Antagonists

So, following my line of inquiry about literature and fiction as such in general...

What makes a good antagonist? I'd mean an "active" antagonist here, rather than "forces of nature", "life itself" and other such fanciful things. In other words, what makes for a good bad guy to you people?

Dragon Age: Origins

David Gaider, one of the lead designers/writers for BioWare, charged with writing an introductory novel to the setting, writes:

"Standing gingerly, Maric listened for where the voices were coming from. As soon as he ascertained their source, he headed in the opposite direction. It was an awkward hobble at first. His legs were bruised and cramped and he might have broken some bones, but he ignored the pain. With effort, he grabbed on to low-hanging branches and pulled himself farther into the darkness. They would pay for what they had done. If he did only one thing as King, he would make them pay."

Sigh. Same old crap. Dead royal parents, surviving heir, evil necromancer armies taking over a kingdom, warrior maidens, heroic rogues, revenge. It's as if people used 3% of their brain capacity in order to barf out this sort of pompous drivel.

Oh wait, they do.

The Male Opinion On Sex And The City

So a while earlier I got to see the Sex And The City movie, and I had such an estrogen injection right there I couldn't write a straight review until now. I mean, seriously, do you know what all those bags, blings, shoes and dresses do to a non-metrosexual male that's not very much in touch with his feminine side? I go to watch a movie that has "Sex" in it and what did I get? Fashion? Do those two equate for women? What? What?!

As an aside, I suppose that "sex" could refer to just the sexuality thing, since there was a token gay character and as gender is purely biological while the sexuality is an identity thing... I forgot the point I was making here so I move on.

So the movie called Sex and the City is about this woman that's about to get married so she has to get the best dress ever, the best house ever and the best spot ever in a public goddamned library with four hundred guests attending because she has a point to make. What's that point? I dunno really, probably that best guy ever has the fattest wallet ever to pay for the awesomest wedding ever or that she has a bipolar personality (as we later get to see when she finally gets the actual wedding off in some crammed office - woops, I just made a spoiler).

Now, if the film was actually about what the name claims it is, I'd say that about five minutes before or after the introduction of the clothes they'd be discarded as unnecessary, but the film director has different things in mind! And those things are called Product Placement! Gucci bags! Somebody's Rings! Named Dresses! 

Eventually, they collect enough sponsor money to move on with the plot - the guy, like, well, any normal guy, has enough of the nonsense, albeit in a horribly unrealistic way (Oh yes, that's what men do, doubt the whole wedding thing because a drunken friend of the bride with a trainwreck personal life says one sentence that doesn't go something like "I just saw your future wife kissing the chef in the kitchen!"), and the bride's friends decide to cheer her up by taking her to the honeymoon hotel in Mexico or whatever anyway, where they cry, hit on waiters (!), crap their pants (!!) and discuss personal life of the mentioned trainwreck woman by pointing out her bikini line (!!!). Truly, women are wondrous creatures of nature.

Anyway, then they get back to the city, fashion, internet, strong cool hip sistah from the hood (more stereotyping!), and then it turns out the groom was sending a letter to the bride every day and she goes like "OMG NOWAI" and the trainwreck woman tells like "IT WAS ALL MY FAULT" and the bride goes "How could you do it and why do you want me to forgive you when you can't forgive your husband!?" because adultery and being drunk and saying one stupid sentence that ruined a glam wedding are totally the same thing, and then everyone kisses and makes up except the other blonde that actually breaks up and kisses afterwards. And then there's a baby born from the character that was completely trivialised because she actually had a happy marriage!

And everybody is happy!

And oh my god what the hell (place I'm going to for uttering the Lord's name in vain as I'm being pointed out)

Anyway, it's not actually a bad movie, especially once you're stunned with all the fashion talk.

But just think of what the film Sex and the City would be like if it was about a guy spending his last unmarried days in company of three other guys. 

Hint: it wouldn't be about fashion.

tenorikissa - Mother's milk says:

Unless they're gay guys! It would be about fashion and gay orgies.

The Swedish Epic

It's mostly about butter and herring. In iambic pentameter.

A random thought

Is there any perversion in the world that's not an art form in Japan?

Total Recall 2070

So for the last couple of days I had to stop watching Life on Mars (Sorry CC, you'll have that eval soon) Season 2 because I've got my grubby hands on some of the biggest jaw-droppers of my somewhat younger years. Total Recall 2070. A 22-episode-long cyberpunk police drama based on Philip K. Dick's works, We Remember it for You Wholesale and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. To all the people that are blissfully unaware, Blade Runner and Total Recall are based on these works.

The setting is, in fact, very much the same. It's the same "High Tech, Low Life" philosophy that's generally behind the Cyberpunk genre, and, considering the references, would seem to take place some twenty years before the events of Blade Runner. The story revolves around two detectives for the Citizen Protection Bueraeu, Hume and Farve and is split between two "parts" of the series - the first one being a loose collection of 11 episodes that acquaint the audience with the setting, build the characters and entertain with some odd criminal cases. The second part, however, is essentially what the series are about - being human. I really can't and shouldn't tell anything else about the plot, however, as anything I would say could be treated as a major spoiler. All I have to say is that I ended up watching the last 11 episodes in a row, which is bloody unusual for me.

And now imagine my surprise when I found all of Total Recall 2070 on the internet. All 22 episodes. In good quality. For free. Legally.

Here it is. Clicky.

P.S: The first few episodes may seem a little generic, but it picks up by a lot after that.

Oh, and do watch them in the correct order - E1A, E1B and onwards. The list is a bit disorganised there, unfortunately. And ignore any registration pleas, they're unnecessary.

Children's TV

Take a look at this video. What do you see? Do you see a rip-off of the Teletubbies? A means to make stupid the upcoming generations? A senseless stream of images that can make a grown-up man crack up and laugh like he were insane? 

No. Not at all. What you see, dear reader, is art. Fine Art. Art so refined and complex that many will confuse it with some manner of a children's programme. Indeed, the use of lush, vivid colours, the explicitly childish themes, the toy-like outlook, all these things may throw the inexperienced viewer off the right track. To a trained eye, however, this performance displays a multitude of various undertones, ranging from delightful pastoral idylly to the darkness of a depraved, twisted mind, the very depth of a post-Freudian soul of Man, torn by conflict between the id and the Ego. This piece of art questions our very existence, the justification for mankind's acts of savagery upon the noble, pure bosom of Mother Earth, and fills the spectators with disgust to their own base nature, dirt, and meaninglessness.

And yet the images also give the viewer hope. Hope for a better future, where perhaps one day, everything shall be revealed and made sense of; a world where the the viewer may one day equal the Author with the power of imagery and presentation, the strength of wit and the clarity of vision. The Author's talent, however, is simply out of their grasp - as they shall hear in the closing narrative, the only spoken lines of the performance. The character merely wanted to clean the red contraption, not ride it.

And therein lies the truth.

This is stupid

Just earlier today, discussing the news with Furbs, we came to an agreement that it's good that the Finnish media hasn't been focusing much on the personality of the latest school shootist. Just a few hours ago. And then, on my way home, I found out that the shootist's parents will be appearing on the TV today.

How is this not retarded? Please, how?!

Think about this. What do terrorists, psychopaths, mass murderers and unstable shootist kids have in common? Well, it's bloody obvious - they all crave publicity. Publicity! Do I need to spell it by the letter to every moron in the media, in the government, in every branch of this stupid society? By focusing on the personality of the killer, you're not preventing the next attempt. You're not consoling the victims' relatives and friends. You're not even making a good selling point for your pathetic piece of garbage. No. No, no, no. What you're doing is advertising the next attack.

Has none of these idiots been a kid before? A kid that wasn't the heart, soul and focus of their community, group, pack, whatever? A kid that ever had any kind of problems or depressions, or just felt the lack of attention? What do these kids want? These kids want to die - so everyone else around them felt sorry, so very sorry for their deeds, misdeeds and lack of action. And so then some moron goes and shoots a classroom full of kids. And it's advertised all over the goddamned media for months and months, with friends, relatives, acquaintances, random passers-by and members of parliament and government all being so sorry they couldn't prevent it, wondering what went wrong, chewing the same stupid gum for forever...

Don't you see where that leads next?

Idiots.

P.S: Yes, I'm angry.

P.P.S: No, by "you", I don't mean any of my readers. Unfortunately, the people that decide on what the press illuminates don't read this.

The Saw Series?

So what is it that makes the Saw series so popular?

No, let me rephrase. What makes it worth watching? The, erm, plot? Or, uhh, the torture scenes and deathtrap devices? Why is this thing keeping on getting millions every year, despite simply cashing in on blood and guts? Explanations? Ideas? Is it just a valid excuse to go watch someone being torn to shreds?

Note: Haven't actually seen a single film, so, I'm actually being curious. Not that I'm going to watch it anyway! Ha ha!

In Bruges

So today I watched it and decided to see what the movie critics say about it. And I realised that the movie critics should stick to reviewing Adam Sandler, Transformers and Star Wars cartoon spin-offs, because clearly the idiots can't even understand what a movie with more than three words put in one sentence twice is about.

Click here for stupid.

Comedy, they call it. A comedy thriller. A criminal flick with dark humour. A comedy. Yeah, right.

Thing is, it's not a comedy. At all. In terms of theatric generes, this is tragic comedy - with comedy meaning something that's fairly different from the modern meaning of the term. If the reviewers would have bothered watching more than two trailers and the first and last ten minutes of the film, they might have actually understood that.

The film is great. The presentation, the pacing, the acting, it's all done really, really well. A man's personal hell, as we find out - and his way of trying to deal with it. Of course, humour is involved, humour is in a sense the guy's only way to try to focus on something else, fairly realistically so.

As a brief verdict, I really liked it. A very good psychologic/philosophical drama with spots of dark humour here and there.

Freedom of Speech, 1984-style

I don't even think I need to comment this. If anyone thinks I should, though, leave a note.


BBC News "Losing signal" on an unpleasant question.

Fox News calls commercial break and ends the interview of Osetians.


Well, okay. One comment. Even the CNN has been more neutral than the BBC. Which, all things considered, is amazing.


P.S.: Photographs from Ossetia. Not for faint-hearted, contains images of destruction and injured.

Free Press

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150 a week for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for things, and if any of you would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours, my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are Jumping-Jacks -- they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes!"

From the speech of a former Head Editor of New York Times.

Graveyard of Ukrainian Civilization

Today I visited a few amazing places that illustrate what victory of man over machine in the Terminator setting would likely look like. Scrapyards.

Of course, one may be surprised of the dramaticism of the title. After all, scrapyards exist all over the world and it's not really something over-strange. However, there are four or five major ones in just this town alone - a town with a population of 30-ish thousand. A town with no waste processor or the likes to explain the reason behind the large amount of such lovely places. They're actually here for a different reason, namely, for purchasing various metals according to their weight. Essentially, these are places where people sell stolen things, ranging from old frying pans to train rails to graveyard crosses and fences.

On top of these large points, there are dozens of unofficial collector points. While factories, roads, everything deteriorates, people have all these convenient ways to sell off what little remains of the horrible Soviet legacy. Makes one warm and fuzzy inside!

A Chance Meeting

White, formal walls of the asylum. He was pretty sick of them by now. Of course, someone had to guard the poor memory-wiped sick folk from themselves and their delusions. Of course, someone had to guard the research facility and the virus within the labs. It was a hard enough work for the scientists to isolate it to the few victims now housed in the clinic while the virus was still natural. If someone was to steal it and spread it around on purpose, the results could be horrifying. He saw what it did to people - some of them could easily forget how to breathe.

Of course, some actually seemed to recover quite well, and with each passing day, the researchers from the secure wing brought in new samples of potential cure. The cure for memory deterioration itself was, in fact, achieved, the goal now was to restore the destroyed memories of the patients. This was the hard bit, from what he understood.

Today, that girl passed him by again. Smiling at him. Wished him a good day. He wondered about her. Wondered a lot. Who was she? He was sure she didn't know. She didn't even have a name, none that she knew of. Sometimes, they would talk, and she would ask him to pick a name for her. It felt strange. How could she remember the words, but not her name, not who she is? She knew nothing of her past.

She looked angelic.

Yesterday, he tried to read her files. It wasn't something he was likely permitted to do, but he didn't care. He wanted to know more about that girl, and a few nags from the employer wouldn't stop him from it. All he had the time for was just blindly copying the data. At home, he had no reader for it, either, but here, he could try. A bored guard, using one of the computers, who would ever be bothered by it?

He walked up to one of the machines, looking casual - or so he hoped, but inside, he felt tense; he struggled to contain the excitement and the fear. What if she was married? What if she was a lunatic? He was comfortable with her the way she was now. Would he be afterwards? He looked at the screen, hesitant, then opened the file.

To him, most of the text inside was gibberish. What would he know about the abbreviations, prescriptions and other such trash? There was nothing for him, nothing at all for all this trouble. It didn't even have her name. Just the number. Just that. Oh, and...

He blinked. It seems he'd copied her chart. Of course it wouldn't have her history, of course not. But even then, there was something that did catch his eye. A prescription due for just another week from now. A memory implant. He stared at it.

"Harry?", a voice said behind his back. Her voice. He tensed up. It was now or never. Decision time. Yes or no, one or zero. A binary choice with no chance to replay.

He closed the file and slowly, calmly turned to face her, trying to smile. Something was choking at his throat, and he couldn't quite make it stop.

"You remember", he said, "We've talked about outside? The trees, the grass, the flowers, the wind?"

"Of course I do", she replied, chuckling at him, "Since when have you become one of the doctors?"

"That's not what I meant", he muttered, looking confused. Her laugh, pretty as it was, was making him feel stupid - and the damned claw on his throat didn't help his case either.

She tilted her head to the side at his reply. "What then?"

"I meant, would you like to come see it with me? The outside?"

She blinked with surprise, her eyebrows rising involuntarily. "Outside? But we're not allowed to do that!"

"I know", he nodded, "But we're about to change that." He paused, looking at her, hoping she'd understand. And she did.

"Oh"

"Would you like to come with me?"

She looked at him, letting silence fall and the pause to grow. Slowly, a smile touched her lips. Her eyes. He smiled back.

"Of course I would!"

The Face of Fear!

Angthoron, the Great and Horrifying, as seen today.

A Poem About Incarnation Of Good

For the formerly Soviet comrades:

Добро должно быть с кулаками,
С хвостом и острыми рогами,
С копытами и с бородой.
Колючей шерстию покрыто,
Огнем дыша, бия копытом,
Оно придет и за тобой!

Ты слышишь - вот оно шагает,
С клыков на землю яд стекает,
Хвост гневно хлещет по бокам.
Добро, зловеще завывая,
Рогами тучи задевая,
Все ближе подползает к нам!

Тебе ж, читатель мой капризный,
Hоситель духа гуманизма,
Желаю я Добра - и пусть
При встрече с ним мой стих ты вспомнишь,
И вот тогда глухую полночь
Прорежет жуткий крик: "Hа помощь!"
А дальше - чавканье и хруст...

©перто

Sowwy to the rest. Might translate it later.