stunt_muppet

I've also learned that Matt Bomer (from White Collar) was in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: The Beginning. The modern version, not the original.

Neither of them could elevate the pain parade movies they were stuck in, sadly.

---

I don't know why, but organizing and labelling the scarf section at the shop made me feel quite accomplished. It was a big section! And I organized it and labelled it and restocked it and made it look tidy! Apparently I'm now in charge of the scarf section and keeping it stocked, as well as in charge of the Facebook page! FUCK YEAH I AM THE BEST EMPLOYEE EVER.

Which makes me feel kind of terrible about going to a job fair yesterday and actually having people ask for my resume, establishing contacts et al. I've been working at the shop for over a year now! I've got more responsibilities! I'm good at what I do! Oh, wait, you say there's a full-time position somewhere else? Okay bye guys. Don't forget to say nice things about me to prospective employers!

I know there's no real reason to feel guilty about this - I had never planned to stay at the shop forever - but I don't want to just jump ship when I'm good at what I do there. Maybe I can volunteer on nights and weekends.

Or maybe, just like every other time, no one will hire me and the point will be moot. But hey, there were some organizations at the job fair who were actually looking for communications people to translate medical literature! That's pretty much what I do and they seemed pretty excited about my applying, so. We'll see what happens.

---

So the "DVD Commentary" fic meme is going around, and while normally I skip it because I don't write nearly enough to justify using this meme, but it's been a while, so:

Pick a one-shot or a single chapter from one of my multi-chapter fics and I will do a DVD-style commentary on it. You know, writing process, places the story might have gone, scenes I ended up not writing, stale jokes...you know, stuff.

---

Sleeping time now. I'm actually getting back on track with schoolwork! It's amazing. Everything feels manageable.

Looking through the movie reviews in this week's paper, I realized that the media I'm most excited about at the moment are
a) the season finale of Transformers Prime
b) the next episode of My Little Pony c
) the pending release of the next chapter of The Silver Lining d
) Real Steel, which looks to be about as thoughtful as a box of rocks but fuck it, I don't care, Hugh Jackman and boxing robots.

...and now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and read Finnegan's Wake or something so I can pretend I'm still any decent kind of intellectual. I'm going to an exhibit of sound in art this weekend! And there's a very meaningful and thoughtful movie about pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago that I want to see! My brain hasn't completely atrophied, please believe me. :(

Of course, reading the movie reviews also brought to me the disquieting discovery that one of the city's art theaters is actually playing Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence. Like on an actual screen and everything, as if it were a real movie and not an enormous Aristocrats-joke-turned-horror-story.

Yes, I said Human Centipede 2. There's a sequel.

If we were in the movies this would be the point where I would start to sob, and then my sobs would slowly dissolve into deranged laughter as I at last went mad from the revelation.

---

On a real life note: On the one hand, I actually quite like spiders, and am very grateful to them for eating other bugs that we consider pests, like stink bugs and mosquitoes. On the other hand, our backyard is getting covered in cobwebs and it's getting a little spooky back there.

Brief fannish points preceding actual content: 

1. Digging through more or less the entire archive of the Highlander slashfic comm rendered exactly zero fics about the original movie. I haven't checked the main fic comm yet, but dammit why don't fandoms cater to my every whim, it's not fair. *stomps about pouting*

I mean, it's not like I dislike Duncan or Methos or Joe or anyone - I've never seen them in anything, except Endgame and The Source, and that's not really anything to go on, and heck, Joe even managed to be really awesome in The Source, which considering that the whole movie is a big "fuck you" to the franchise and anything anyone loved about it is quite an accomplishment. But nothing at all for the original movie? Nobody else wanted MacLeod/Ramirez? Nobody else came away from Endgame wanting Connor/Duncan? lol nobody saw Endgame, there's your problem.

Nobody else realized that, if MacLeod and ramirez are ~ancient aliens~ in The Quickening, this by extension means that all the other immortals are exiled aliens too, which means at some point MacLeod and the Kurgan were on the same side, which might just account for the Kurgan personally tracking down MacLeod? Well, of course not, because even the other movies pretend that The Quickening doesn't exist and rightly so because it's silly, but come on, stop making me write shit I actually want to see.

I'd try to do a fifteen-minute condensed version of the first movie to drum up some interest except I am positive none of you care.

2. Finally saw the Half-Blood Prince movie today! And yes, I am that far behind. For some reason I just can't make myself watch the last two. I'm not super depressed that the franchise is over, because I doubt the fandom's going to run out of steam, but I really did grow up with Harry Potter, and even if I was never very fannish about it it was a big presence in my life as a reader and a fan. I'll miss having more movies to look forward and it feels weird to watch the last two.

But on to my main point, I found that the movie was much, much better at making me feel sorry for Draco than either the book (probably because it's all filtered through Harry's POV) or fandom-at-large has managed to do. I kind of chalk it up to my being in a more charitable frame of mind towards Draco now than I was when the book came out, by which point the Draco In Leather Pants phenomenon had become widespread and extremely annoying, but I think the movie actually does a really good job of giving him all the spotlight it can, and Tome Felton does a similarly good job playing him as scared and angry and backed into a corner. And for the first time after a long time of sticking to the Power Trio, Luna, and Neville fannishly I find myself wanting to write Draco redemption fic wherein he begins working through some of his issues post-Deathly Hallows and maybe even comes to a sort of understanding with Harry.

I'm not sure how to feel about this. (Also, yes, simple statistics tell me that this fic must already exist, but I'm scared to look for it. It's a big terrifying fandom okay.

---

And some memes to round it all off, both ganked from several flisters:

Give me a pairing and I will:
1. Tell you who I think tops
2. Who has the prettiest hair
3. What their children will be named
4. Which one would be the loudest during sex
5. My ideal scenario for them

--

Pick one of my fics and I will give you five Tropes that appear in the fic. Or Tropes it averts, plays with, subverts, etc. if there aren't five I can think of.

---

Good night.

But I did, first off, want to thank you all for putting up with my endless rambling on.

But. I finally finished my Highlander rewatch, instead of going off what I remembered from watching it ages ago.

And I want to write all the fics about it. All of the fics. Even about the sequels and the sequels were more or less total arsebiscuits. And I even got all teary-eyed at the bit where [SPOILER] died.

Why do I always get into fandoms that no one else cares about, guys; I'm pretty sure if there is a Highlander fandom it's mostly focused on the TV series, and I'm not as interested in Duncan at the moment because the only things I saw him in were Endgame and The Source, and squee outlet somewhere gaaaah. You know, I could have gotten into, like, Game of Thrones or something, but no, that would be just too easy.

Also I think the version I remembered must have been TV-edited, because there was an odd moment when we finally got to the big romance scene and I was all like "Aww, they finally got together HOLY CRAP I DON'T REMEMBER BREASTS IN THIS MOVIE." It's like to be in an Eighties action movie you had to have at least one scene of your silhouetted nipples (see: Terminator).

Of course I'm not pissed off that I'm not at BotCon right now. Not at all. Not in the slightest. I am in no way being eaten up with jealously at the thought of not getting to meet the writers and artists and voice actors of my favorite continuity and not buying any comics or getting any autographs, fuck you California one day I will just cut you off the side of the country and bring you over here so you can stop hogging everything. >:(

In all seriousness, even if it was close I wouldn't have been able to go anyway, probably, what with my baby brother graduating from high school! A bit scary since I do actually remember him being a baby, but, still, super proud of him, and it does warm the heart to watch him walk across the stage after all the hard work he's done.

Also, if I was at BotCon, I wouldn't have gone to see a documentary about the oldest cave paintings ever found, in Chauvet Cave in France, asking questions about the nature of art and humanity and stuff. You wish you were this much of a film snob, oh yeah. (Though it was very beautiful, and you should see it if you get the chance.)

Oh, and another thing I wouldn't get to do if I was at BotCon: Watch a black swallowtail caterpillar molt. OF COURSE THAT'S EXCITING.

( A few bug pictures behind the cut! )
It is probably a tiny bit absurd how excited I am about this caterpillar, but I am so looking forward to watching his development. Or her development, I suppose.


Goodness it's late. To bed with me.

Guys guys guys.

Did you know that Mark Strong is going to play Sinestro in the upcoming Green Lantern movie? Because Mark Strong is going to play Sinestro in the Green Lantern movie, which is EXTREMELY EXCITING. I hate to be all DC biased and everything but MARK STRONG GREEN LANTERN MOVIE EEEEEE.

I refuse to admit that the prospect of Ryan Reynolds wearing essentially body paint has anything at all to do with it.

Oh, and when I brought up the Green Lantern movie, my brother informed me that a lot of his classmates were puzzled that the Green Lantern in the movie wasn't a black guy. That makes me a bit happy. Though I will be a touch disappointed if John Stewart isn't in this movie, at least tangentially.

Two other brief points: 

1. Rango is a rather charming Spaghetti Western pastiche with really good voice work, a fantastic Ennio Morricone-style score,  and some beautiful animation, and I quite recommend it, particularly if you're a fan of Westerns.

Although it's pretty sad that I'm able to pick out Bill Nighy's voice, while he's using a different accent, solely by the way he pronounces his vowels. I need to get out more.

2. The first Transformers movie is on ABC right now. My mother has insisted we keep it on because she likes it, because she likes the CGI and she finds Frenzy cute.

I'm not even sure what to do with this.

Every time I rewatch The Dark Knight I ask myself that. And also why Christopher Nolan is allergic to girls.

So I spent most of yesterday laid up with some sort of stomach flu that my entire family had passed around first. I wish I could say that I spent that day being productive and reading the book I'm supposed to review for my blog, but in truth I mostly just curled up in bed all day and read TV Tropes on my phone. And then called in sick today because my stomach was still putting up less-enthusiastic protests any time I tried to put food in it. But at least...today I maybe got some stuff done? Not very much, admittedly?

I did manage to have two increasingly bizarre dreams wherein ( my dreams are fascinating, right. )


Also I have been watching a whole bunch of movies! Still not Tangled, much to my disappointment, but lovely lovely M and J treated me to a marathon of Muppet movies for my belated birthday and it reminded me how much I love them. A Muppet Christmas Carol is actually legitimately good! Michael Caine manages to act while surrounded by singing muppets and big chunks of the narration are pulled right from the story and it's all-around great, it should be part of everyone's Christmas plans.

We also ended up watching Muppet Treasure Island, which is equally lovely and has Tim Curry in it, even if he only gets to sing once. It is, however, much funnier now that I'm older and more familiar with the actual story of Treasure Island. Also, it got me listening to Shiver My Timbers over and over again because I'd forgotten how catchy it was. I do believe it might even be composed by Hans Zimmer, he of those other pirate movies.

It also reminded me of how every fandom I'm in desperately needs to have a Pirate AU. Not real pirates, though. Movie pirates. They're much more fun. Oh, of course they do, just imagine how much fun Beatrice the Pirate Queen would be. Or Privateer Ziva. Or the Doctor as a rougish explorer-slash-outlaw who swaps out travelling companions. Or, hey, Transformers in general: ROBOT PIRATES.

Once I am finished with the reams of other fic I am supposed to be writing it is campy pirate AUs all around. I do need my nonsensical id-fic occasionally. And then I will learn how to draw so I can draw everyone in huge feathery hats.

Alternately, I could just write, I don't know, actual PotC fic. Speaking of which, I've decided that the Pirates of the Carribbean universe takes place in the Land of Fiction, from the Doctor Who serial The Mind Robber. Given that it's a place run on storytelling logic where characters and concepts from just about any work of fiction can come to life and wander around freely, PotC's melange of time periods, mythological creatures, and seafaring legends makes perfect sense! I have no idea how I would use these in a fic, though. Mostly it makes crossovers easier without pedantic nerdfaces like myself having to figure out what time period the PotC movies are actually set in.

I keep coming up with these lists of progressively more insane crossovers that I know I will never write because I can't figure out an actual plot for any of them, just an idea. Thus far I've ended up with:

- That one with Maria (from Umineko) and Vector Prime (Transformers) with the latter trying to figure out what the hell she even is, because creating something from nothing just doesn't make sense that's not how the universe works etc.
- The one where Gendo Ikari (Evangelion) is a Sorceror (Umineko) and screws with everyone in the 'verse.
- The one where the Miami of CSI is the inverse of Silent Hill
- That other one where Blitzwing somehow falls into the PotC universe and becomes allies with Pirate King Elizabeth

And the thing i I know there are more and I just don't remember them! I have got to just start writing down whatever comes to mind so I have records of things.

Wow, this entry got rambling really fast. Um, have a meme! 

Pick a character I've written/am likely to know about and I will give and explain the top five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

Two a.m. and I've got work in the morning. Good night, flist.

1. The bad news: I managed to overdraw my checking account yesterday. Only by a few dollars, and I was able to quickly transfer some money from my savings and avoid fees and things, but it was still an unwelcome moment of panic, and now I have very little money left in either checking or savings. :( Which is all on me, since I've not been very responsible with my money, but it doesn't help that I haven't earned any since last summer. Fortunately my parents were kind enough to front me parking fare until I start getting my paychecks from Fair Trade Shop, but even so. I am used to having some stuff saved up! Being broke is not good.

The good: Fortunately, there is more of this!

a. My laptop lives! She also runs a bit faster now that all the stuff's been cleared off, and now I can leave all my school documents and things on my external drive. The only major losses: about 500 words total of fic (everything else that hasn't been saved is posted up here; thank goodness for my attention-whoring) and all my bug photos. Which is what I'm most sad about, but most of those are on my Dad's camera so hopefully I should be able to retrieve them, and if nothing else they're all posted on DA so I can go get them there.

Oh, and all my bookmarks are gone. That's going to be the hardest thing.

b. I have done my first paid week at The Shop! Not gotten paid yet, though, but it's nice just to have a job, and I think I am doing it reasonably well. I give the Fair Trade Schpiel. I convince people to buy things. The whole deal.

Interesting people who have been in the shop this past week:

i. A couple of Korean ladies who neither spoke nor understood English, thus our transaction was completed almost completely in gesture.

ii. An elderly man missing some of his front teeth, and who smelled very strongly of alcohol; when he came into the store, he told me "Things don't make sense, and that's why I drink. I like everything in a room to be the same." And from there he just went around and looked at things, and asked what they were made of, and seemed surprised that everything was handcrafted. When we got to the section with the chessboards he moved the pieces into a position that he told me was the most difficult position in chess, hwere even seasoned pros couldn't tell how the game was going to go from there. And then, after a while, he left.

I think he might have been homeless, but either way, I just felt like I should talk to him.

iii. An adorable young Japanese couple, who also didn't speak a whole lot of English, but who kept laughing and teasing each other - the boy kept trying on huge straw hats and asking his girlfriend if he looked cool. Also notable for being the only time I've heard an actual Japanese person use the word "kawaii".

iv. A lady who used to be a buyer for kisii soapstone statues in Kenya (which is one of the things we sell), as well as a gemologist before that, so she was really knowledgable about our stuff and told me a lot of details I didn't know about how the jewlery was made. I told her (in the course of making conversation) that I'd wanted to be a gemologist when I was little; her resopnse was "You should do it! You just need to take a couple of courses to get certified!" Maybe if I don't get hired for anything long term, that's what I'll do, hah.

v. The librarian from my elementary school! And she remembered me! She asked me how I was doing, and was surprised to hear that I had graduated from college already. She's apparently retired from the library, though.

One thing hat I thought was funny was that she told me the reason she remembered me was that when I was in first grade I decided to rewrite the ending of a fairy tale into something I liked better, and she'd always thought that was funny. Which I thought was funny too, but at the same time does make me despair a bit that I will ever be able to write anything other than fanfiction. Because you know how most people who grow up to be writers make up stories when they're little? Yeah, no, I've pretty much been writing fanfic forever and it's all I'm good at, writing-wise. :( Though at least maybe this means I'll grow up to be good at theoretical or academic work because I'm good at looking at stories and their parts and how they work. 

(Fun fact: I "wrote" my first ever fanfiction before I knew how to write. When I was four I would make up continued adventures for the characters of The Rescuers Down Under and make my parents act them out with me.)

c. I went to see MegaMind a couple of days ago before work (I had a gift card for the movies) and quite enjoyed it! It was cute, and fun, and the title character was adorable and dorky and generally lovely. But the really sad thing is that I think this movie might actually be what jump-starts me into writing fic again after my long funk.

( Cut for mild spoilers. )

...also I may have come out of the movie shipping MegaMind/Minion a little bit. WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT JUDGING, OKAY. Besides, I'm half-convinced we were supposed to.

d. Speaking of movies (but on a completely tonally different note) Black Swan comes out on December 1 and the most complete cut of Metropolis yet is being released on Blu-Ray. Can I tell you how excited I am? I'm a lot excited. And maybe I can ask for Metropolis for Christmas and that'll be incentive to finish up my half-assed Disability Studies thesis on the artificial body and how Metropolis engages with it in relation to mechanization of labor. 

e. In front of MegaMind there was a real honest-to-goodness trailer for Transformers: Prime and it's gonna be here in just over a week! NEW CANON SO EXCITE.

---

I finally don't have work tomorrow! Not that I don't like my job, not at all, but I am also rather fond of the idea of having a day off, especially since I'm working Black Friday. Sleeping in tomorrow, woo.

It's interesting watching The Rock and seeing just how many...distinctive Michael Bay touches I can find now that I've watched some of his later movies where he was given freer reign.

Example: Not every single shot is a tracking shot, just most of them. And action scenes are still over-edited to hell and frenetic to the point where you can't tell what's going on. Technology porn, lock-n-load montages, fireballs, gratuitous slow-mo, high-level government officials taking advice from an unqualified outsider, sassy black stereotypes, sassy gay stereotypes...the gang's all here, really.

Damn but I do love Ed Harris, though.

Oh, lord, why is there a minecart under Alcatraz. What is this...why is this evening happening. I don't understand this movie anymore.

No, actually, I changed my mind. This is in fact an improvement. Indeed I feel all of Michael Bay's movies could be improved by the addition of a gratuitous minecart chase, and I certainly expect to see a few in Transformers 3.

< /spam>

1. So today I filled out my first insurance claim form today! Filled in all the blanks and printed it out and mailed it in and everything! And then, and then, I made dinner. It was stir-fry. I cut up the vegetables and the chicken even though I'd never handled meat before, and then I cooked rice and fried the vegetables and meat and it was delicious! I AM SUCH AN ADULT UP IN HERE. :D 

Tomorrow? I'm gonna wake up early, and I'm gonna go get my work clothes tailored, and then I'm gonna send out more job applications, and then I'm gonna run some errands, and it's all gonna be AWESOME.

Actual Real Conversation while preparing dinner:

Muppet: Have you ever looked at raw meat and thought that that's what we look like inside?
Mom: ...you're so gross, honey.

2. In less mature news: I drew a thing for the first time in a while! It started out as another sketch of girl!human!Bulkhead but I can't seem to draw people who are bigger than a size 16 so I don't really know how that's going to work. But I like her face so she's going up here. Maybe I'll finally re-download GIMP and color her. 

( I don't know what she's looking at. )


3. And a random bit of cuteness: Paige O'Hara and Robby Benson, the voice actors of Belle and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, head down to Disney World for the commemorative re-release of the BatB DVD/Blu-Ray. Or something like that, I don't really know because I still have it on VHS and that's all I need until they stop making VHS players, but it did allow me to see this picture:

( Back here. )

Is it bad if I still think Robby Benson's cute?

4. I haven't followed CSI faithfully for a while, but next week's episode looks to be the best thing on TV ever. At least, if the trailers are right and someone really is killing people with a mechanical dinosaur.

5. ( Dream log nonsense; seriously, like watchdog groups are even watching Rizzoli & Isles. )

At some point I'd like to make a post of all the fanart I've bookmarked so I can share it around. Maybe a fic rec post too. It'll be my splash of childishness once I'm done being an adult for the day.

I should go to bed so I can get up early and be an Adult tomorrow. Good night, flist.