(Inspired by lost_spook)

This is my real life ramblings LJ.
My fics can now be found on LJ! With tags and everything! Just hop over to pitryfic.

Alternately, all my fics can be found on A Teaspoon and an Open Mind (Doctor Who & related fandoms), Fanfiction.net (DW & related fandoms, Harry Potter, Misc), and Archive of our own (etc).

So! Movie's entertaining, yay!

( Spoilers spoilers spoilers in a glass case under the cutCollapse )

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

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

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

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

Watch this watch this watch this.

( The truth behind the destruction of the Death StarCollapse )

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


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

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

*cue jokes about lens flares and lightsabres*

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

I think.

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

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

( Pitry's fic ramblings under the cutCollapse )

UChicago gets a package for Indiana Jones.

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

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

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

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

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

Hello, dear Yuletide author!

( Waffling under cutCollapse )

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lynch in Palestinian teenagers right at the centre of Jerusalem.

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

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

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

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

Aaaanyway. From hp_friendship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now for Batman. ( From here there be spoilers...Collapse )

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

( Holy spoilers, Batman!Collapse )

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

( There's a cut here, honestly!Collapse )

I'm bored. And been wondering due to reading fic. So, question.

What's harder to write in character: secondary/one-off characters or main characters?
(As in, we don't know a lot about secondary characters so the writers don't have a lot to work on, as opposed to knowing a lot about the main characters but having the writer's view of the character skewed because of their preferences etc).

... And then there was Britpop. And I can't talk about Britpop without starting with Oasis, because, well, Oasis.

Yes, yes, on the whole Oasis vs. Blur thing (yikes. 90s.) I was firmly in the Oasis camp. Well, on a personal level I thought they were all ridiculous, but musically... see, here's the thing. Noel Gallagher knows about three chords and uses them in predictable ways, but still he does it very well. Blur were... pretentious. And I know it's completely ironic considering just how much progrock this meme is about to suffer from me, but something in Damon Albarn's pretentiousness just always rubbed me the wrong way. Not to mention that the first Blur song I've ever heard was Boys & Girls which to this day is one of my least favourite Blur songs.

But this isn't about Blur, it's about Oasis, and like the rest of the universe, the first I heard of them was Live Forever, which is actually from 1994, not 1995, but I think they stayed in the background until Wonderwall came out. Maybe this should be a Wonderwall entry then, not Live Forever, but as much as I like Wonderwall, Live Forever simply summarises Oasis. Maybe it's the same as what I had to say about Nirvana - it has honesty (which is all the more ironic because I think they wrote it directly due to being annoyed with Nirvana-esque depression?)

Anyway, Live Forever is the quintessential Oasis song. Simple chords, simple lyrics, Liam still knew how to sing back in the day, but it works. I shouldn't still be fond of this song, but I am. They actually had quite a lot of really good songs from Definitely, Maybe: Columbia, Supersonic, Slide Away (I love Slide Away. Completely adore it. Maybe I should have linked to it...), but in the end, it's not a surprise that Live Forever was their big break, and still one of their most famous songs ever.

Also, it already showcases their ridiculous tendency to keep songs going on and on and on in the end (although until they decided to make their point with Be Here Now it was manageable, but then, Be Here Now was a rubbish album anyway).

( LOL that ridiculous chairCollapse )

I'm just sitting here enjoying all the noise over the Higgs Boson. Yeah, I'm rubbish at physics and will never be a physicist, but still - woo! People are excited over physics! ♥

So, to celebrate, here's a PDF that explains Gödel's second incompleteness theorem only with monosyllabic words. Rejoice!

So, we're still in 1995, aren't we. Hmmm. Did I mention Israel at those years was a bit behind everyone else? At least, I was. So who cares of Kurt Cobain died in 1994, I was into grunge in 1995! Grunge fashion, too - torn jeans and flannel shorts and everything. I still find that fashion highly aesthetic by the way.

Anyway, for the failing grunge fan I am, my favourite Nirvana album has always been the Unplugged one. Yes, I know, it kinda defeats the point in Nirvana, but there you have it.
Also, I'm one of those people who first heard The Man Who Sold The World in the Nirvana edition... I still haven't quite got used to David Bowie's original, I must admit.

Thing is, for all the noise and screams and that, Nirvana actually were talented. And I think the Unplugged is the best indication of that - you drop the noise and the screams and the distortions and what you get is a band that sings its heart out. And that's the thing about music. When it's people singing their heart out, usually it's good.

( Anyway, here it is!Collapse )