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Picture gacked from jblaque:





People cry out against the sinner. Yet it is not the sinful but the stupid who are our shame.
There is no sin except stupidity.

-- Oscar Wilde

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Okay, somebody explain to me:

I understand that when Nathan was killed, Matt forced his soul into Sylar's body for safekeeping, and then ended up with Sylar's soul taking up space inside his own body. And I understand that Nathan sees himself when he looks into a mirror, and that because it's Nathan's soul, that's who we see - the actor that plays Nathan, not Zach Quinto who plays Sylar, because Nathan is the animating soul.

What I don't understand is - why does everyone else see Nathan? Why aren't Peter and Nathan's secretary reacting to Sylar standing in front of them, since it's Sylar's body? When Sylar takes over Matt's body, although we see Sylar, everyone else sees Matt, because it's Matt's body. But as Nathan is moving around and talking to people, they're seeing Nathan and not Sylar, even though it's Sylar's body. THIS MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE.

Is this as big a mistake as I keep thinking it is, or am I missing a piece of the puzzle here? Because IT'S DRIVING ME FUCKING NUTS.

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Are you getting as sick as I am of all this OMG THE WRLD WILLEND WTFBBQ!!!11!!! nonsense? Well apparently, so are the Maya:


( 2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist )


Hoo-boy. What is it with the constant insistence that disaster is just around the corner? Not only is it infantile and melodramatic, it's a prime example of how infinitesimally short modern memory is. As the article points out, people never seem to remember the LAST time we all ran around like chickens with our heads cut off. Remember Y2K? Civilization as we knew it was gonna collapse!!! What happened? A few toasters stopped working. WOW.

I find it especially amusing that nobody is listening to the REAL Mayans, who are all shrugging their shoulders and saying the gringos are nuts. It's a classic case of Western cultures projecting their own fixations onto other people - the Mayas never said the world was going to end in 2012. They just said that a particular era would end, but that doesn't mean the world will stop, for gods' sakes. That's like saying the planet will be destroyed in 2050 (or whenever) because we'll stop using petroleum then. It's nonsense, just an outcropping of the fascination with doomsday scenarios that was put into motion by the Book of Revelation, that bizarre afterthought add-on to the Christian Bible. (Why anyone would put any store in what are clearly the ravings of a lunatic mind is beyond me, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.)

So we can all relax. The world isn't going anywhere, the Mayans are more interested in whether they'll get good rain for their crops this year, and all this doomsday hoo-hah is just a PR storm drummed up for what appears to be yet another badly-written mediocre FX movie. *yawn*

Herein you shall find a cry of pain, from the depths of a soul who really WANTS TO BE CREATIVE GODDAMMIT.

I know I have a few new friends on my list from the newly minted ST fandom. (SIDE NOTE: Hi, guys!! So glad you're here. You are welcome in my house. Do me a favor and keep the cat off the altar if you see her up there. She just WON'T leave it alone.) And I know that, along with my pals from the LOTR and actor fandoms, at least a couple of you are fic writers. I'd like to hear from those of you who write (if you're inclined to respond), especially those in the ST fandom, since you're involved with the stuff I am these days. (Readers too if you have any thoughts!)

This problem has come up before, but I'm feeling it acutely right now. Have you ever been working on a story, you know the shape of it, the currents running between the characters, where the eddies and rapids ought to be, and you're banging away at it...and it changes? Either a character does something unexpected, or an emotional shift happens that pushes the narrative in a different direction, or something else equally disconcerting? What do you do in that situation?

I'm working on a fic that I really love (but which I'm not sure anyone else will, LOL), and I've found myself in just such an impasse. The problem is two-fold: the aforementioned emotional shift, and a very sudden ending. Not that the story ends, but the fic seems to. The words come to a close, and I'll be damned if I can see how to write past it.

And it's LONG! This is a long fic ! (For me, anyway.) I'm on my fourth page, and I'm dead certain there's more to this thing. ARGHARGHARGH

What would you recommend here? Has this happened to you? How did it affect you, and what did you do about it? Should I do anything about it? Maybe I should let it sit. But I lose fics that way! I'M ON A GODDAMN ROLL HERE.

HEEEEELLLLPPP!!!

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They finally got the fucking dog.

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First it was The Rocky Horror Picture Show.


Okay, I can sort of see why MTV'd want to remake that. Lots of music, dancing and kinky sex. Although I fully expect them to water it down, because let's face it, these days the media has an allergy to the kind of thing that RHPS so enthusiastically celebrated.


Then it was The Prisoner.


This one rankles me more. Hollywood has this bizarre notion that if you take something old and repackage it in shiny paper, somehow it'll be "better". But the problem is that slapping some CGI on a thing doesn't make it better; often the new style of FX actually ruins a story. In this case, the gods only know what computer-generated idiocy they'll come up with to replace that...white ball. There's no way they'll ever be able to top the fucking NIGHTMARES that thing gave me, and it wasn't even a special effect! It was just a goddamn rubber ball! A perfect example of imagination trumping big bucks, an idea that passed Hollywood by decades ago.

(Alright, it's going to have McKellen in it. But I'm sorry, that's not enough to make up for the STUPID idea of remaking it in the first place. Don't get me started on Jim "Messiah Complex" Caviezel, either...)


But this fucking beats them all.


The Three Stooges? Really?

I mean, I know the Farrelly Brothers are hacks who make their money off poop and fart jokes (without even the articulate snark of a Kevin Smith for balance), but this is just pathetic. How in the WORLD could anyone imagine this could work, given that the original series of shorts were created for an act that had already earned their name on the stage as vaudevillians? In other words, they weren't actors played scripted roles - they were comedians who'd developed their own characters which were then accommodated in the scripts they created for their short subjects. The idea of casting other guys to play them is...beyond moronic. Christ on a cracker, what next? The Tale of the Lonely Repairman, starring that Maytag guy?


Hey, Hollywood! If you're going to make silly movies based on old entertainment characters, how about a film version of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? I know a whole LOT of people who'd love to see that one. You could get Seth Rogen to play Fat Freedie, Jeff Goldblum to play Phineas, and Sam Elliott to play Freewheelin' Franklin. (He's got the mustache for it.) You'd have to do a talent search for Fat Freddy's Cat, but I'm sure there's an unknonwn out there who'd ace the part.

Now, THAT I'd pay to go see.

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From the AP wire:

Exotic dancer set on fire outside LA nightclub



Feb 5th, 2009 | LOS ANGELES -- An exotic dancer was set on fire outside the nightclub where she worked early Thursday, burning more than 60 percent of her body, police said. They were searching for two suspects.

A woman and a man called the 27-year-old dancer outside around 1 a.m. and then doused her with a flammable liquid next to the Babes & Beer sports club in the San Fernando Valley, police said.

Police identified the suspects as Rianne Celine Theriault-Odom, 27, and Nathaniel Marquis Petrillo, 22, both frequent patrons of the club. They were being sought for investigation of attempted murder, police said.

"Given the condition of this victim, they may be responsible for ultimately her murder," Deputy Chief Michel Moore said. "This is a terrible, terrible attack."

Moore said the dancer, a mother of two, was in grave condition after being burned over more than 60 percent of her body. Her identity was not immediately released.

A message left at the club was not immediately returned.


What, are we living in fucking Pakistan now? I mean, WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE???