stunt_muppet

1. One of our local indie theaters is showing the entirety of Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, a five-movie...something-or-other that is supposedly about change and differentiation and the parallels between fetal development and human potentiality. Or something.  I've been curious about it ever since the last movie in the cycle came out a couple of years; even when I don't understand it (and I usually don't) I find the images involved, and the seeming gulf between the images presented and what the artist is trying to say, fascinating, not to mention I just like to mull over the images and symbols themselves. I don't know why, but I've never been able to dismiss the more opaque modes of art.

Adding more urgency to my decision on weather or not to go see the films is the fact that they're only showing for about a week and they're not available on DVD unless you're willing to pony up half a million dollars for the super-special art-critics-only box set. And I'm not. So this is probably the only chance I'd get to witness this weirdness for myself and pass my own judgment on it. On the other hand, that's five movies in one day - I think the cycle goes from 1:00 p.m. to 7 or 8 p.m. Granted, it's shown in parts - Part 1, then Parts 2 and 3 together, then Parts 4 and 5. Technically, I could see 1, 2, and 3 one day and then 4 and 5 the next. But that's still almost forty dollars that, in truth, I probably shouldn't be spending on movies that I'd be dropping on this thing. More if I get popcorn, but these aren't really movies you can eat popcorn to.

Dammit Barney, just put them on DVD , it's not going to compromise your artistic integrity that much to let us plebes see it.

2. Speaking of movies, over the weekend my uncle took me to see It's Kind of a Funny Story, which I enjoyed - I'm ashamed to admit it did hit just a bit close to home, but I also thought it was pretty good about finding the humor in its situations without actually making fun of the patients' problems. It was more about seeing the humor in a sometimes sad situation instead of "ha ha look at the freaks, isn't it so strange that people act like that?", if that makes any sense.

( Cut for rambling about depression and stuff. )


3. M, J, and I went strolling in Downtown today, since the downtown area near where I'm catsitting is actually very interesting and vibrant and has a bunch of galleries and niche shops for every conceivable interest. And we spent a lot of time just walking and talking and being ridiculous, which is what I like to do when I'm with M and J. And on the way there, before they arrived, I found a tiny little comic book shop. It was literally one room, which I do believe was smaller than even my smallest college dorm. I think it might have been a tiny bit bigger than the campus singles, though it was jammed tight full of books and the bookshelves that contained them, so that probably made it look a lot smaller than it was.

But anyway, I tried mightily to resist buying All The Comics, but I did walk out with two: Deadpool The Heroic Age (an issue of a story arc wherein Deadpool tries (with very little success) to be a good guy) and G.I. Joe vs. The Transformers Black Horizon Vol. 1, which I thought was a reboot since it was a whole new story; seeing as I had no idea where the actual G.I. Joe Vs. Transformers line began and I was vaguely aware there were two different crossover continuities, that seemed like a good place to start.

Except it turns out that it actually was part of a continuing story, not a reboot, and thus I had little idea what was going on or what people were talking about for most of the time. I've never been more grateful for an introdump. 

Also ( Spoilers! )


4. So I went back home over the weekend in order to do laundry and things before I went back for my second week of catsitting, and one evening my family and I sat around watching CSI: Miami, as we do sometimes.

I have spoken, before, on how the series just gets more and more over-the-top the longer it goes on, which is one of the reasons I don't watch it that much anymore. However, at one point, a very familiar siren sound went off and I, only half paying attention, declared "Oh no! They're entering Silent Hill!"

My brother, equally casually, declared "I'd watch that show."

And then I got an idea.

( Cut because it's another huge crossover AU dealie. )

...wow, that was bizarre even by my own standards. D:

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Why can I not even write an LJ entry unless it's 3 in the morning. THIS IS IRRITATING. Also the Ficlet Project Ficlet has broken 1000 words. I think I might have missed the point a tiny bit.

But first, Useless Fact Time: After looking at lyric translations for both, I've realized that Rammstein's "Dalai Lama" actually tells the exact same story as Sarah Brightman's "Figlio Perduto". Really. Both are based on the Goethe poem "Der Erlkonig"; the Brightman song is an Italian translation of the poem itself, while the Rammstein song is a modernized adaptation. How's that for musical connections you never thought you'd make.

How come nobody talks about "Dalai Lama", anyway? I got Reise, Reise for "Keine Lust" and "Los", and "Keine Lust" was the big single from the album, but "Dalai Lama" is probably one of my favorite Rammstein songs thus far. The high, chanting chorus is beautifully eerie. And then besides that there's "Ohne Dich", which is downright tender and proof that not everything in German sounds angry by default. I mean, just look at the lyrics!

(While I'm on the subject: Dear Herzeleid, for a late Christmas present it would be very very nice if you could give me the rest of the translations for Liebe ist fur alle da, because I really want to know what "Donaukinder" is actually about before I start singing along to it in garbled phonetic pseudo-German.)

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I always come up with several dozen more fic ideas than I ever write for any given fandom, and this would probably be one of the ones I don't write just because it only dubiously makes sense in canon, as well as being...well, kind of wrong even for TF fandom standards. But if I talk about it than I can resist writing it whereas if I leave it buzzing about in my head I'll end up trying to write it and then I'll have to explain myself. Or not finishing it.

( Contains spoilers for TransWarped and Human Error, and I really don't know why I keep acting like anyone cares. )


Good golly, I'm even meta-ing about this series. What on Earth's gotten into me.

Bits of this were written as my reward for completing a sufficient amount of homework, and now I suppose it is time to pick up the pace. Cheerio.

You know, I feel much better about the last ten minutes of The Waters of Mars after a startling revelation, on the way home from the library today, that ( spoilers happen. )

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Obligatory navel-gazing: I seem to have this problem where I don't become comfortable with certain subject matter (killing off some characters, for example, or some kinks) until I've written it myself. Otherwise I don't even want to read it. This presents problems because, unless I read other examples of whatever it is I'm uncomfortable with, I have no real way of knowing how to write said subject matter correctly, or what lines, descriptions, etc have already been used and abused. And so I find myself in a bind.

Sigh. Oh, for the days when writing was easy. And inevitably very bad, because I was all of fourteen and that's probably why it was easy.

Also, while I've been writing up my research report, I have been screencapping "Mayhem of the Music Meister", and so soon as I have another long night ahead of me I have a picspam planned. Because I feel like I need to prove that a musical episode of Batman actually exists, and that I'm not just making the whole thing up. Also because the new season of The Brave and the Bold has started and I need someone to squee about it with, and picspams are excellent for pimping fandoms, yes?

To work, to work.

I also swear that I'll complain about it the entire way. Physics is a fascinating field, don't get me wrong, but not when someone's actually testing me on it.

Anyway, the reason I bring up physics and my need to take a class therein is because I have a bit of Who fanon I want to bounce off you all (who may know more of the intricacies of Fiziks than I) because I don't know if it makes any sense, is causing Einstein to roll in his grave even more than he already was, is pulling physical principles completely out of my ass, etc.

( Behind the cut, in case you don't care about my pseudoscientific geekery. )
Really must get back to work now. See you later, flist.

1. It really does irritate me when people start the whole "ew, cosplayers are freaks/cosplay is creepy" meme. I know a lot of cosplayers; I've cosplayed myself, once, though it wasn't very good; I'd still like to do it someday (I'd be girl!Five). Dressing up as a character doesn't mean you think you are them or whatever; dressing up as a character and acting in character still doesn't mean you think you are them. It's just fun. People have fun in different ways; for some people, dressing up is fun. Put your judgement away, it's yucky.

But what irritates me more is when the people who call cosplayers freaks ARE POSTING ON AN ANONYMOUS INTERNET FANDOM MESSAGE BOARD. Let me clarify: the single-fandom equivalent of 4chan.

POT. KETTLE. BLACK.

2. In non-meme-related thoughts, it also irritates me when I finally find new fic for a pairing I love that gets, oh, maybe two or three new fics a year? And I start reading it and it's funny and hot and plays with a fanfic cliche that I like and so far so good -

- and then it breaks out one of my biggest fanfic pet peeves. In this case, epithets.

*headdesks* No, no, no, fanfic writer! You were doing so well! And I want to like this fic, I really do, but when you call your characters "the Gallifreyan" and "the scientist" and "the Earther" (?) instead of just using their names I just can't! It would have been so easy to fix! You were so close!

Yeah. I hate it when that happens. I kind of want to mention it to the author in my comment, since it'd be such an easy thing to fix and it'd make the fic so much better, but I don't know how this author feels about concrit and the Who fandom has already had one big screaming tantrum about concrit; I don't want to wind up in the middle of another. Not that I think this author is that delicate (I'm sure she isn't) but you know how it is.

3. Less ranty note: I have developed a mysterious craving for Three/Brigadier post-Inferno fics wherein the Doctor seeks some sort of comfort or reassurance from the Brig after what he saw in the parallel world (because I know he walked it off by the end of the serial, but if it's showing up as one of the things that scares him the worst in The Mind of Evil, it has to have affected him more than he let on, symbolism and control issues notwithstanding). I can kind of imagine him wanting the reassurance that the Brigadier he knows could never be the Brigade Leader, not in this universe; that possibility of who he could be had been negated and would never come back. Especially given the uneasy dynamic between the two of them, where despite the Doctor being the intellectual and technical superior he is still dependant on the Brig's good graces because if the Brig turns him away he has few other places to go, and no other resources to try to get the TARDIS repaired. Having the Brig as a potentially threatening figure would be especially troubling in that instance, methinks.

Of course, since both the Doctor and the Brigadier are about as capable of expressing their emotions as a sand dollar is at doing multivariable calculus, it ends up being mostly awkward and halting and unspoken and roundabout and very little if anything actually gets resolved. Entire conversations are held using naught but uncomfortable points of ellipsis.

I really don't know why I want this, given that I don't even like hurt/comfort as a genre okay actually I do a little bit but I pretend that I don't because I know I shouldn't since the express purpose of hurt/comfort is to provide a cheap emotional fix and it's most often derivative and unsatisfying and I just have no taste at all, I'll just put that out there and that scenario is nothing if not glorified hurt/comfort. But I want it. Kind of want to write it, but mostly I want to read it because the absolute last thing I need is another writing project.

4. SPEAKING OF WRITING PROJECTS. I transcribed all the various bits and pieces of my Remix from my notebook and cell phone onto a single document, and guess whose fic is now a total of 850 words? \o/ Apparently I had written more than I thought I had. Granted, the actual story isn't near finished yet, but at least I don't have to stress as much over making my word count. That I should be able to do.

*dances*

And now I must go back to work.

A quick and mindless meme, because I really, really need something quick and mindless right now that doesn't take up as much time as screencapping (the picspams are coming along, really, but capping takes a while and it's not time that I have right now):

Name any pairing from any of my fandoms and I'll talk about my thoughts/opinions on them!

Again, mostly just posting on it so I can make you all do it in turn. :)

And, so this post is not entirely self-indulgent and memey, have a video of the Muppets' take on Ingmar Bergman:

( Cut to spare dial-up users )

Every time I read something for my Romanticism class I end up thinking about where I could use it in a fic. Sometimes I don't even know where I'd use it; a poem just jumps out at me and passionately cries "paste selections of me in your story to make it sound profound!". (See: Blake, First book of Urizen)

Occasionally I will have these thoughts in class, which is a little embarrassing when I'm trying to engage in actual discussion. Right in the middle of a talk about illusion, symbolism, and what the title character of Keats' Lamia represented, it suddenly occurred to me that this poem could be interspersed quite nicely with a  ( Cut for Journey's End spoilers. )

And now I've got to read part I of Frankenstein by tommorow, and I really, really want to stick a line in An Experiment, Of Sorts Chapter 2 where Liz quotes one of the eponymous doctor's lines at the Doctor. Probably during a conversation about why she became a scientist, although it might be a bit of a stretch for them not to have had that conversation after a year. And as awesome as the quote would be, it's probably not very in character, since I'm not sure Liz would really find it all that amusing to cite the archetypal Mad Scientist, and anyway I don't know if she'd have the patience for the Romantics. She seems more like a Modernist woman.

You know, that's the one thing (aside from general block and busitude) that's holding me up on this chapter - the Doctor spending much time in Liz's company outside of work means I have to know what she likes to read, and watch on TV, and eat, and drink, and wear, and et cetera, and I cannot figure it out. ( Cut because it got way long. )

*sigh* In a way, I love fleshing out a character's mundane life like this, but it does get frustrating when I don't have a lot to work with.

...and my goodness, it's late. You'll pardon me; I've got a lot of reading to do before tommorow.

1. So I finally saw Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, approximately a year or whatever after I was supposed to have seen it.

( Thoughts, spoilery but in no particular order: )
So that was fun. Best part was, it topped off a day of going to dinner with friends, walking around outside, clustering around friends' computers watching Muppets shorts, and just...generally feeling much better than I have been. Note to self: getting outside and spending time with people: it helps.

I even managed a tiny bit of writing (finally), though little of any consequence. ( The rest of this is writing wittering. )

 

Aaaaand it's way later than I thought it was. Off to bed with me, and I really, really cannot neglect my laundry tomorrow.

Because I have work I'm supposed to be doing, naturally.

So I did say I'd post about the Target novelization of The Three Doctors, as it's my first time reading a Target novelization and I found it interesting compared to watching the episode itself.

The review turned out somewhat longer than I expected.

( Ten numbered thoughts... )

That's all for the night; I have reading I should be doing now. Thoughts on my English classes to come tomorrow, possibly.

Not like you could avoid it if you were on the internet at all today, but I suppose I should spoiler-cut it nonetheless.

( That There Doctor Who Spoiler What Everyone's On About... )

Anyway. I originally had a few meta-ish thoughts on the Second Doctor's era, but they all boil down to a relatively simple observation.

( A thought on character arcs. )

I had another bit of thinky-thoughts here regarding Three/Brig, Three/Delgado!Master, and power dynamics, since yes actually I have been inordinately musing on the topic since I posted That Fic What I'm Vaguely Ashamed Of, but I think that will have to wait until the morrow, since I am tired and my brain is beginning to feel foggy and weird. Of course, that makes three posts now that I'm setting aside for the weekend, so I suspect I'll spend much of Friday night blogging like crazy.

Still not doing NaNo. Contemplating doing wrisomifu, if only for its name, but at this stage I'm wary of signing up for anything, since I've already got pending ficathon deadlines and Chemistry has started to get difficult again. (Speaking of which, have Cliche Ficathon prompts gone out yet? I just don't want to get caught short, is all.)

I can't believe it's almost Halloween, guys. I haven't got a costume or anything. I haven't even thought about a costume, because it's all seemed so far off. I don't know what I'm going to do about that.