remindmeofthe | (no subject)

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A few random WTFs.

* Fresh from 0-16, Detroit Lions adopts [sic] a fiercer logo.

*facepalm* Yes. Because. The logo. That was the problem. Superbowl next year for sure!

* I am so sick of my Shakespeare professor. You know what? I do not believe that every single syllable of every single play Shakespeare ever wrote has eighteen different meanings. I just don't. I think some of it is exactly what it looks like on the surface, and some of it BUT NOT ALL OF IT is a lot more complex, just like any other quality work of entertainment. Okay?

* I've been playing this great game called Human Age for well over a year now, possibly pushing two. I'm not sure. It's one of those very low-key game that only requires a few minutes of play every day, and I'm completely addicted and I love it. It's got a quirky sense of humor, which is compounded by the fact that it's a French game translated imperfectly into English - the translations are clear and always coherent, but some of the word choices add an extra layer of entertainment.

Anyway. In the Second Age, you can end up with a pet snake, whose venom you can harvest and sell. The game practically insists that you do this. When you do, it knocks off seventy-five percent of your snake's health (the game doesn't allow you to do it until the snake is over seventy-five percent, so you won't kill it), which then leads to text guilt-tripping you about your unhealthy snake. IT IS A VICIOUS CYCLE.

And yes, I named my snake Grahame.

* A word of RP advice: Be aware of the headache you are taking on if you choose to play a character that is meant primarily as a metaphorical construct. Because when you start treating the character as a character and trying to create something cohesive and playable, it turns out to be IMPOSSIBLE and you end up with stupid questions like, "If he thinks all religious figures tell one hundred percent of the truth one hundred percent of the time, and the Bishop of Digne says the silver was a gift, why the fuck does he think Valjean stole it anyway?" And you CANNOT ANSWER THEM and you end up hoping an awful lot of shit just never comes up in-game. Thanks, Victor Hugo.

Why couldn't I have picked Marius instead?

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There's an extended version of Javert's attempted resignation scene that was edited out of the final draft of the book, but I think it clarifies his motives a lot more on that account. First we have this:

"Je sais que vous êtes bon, mais il faut surtout être juste et, voyez-vous, la bonté qui consiste à donner raison à la fille publique contre le bourgeois, à l'agent de police contre le maire, à celui qui est en bas contre celui qui est en haut, c'est ce que j'appelle la mauvaise bonté."

On-the-fly translation: "I know that you are good, but above all it is necessary to be just, and, do you see, goodness that consists of agreeing with [or maybe vindicating would be a better word?] the prostitute against the bourgeois, the police officer against the mayor, he who is below against he who is above, that is what I call bad goodness."

Which doesn't hit on it exactly, but it does provide an interesting frame for looking at this:

"Monsieur le maire, reprit-il, ce Jean Tréjean sortit libéré du bagne de Toulon en octobre 1815. Quatre ou cinq jours après, il eut chez Monseigneur l'évêque de D. une aventure fort louche dont je ne sais que peu de chose, mais ce que j'en sais ressemble diablement à un vol. Je dois dire du reste que Monseigneur l'évêque, qui était un saint et qui est mort, le justifiait mais c'était probablement charité : et tenez, vous, monsieur le maire, vous en feriez tout autant. Cet évêque était un homme comme vous[. . . .] Ce Jean Tréjean avait-il en effet volé Mgr l'évêque ? Je l'ignore, mais je le crois."

"Monsieur Mayor," he continued, "this Jean Tréjean [rough-draft name for Valjean] was freed from the prison at Toulon in October 1815. Four or five days afterward, he had, at the home of Monseigneur the Bishop of D---, a very suspicious adventure about which I know very little, but what I do know looks damned similar to a burglary. I must say besides that Monseigneur the Biship, who was a saintly man and who is dead, justified him but it was probably through charity: and do you know, you, Monsieur Mayor, you would have done just the same. This bishop was a man like you[. . . .] Did this Jean Tréjean in fact steal from Monseigneur the Bishop? I don't know, but I believe so."

Full version here (http://www.chanvrerie.net/outtakes/madeleine.html); I really should get around to translating it in full someday.

Ah, yes. That does make a lot more sense. I can work with this. *g* Thanks so much.

Sure! And if you run into more *headwall* moments with the metaphorical-construct thing I would love to hash them out with you, or dig through my annotated LM for additional material. Because I don't get nearly enough excuses to go all meta these days. *g*

That would be awesome. Sometimes I feel like I'm chasing myself in circles trying to make Javert make sense. Plus I'm playing him in a panfandom game, and I got a little ambitious when I started out and decided to start with Montreuil-sur-mer and work my way through canon, and somehow I thought I'd be able to keep to canon all the way through but I was SO WRONG. I figured on just using the outside influences of characters from other works as a way to explain the evolution his personality seems to undergo during that decade-ish between Montreuil-sur-mer and Paris, but I underestimated the effect it's likely to have. I can already tell he's going to end up going AU, and I'm only up to Fantine's arrest.

Buuut yeah. It's definitely been interesting trying to wade through what Hugo has provided and put it together into something more organic, and I much appreciate the opportunity to have someone else to bounce things off of.

Hah, yes. I can imagine how quickly Hugo's Big Symbolic Roles for his characters would break down in a panfandom RPG with no puppetmaster to keep them on the rails. I don't have enough experience in that kind of game to be of much use in that respect, but I am more than happy (desperate in fact) to just bounce ideas and analysis and "what would X do in this cracky situation?" off of someone else and see what develops.

There was actually a neat thread on Abaissé a while back about why so many people end up being tempted to smack Marius upside the head: he's this ordinary flawed human being without a great Cause or Role, running around in a book full of Übermenschen and trying to muddle through like the rest of us. Of course he's going to look like a bit of an idiot next to the Personification of Revolutionary Severity, or falling in love with a Metaphor For The Future or whatever symbolic importance you want to attach to Cosette, or getting rescued by a Christ Figure. But instead of identifying with him, most readers just have this instinctive "wtf are you doing in this book?" reaction.

Hee. It's so true. Marius is the most authentic character of the lot, and sometimes he seems kind of out of place. I'm making my way through Les Mis for the second time, and finding that I kind of love him this time for exactly that reason - he's a big dork who does big dorky things like people do.

I think most of the characters could be played as characters more easily than Javert. Most of them aren't as contradictory, and tend to stay more consistent - or are so thinly written that it would be entirely up to the player to flesh them out - whereas Javert sometimes seems to have a new personality every time he shows up. I think the only other major character I'd have this much trouble with is Cosette, and that's because she doesn't really have a personality at all.

And yes, panfandom does indeed bring the crack. And Milliways can be doubly cracky because it allows for various AUs of the same canon and all kinds of time manipulation - in Javert's first post, he met a post-canon Gavroche. And I'm specific about playing from the novel rather than the musical not only because he's more interesting, but because it's perfectly feasible that characters from the musical (or any of the movies, for that matter) could show up and co-exist with ones from the novel. (I'm hoping someday a musical!Valjean will show up. That would be pretty awesome. "Wait, that is not how that happened!")

As for other-fandom-crack: Javert has also met Medusa. Yes, that Medusa. There have also been a couple of uneasy conversations with Will Scarlett of Robin Hood fame (Will triggers his cop instincts, but he can't pin down anything concrete and Will is very carefully elusive in conversation), and an interesting acquaintanceship developing with Liam Neeson's character from Taken. You know. The one who runs around murdering and torturing the sex slavers who kidnapped his daughter. In Paris. Javert of course has no clue about this, and if Mills wishes to maintain any kind of cordial relationship it will stay that way.

And all this is just starting out. There's no reason not to assume that things will only get more interesting from there, and I just don't see how Javert could avoid evolving a bit in the ways he views and judges things. Regardless of what Hugo would have to say about it.

Fresh from 0-16, Detroit Lions adopts [sic] a fiercer logo. (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4083796&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines)

Umm, it doesn't look that much different than the old logo. Ahahahaha Lions. ILU for being so laughable and ridic.

Can't you tell, Alex? It has fifty-six percent more FIERCE!

IT'S A HOT MESS.

IT HAS POINTY BITS. POINTY BITS ARE TOTES FIERCE.

I like this one (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_kwp5KNB-LtM/SSI2VbJ7pDI/AAAAAAAAAH4/yhQelTezeow/s1600-h/drowninglion.jpg) best. :D

It has a certain amount of accuracy to it, doesn't it?

Lions. No. Bad kitties! Bad!

At this point basically ALL they have going for them is tradition-- the long tenure of the club and its sometimes storied past are literally the only good things about it. Why would they fuck with that? Why would they change one of the great classic-looking logos (and if they were gonna change it at all, why not go back to one of their previous designs)? Why would they... ugh, never mind, because it's the Lions.

because it's the Lions.

That is exactly what I was saying in my head before I got halfway through your comment. Oh, Lions.

As if they didn't already have enough problems, what with the team itself and the fact that they're owned by the Fords. I mean, where'd they even get the extra cash to pay for a graphic designer? I probably don't want to know. LIONS. WHAT CAN'T YOU DO WRONG?

I am intrigued by this game. *eyes it with snaky interest*

*snickers* I had the same gripes with Shakespeare studies in school. I was always like, "Um. This was popular entertainment, okay? Awesome popular entertainment, but do we really have to go this deep? Because if so, I'm going to go over to my theater classes now where we treat Shakespeare like a cool playwright who gave us fabulous words and stories and not a linguistically gifted, historical genius of doom."

I recently played a fantasy role play game where my character can charm wild animals and has a pet bear who can attack people who threaten me or my companions so I named the bear "Pooh".

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