To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes

True Blood

unfilthy — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:35:31 GMT

Eric & Bill Buddy-Cop Adventures = Excellent. I would totally watch the Bill & Eric Show.

Sookie & Lafayette being miserable together = kinda groovy, actually. They work well together, and no shit is left unexplored/unsaid.

Pam & Tara - could be seriously hilarious, depending on what happens to Tara. If they go the Bubba from the books route with her, it will mostly be horrific, so I'm hoping not.

I love Jessica, and her teenager-home-alone-without-supervision thing is amusing, though I hope we get to see more of the bad-ass "I'm almost queen" side, and less of the frat party thing, which could get very old very fast.

Jason being miserable can not lead to anything good. I can't wait.

The weres have always been the least interesting to me in every way, and they still are, despite all the nakedness, which I appreciate. I hate to say it, but Sam is at his best when he's pining for Sookie and running the bar, not so much when he does shifter politics. Alcide alternately bores and annoys me. Speaking of annoying, the ultra-religious-bad-guy being gay is really lazy humor.
Also...

Eric being all "fuck Sookie" just because she rejected him for the nth time is really obnoxiously anvil-y, of the hated "I told you he was all wrong for her - and I wrote this to prove it" showrunner style, and that irks me.

I'm on the fence about Eric's "sister" but willing to love her, if appropriate.

Andy's hilarious.

Mostly, the first ep was all set-up, so I still can't wait for the season to actually begin ~~and by actually begin I obviously mean Chris Meloni shows up, preferably nakkid~~.

Top 3 TV Tropes I Can't Stand

unfilthy — Thu, 31 May 2012 03:40:42 GMT

1. The vampire double standard:
I don't mean treating the horrific crimes of vampires as acceptable (it's not easy to get right, but it's possible), but the double standard applied to the crimes of Obvious Romantic Lead Vampire vs. The Inevitable Sexy Evil With Possible Heart of Gold Vamp. Just because the ORLV happens to be not murdering humans at the time we (and the inevitably super special yet unreasonably young female love interest) meet him, does not automatically absolve him of all he's done before he grew a conscience, or of the stuff he will inevitably do later on, supposedly for love. Conversely, the Sexy Evil One isn't any more ev0l than his counterpart simply because he's snarky/not immediately in love with FLI/doesn't hide who he is and what he's done. Personally, I prefer the more truthful, less hypocritical, and harder to get to know one, be it Eric, Damon, Spike, or any of the bazillion others that fit the mold, but regardless of personal preference, and really, to each his/her own, the morality of dating/sleeping with/loving a mass murderer is tenuous at best, and any attempt to sell me one as nobler or more morally acceptable than the other is doomed to not only fail miserably, but to annoy the hell out of me in the process.

2. Unresolved Sexual Tension:
Anticipation can be hot and sexy and lovely and all sorts of good things, but if you keep it up too long, I'm bound to, at best, lose interest, and more likely just want to punch both parties in the face. Sexually active (or potentially so) adults don't sniff each other's bums for years without doing anything about it, unless they're seriously deficient in some way. Mutual attraction resolves itself reasonably quickly, because lustful or enamored people are not generally paragons of self control and/or rational thinking, and someone, some time, will make a move, and then it either works out or it doesn't. If you wait too long for that to happen, you've lost me, because even my fantasy and sci-fi loving levels of suspension of disbelief crumble in the face of contrived human behavior.

3. Contrived Misunderstandings:
That's kinda like #2, only not specific to UST (though it is often used as one of the many, many ploys to maintain the UST U'd). The point is, people talk to each other. Friends talk to each other a lot. Close friends talk to each other even more. If someone tells you something about your friend, or you think you heard your friend say something, or do something, that is unreasonable/out of character/annoying to the extent that it could change the very nature of your relationship, the sane thing to do is to talk to them. Making huge life and relationship altering decisions without even bothering to find out wtf is going on is fucked up behavior on a scale that is rarely seen in the wild unless there is a very good reason for it, and sadly, it's the rare writer who bothers to provide the appropriate level of reasoning for such extreme behavior. What's wrong with allowing the characters to have a fight in which they actually talk (or yell) things out? Seriously, if you need to get to a certain outcome, it's not that hard to do just using anger and stubbornness and pride and other similarly common and believable human traits and behaviors. Leaving the decision making point at the suspicion stage without bothering with some form of confrontation is lazy and stupid.

unfilthy — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:55:41 GMT

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm sick and tired of seeing naked women on TV.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a lovely female form as much as the next person who enjoys naked women.
I also can't stand the US Network approach, according to which, women always keep their bras on while having sex (and sometimes also their panties and other bits of lingerie, and not in a wild monkey sex way, but in a This-Sex-Is-Improbable way), as if there's nothing between pr0n (or Spartacus) and unrealistic "modesty." But then again, these are the same networks that refuse to acknowledge that people might need to do radical things like, for instance, pee, before fucking in the morning (or brush their teeth - never with any paste, though, because it doesn't look good on camera or something).

I've always been a fan of the UK's after-the-watershed approach to programming, where people who have sex tend to do it naked, or at least remove enough clothing between them to actually reach the genitalia, and they also do outrageous things like sweating, and the actors, while easy on the eyes, still look like people you might see walking down a normal street.

So, yeah, I'm all for cable doing sex right, or more realistically, or at the very least, more fun to watch. The Sopranos had its fair share of both sex and nudity, and the characters weren't exactly paragons of sexual equality, and there were hookers and strippers and the like, but we also saw quite a bit of partially clothed men, and the sex was mostly sex, as opposed to porn.

Now I watch things like Game of Thrones or Magic City and I just wish they'd let the women put some fucking clothes on, or else get the men to at least drop their pants to ass-level WHILE THEY'RE FUCKING. I mean, seriously, WTF, Cable TV?

State Of The Fall TV (non-spoilery)

unfilthy — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:21:56 GMT

I'm having trouble with this season of Fringe. I think that, other than the ~~Pacey~~ Peter thing, it's that the characters that are supposed to be the same people I grew to give a shit about are now different. And they're not different in ways that I can predict or understand. And they're not alternate universe, groovy What If characters, whose uniqueness is a feature. They're just other people. And it keep taking me out of the story. The stories not being particularly good doesn't help, but it wouldn't be as much of a problem for me if I didn't feel like they killed everyone off and put impostors in instead.

Community is brilliant. It's not just funny and clever and chock-full of pop-culture references and homages and other goodies, which it is. It's that they manage to do some really complicated and complex storytelling in a 20 minute slot, which is pretty extraordinary. So top notch writing, plus, people actually have sex. It may be silly to want more sex on TV, but really, when it comes to the classic UST thing? I'm SO over it.

Speaking of being over the UST thing, I'm watching Castle because I love Nathan Fillion, and because the writers are geeks, but the whole Castle/Becket thing is getting seriously tiresome at this point.

Vampire Diaries is still cracktaskic fun, as is Supernatural, though both shows are not as good as they were when they were really really good, but then they both started out really fucking lame, so I guess I'm not expecting consistency. The Spike and Cordelia episode was fun, though. :D

Boardwalk Empire is still very good, and I still don't love it. There's nothing wrong with the show. On the contrary, it's well written, well acted, well directed, there's character development and plots and plot twists and all things good. I just doesn't spark that visceral attachment in me that I get from other (often lesser) shows.

In new shows, Boss (unsurprisingly) and Homeland (unexpectedly) are excellent.

American Horror Story is growing on me, despite a weak first episode. Once Upon A Time started out much better than I was expecting, which is more than I can say for Grimm.

I'm still undecided on Terra Nova (cheap Jurassic Park, but kinda fun, mostly?), Pan Am (hit and miss), Ringer (getting progressively better), and Unforgettable (I can take it or leave it). Secret Circle is rather lame, but I'm still watching, probably because TVD started out rather lame too, so I'm hoping it gets better, though, really, I'm not sure why.

Wikipedia Wants Me

unfilthy — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:48:57 GMT

I love Wikipedia. It's not perfect, but I love what it stands for, and I love what it's trying to achieve. I'm also very interested in issues surrounding intellectual property, copyright laws, users' rights, public domain, and the tremendously powerful lobby that is set on retaining the rights to our entire culture in perpetuity, so the decision to attend Wikimania (the annual international conference of the Wikimedia Foundation) was a complete no-brainer for me.

And then I spent two days listening to people talk about how much they want me. Well, maybe not me-me, but still. Wikipedia isn't attracting new editors at a sufficient rate in general, and not nearly enough women in particular. Now, I happen to be a reasonably well educated and articulate woman, who is both willing and able to contribute to Wikipedia.

The obvious question, then, is why am I not a Wikipedian?

Depending on who you talk to, it's because there are too many rules, or the rules aren't clear enough, or the seasoned editors aren't welcoming enough, or they're too controlling or rude or they don't even think there's a problem, or the user interface is problematic, or newbies start out writing a new entry which promptly gets deleted because it doesn't conform to community standards and so they leave, or Wikipedia is so large that there's simply not much left to write about, or potential editors are too used to things just being there and don't like looking under the hood, or seeing how the sausage is made, or other metaphors. I'm probably leaving some stuff out, but you get the picture. Wikipedia acknowledges that there's a problem, and a whole bunch of people are talking about why the problem exists and what can or should be done to fix it.

What none of these people have done is ask me why I'm not a Wikipedia editor, which is why I'm writing this. Because Wikipedia says it wants me, and I want to contribute to Wikipedia, and yet I don't, and it's not for any of the reasons I've heard so far (disclaimer: I haven't listened to every single editor-related talk at Wikimania, as there have been plenty of talks on subjects I was more interested in going on simultaneously).

When I first heard about the 2011 Wikimania, I found a call for volunteers. I was thinking I could volunteer, so I looked around to see if someone was in charge of coordinating this. Since there wasn't anyone I could contact, I figured the next best thing was to check out the discussion tab for that page.

The discussion tab says three things. First, that the page does not exist, but that I could create it. Second, that I should keep my contribution on-topic, and the third was a warning that I was creating a page that was previously deleted. It goes on to say:

You should consider whether it is appropriate to continue editing this page. The deletion and move log for this page are provided here for convenience:

Excellent! There's a log I can look at, might help me figure out what's going on. It's provided for my convenience, right there:

07:15, 11 May 2011 Az1568 (Talk | contribs) deleted "Talk:Volunteers" ‎ (Author request: Blanked)

Oh. Okay, now I'm confused. I gather that Az1568 deleted the discussion page. I can even click through to his profile and learn more about him. There's also a link to "Talk:Volunteers" though it doesn't exist because it's been deleted. In fact, I'm looking at the log of its deletion. The added information "Author request: Blanked" links to nothing and might mean something to someone, but that someone isn't me. So, dead end there. Still, I'm not that easily deterred. I want to help, and there must be a way to do it. So I go back to the original call for volunteers page and start over.

The page includes two tables with lists of volunteers (one online, one offline). I guess I could edit myself in there and hope that someone contacts me. So I go to the edit tab of the page. Now, I'm no computer whiz or anything, but I can plainly see that the editable bit doesn't include the tables with the volunteers. It's just the top bit that talks about wanting people to volunteer, which I have no intention of editing. Still, I look for clues.

Scrolling down, I can see a whole lot of information regarding the editing of this page. There's a bit about agreeing to the TOS and the license and ticky boxes and a bunch of characters and symbols, something about not writing if I don't want to be "mercilessly edited" and about not using non-public-domain resources and a link to an editing help file, and even a request that on talk pages I sign my name using ~~~~, whatever that means.

At the bottom of the page there is a list of 8 templates used on "this" page.

Though I'm not sure which page that is or what these templates are, I figure it's my only lead at this point, so I click the link titled "Template:Offline volunteers" which takes me to a page that houses the volunteer list table separately. Result! Again, there's no discussion, but there is an edit tab, so I can add myself to the list and so, hopefully, eventually end up talking to someone about volunteering at the conference.

I'm not familiar with the format, but there's a copy-paste thing I can do and just replace the italicized bits with my info, which seems simple enough. Except I don't have a user name yet, so I register, and when that's done, I go back to edit myself into the list. Of course, the page my user name links to is empty, but that doesn't seem to matter, so I ignore it and move on. The thing is, I notice that the other people on the list have a system for the language part of the table where they note the languages they speak and at what level, and I'm not familiar with this system, so I go in search of the codes used for languages and proficiency levels. I can't find anything about it, but I remember seeing something on the profile of the guy who deleted the discussion page I was looking for earlier, so I go back there, and, true enough, there's a green box that says "En-N" and next to it it says "This user can read and write at a native level in English."

AHA! Now we're getting somewhere. N means native level. Also, the word English is in lovely link-blue, so I check it out, and there's an actual list of levels of fluency and their codes:

Also, there's a list of pages (apparently user profiles) who are in the useful category "User en."

So now I have the fluency codes from 0 to N, which, yay, but I don't have a list of language codes. Since I can't seem to find a comprehensive list, I go for the next best thing and look for users who speak the same languages I do. It takes a while, since I'm clicking through to a limited pool of profiles, and they don't always have that handy bit on the side with the languages they speak, and some profiles redirect to other places. Still, there's some interesting people there, so I don't mind sifting through profiles.

Sadly, this is the point where my memory fails me. I think I managed to find all the relevant languages eventually, but I never did edit that template to add my details to it. Thinking back, I can't remember why I made that decision at the time, though I might have come to the conclusion that even if I did edit myself in, there would still be no way for anyone to contact me about it, and I know that by the time I got to that stage, I didn't feel like creating a profile page for myself. Or maybe I just got distracted. I guess we'll never know. Either way, if you found this description tiresome and long winded (which, really, you should), imagine how I feel.

The process of editing this teeny tiny bit of a template within a page isn't technically demanding or complex, and doesn't require any particular familiarity with Wikipedia rules or standards. It also doesn't involve any contact whatsoever with seasoned editors, welcoming or otherwise. Those things are not the problem. The problem is at a much simpler and more basic level than people who are familiar with the system seem to be able to either imagine or remember.

I was talking to some people from the Hebrew Wikipedia earlier today, and they told me that once you edit a page, you get a Welcome to Wikipedia message with information on editing. As a potential contributor, this seems a bit ass backwards to me. I don't want to waste my time editing when I have no idea what I'm doing, just to get to the point where I get to find out how I should've done it. From their perspective, most people create an account and never come back or contribute anything at all, so there's no point in trying to welcome each new user individually till they've actually done something. I'm not saying this isn't a valid POV, but if that's the case, then there should probably be some way for those who do want to start contributing to get an idea of what's going on before they start. Well, as it turns out, there is actually a page with a list of experienced users who are willing to adopt a newbie, which is excellent. The only problem is that unless you know it's there, and where to find it, you won't know it's there or where to find it.

You need to know how things work in order to find out how things work. Unless you know where to look, you can't find the pages that tell you where to look. Those pages exist. They're tremendously useful. All you have to do to make use of all this wonderful information is reach the point where you don't need it anymore.

I'm a pretty resourceful woman. I can figure out the syntax and the UI and how to deal with other editors and what the rules and guidelines are. What I can't figure out is where they stashed the door. So, the answer to the question that no one asked me?

The only reason I'm not a Wikipedian yet is that I'm not a Wikipedian already.

You can comment on this entry using OpenID or your Google, Facebook or Twitter accounts. Sorry I couldn't enable anonymous comments :(

Southern Vampire AKA Sookie Stackhouse Books

unfilthy — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:58:23 GMT

So, I finished the Southern Vamp series yesterday. It's weird, because even though I thoroughly enjoyed most of it, I'm finding it difficult to maintain my enthusiasm for the series after reading the latest installment.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the books were as cracktastic as the TV show, and the narration from Sookie's POV actually made the show more enjoyable for me, because I got a better understanding of the character than I had before, which was an unexpected bonus, and I actually started to love Sookie around book 6. Also, the writing improved considerably, which made the whole thing that much more of a fun ride. Now that I'm all caught up, though, I honestly wish I'd stopped reading at book #9.

I think that book #11, Dead Reckoning, was a total mess. Where do I even start? There's just so much wrong with this book, IDEK.
Characterization was horrific and inconsistent.
The continuity went to hell (more than usual).
The plot was all over the place.
The writing took a turn for the worse.
There was a grand total of two scenes in the book that I actually enjoyed, which is pretty pathetic.

I can't properly convey my dismay without going into details, so, Yeah. Let's dissect this, shall we?

The plot

Was there even a plot? It felt more like a bunch of disjointed events thrown together for no particular reason and in no particular order.

1. There was the Pelt thing. Okay, Sandra Pelt hates Sookie and wants to kill her. Again. We find that out pretty early on, so there isn't even a mystery to be solved, it's just a known and predictable Crazy Enemy ineptly throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Sookie throughout the book. Sookie is just the target of one badly planned assassination attempt after another, popping up at random, no real harm is done, and no one seems to bother to actually do anything to try and stop it from happening again.

2. There's the Killing Victor thing, which I believe was supposed to, and would've been, the A story, in a better plotted book, except that it goes something like this: We still need to kill Victor - We have no workable plan - Let's make a plan - We've got a plan - Plan Executed. Perhaps, had the plan seemed more elaborate or less obvious or had it included any twists, it might have worked, but as it stands, it felt more like an afterthought, and fell flat.

3. There was the Eric & Pam fighting thing. This had potential, at least, being the only bit of the book that was actually a mystery, but again, the execution was lacking.

3a. Half of it is about Pam's love interest who suddenly appears out of thin air, without there being any hint of her existence before, and without us getting any glimpse into who this woman is or why Pam is so uncharacteristically emotional about this woman, who she so desperately wants to turn into a vampire.

It could've been used as a way to expand on or develop relationships, or to gain new insights into several characters, but it wasn't, and instead it was just used as a (really lame) reason for Pam & Eric to be at odds (despite Eric not being the cause of the problem), and yet another reason for why Victor Must Die, which was unnecessary.

3b. The other half of the Pam/Eric rivalry had to do with Pam wanting to tell Sookie what Eric was hiding from her (this time), and Eric not wanting to tell Sookie. Again, this bit might have worked better had it not been so badly done.

Eric could've, at any point, ordered Pam to shut up about it, nipping the whole thing in the bud. Of course, had he done that perfectly reasonable thing (from his perspective), there'd be no hints for Sookie to angst over, but Eric's odd behavior was left unexplained, and so just felt contrived.

Sookie's eventual puzzling out of it felt equally contrived. She'd known the basic facts from the get go (Eric has a secret, it has to do with her), and Pam never actually supplied any extra information that would've made it easier to guess at what was going on, yet, suddenly, Sookie decides that since what Pam was trying to tell her had to be about Eric, and since Pam would know that Sookie doesn't care about his financial state, and that his health (of all things) wasn't variable, it had to do with another woman.

The entire logic behind this sudden revelation was painfully flawed. For starters, had it realistically been this simple to puzzle out, Sookie should've been able to figure it out long before she actually did. On the flip side, there are a million things that could threaten both Eric and Sookie, either individually or as a couple, that Eric might not want to tell Sookie about, so jumping to the "other woman" conclusion was just plain silly. Yet, somehow, she was suddenly dead-on with her wild guess, and Eric suddenly decided to confess the whole thing despite her not actually knowing anything.

Basically, we're supposed to accept the following:
Eric was being pushed to marry some queen, which would force him to leave Sookie.
He chose not to tell Sookie.
So far, so meh.
Pam, for some unknown reason, decided that, of all the many things that Eric never told Sookie about, this was the one she just HAD to make sure Sookie knew about.
Eric, for some unknown reason, decided to physically attack Pam repeatedly as she kept hinting about it, in front of Sookie, instead of simply preventing Pam from doing it.
Sookie suddenly puzzled out what the secret was about using terrible logic, with no new information to spark this unbelievable revelation.
Eric, seeing that Sookie is once again angry with him for not telling her, inexplicably accepts that she suddenly figured it out, for no apparent reason, and decides to tell her everything.

Not only is this chain of events really fucking lame and unbelievable, but the Big Secret behind it all wasn't really worth all this contrived plotting. Nothing actually happened yet, and had something happened, it would've just been a rehash of what had already happened with Bill, so not even a new or original idea.

4. There's Blood Bond thing. This seemed like a potentially major sub-plot, except it really wasn't. Amelia popped up with the blood-bond-severing spell, Sookie just went ahead and did it, Eric went from being furious and saying that it was the real protection for Sookie to apologizing for not offering to do it for her sooner in a blink of an eye, and that was that. Except that if it was so dangerous for Sookie if anyone knew that the blood bond had been severed, then perhaps Amelia blabbing about it in a Supe bar would be something worth mentioning, or that would have consequences, except not. Way to throw that potential bombshell away.

5. There was a bunch of other things happening. I can't really call them plots. They were just things that happened. Some were unrelated to anything else that was going on, some were repetitious, some were set ups for the next books, none needed to be there.
Sookie threw Tara a baby shower, Sookie went with Hunter to his new school, Sookie loaned Sam money for the bar, Sookie cleaned out the attic, Sookie found a Fairy Garbage Disposal Spot, Sookie's Fae relatives were creepy plotters, Sookie found out stuff that made no sense, Sookie found out stuff she already knew but acted as if it were news, Sookie found Magic World Changing Object, Sookie found Alcide in her bed, etc.

It's rather shocking how a book where so much stuff was happening could have so little actual plot going on.

Characterization

I've always been happy to discover that characters were freakier than they seemed to be, as it allowed for some terribly satisfying WTF moments. I also like a well crafted twist, or revelations about the history or hidden depths, or lack thereof, of various characters. I also really like it when characters evolve and change over time and in relation to their experiences and to events in their lives. I don't consider any of that to be either a bad thing or OOC. On the contrary, it's what makes characters real and fascinating and other good things. The only requirement is that it make some sort of internal sense, either psychologically or within the world as depicted, preferably both. In terms of characterization, Dead Reckoning is a great example of What Not To Do.

For example:

Alcide and Sookie's almost-relationship didn't work out, he resented her for all sorts of stuff, she resented him, they both moved on, he became leader of his pack, with all the responsibilities that entails, and he's had very little contact with her for a long time. What little contact they did have was businesslike and not very pleasant. So, this guy, who, regardless of anything else, has always been portrayed as someone who puts the interests of the pack first, suddenly decides to start something with a woman who he hasn't shown any romantic interest in for a long while, who he knows is MARRIED TO THE VAMPIRE SHERIFF OF HIS PACK'S AREA, and he doesn't think to maybe test the waters a bit and see if there's anything there, but instead throws himself at her in a way that is not only unlikely to work, but that might well start a huge diplomatic incident with the vampires, and by diplomatic incident I mean something along the lines of an all out war, or, alternatively, just getting himself very much dead, for no good reason. Basically, Alcide is now both very stupid and very careless, not to mention sexually predatory.

The only reason I can see for this outlandish behavior is to give Sookie an excuse to kick everyone out of her house. Now, I actually like that she kicked them all out, but Alcide's behavior requires an organic explanation for it to work.

I wanted to go on to talk about Pam's sudden lack of emotional control and her openly defiant attitude toward Eric, about Bill's comments about Sookie's tits, about Eric's weird behavior regarding Pam, and his freakish attack on Sookie after the Big Fight, and about Sookie's terribly inconsistent internal conflicts, her decidedly unloving behavior toward Eric, her sudden lack of concern regarding her killing of Alcide's ex and the death of the Pelt Monster, contrasted with her sudden squeamishness regarding the success of her plan to kill some evil vampires, her reverting to once again, in a very tiresome way, disliking her supposed "disability" etc., but I'm finding it too depressing for words. It's all just terrible characterization across the board, and none of it is internally justified, it's all just plot-point fodder for really lame plots.

Continuity

With almost all the core characters being unrecognizable and unlikable, and the plots being lame, boring, contrived, repetitive, predictable, or all of the above, I'm finding it difficult to care about the completely inconsistent timelines and just plain bad retcon of the whole Claudine/Niall/Eric history.

It's kinda sad that I managed to write so many paragraphs detailing what's wrong with the book, and I not only still had at least as many to add, but that I couldn't be bothered to finish, because the more I think about it, the less able I am to care anymore.

For Bib (not proofread due to atrocious lack of sleep)

unfilthy — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:21:28 GMT

For some reason, when I'm feeling really bad physically, I read. Since I've been feeling shitty this past week, I read the Kate Daniels books by Ilona Andrews (Magic Bites+Burns+Strikes+Bleeds+Slays).

I stumbled onto this series by looking through various Urban Fantasy books on Amazon, so I don't know if anyone on here reads them, which I guess means that this is destined to be my first ever spoiler-free semi-proper book review. I'm all aflutter.

The back cover type synopsis, if I had to write it, would go something like this: In a world where a magical backlash occurred after centuries of technological advancement, alternating waves of magic and technology wash over the city of Atlanta, where shape-shifters, necromancers, guilds of mercenaries and an Order of Knights struggle for domination. Kate Daniels, a trained killer with a big mouth, a magic sword, and a personal history that, if revealed, would put her and everyone around her in mortal danger, steps out of the shadows in order to avenge her guardian's death, which forces her to navigate the murky waters of power politics and dangerous romantic entanglements while attempting to fight nightmarish monsters without revealing her identity.

The Kate Daniels books are built along the familiar lines of a central mystery each book, with a thread of slow-developing, slow-reveal series arc weaved in. Standard tropes abound, some better executed than others. Personally, I'm a sucker for the antagonistically hot love/hate relationship with the romantic interest, which is very well done in this series. It's not dragged out so much that you're just sick of it, and fights, arguments, disagreements and misunderstandings are generally resolved in a reasonably timely manner, so the books manage to avoid these two annoying traits of the trope, making it that much more fun to read. It also helps that I actually like both the male and female leads, even though I want to punch them both at times, which, in this case, is an indication that the writer made the characters and their relationship work for me, as opposed to making me hate them. Sadly, other plot threads don't work as well.

In the first couple of books, Kate's origin story somehow manages to be simultaneously too obvious and too opaque. The information that is hinted at comes across as not juicy enough to merit the attempt at drawing out its reveal, and it's only after the initial (unsurprising) reveal is out of the way that we start getting pieces of information that are actually intriguing. Laying out the basic facts earlier in the series and then portioning out the actual meat of the matter in morsels would've worked better. As it stands, we got way too much hinting at the basic facts in a not very subtle way for way too long, without any particular reason to see the basic facts as something that's worth building an arc over. I was mostly thinking that it's gonna be a series with a weak overall arc, which is fine, but 5 books in, it doesn't seem to be the case anymore, so I think they dropped the ball on that one, though they're picking it up now and seem to be running with it.

The bookly mystery/big!bad plots are generally the weakest aspect of the series. They're pretty basic fare; stumble-onto-bad-thing, realize bad!thing is worse/more mysterious than it might seem, figure out who's behind bad!thing/what bad!thing is, and finally, win big fight. Each such plot is interspersed with a red herring or two, danger due to investigating the bad!thing, and a large helping of lovingly cannibalized mishmash of various mythologies. The plots aren't bad so much as they're just not particularly exciting. There are some nice touches here and there, but mostly, the plots only serve as a background or, at best, a catalyst for character development, which is the real saving grace of the series.

The heroine, Kate, though she initially comes off as a standard Man with Breasts type, actually turns out to be a well crafted character. Even though she has some not-so-mysterious ancestry that gives her some extraordinary powers, and a slightly more mysterious upbringing that gives her some extraordinary skills, those assets are (mostly) balanced out by her being genuinely fucked up emotionally, which is portrayed very realistically, and by her complete lack of skills in areas in which she wasn't trained or gifted, which includes not just atrocious social skills, but also her being a truly terrible detective, which is rather refreshing for an urban fantasy series of the mystery/crime/horror variety. She is flawed in ways that are not only understandable and relatable, but are also consistent with her back story, and, perhaps most importantly, she's flawed in ways that affect both her work and her personal life to an extent that is neither minor nor insignificant, and, shockingly, she actually learns from her mistakes and grows as a character and as a person.

Characterization in general is a strong point in the series. Even though the story is told from Kate's limited (despite her exceptional observational skills) POV, most of the other characters are properly fleshed out, consistently portrayed, and easily differentiated, which is a huge bonus for me, as I suck at remembering names, so I have a hard time following even otherwise compelling storylines if I can't easily recognize the players.

On the cusp of characterization and world building, we have the Order and the Pack, two of the central organizations featured in the books, each with distinct structures and goals that are clearly laid out. Despite Kate's tendency to view everyone as an enemy, the information and the characters are sufficiently fleshed out, so that we can get a well rounded view of these two cultures, even though we see them through the protagonist's POV.

I also really like both the concept and the execution of the alternating waves of magic and technology washing over the world like weather. You get a real sense of the magic waves eroding technology, and of tech waves washing magic away, and somehow it just clicks, without having to read chapters (and sometimes several books) of long winded exposition just so you can wrap your head around the basic premise.

This premise also makes for an interesting and sometimes thought-provoking background, as people have to go without certain things entirely, due to the unreliable nature of the environment, while doubling up on other things so that they'll be available both during tech and during magic. Lighting, for instance, comes in two varieties, one magical and one tech, and they switch automatically when the "weather" changes, but you gotta pay your bills for both, which is a nice little touch, and similarly, if you want to protect your home, you need wards for magic time and solid, lockable doors for when magic is down, as physical barriers might not be enough to keep things out during magic, but wards won't work during tech, and things like weapons and transportation pose similar challenges. And then there's all the stuff that's simply gone, like air travel, and on the flip side, stuff that always works, such as horseback riding or swords.

Another favorite aspect of mine is how the knowledge that was gained during the technological era (before the first magic wave hits, at some point in our near future), is retained and can be applied to magical phenomena. Contraptions meant to detect and test magical traces have been built and added to the existing arsenal of forensics labs, and there are dual-purpose cars, built to run normally during tech, and on some form of enchanted water engine during magic. Fields like forensic science, medicine, biology, even surveillance, have expanded and incorporated magical aspects, instead of being replaced, so that while most of the technology-based structures, such as sky scrapers, for example, have mostly been reduced to rubble, the world hasn't become a stone age Swords and Sorcery type place, and has retained its urban aspects and feel, which I believe is rather important in urban fantasy.

The writing itself is neither spectacular nor horrendous. Most of the time it's straight forward, without drawing too much attention to itself and without too much self indulgence, and it gets the job done. The dialog tends to be solid, and the descriptions aren't too flowery and don't suffer from an overabundance of adjectives, which happens to be a pet peeve of mine. On the other hand, there's at least one writing tick that seriously got on my nerves. It seems like the writers are in love with this particular sentence structure:

Lean and phlegmatic, with a narrow, intelligent face, he looked more like a campus intellectual than a bartender.

Thirty city blocks long and eight blocks deep, it cut through what used to be Midtown like a dagger.

A couple of inches taller than me, the Beast Lord gave an impression of coiled power.

All but invisible from the highway, the fortress sat in the middle of a clearing.

Dangerous as hell, they had raised necromancy to the level of art.

Syntactically bizarre, this structure is nevertheless repeated over and over again. A mere smattering, these are all examples from flipping through the first book. Lacking any stylistic or substantive justification, this repetitive writing tick drove me nuts. I think I've made my point.

To be fair, the writing does improve in subsequent books, including less of that ^.

The following, also from the first book, gives a better idea of the overall tone and style:

I glanced at Derek. The boy wonder didn't melt into a pile of goo, although his gaze was glued to Rowena's chest. Avoiding eye contact. Good strategy.
"Sorry we're late."
"Not a problem. Please follow me."
We did, climbing the staircase up the long hallway.
"You've been here before?" Derek asked, his gaze firmly fixed on Rowena's ass shifting under the shimmering green silk a few steps above us.
"Wiggles," I told him.
He blinked, then realized I wasn't referring to Rowena's backside. "Wiggles?"
"She's about fourteen feet long, triangular head, gray and blue scales…"
He was clearly drawing a blank. "Nataraja's pet snake," I explained. "It bolted a few weeks ago. I found it for him at the request of the Guild." Mentioning that I spent four solid days camped out in a swamp, covered in peat and muck, without a change of clothes, would have completely cramped my style.

The Kate Daniels books start out a bit shaky, but quickly become a fun, easy read. The KD world really worked for me, with its solid premise and lots of little touches that help ground it in reality. The wide range of characters was an unexpected bonus, as was the existence of actual couples who aren't the boring friends/parents but actual players who have personalities and are allowed to be both interesting and sexy(!) without being either perfect or all the same. Both the plots and the writing are hit and miss, and the overall series arc takes too long to get going, but these things do improve as the series progresses. I'd classify it as not genius but still thoroughly enjoyable romantic horror in an urban fantasy setting. If apocalyptic chick-lit sounds good to you, then I'd definitely recommend this series.

Book List Meme Thing

unfilthy — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 02:32:36 GMT

Gakked from lea724:

This list is the NPR Audience Picks of the 100 Best Beach Books Ever (Beach Book? These people are insane! -R.B.)

It's the usual drill: Bold the ones you've read. If you remember reading them on a beach, then italicize them as well! (No, there's no code for indicating books you've started, or want to read, or heard of; that stuff's for sissies. You read it, or you didn't.) Give us your count at the end!

1. The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling - The only books I read on a beach, and that's because I was buying the paperbacks as I was traveling along the north-eastern UK, and I would occasionally stop along the coast (they got heavy!) in a local pub for local people and read.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee - Doesn't everyone have to read it at school?
3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini - I never finished it, and I don't know where it is now :(
4. Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding - I can accept this as a beach book, if I actually enjoyed lying on beaches.
5. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen - I can just imagine people reading it on the beach 200 years ago.
6. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
7. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I read this in my parents' library. Love it.
8. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams - To be fair, I read this so many times, I might have read it on a beach at some point, but I doubt it.
9. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg
10. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

11. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
12. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
13. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan - I forgot I read this, but now I'm pretty sure I have.
14. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien - I tried. Several times. I really really did.
15. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger - Maybe for adults, but I think being pale is a prerequisite for reading this as a teenager.
16. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
17. Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
18. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien - I tried. Several times. I really really did.
19. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
20. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen

21. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
22. The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver
23. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
24. The World According to Garp, by John Irving - Love it.
25. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller - War and death and corruption work best when combined with sun and sand.
26. The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy
27. Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel
28. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman - One day I will...
29. The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler
30. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer - Hells no.

31. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole - A favorite of hubby's.
32. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
33. The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
34. Beach Music, by Pat Conroy
35. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36. Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier
37. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
38. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
39. The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough
40. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

41. Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett
42. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy - Nothing like the Russians to get you into that holiday mood, I say.
43. Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice
44. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
45. Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
46. Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes
47. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
48. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins
49. I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb
50. Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

51. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott - Awww!
52. The Stand, by Stephen King
53. She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb
54. Dune, by Frank Herbert - It's the sand thing, isn't it?
55. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
56. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Sigh.
57. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
58. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov - A literary masterpiece with seriously disturbing subject matter = fun on the beach!
59. The Godfather, by Mario Puzo - Never got to it, and now it's in storage.
60. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

61. Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver
62. Jaws, by Peter Benchley
63. Good in Bed, by Jennifer Weiner - I'm pretty sure I read it on a plane, which is kinda the same as a beach. Amusingly, my mother saw it in my pile of books and made an incorrect assumption.
64. Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
65. Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
66. The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
67. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
68. Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut
69. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
70. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

71. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
72. The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy - I think I might have read this, but it might have been another book I'm thinking of. Bah.
73. Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns
74. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
75. Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
76. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte - one of the dozen or so books I'm in the middle of reading atm.
77. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
78. The Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher
79. Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
80. Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett

81. Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
82. The Pilot's Wife, by Anita Shreve
83. All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy
84. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson - another one of the dozen or so books I'm in the middle of reading atm.
85. The Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Exupery - Awwwwwww!
86. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
87. One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich
88. Shogun, by James Clavell - Read this one at my grandparents'.
89. Dracula, by Bram Stoker - Gotta love Penguin.
90. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera - It's not light just because the word appears in the title, dammit.

91. Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow
92. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger
93. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
94. Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris - another one of the dozen or so books I'm in the middle of reading atm.
95. Summer Sisters, by Judy Blume
96. The Shining, by Stephen King
97. How Stella Got Her Groove Back, by Terry McMillan
98. Lamb, by Christopher Moore
99. Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiaasen
100. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

So that's 29 read, two DNF (I never did manage to get through an entire Tolkien book), three currently reading, one that got lost while I was reading it, and one that I actually really want to read but haven't yet.

unfilthy — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:02:14 GMT

I normally can't stand singing competitions, but I'm finding The Voice surprisingly enjoyable. I'm also dangerously close to developing crushes on both Beverly McClellan and the country singer judge/mentor whose name escapes me (I never heard of him before the show).

I've been meaning to mention, about the Bones season finale, that I don't so much mind the whole "I'm pregnant and you're the father" thing, especially considering that the actress is pregnant, it's the whole years-of-UST-dragging-on-forever-till-you're-bored-with-the-whole-thing being supposedly "resolved" off screen. Not that I have a burning desire to see Bones and Booth make out, I just wish they'd done something more interesting on-screen. These are well established characters. They're the main characters on the show. I don't buy the whole no reaction thing on both their parts for two (?) whole episodes. I want the writers to give me *something* when they choose to drastically change a relationship between the two main characters in a show. I'm feeling rather meh about the whole thing, and that's down to the writers not doing the work, IMO.

Finally, the entertainment industry needs to get its head out of its ass and realize that their electronically available products have gone global. If it can be transmitted over the internet, it will be transmitted over the internet. Local distribution concepts may work for physical objects (to the extent that people choose to buy products in stores and not order them online), but when it comes to electronic media, it's an obsolete system, and instead of sending their platoon of lawyers and lobbyists to fight it, they need to get with the program and make the situation out here in the real world work for them.

I'm sick and tired of being actively prevented from legally purchasing items (that I can download for free much more easily) based on my billing address or location at time of attempted purchase, by the very corporations that are bitching about people "stealing" from them. If I give you my money, fucking take it already. I can't even imagine how many millions of people around the world are willing, able, and even eager to BUY ebooks, music, movies, etc., but end up downloading those things for free because the companies that hold the rights to them simply refuse to sell them, in a stupidly stubborn attempt to maintain a status quo that no longer exists.

On an unrelated, and more positive note, I think I might attend Wikimania 2011. :)

Double Meme!

unfilthy — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:30:18 GMT

This is the first such quiz that correctly places my origins in the West, as opposed to the mid-west. It's hard to tell where I'm from by my accent, but still, the only flawless USian accent I've ever had was my original Californian one, as opposed to the more unplaceable mongrel accent I've developed over the years. I think I only ever met one person who right off the bat asked me if I was from California, and turns out, it was because she'd heard me say "I was, like, um..."

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Western. Like Midland, Western is another accent that people consider neutral. So, you might not actually be from the Western half of the country, but you definitely sound like it.

And if you're not from the West, you are probably one of the following:
(a) A Pittsburgher - the quiz can't tell the difference;
(b) Someone from Canada (probably southern Ontario) who doesn't have a Canadian accent;
(c) Someone from northern New England who doesn't have a New England accent; or
(d) Someone from Texas or the Heartland who was born after 1980.
You are definitely not from New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Detroit, the Deep South, etc.</font>

Take this quiz now - it's easy!

Now the ABC one...

A. Age: 35

B. Bed size: Queen. I miss the bed we had in Holland - it was practically square.

C. Chore you dislike: All of them?

D. Dogs: Eh. I like a few of the dogs I've met, but I wouldn't wanna own one.

E. Essential start to your day: Nicotine.

F. Favorite color: I don't really have one. Possibly fuchsia, when the mood strikes.

G. Gold or silver: neither.

H. Height: 5'4"

I. Instruments you play(ed): Piano, badly. Guitar, equally badly.

J. Job title: translator.

K. Kids: Definitely not.

L. Live: In tiny one bedroom flat with two cats and a husband.

M. Mom’s name: Marianne

N. Nicknames: Ron, Ronna, queen bitch of shit creek.

O. Overnight hospital stays: Just at the loony bin.

P. Pet peeves: Many.

Q. Quote from a movie:

R. Righty or lefty: Righty.

S. Siblings: Older brother and sister.

T. Time you wake up: depends - my personal orbit has little to do with the time of earthlings.

U. Underwear: Stretchy and comfy and black.

V. Vegetables you don't like: Celery. Yuck. Also, gumbo.

W. What makes you run late: I'm rarely late, but when I am it's either having to wake up too early or really not wanting to go somewhere.

X. X-rays you’ve had: Teeth, head, foot, knee, lungs, most of my internal organs...

Y. Yummy food you make: Haven't cooked in a long while, but I was very good with desserts once upon a time. Also, I'm really good with salads.

Z. Zoo animal favorites: I loved the lemurs and the skunks when I worked at a zoo, but as a visitor, I think bears, or maybe elephants? The big ones that aren't cats.

I pulled a neck muscle or something yesterday and it's making me all achey and weak and miserable :(

Golden Globes

unfilthy — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 04:28:05 GMT

Finally sat down to watch the Golden Globes.

Thoughts in no particular order (even though they're numbered for convenience or something):

1. I want Hugh Laurie to win for House. This bugs me.

2. The Social Network's script was full of holes, misogyny, anachronisms and other icky things. It's definitely not the best this year, nor is it anywhere near Sorkin's best, and it makes me sad that so many people think it's good.

3. The Social Network was not a good film. It was cliched and mediocre work from people who are capable of much more. More importantly, it was the weakest of the nominees overall. Well done Sony for the publicity, though.

4. Oh, Fincher. He's done such amazing work, and hopefully will do more of it, but like Sorkin, TSN was far from his best work, and though I haven't seen The Fighter yet, both The Swan and Inception had more inspired directing.

5. Natalie Portman is pretty.

6. This was the least fun/relaxed and most tense/mean spirited GG I've seen yet. Not sure if it's that Hollywood's decided collectively that they no longer find Ricky Gervais' being full of himself funny, or the humorlessness of the crowd, but I got a really nasty, unpleasant vibe. Just didn't feel good natured to me.

7. Seems to me that quite a few stars have gained some weight. I approve. I was getting a bit sick of seeing skin barely stretched over bones and the occasional muscle.

8. Yay for Chris Colfer!

9. As much as I love Jane Lynch, I think that Julia Stiles gave an absolutely outstanding performance on Dexter, as did Kelly MacDonald on Boardwalk Empire.

10. I love Katy Sagal.

11. I really enjoyed Boardwalk Empire, I don't watch Good Wife and haven't watched the latest Mad Men yet, but Dexter had a spectacular season, and I found The Walking Dead much more engaging than Boardwalk Empire, so that's at least two shows I'd pick over Boardwalk.

12. Now that I think about it, other than Colfer, Portman, Sagal and Colin Firth, none of the choices made me happy.

13. Inception should've gotten some more recognition.

14. Though I've seen Michelle Williams in a few films since then, I can't stop thinking about her as the chick from Dawson's Creek.

This Is Not About WikiLeaks

unfilthy — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:21:11 GMT

The US government is now using its considerable power to shape both foreign governments and corporations into tools for its unprecedented international persecution of a news gathering organization and its smarmy leader.

So far, WikiLeaks has been subjected to DDoS attacks, it's been booted off servers and DNS services both in the US and abroad, had its Swiss bank account frozen, its PayPal account suspended, Visa and Master Card have both decided to block donations to WikiLeaks, and both Facebook and Twitter have suspended WikiLeaks accounts. Hell, even some free data visualization site booted the WikiLeaks data.

This isn't conspiracy theory/behind the scenes/national security stuff. It's right out there in the public domain for all to see. The US government has abandoned any attempt to even appear as if its actions are guided by anything other than self interest, as well as any pretense that it does not view itself as above the law, federal and international, and is publicly resorting to brute force and bullying to achieve its goals without even attempting to cover its ass.

Now, Julian Assange seems to me like a smarmy self-aggrandizing creep and a shameless attention whore. I'm undecided about his organization, WikiLeaks, mostly because they're so fucking secretive I can't tell what they're doing or why. I certainly have no problem with Assange being extradited from the UK to Sweden to face criminal charges.

I do have a problem with American politicians publicly calling to assassinate Assange as a leader of a terrorist organization.

I have a problem with the State Department declaring publicly that Assange and WikiLeaks are criminals engaged in illegal activity, and using this supposed "fact" to intimidate organizations and companies into kicking them in the balls, when neither Assange nor WikiLeaks have even been charged with anything in any US court (let alone convicted - apparently the entire judicial system is superfluous). And the reason they haven't been charged with anything is that there is no statute (yet - Congress generously offered to rewrite some laws for this special occasion) that they are in clear violation of, and if the government did manage to find something that might stick, they'd have a huge problem with the 4th Amendment, and if they did manage to circumvent the constitution and create a dangerous precedent regarding the publication by a third party of leaked documents (in effect making journalism illegal in the US) it likely wouldn't be enforceable under most, if not all, current extradition treaties.

And so, I support Anonymous and Operation Payback and whatever loosely organized anarchic online groups that are doing the online equivalent of a sit-in, more commonly known as DDoS attacks, on those companies and organizations, governmental and otherwise, that chose to bow down to pressure and participate in this persecution, because the people have no power against attacks such as these unless we do something when the smarmy ones are being shat on. Also, they threw in an attack on Palin for free, which is just icing on the moose.

This isn't a comprehensive post. I've been reading stuff for several days now and I have a lot of OPINIONS (and almost as many bookmarks), but I really wanted to say something, even if no one's listening, because I think it's important; not because I agree with WikiLeaks, but because I find the US government's actions to be both despicable and really fucking scary.

Oh, and they even got Encyclopedia Dramatica to remove an entry about Operation Payback, which, WTF? Though, to be fair, as far as I could tell, at least there was a court order involved.

Also, in serious business, there's a legal analysis written by what the EFF says is an independent, non-partisan legal office that does research for Congress, which covers the legal options and issues relating to possible prosecution of WikiLeaks and/or Assange. I've read it and found it extraordinarily informative, so if you feel like it, it's here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/R41404.pdf

unfilthy — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:32:08 GMT

I can't possibly be the only one who thinks Soulless!Sam is awesome and should remain in this state forever, right?

Also, Funniest Episode Ever.

I'm trying to be good about the updating thing.

unfilthy — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 14:12:03 GMT

Here's an Icon Meme!

MAH ICONS.

default	oldest	newest


saddest	happiest	angriest


cutest	sexiest	funniest


fave ship	fave fandom	fave animated


best quote	best textless	best stolen idea


use the most	favorite	honorable mention

HOW MANY ICONS DO YOU HAVE: 100
OUT OF HOW MANY AVAILABLE ICONS SPACES: 138
IF YOU COULD BUY SPACE FOR MORE, WOULD YOU: I doubt it. The ones I already have are underused, and I always think I need more but never do anything about it.
DO YOUR ICONS MAKE A STATEMENT: If they do, I don't know what it is. Unless we're talking about specific icons, in which case, yes, some of them make statements.
WHAT FANDOM DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: Doctor Who.
AND THE SECOND MOST: BtVS/AtS
WHAT SHIP DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: 9th Doctor/Rose, though I'm not sure how truly shippy they are.
ARE YOUR ICONS MADE MOSTLY BY OTHER PEOPLE: No. About 25% are from other people, the rest are mine.
DO YOU MAKE ICONS: Not nearly as much as I used to, or as much as I'd like to.
ARE THEY ANY GOOD: Some are, some aren't. Or, most aren't, a few are.
ANIMATED ICONS ARE: Mostly badly done, but can be extraordinarily useful/funny/poignant in the right hands.
FINAL WORDS: I didn't choose the categories, obviously, and chose icons so that they wouldn't repeat. For instance, my actual most used is my default, but what's the point in that? Also, my favorite could fit into other categories, but I went with something else for ship and for textless etc. so as not to bore myself to death. I also added an honorable mention, because I felt like it. And these final words. What can I say, I suck at following instructions.

DO THE MEME.
Coding can be found here

The Social Network

unfilthy — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:30:03 GMT

Aaron Sorkin would have us believe that in writing The Social Network, he has not written a definitive account of a young man's life, but a multi-layered one, based on the accounts and testimonies of various people. More than that, we're meant to gain some insights not just into the specific subculture of young men in Ivy League schools in the 21st century, but into modern life itself, into social networking online and off, into generation Z, into the (obnoxiously overused) "zeitgeist."

I would've loved to have seen that movie, but The Social Network is not it.

Let's start with Akira Kurosawa. In his masterpiece, Rashomon, Kurosawa used fiction to question the nature of truth itself.

In stark contrast, The Social Network takes actual people and events and fictionalizes them for dramatic purposes. I'm told it's called artistic license, and I don't disapprove of it in principle. A good story can use the lives of real people as a jumping off point for raising philosophical questions, commenting on or simply highlighting social phenomena, or providing insights into human nature or what is sadly called the human condition (I'm guessing by the same people who overuse zeitgeist, but I have no proof). In Citizen Kane, Orson Welles cannibalized William Randolph Hearst's life, and putting aside its rightfully lauded technical brilliance, it also managed to create a compelling mystery, whose conclusion left me contemplating much larger questions than anything related to Hearst, the actual person.

It may seem extraordinarily unfair of me to compare The Social Network to Rashomon and Citizen Kane, considering the latter two are widely considered to be among the most groundbreaking, influential, timeless masterpieces in the history of cinema. In some respects, it is unfair, but it also serves two very specific purposes. The first is to remind us all what a real masterpiece looks like. The second is to show what great filmmakers can achieve even while working within certain genres and constraints. And the reason I feel it's necessary to reiterate those (if not self evident, then at least widely accepted) views, in relation to The Social Network, is that I am, in part, addressing both reviews and debates sparked by The Social Network over the past month or so, in which it was either praised as a generation-defining film, or criticized for taking too much liberty with the truth for the sake of entertainment, two issues I would like to address (however tangentially), and I find that setting a benchmark can be useful in such instances.

The Social Network is bookended by mirror scenes in which two fictional women have fictional conversations with the character of Mark Zuckerberg. Those scenes were created for a reason. They're there to define and frame the protagonist for the audience. The first both supplies handy (if painfully shallow) motivation, and characterizes the protagonist as an asshole (or an anti-hero, according to Sorkin), and the second simply tells us that he's not really an asshole, which, according to Sorkin, is meant to change our perception of him from anti-hero to tragic hero. I'm starting out by focusing on these two scenes, because they're pure storytelling, unencumbered by any kind of obligation to the truth, and so I consider them to be good indicators of authorial intent, or, in other words, of what Sorkin wants the story to be.

If you happen to like TV shows with vampires in them, you might recognize variations on the simple device used here. It's used to great effect in the season 5 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Fool for Love" in which the object of Spike's (then William's) affection rejects him with the painful words "you're beneath me" a sentiment echoed over a century later by Buffy, using that same pain-inducing phrase. All that Spike has done, all the ways in which he'd evolved, all his attempts to transform himself, are stripped away from him in that moment, and he's exposed as the same man he's always been, perceived by the object of his affection as unworthy not only of love but of basic human kindness. More recently, in The Vampire Diaries, Damon suffers a similar rejection, when his old flame tells him she's only ever loved his brother, and his new love, physically identical to the old one, tells him the same thing.

Being rejected by two women, past and present, in the same way, is a rather effective way of making a character more sympathetic. People in pain are more sympathetic, people in double pain are even more so, and people in pain due to knife-in-the-heart rejection are positively heart wrenching.

In the examples above, we're obviously meant to feel for the rejected character, and see something that those women don't. This is not the case in The Social Network. Here, we're meant to side, in turn, with each of the two women, and accept their judgment and assessment of the protagonist's character as correct. In other words, they're there to tell us what Sorkin wants us to feel and think, and so when I look at The Social Network in its entirety, I use these two scenes as benchmarks of authorial intent. Each other scene in the movie that might be criticized could be excused as a reflection of real events, not really saying anything about what Sorkin meant, wanted to convey, about his views, etc., but these two scenes, the ones which are pure fiction, they're also pure Sorkin, and that makes them incredibly important, though perhaps not in the way they were intended to be.

In the first scene, AlternaZuck obviously treats his girlfriend badly. But other things are happening as well. Specifically, his girlfriend Erica is portrayed as not-as-smart-as AlternaZuck, basically not being able to follow his train of thought during a reasonably simple conversation, even after supposedly being around him for a while. This may be meant to establish AZ as a genius with a severe lack of social skills, but it tells us something more.

It tells us that Sorkin chose to place AZ with a young woman who is prettier than and more socially adept than him, but who is inferior to him when it comes to intelligence. I'm not sure what that says about AZ, but I have a pretty good idea what it says about Sorkin.

Another thing we learn in that scene is that AZ views BU as insignificant (you don't need to study because you go to BU) compared to Harvard. On the other hand, we learn that Harvard isn't good enough either - only some antiquated secret clubs populated by the trust-fund wielding offspring of Harvard alumni allow one to achieve greatness. Is it Erica's perfectly reasonable question about which club is easiest to get into that was meant to hit on some inferiority complex, spurring him on to prove he can get into any of them, or is it that she not only dumped him, but told him that he was an asshole? What is the true source of his obsession? Is it all about getting the girl, all about achieving greatness, all about revenge?

Sorkin would have us believe that it is about a guy who's on the outside looking in, desperate for acceptance, but the motivations he's positing don't hold up within the context of the entire film, possibly because it is encumbered by facts, or possibly because Sorkin didn't really think this through, but instead simply shoved a familiar template that he's comfortable with onto his AZ.

Either way, the inconsistencies grate. And speaking of inconsistencies, where did the guy who couldn't manage a casual conversation disappear to? AZ doesn't say much, but he's perfectly capable of expressing himself to everyone around him when he wants to, so if we're meant to see a truly socially incompetent guy, I'd expect to see him that way throughout the film, or else show development or change in him, but we don't. This leads me to conclude that he just jumped subjects in the first scene to make it clear to us that the woman can't follow his super fast thought processes, and once that was done, he could suddenly talk like a normal human being again, but let's get back to motivation.

Surely, if acceptance is what AZ seeks, then joining in with the Winkelvi is his best course of action, as they can give him what he supposedly wants most, and yet he shuns them. Not only that, but he is portrayed as enjoying his notoriety after the collegiate hot-or-not incident, so which is it?

One could argue that "exclusive is cool" is a variation on his original motivation - if he creates his own exclusive social club online, then he got what he wanted by building something everyone wants to join, instead of hoping that others would accept him into their exclusive social clubs. But if that's the case, then why keep expanding Facebook till it is no longer exclusive (and so no longer cool)?

He obviously isn't after the money. He could've cashed in at many points but didn't. It's not for girls or a party lifestyle, as he's depicted as being more interested in the work than his groupies or his friends' parties. The only things left are striving for greatness and something extraordinarily petty yet not particularly clear regarding proving something about his abilities to Erica, but then Erica was never shown to doubt his abilities - she was shown to doubt his character, so how does building a great big website affect that in any way? And if it's about her doubting his social abilities as they relate to joining the supposed elite, then we're back to the Winkelvi and his choosing his new website over them. In fact, he did the one thing that would absolutely guarantee that he would never get into one of those clubs - he left Harvard completely. Which brings me back to the first scene, where he mocks BU as not requiring study, and his supposed obsession with Harvard's elite. What we see AZ do throughout the film simply doesn't fit anything that happens in that first, defining scene.

AZ's motivations, as initially laid out for us by Sorkin, are murky at best, and at times outright contradictory to his behavior throughout the film.

He didn't care about Harvard or its clubs, or he wouldn't have shafted the Winkelvi and left Harvard.

He didn't care about getting laid, partying, or being popular, or he would've taken advantage of his status, especially in CA with JT, but even before that when The Facebook was becoming popular.

All that's left of Sorkin's original motivation scene is The Girl, and even that is unbelievably weak. If one wants to tell a story about a guy who does everything to impress a girl, then we need to know why he cares so much. If you want us to believe that a guy goes on to shape his entire career around that one girl, you need to make it believable. She needs to be special to him, they need to have a relationship, she needs to be somewhere in his orbit. What I don't buy is a guy obsessing for years about a girl he used to date when he was a teenager, without doing anything that would indicate that he actually wants her back, or cares about her, or that there was anything even remotely unique about their relationship. Perhaps this too is a result of reality getting in Sorkin's way. The real Mark Zuckerberg had a girlfriend basically this entire time. She was written out of the film, which is fine, but making him explicitly obsessed with someone else to the extent required for her to become a believable major motivation, would involve creating and inserting a central character who doesn't exist into a story based on actual people's lives, which would cause too many plot holes that would have to be addressed in the script to make some sort of sense.

And so, like all the other motivations we were sold at the beginning, she simply didn't fit into the story Sorkin was hired to tell, and so once again we're left with nothing. Nothing to explain his actions and no insight into his character, or into his character as a prototype of an outsider yearning for acceptance, or into his character as a prototype of socially awkward youngsters relying on the internet for social interaction.

What we're left with is a young man who's very good at spotting trends and at reading social structures, who's also great with computers. He decides to combine the two skills and focus his entire life on this one big project. On the way, he may or may not have been mean to his friends, to an unknown degree. And maybe, just maybe, by process of elimination, and against authorial intent, we might conclude that he strives for greatness.

Sorkin stripped Zuckerberg's life and used it as filler for the story he decided to tell, disregarding the fact that the two don't fit, instead of creatively using a story based on actual events to raise questions or gain insights. So much for the Citizen Kane approach to artistic license, but what about the bigger picture? What about the Kurosawa Factor? Surely, the film isn't just about the life of one guy starting a successful website. Our protagonist is being sued by several people. Like the promotional posters say, he's made enemies. The depositions are the frame from which we embark on a journey down memory lane, slowly discovering how he came to be there.

This, of course, is a structure that lends itself to shifting points of view. The way the Winkelvi view events is not the way AZ views them, is not the way his former best friend views them, etc. Because of the possibility of differing view points, this structure is a remarkably useful vehicle for creating mystery, and it is an excellent vessel for raising interesting questions and providing commentary on a huge variety of issues. We could see how people from different backgrounds view the world, and we could comment on it, on social structures, on entitlement and ambition, on concepts of honor, on the importance of money, or we could go an entirely different way and ask whether we can really know another human being, raise questions about the nature of human friendships and relationships and emotions. We could look at truth and narratives and comment on modernism and postmodernism. We could explore questions of biology and the arguments for primacy of nature versus nurture. We could discuss the nature of memory and human fallibility, the progression of youth and maturity, bias, bigotry, discrimination, globalization, public personas, fame, genius, communication, privacy, liberalism, conservatism, feminism, desperation, love...

Pick a card, any card. Please.

But no, The Social Network doesn't pick a card, nor does it comment on the deck. It just sits there, being "objective." It just tells us some of what happened when a kid built a big website and pissed some people off on the way. There is one single instance where an actual statement is made, with Erica once again used as a mouthpiece to state the obvious: that the internet is written in ink. Apparently that was sufficient for Sorkin, because he believes that it's A. a revelation and B. a bad thing, and he's wrong on both counts, but that's not the point. The point is that there is no attempt to use this huge canvas and all these opportunities for anything original or creative or even mildly thought provoking. Having the people who aren't AZ there only serves to justify scenes he's not in. All scenes are shot from the same figurative fly on the wall perspective. Everyone feels betrayed, but we learn nothing about the nature of betrayal, on its effects or its causes. The protagonist is alone, but we learn nothing about the nature of loneliness, on its causes or its effects, not in general and not as they relate to the people in the story. And then it stops. Not because there was any kind of resolution to anything, or a marked changed in anyone or anything, but because it was time to end the story.

And this present, in film time, is where the second woman resides. She's a lawyer, not a student, but like Erica, she's also much more attractive than AZ, and her job description entails understanding other people, so presumably she too has better social skills than AZ. Also like Erica, she's relatively low on her peers' food chain. While Erica only attends BU while hanging out with students from Harvard, the lawyer isn't a partner in a reputable firm or a hot shot of any kind within her profession. In fact, she makes a point of telling us that - if even a lowly minion like her could make a case against AZ, then surely he must settle.

Once again, the woman is allowed to be prettier and better at social interaction than AZ, but not as smart or as successful as he is. The only time I can remember her saying anything before her final scene is to express her admiration for AZ's accomplishments. And after sitting there listening for who knows how long, she explains to AZ how screwed he is, then tells him, and us, that Erica was wrong, and that he's not really an asshole, and instead offers her opinion that he's actually trying to be an asshole, at which point we're meant to take her (or Sorkin's) word for it, but he hasn't done the groundwork that would make that possible for me as a viewer, nor do I see the difference if the behavior is the same and we don't get to see anything deeper or more intimate than that.

Ultimately, The Social Network tells us that AZ may or may not have done some mean things to some people. If he did, we don't know to what extent or why. He's completely alone, but we don't know why he chose to isolate himself. The only thing we've consistently seen him working toward and striving for and saying that he wants is his website, and the motivations posited in the beginning don't track, so we don't even know why that's important to him. When the film is over, we've learned nothing about either AZ or the real Zuckerberg, we've learned nothing about his generation, we've learned nothing about social structures or social networks.

What we have learned is that Sorkin thinks AZ's been through a journey, and that we've been on it with him, and that through that journey we were supposed to learn that even though he seems like an asshole, really he's just trying to be an asshole. We also learned that Sorkin prefers his women to be pretty and socially competent but not too successful or too bright. And the very last thing we learned is that we're supposed to feel sorry for AZ, for no other reason than the fact that he places an inexplicably high value on whether or not the girl who told him he was an asshole when she broke up with him years ago will or will not accept his Facebook friend request, all of which supposedly makes him into a tragic hero, and I'm sorry, but I just don't buy any of it.

The acting is pretty good. The visuals are rather dated and cliched, but adequate for the story. The misogyny is literally nausea-inducing in places. The script is full of inconsistent characterization and plot holes and lacks any imagination or any attempt to glean any sort of meaning or raise any interesting questions. The dialogue is quick and mostly clever. Despite its mediocrity, I'm guessing it's gonna win some awards.

Finally, for the record, everything I've said here is based on my personal memories and impressions. I may well have gotten some of the specific details (like names) wrong, but I'm not watching this thing again, and I don't think I could stomach reading any more about it. Also, no proofing or rewriting has taken place, and for this I apologize.

unfilthy — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:10:47 GMT

Sherlock Holmes is, for obvious reasons, one of my all-time favorite fictional characters.

The new BBC Gattis/Moffat modern-day TV adaptation Sherlock, is by far the closest to the Arthur Conan Doyle characters as I've always understood them, as well as just being brilliantly executed. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy RDJ in the role, but that though I enjoyed the film, I had to set aside the source material to appreciate it, and so ended up not really seeing it as a Sherlock Holmes movie, if that makes sense.

In other news, I got my very first work-related dongle this week. Getting a job is good. Getting wonky over re-upped-meds is not so good (my stomach? not at all happy), but I think, overall, better than before. Also, boss lady seems to like me, and my mad computer skillz.

A to Z Meme gacked from strangefrontier:
A - Act your age? I'm a grumpy old woman at heart.
B - Born on what day of the week? Saturday.
C - Chore you hate? By definition, if it's a chore to do, then I don't like it, but then in particular, I think lately it's doing the dishes.
D - Dad's name? Aviel
E - Essential makeup item? Shiseido Translucent Luminizing Color Powder in L1. Just perfect for us painfully pale folk.
F - Favorite actor/actress? No one, or too many come to mind.
G - Gold or silver? Neither. Platinum, titanium, diamonds or black pearls all kick gold and silver's ass.
H - Hometown? Palo Alto, California, Haifa, Israel, Haarlem, The Netherlands... Ask me again in a couple years ;)
I - Instruments you play? None. One year of piano playing and a bit of electric guitar practice have taught me that I was not destined to be a musician.
J - Job title? Translator.
K - Kids? Nope.
L - Living arrangements? With gvalley and two cats in tiny one bedroom flat, which is a serious step down from having a two bedroom house AND a two bedroom flat between the two of us, with one cat.
M - Mum's name? Marianne
N - Nude? Not generally.
O - Overnight hospital stays? Just in the loony bin.
P - Phobia? Arachno-
Q - Quote you like? "You're alliteration happy: 'guardians of gridlock,' 'protectors of privilege.' I needed an avalanche of Advil."
R - Religious affiliation? I'm an atheist/agnostic/Jew, ask me how!
S - Siblings? Big sis, big bro.
T - Time you wake up? Random. Or if not, based on some cycle my brain determines which I haven't been able to figure out yet.
U - Unique habit? I believe my habits are rather commonplace. Possibly slightly less conventional one is a tendency to switch languages mid-sentence, and sometimes mid-word.
V - Vegetable you refuse to eat? Celery and okra.
W - Worst habit? Avoiding doctors like the plague-ridden monsters that they are (no offense to my doctor friends and doctor sister intended)
X - X-rays you've had? Regular X-rays? Foot, ankle, knee, head, neck, teeth. Also CAT scan of abdomen, some ulcer-related thing requiring the ingestion of plaster-like substance, and IIRC, lungs. My arms and pelvis are feeling neglected :'(
Y - Yummy food you make? I have a professional cook at home, so why bother?
Z - Zodiac Sign? Libra

I Write Like...

unfilthy — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 03:32:13 GMT

Random update things are mostly Stephen King or Chuck Palahniuk, with the occasional Margaret Atwoods and Dan Browns, but then there's this, for an entry recounting some of my personal experiences with sexual and emotional abuse (so weird):

I write like
P. G. Wodehouse

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Three separate meta posts got me this:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Amusingly, I got this for discussing my pre-performance anxiety:

I write like
George Orwell

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

And on an entry describing some hectic insanity in my life, only with good things, I got this:

I write like
Douglas Adams

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Talking about my dead dad and two entries about shitty circumstances got me...

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

A relatively random one and a WTF LIFE one got me Nabokov which, I WISH I could write like fucking Nabokov, seriously.

I write like
Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

And a list of random goings on gave me...

I write like
Isaac Asimov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I love this game! :D

unfilthy — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:54:51 GMT

A couple weeks into my Twitter use, and I remain unconvinced. I'm mostly finding it boring, except for the very occasional bit of instant-info, and maybe a few giggles. As I suspected, even the smartest, most entertaining people's lives are mostly incredibly uninteresting, and I know that this somehow relates to my decision to stop answering the phone several years back (unless I really feel like it or am waiting for a specific call), though I don't have a coherent thread running through the whole thing atm, possibly due to oncoming migraine.

In TV non-news, I've decided that someone needs to take all six seasons of Lost and re-edit them, chronologically. I'm almost done rewatching the whole thing, and I'm already feeling like I should go back a couple seasons and start over.

Also in TV non-news, I loved Vincent and the Doctor. It's often creaky when DW goes into historic figure territory, but then tackling a historic figure who suffered from mental illness within the confines of an optimistic family show, with monsters? I groaned at the concept, but was pleasantly surprised. Doctor Who could never be a documentary or an adult drama, genres that could maybe tackle Van Gogh's life fully, but with a few delicate touches, they managed to acknowledge the pain and tragedy involved in Van Gogh's life, while still preserving the tone and structure of a humorous, scary, silly and emotional, optimistic family show, with monsters. Very well done indeed. So far, I have to say that I'm loving the 11th Doctor and what the new team are doing with him.

In plumbing news, bathtub suddenly filled with BLACK WATER last night. Today plumber plumbed it away. I ended up having to clean the bathroom, twice. I suspect the migraine is a result of the fumes from the detergents. Dealing with black gunk bubbling up and the resulting headache is causing alarming empathy for BP. I suspect it'll pass soon enough.

PS: I need an icon saying "A Thing - it's like a plan, but with more greatness"

Bitch, Please.

unfilthy — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:49:50 GMT

"NAVY commandos held gun to baby's head to force a boat's captain to change course?" Seriously? NO, SERIOUSLY?

I mean, if you're gonna lie, maybe at least TRY to make up something approaching the realm of earth logic?

Here, let me help: "Being ruthless infidels, they needlessly shot the elderly, peaceful, saintly, crippled captain in cold blood, before taking over the steering, as, being the fucking NAVY, they somehow managed to find SOMEONE capable of steering a fucking boat."

Still works on propaganda level, admittedly not as well as threatening to shoot babies in the head for no reason, but still, slightly less obviously a lie, which surely is to their advantage? Or maybe not. After all, everyone knows that the blood of babies is a key ingredient in Matzos.

POLL!

unfilthy — Mon, 24 May 2010 10:30:26 GMT

View Poll: TWITTER - I NEED TO KNOW!

Lost Finale

unfilthy — Mon, 24 May 2010 09:54:48 GMT

I kinda loved it.

Took me about a half hour to come up with that^

ETA: Spoilers in comments.

I've Got Your Back.

unfilthy — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:30:04 GMT

When I was 10, an older boy from the neighborhood simply came up to me in the street and grabbed my chest. I was scared and ran home.

When I was 13, I got into a car with a 37 year old local celebrity I'd had a crush on, and we kissed. I'd already kissed 3 boys my age at the time, so I thought I knew what I was doing. I didn't expect to find myself parked in a secluded area of the beach at 1 AM with no money, no one around, and no way of getting home except with the now fully naked, masturbating man sitting next to me and urging me to "touch it," nor was I prepared to deal with him accusing me of hurting and insulting him when I attempted to step out of the car, or the further blaming that followed when I spoke to him again. I didn't tell anyone about it for years, because I was ashamed and felt guilty.

When I was 16, I moved in with my boyfriend, who quickly turned out to be both physically and emotionally abusive. I lied about why I had a black eye at my dad's 50th birthday, and I lied about why I needed stitches in my legs, both times blaming myself, claiming I was drunk and did stupid things rather than admitting that my boyfriend hit me, punched me, and broke a glass on my leg, as well as threatening to kill me on more than one occasion.

When I was 17, I left my abusive boyfriend. I've been asked repeatedly how I'd managed it without any outside support, and I honestly do not have an answer. I just vaguely remember taking him at his word on one of the many occasions when he chose to kick me out of the house at 3 AM, though it took a couple of tries before it stuck.

When I was still 17, I was once again at my now ex-boyfriend's place, and I somehow found myself on top of him, sitting on his chest, pinning his arms down with my knees, and strangling him with a wire or cord of some kind, while detailing all the things he'd done to make me feel helpless and afraid, like he was feeling at that moment. Then I got out and left, for the last time. I still hadn't told anyone, though, just as I hadn't done anything about being fired from my job because I refused to let the assistant manager fondle me or stand directly behind me when he instructed me to bend over and get things off a low shelf.

By the time I was 18 I absolutely knew that I refused to give in to bullies of any flavor, and that I'd put myself in harm's way to protect anyone who was being bullied, but that doesn't mean that I wanted to talk about it, and if I'm honest, I still don't like to talk about it now.

When I was 19, I was often considered a buzzkill because I did things like physically extricate my nearly passed-out drunk friend from the clutches and lap of a middle aged man at a club, turning down the (same) club's owner (both men I knew and was friendly with at the time), refusing to get into a car driven by a totally zonked out guy I'd just met (my friends capitulated and we got a cab), telling another guy who was an old friend that it was not okay to grab me and stick his tongue down my throat, however friendly we might be, and so on and so forth. Somehow, being accused of being a buzzkill sat quite comfortably alongside having a reputation for being easy and fucking everyone in town. Just a couple of the perks of standing up for myself and my friends. I didn't give a fuck about it then, and I don't give a flying fuck about it now.

I don't give a flying fuck, because, now, at 34, I absolutely know that I helped save a couple of friends from being date-raped, and I absolutely know that I helped save another friend from a dangerously abusive relationship, and I absolutely know that I helped save myself from incompetent doctors, and that I helped to alleviate discomfort, guilt, shame and the misery resulting from ignorant and intolerant and bullying attitudes for several others. I confronted a lecturer at university when I felt he had behaved in an inappropriate manner toward me, and I confronted a nurse at the hospital when he'd behaved in an inappropriate manner toward me and a couple of other women who didn't have it in them to speak up, and I'd do it all again. BUT. I got repeatedly kicked in the teeth for speaking up and for putting myself between aggressors and bullies and their victims, and I gotta tell you, that hurts like a motherfucker. There is a price, and anyone who tells you differently is either a liar or a fool, and no one, and I mean NO ONE, will ever get any flack from me for not feeling up to standing up all on their own and taking the inevitable beating, whatever the reason.

I say, whatever. Talk is cheep. I've got your back.

A Thing

unfilthy — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:15:22 GMT

My attempt to avoid using Rome meets 300 to sell hubby on Spartacus, culminated in the following exchange:

UNFILTHY: It's like a Rome porno, made by a gay Tarantino!

UNHUBBY: So, Rome meets 300, then?

On an unrelated matter, who's read the latest Dresden book? I ~~want~~ need to bitch about the ending.

ETA: Changes spoilers in the comments!

SGU

unfilthy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:31:15 GMT

A few years ago I quit spoilers cold turkey after being a humongous spoiler whore for years. In order to maintain my spoiler-free existence in this instant-info online world of ours, I've taken a step back from fandom, and with that, interviews with creators, reports on convention panels and appearances, and all publicity by studios and networks. There's just too much information out there, and I've found that knowing too much going in detracts from my experience, either by taking away my joy at being truly surprised by some well done plot twist, or by giving me false hopes for something better than I end up getting, not to mention the annoyance that listening to showrunners and creators can so often cause. So now, any information I have about new shows and films, I get through an odd process of osmosis; if Joss has a new show, for instance, I'll know about it because my friends will be excited about it, and I'll see that they're excited by it, but I won't actually read what they have to say about the show until I've watched it.

Last time I heard anything about SGU was sometime before SGA was taken off the air, when it seemed that Wright & co. were going in a very different direction than the one they eventually chose to take, so when I saw Carlyle and Ming-Na were cast I was pleasantly surprised and was determined to give the new show a chance, after being under the impression, IIRC, from casting call sheets, that it was gonna be aimed at The Youths.

Any opinions I've formed about SGU so far I got from watching the show without having a clue what to expect other than fabulous acting from at least some of the cast. My husband knew even less than I did (not a rare occurrence) and is equally baffled by this show. Neither of us was expecting the show to be anything other than what we saw on screen. We weren't going in with comparisons in mind, and we had as few preconceived notions as is humanly possible when watching a new show that is a part of an established franchise.

After watching the pilot(s), I mostly felt like they were trying to do BSG instead of playing to the SG strengths, which would've been find had they not fallen so damn short.

The thing I loved about the SG shows was the humor, the camaraderie, and most of all, I think, the sense of adventure and exploration. The characters were repeatedly hitting their heads against the wall, or the bulkhead, but they did it with pluck, dammit! They may have been reluctant to be in the situations they found themselves in, but they sure did want to do something about it. They tried. Their trying often made things worse, but they kept on trying, because that's what explorers and adventurers do, and that, among other things, made them endearing.

The thing I loved about BSG was, well, everything. But to name a few, the characters were well rounded, complex, morally ambiguous, and each responded to the situation they were in in a different way, based on who they were, which may sound trivial, but apparently it isn't, because it seems that characterization is a luxury that the creators of SGU are reluctant to bestow upon us. I loved that the women were as complex and as strong and as weak as the men, so incredibly rare still, though things are improving, generally speaking, except the SGU people seem to be stuck in some time warp as their female characters are either useless, silent, bland, annoying, have big tits, or various combinations of the above, if they're not entirely absent. I loved that the show tackled huge moral and philosophical issues in a decidedly shades-of-gray non-preachy way, and that the characters (there's that word again) were so invariably human, even when they weren't, technically speaking. SGU seems to be mostly devoid of moral dilemmas, and in the one episode where there is a juicy (though conventional) one, it's mostly just swept aside with one big decisive action by the de-facto leader, and once again the show is reduced to random people reacting to their entirely predictable lack of doom in rather bland ways instead of the creators giving us something to sink our mental teeth into.

It seems that the SGU team took the "gritty" to be a stylistic choice rather than a substantive one, is what I'm saying. And I would be fine with that stylistic choice if there was some substance to fill it with, but with so little characterization, even less believable human interaction, and plots that are both unbelievable and predictable, there's really not much left but style, and that style is mostly just gloomy, which is hardly an incentive to keep watching when lacking any payoff.

Speaking of stylistic choices, Ancient architecture has always been grand and visually stimulating. SGU takes place on an enormous Ancient ship, and obviously one that was meant to carry at least a crew, as the life support and showers would indicate, but the show doesn't take advantage of this huge visual canvas, and instead hides it under uncharacteristic muck and bad lighting which seem to serve no storytelling purpose.

SGU takes place on an Ancient ship called Destiny. I think it's a bit much to expect the viewer to believe that ship to be in any imminent danger of destruction, or its inhabitants to all die. The only way a threat to the very survival of the entire ship and its inhabitants can possibly pay off is if we care about the characters enough to feel for their predicament from their point of view, and that's just not happening for me, because I can barely recognize the characters, and the few I can recognize I don't particularly like.

The people who ended up on the Destiny got stuck there because they were trying to escape from an attack on a world that was accessed via a stargate. They didn't get there directly from earth. Other than the few civilians we mostly know nothing about, every single person there was supposed to be trained to deal with off-world situations; the soldiers were all sent to a remote world, as were, I gather, the scientists. After a decade and a half of exploration, you'd think that the people sent off to other worlds would have at least a basic understanding of Ancient technology, that they'd be competent and keep their heads in unexpected and difficult situations, and that they'd all be thoroughly screened for mental problems as well as their exceptional skills. I can buy that the random civilians would be ill equipped to deal with the situation. I can buy a slightly insane and ~~possibly~~ anvilishly sinister genius that they only put up with because he is a genius. I find it hard to believe that the trained soldiers are so completely incompetent and out of control. I just don't buy it. Getting stranded is an eventuality that they must be trained for; it can't come as a complete shock, rendering everyone powerless and apparently rather stupid. It might have worked in a completely new universe, but this is, quite explicitly, the Startgate Universe. They're way beyond the point of not knowing what they're getting into. Or at least they should be, unless we're given a really compelling reason why they aren't, which hasn't happened yet.

But it's really not by comparison, either to BSG or to SG-1/SGA, that the show falls short. SGU manages to be not very good all on its own. The look is dreary and glum for no apparent reason, the plots either unconvincing, boring, or both, and the characters mostly indistinguishable and generally seem incompetent, directionless and spineless, when they're not whiny, bitchy, unstable, or have big tits (I detect a theme).

I actually found myself rooting for the ship to fly into a sun and leave only a handful of survivors behind so that at least there would be some sort of core group that has to deal with each other and with their predicament in a hopefully engaging and believable manner, but no such luck. It seems we're doomed to have a whole bunch of non-entities wandering around aimlessly while the big brained condescending ass yells at everyone and makes no attempt to seem even a little bit non-sinister, with everyone just taking it because they desperately need him, as there's no one else who can possibly achieve anything worthwhile, including engineers, astrophysicists, and various other scientists that were apparently good enough to go off-world but aren't good enough to figure out the most basic of Ancient technology, even with the help of the genius mathematician who's spent God knows how long learning basic Ancient for a game, apparently enough to allow him to make certain things work, like the kinos and the showers, but the actual trained experts can't even translate flight controls correctly.

I could go on, but I don't see the point. The whole thing is an unconvincing mess without the charm or wonder that would encourage me to let the glaring inconsistencies slide, or the characterization that would allow me to care about what happens to any of these people when the plots are too predictable to be exciting.

CDS

unfilthy — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:10:11 GMT

Fuzzyshark.com is down for a few days.

In the meantime, anyone looking for the CDS forums should use www.colddeadseed.net.

Fuzzyshark should be up and running again by Tuesday.

Please pass this info on to all CDSer who aren't familiar with the alternate address.