). After reading this I was forced to admit that apparently, I am a shipper. It's just, y'know, how can you not ship these two.

Thieves. by Orange_crushed - A brilliant fic that follows Selina and John Blake through the five months of Bane-induced occupation, and then there's a bit of Bruce Wayne in the end. It's got Selina's snarkiness, a ship I never saw until I read it (Selina/Blake, which turns out to be awesome), and the author really hits all the right notes.

Echoes of a War by girl_wonder - Another one post TDKR, and this one really mixes well the Batman universe with, well, romantic fluff. Make of it what you will. It's not as fluffy as "romantic fluff" would suggest, of course, or it wouldn't work with Batman, but that's the beauty of this fic - how well it does work.

TDKR

2012-07-27T10:33:28Z

The Dark Knight Rises is a very good film. This is not a compliment.

(No, really. If you have any intention at all to watch this film and haven't yet, don't read).

It's not a compliment because after The Dark Knight, I expected it to be nothing less than stellar. To point out my reaction to TDK - the first time I watched it was at work (I know, I know). I was QAing two passes, doing the two research-heavy passes, and pausing every five seconds because of it. It took me more than 7 hours to finish, on a tiny screen, in a strongly-lit room, with loads of distractions and the fact I had to multitask and was on a deadline. Oh, and I haven't watched Batman Begins before. I ended up saying "WOW that was a good film!" (trust me: it's much harder to appreciate films when you've dissected them that way. Any film you finish watching like that and still can appreciate is a good film).

I still don't think though I had bloated expectations - what it did it did very well, it just went in a completely different direction than I thought it would... and I don't think that direction did the film a lot of favours.

One thing that was absolutely obvious: Christopher Nolan was too busy doing his epic ending for his talked-about, critics-darling, superlative-filled trilogy and not busy enough doing another Batman film. Because in the end, this is my biggest problem with the film - it doesn't feel like it continues the same line that guided the two previous films.

The Dark Knight explored Batman from two angles: the first that he was the one who created people like the Joker (who in turn created Two-face), and the second that Bruce Wayne has lost everything that made him a human being and was completely lost inside his Batman persona - unless I'm much mistaken, there isn't a single moment in the film in which Bruce Wayne does anything that is not related in some way to what Batman is doing.

In that regards, the opening point of TDKR is wonderful. The Batman hasn't been seen for eight years, and Bruce Wayne is a recluse billionaire. More than that - the first time you see him, he walks with a cane. At first I thought it was some act he's pulling (perhaps to excuse being a recluse) but then they make it obvious that it isn't - he might have been retired for eight years, but being Batman has taken its toll. He's pretty much ruined his body fighting criminals.
And then Bane shows up and he puts on the Batsuit again, and all of a sudden he wakes up back to life and it's exactly what TDK pointed out. Except that this time we already know what the price is so it's not "oooh cool Batman!" it's "Bruce you numpty!". Which is what Alfred is trying to tell him (Oh, Alfred ♥. The one thing I have no complaints about is Alfred! He was marvellous.)

Don't get me wrong, when he comes back as Batman it's definitely a gleeful moment - and very well written as such. You've got an old cop and a new cop, who's too young to have been in the force when Batman was around last time. So they're chasing Bane and his goons, and all of a sudden the lights in the tunnel are shut off and you sort of see something passes (the Batpod) and the old cop sort of sees it too, and then he's like "No way..." and when he sees it again it's all "You're in for a treat, kid."... A few minutes later and the young cop sort-of accidentally shoots at Batman, who just gives him a "Really?" look and the young cop goes all "Erm. Sorry." GLEE! Same with how the chase after Bane becomes then a chase after Batman.

Anyway. Things happen. Alfred and Bruce have a row and Alfred leaves :(. Bruce still doesn't wake up and goes to meet Bane to fight with him. Bane beats up him to a pulp, breaks his back, and throws him into a pit no one can escape from on the other side of the world, with a TV to show him how he destroys Gotham.

... and that's when the problems start. Because the solution for that is obvious. The pit is rigged as to be impossible to climb, but to appear as if it's not impossible, and so to give the prisoners false hope that they COULD escape. But there is a story! Of a child! Who managed to escape! And Bruce takes five months to recover his body! And he attempts to escape! And then he fails! And then things happen in Gotham! And Bruce is angry! And he attempts to escape! And then he fails! And then the Wise Old Man teaches his Life Lessons About Fear! And then Bruce tries to escape! And then he - succeeds (cue dramatic music. No, seriously. The music in this scene is brilliant - they combine the Batman theme with the Bane theme for that climb and it's a very gleeful moment when you watch it even though it's very obviously manipulative, but the music saves it.)

...And then he returns to Gotham, which has been under Bane's terror for five months and locked out from the rest of the world and there's a nuclear bomb about to go off (?!) and Jim Gordon is running an ineffective underground and they're all gonna die and there's one more day and then Batman comes to save them all! Another great image, that was. Honestly - Crane finally catches Jim Gordon and sentences his to execution, and then Batman of course comes to save him in the last minute, then there's one of those petrol trails that ends up with a huge burning Bat sign on a building and the Batman theme goes up a notch you go wheee whether you like to or not.

Except... Bruce's health problems are all of a sudden gone, and all you need is Batman to save Gotham city after 5 months of being terrorised by Bane. HUH?! I don't really mind plotholes, esp. not in superheroes films. For those who remember my Avengers comments - there's a whole hour in the film where the plot MAKES NO SENSE and it didn't stop me from being gleeful and squeeish nonetheless. I don't care that Bruce managed to - somehow - get from Asia to Gotham City in like 2 hours. I don't care that he then knows the clock is ticking and still wastes his time making a huge burning bat on a building. I don't care that I'm expected to believe the US government would have allowed Bane to hold a whole city ransom for 5 months. I don't care about a number of other things that make no bloody sense whatsoever. I do care that because Gotham needs him, Bruce's body is no longer completely and utterly broken, and I do care there's a huge "oh! happy ending! Batman saved Gotham!" feel to it. It goes against the grain of the best of this series - that Batman tries to save Gotham but this isn't going to work (see: his presence has created people the Joker) and the price Bruce has to pay.

Because it's not enough that all of a sudden his back is fine and his legs are fine and he can just come whooping in and save them all. He also ends up faking his own death, getting a statue in Gotham city, and retiring with Catwoman. (How does that work, also? Bruce is broke and she never had any money! What are they doing as tourists in Florence?!). He gets it all, the ultimate happy ending. Which is... very clearly the ending of an epic trilogy (with a record amount of callbacks, seriously. Harry Potter 7.5 didn't have as many callbacks as this one!) and completely ignores what the two previous films have actually said. Nolan forgot that he also had a message in the previous films. And that was what made TDK such a great film - it was exactly these points about the price of being Batman, what they failed so much to do with the terrible Watchmen adaptation, and Nolan did right. And now he threw it all away.

Oh, yes. Bruce's fake death. He flies the atom bomb to the sea and pretends he doesn't have an autopilot so he has to sacrifice himself. Of course, he only fakes his death, he fixed the autopilot ages ago. It's better than an ending in which he WOULD have died sacrificing himself heroically for the city (because, I mean, really?) BUT... I still think a much truer ending for the character would have been for him to die alone, friendless, physically and mentally broken, in a hellish pit of doom, and watching his beloved city burn on television. Yes, I'm evil that way... but this is the direction Nolan had taken the character up until THAT point and I'm slightly annoyed he didn't follow it through. You may have noticed my slight annoyance. I am glad he ended up with Selina though. If we had to go with ending #2, at least he gets to be a rich tourist with a cool girl and actually live the pretence he's been acting as Bruce Wayne :)

Anyway. Other points. Anne Hathaway as Catwoman was great. Catwoman herself... not so much. It's another stereotypical "strong" female character instead of an actual strong female character (between her, Marion Cotillard's character and Rachel Dawes in the two previous films... Nolan really doesn't come off as someone who knows how to write women. Sigh.). I think we sort of reached the conclusion last night that we liked her so much because YUM ANNE HATHAWAY (honestly, the only one who couldn't get past the bad writing of the character was Liza, who's straight. And then we compared it to Joseph Gordon Levitt's character... and yeah, we were all more or less forced to admit it. :) It's the same with Natasha in the Avengers - Joss Whedon, as usual, falls into the "strong" female character trap, but on the other hand, Scarlett Johansson! Yes, I am shallow.). Anyway, it's the obvious and completely overdone criminal-woman-with-a-hard-life-and-a-heart-of-gold character, who gets her redemption because she sees Bruce's greatness and is then moved to Do The Right Thing. Y'know, at least Rachel Dawes dumped him.
Sigh. They do have so much chemistry together, though, Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway. It was worth it only for that.

Joseph Gordon Levitt... was the same. It's a ridiculously stereotyped orphan-becomes-cop-admires-Batman plot, but really, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. For those of you who haven't watched Brick, go watch it. NOW.
Marion Cotillard's character... that was the only spoiler I haven't managed to avoid :( I knew she was the badguy, and I don't know - anything she did confirmed it. I don't know if I would have seen it coming otherwise, but once I did know, it did feel obvious. Y'know hindsight and all that, so I don't know. She is lovely though.
Alfred, as I said, was... well, brilliant. So was Tom Hardy as Bane. Considering he was stuck with that stupid mask all the time (and even in the flashbacks they avoided showing you his whole face except for maybe 2 seconds), the amount of expressions the man can get out with a voice modulator and a mask is stunning. For all those who claim that people can't show expressions in their eyes - you're wrong and Tom Hardy has just proved you wrong! However... the voice modulator... not so much. Maybe not even the voice modulator but the lines they gave him. Maybe a combination - it felt like he was narrating half the film ffs. He was standing there looking all muscle-y and threatening, then speaks with this ridiculous posh accent and the voice modulator, and... the lines just weren't good. It was a combination of exposition and narration. It felt waaaaay overly theatrical. I know they went for theatrical but they overdid it.
And Gary Oldman. ♥ There really isn't anything to say except for ♥, cos, y'know, Gary Oldman. I love his Jim Gordon.

Oh, and then we get to the cameos/smaller roles. Is Nolan a Stargate fan? I wonder. They cast Chris Judge as one of the goons, then realised that Chris Judge is about a foot taller than Tom Hardy and much more muscle-y, and still kept him and gave him a 3-minute role beating up Joseph Gordon Levitt. And a line! :D (I'm way too fangirly about it. Considering the man was in three minutes of a 167-minute film, I still went overly wheeeeeee over this and kept on bringing it up. Because CHRIS JUDGE, OKAY?) Also, William Devane was the president. He appeared for a speech and I was like, "er, isn't this the guy who played the president in Lost City?!" - IMDB confirmed. HUH. I don't know if it's a coincidence but I'm choosing to believe Nolan is a SG fan. Then there was Aiden Gillan in some small role in the beginning...

... and Burn Gorman. He played a lowlife. A sneaky lowlife. A double-crossing cowardly lowlife. I adored him! because, y'know, Owen! And then they killed him. And I have expected zombie!Owen :D Really. They killed him by making him drown in freezing water, he could come back as Mr Freeze or something! Huh. He actually did get a descent part, which was great.

So anyway. 250% on the casting department, 150% on the score department, 100% on the "cool images" department, and... I don't know yet about the actual film. 'Slightly disappointing', probably. Definitely not as good as TDK, not quite sure about Batman Begins - it DOES have a long sequence of Ninja!Bruce which is just too ridiculous for words.
... which of course requires me now to leave you with a clip of Ninja!Bruce - which can be found here because, apparently, the embed isn't working. (OMG THEY ALREADY UPLOADED THE MOVIE SUMMARIES I WROTE! "Gotham City. A den of thieves, murderers, and evil psychiatrists." WITH THE VIDEO LINK ON 'EVIL PSYCHIATRISTS'! I didn't know it was already up on the air. Huh :D So, yes. I'm responsible to "thieves, murderers, and evil psychiatrists". Cillian Murphy, ♥).

Book meme - with a twist!

2012-07-13T23:04:36Z

... The twist is that I'm going to copy lost_spook and ignore the rules and just bold what I read. Yes, even Moby Dick. I made it to half the bloody book.

01. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
02. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
04. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (In Welsh, too - well, PS, I don't think they ever got round to translating any of the others. I've seen the Attic Greek lying around somewhere but I never bought it.)
05. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
06. The Bible
07. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (Mind you, possibly this was also Jane Eyre. I don't remember anything of anything the Bronte sisters had ever written except for the woman who was locked in the attic and that it was all so pointless).
08. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (I finally gave up at some point in the beginning of the third. Still counts, though).
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read quite a few, but not all...)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith (Lost_spook randomly put this one in: She's sure it was in the original Big Read list, and she like it. I've never even heard of it.)
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (It was before I realised I didn't actually have to finish books I didn't like. The film I only watched fully when I was paid to, though. I'm pretty sure I complained about it somewhere).
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (And I called my sister Toady for a while afterwards).
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (Yeah, really, why does this one show up twice?)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (I was working in a bookshop. I was stuck in one place. Someone left it at my counter. I HAD NOTHING ELSE TO DO OKAY?!)
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery (- ♥ ...and then came the second trilogy and taught us why sequels are BAD).
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan (I was forced to watch the film. They REALLY didn't pay me enough for it. I refuse to even give this one a try, because if it's even a fraction as boring as the film, it's too boring for words).
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert (This one is actually going to make it into my next music meme entry! Another proof that Sequels are Bad, though.)
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Boy, speaking of disappointing books. It's really good.... until the very end when it all falls apart gloriously and you end up going "what why did I just waste my time reading this book?!?!?! And I really don't usually react that way to books. Even if the ending is disappointing. If I enjoyed it until then I'm fine. Except for this one which RUINED EVERYTHING).
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (- I.... know I didn't finish it. Again, bookshop reading. Can't remember if I've read enough of it to consider it 'read' though.)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (ah, my childhood book. Well, one of them. I still don't know whether I read the full version or an abridged version - a friend of mine once said that the translation to Hebrew cut a few of the political ramblings, but then some comparison with my memory said I read them? I dunno.)
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding (AND IT WAS FUN. Yes. It WAS!)
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (DON'T READ THIS BOOK DON'T READ THIS BOOK DON'T READ THIS BOOK. IT IS NOT A BOOK. IT IS AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA ABOUT WHALES MASQUERADING AS A BOOK!)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (I... watched Apocalypse now. Does it count?)
92. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (IN 5 LANGUAGES! I think it was five? Hebrew, English, French, Greek, Welsh... I started the Irish but never got too far with it.)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (In funny voices. No, seriously. Me and Yoav were like ten and we had the tradition of reading Shakespeare in funny voices when he slept over at each other's place. My house had a Midsummer's Night Dream mostly, but I'm pretty sure we got to Hamlet at some point too, probably in his place. He DID read the complete works of Shakespeare. You've never read Shakespeare if you haven't read him aloud in funny voices.)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (funnily enough, I read the Glass Elevator thing before.)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo