LotStuff (+ God of War!) + lack of sleep
Jun. 21st, 2010 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficI took a long nap yesterday and then stayed up all night playing God of War 3, so this may be a little rambly. I'm going to split this into vague tangents like you wish Dennis Miller would do, so just pick up where you like, I promise you won't miss any sexy pictures of Michelle Rodriguez.
Oh, GOW? I feel like my PS3 is Agent Smith in the first movie, talking about how awesome the Matrix was. Even as I feel that the best thing to come out of GOW is the GOW clones, which managed to take the concept and run with it (adding little things like plot, character, and clothes on the women's torsos), I must admit how well-honed the appeal is to 13-year-old boys and 13-year-old boys at heart. Steaming viscera? Yup. Having sex with Aphrodite that's so hot that it makes Aphrodite's watching handmaidens go off on each other in a lesbionic frenzy? Yeah. Caving in Hercules's face, Irreversible style, only instead of being a harrowing look at the consequences of men's actions, it's because fuck Hercules. But I still find the main character detestable. He's the kind of badass that has to constantly assert how badass he is instead of sitting back, Chow Yun-Fat style, and letting people realize it for themselves. To put it in Stephen Colbert terms, "you've obviously had millions of girlfriends, Kratos."
I'd say that he's surrounded by more interesting characters that I'd rather play as, but there are no other characters. There's just Krator, who has no character development, no charisma, no cleverness. I swear, 90% of the dialogue is just...
Hermes: Hey Kratos, nice going killing your family!
Kratos: I must kill Zeus!
Helios: Please don't kill me!
Kratos: I must kill Zeus!
Aphrodite: Kratos, it's okay to show you sawing off people's legs, but not us having sex, so wanna do it off-screen?
Kratos: I must kill Zeus!
Ctrl-V as necessary. I feel like by making it necessary to commit various atrocities, it takes out all the fun out of being Chaotic Evil. The player isn't rebelling against any set morals, but merely performing according to a set of moralless morals. I get the feeling it could be building to some great thematic message, but it's like when Mark Millar had the gull to include a "moral" in Wanted. Yes, I know raping and killing people is wrong, plus, I didn't start this conversation, YOU did. And really, three games is a long way to go for "don't be a douche." I just shouldn't play video games wishing Hideo Kojima would come in to moralize about how wrong it is to shoot bunches of polygons representing evil terrorists. But I doubt GOW is homoerotic enough to interest him. Although Kratos does spend most of the games wanting to stick his sword into father figures.
Ja, I see what you did there!
This Youtube makes up for a lot, though. Go to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mondoshawan55 and tell her she's awesome.
Thinking about Legend of the Seeker in the shower, as I always do, I wonder if the third season would've had Nicci join the team in a kind of Enemy Mine situation (maybe replacing Zedd? Maybe he could go off and contact the team by journey book to give them missions, so it'd be like Zedd's Angels, only with Richard as Bosley. Really, I just want Bridget Regan to do one of those Farrah Fewcett posters. I told you about the lack of sleep, right?). I think it'd be fun to have her constantly twisting the team around and hitting on Richard while Kahlan and Cara are just like "is this bitch for real?" Plus, with Cara, there's always that wondrous chance of canon hatesex.
Speaking of Home is the place where it feels right to walk around without Agiels (sleep, what's that?), you know you've captured the zeitgeist when someone says the series isn't as good as it used to be, when Cara and Kahlan were married (if you're reading this, don't worry, I'm just playin'). I may have to write a proper Cara/Kahlan matrimony fic just for everyone who's stuck it out this long. Do you think one of them might get pregnant? What an unexpected plot twist that would be? (Note: Just kidding, fpreg writers, don't comment with nasty cat macros, I couldn't stand to see cat macros turned against me.)
I'm not saying it's going to end bad (I like to think Cara gets a hero's reward), but you could consider it a cliffhanger, and the next part is shaping up to be really long, so I don't want to be writing a Pam/Jessica PWP (because did you watch last night's episode? Pam is like "Come on, Jessica, let's go to the ladies room to look at ourselves in the mirror" and Jessica has this look like "Mind if I just look at you?" You know how it is when you're a new vampire, away from your family for the first time, testing boundaries, experimenting, not going out in the sunlight. You meet up with someone older and more experienced by a few hundred years, they teach you how to drink blood, you have a little crush, your inhibitions are a little lowered, things happen. Sometimes three or four times a night. It's perfectly natural. Then the sun comes up and you're like "Hey, can we cuddle in the coffin, it would be so romantic!" and Pam gives you a look like "is this bitch for real?" and you're so embarrassed and avoid each other for a few weeks until you show off your new girlfriend to her, but then you and she break up and Pam shows up at your door with Japanese schoolgirl blood, how did she even get that? So you hook up and keep things casual, because you're a little older and a little wiser and that's all you're looking for right now, but they call you a vampire slut, even though you've only had sex with two people and it's not like you cheated on anybody, ever, unlike some people you know who'll suck just anybody's blood, cough Sookie! cough).
So anyway, I don't want to be writing some fic and have people going "excuse me, what are you doing about Cara being captured by Lord Rahl just when Kahlan had something very important to tell her?" (just for instance), so maybe I should write a fic where they get married, just to tide people over. Also, because I'd love to hear Richard's best man speech.
So, like, I had this idea of writing a third-season-of-LotS novel, but not a serial-number-file-off, just something inspired by the show, like Alan Moore is by old comics, only with less sexual perversity. And beard.
It'd work because the show is so archetypal and the books are so cliched. Although for the full effect, every third sentence would have to be "Not!Kahlan's hair is amazing. Plus, cleavage." That's how I write now, but my betas usually insist that I replace it with, like, dialogue and stuff.
But yeah, it's basically Dark Action Girl and Staff Chick and the Strider (I'm pretty sure Terry Goodkind at first just called him "Stryder" before he realized the name was already taken by an 80s hair metal band) and Dumbledore fighting evil, so it'd be easy enough for readers to get onboard if they had a little familiarity with the genre, enough so the subversions (spell check doesn't think subversions is a word?) would make sense. Like, Richard (just mentally place a "Not!" in front of everyone's names) is crowned king, then some peasants are all "Oh, because a Rahl on the throne worked out so well last time. And what experience does he have? Fuck it, let's invent Communism." I think Che Guerva vs. Aragorn could be a juicy conflict, since there's room for El Che to have a point while still kicking the dog enough to be the villain.
And Kahlan has to go through a portal and Cara, having the mother of all crushes/unrequited loves, goes with her because hey, being there while Richard is in another dimension gets her foot in the door. And they end up either in the real world (metafiction optional) or going from their high fantasy world to some grim and gritty no-magic George R.R. Martin wankfest. That'd be fun.
Any character: I have sex with my sister, as did many real-life members of royalty.
Cara: Ewwww! And this is coming from the girl who got a wettie discussing sacrificing myself so my kinda girlfriend could live.
Plus, although I love Cara like I would some hypothetical version of God of War 3 where you're playing Hel from Bitch Slap and the sex mini-game is the trailer scene with Trixie (Camaro can watch) and the end is just a Desecrated-style wrestling match ("Admit you love me!" *slap*) and then they get married and Camaro's driving the limo they leave in. Although I love Cara like that, perhaps her character could be a bounty hunter or an assassin and not something that sounds like a string of porny Google-bait. "HOT BISEXUAL DOMINATRIX LESBIAN ORGY TURKISH BATHS TIGHT-FITTING LEATHER EXPOSED CLEAVAGE DILDO HORSE." What, she rides a horse.
Oh, GOW? I feel like my PS3 is Agent Smith in the first movie, talking about how awesome the Matrix was. Even as I feel that the best thing to come out of GOW is the GOW clones, which managed to take the concept and run with it (adding little things like plot, character, and clothes on the women's torsos), I must admit how well-honed the appeal is to 13-year-old boys and 13-year-old boys at heart. Steaming viscera? Yup. Having sex with Aphrodite that's so hot that it makes Aphrodite's watching handmaidens go off on each other in a lesbionic frenzy? Yeah. Caving in Hercules's face, Irreversible style, only instead of being a harrowing look at the consequences of men's actions, it's because fuck Hercules. But I still find the main character detestable. He's the kind of badass that has to constantly assert how badass he is instead of sitting back, Chow Yun-Fat style, and letting people realize it for themselves. To put it in Stephen Colbert terms, "you've obviously had millions of girlfriends, Kratos."
I'd say that he's surrounded by more interesting characters that I'd rather play as, but there are no other characters. There's just Krator, who has no character development, no charisma, no cleverness. I swear, 90% of the dialogue is just...
Hermes: Hey Kratos, nice going killing your family!
Kratos: I must kill Zeus!
Helios: Please don't kill me!
Kratos: I must kill Zeus!
Aphrodite: Kratos, it's okay to show you sawing off people's legs, but not us having sex, so wanna do it off-screen?
Kratos: I must kill Zeus!
Ctrl-V as necessary. I feel like by making it necessary to commit various atrocities, it takes out all the fun out of being Chaotic Evil. The player isn't rebelling against any set morals, but merely performing according to a set of moralless morals. I get the feeling it could be building to some great thematic message, but it's like when Mark Millar had the gull to include a "moral" in Wanted. Yes, I know raping and killing people is wrong, plus, I didn't start this conversation, YOU did. And really, three games is a long way to go for "don't be a douche." I just shouldn't play video games wishing Hideo Kojima would come in to moralize about how wrong it is to shoot bunches of polygons representing evil terrorists. But I doubt GOW is homoerotic enough to interest him. Although Kratos does spend most of the games wanting to stick his sword into father figures.
Ja, I see what you did there!
This Youtube makes up for a lot, though. Go to
mondoshawan55 and tell her she's awesome.Thinking about Legend of the Seeker in the shower, as I always do, I wonder if the third season would've had Nicci join the team in a kind of Enemy Mine situation (maybe replacing Zedd? Maybe he could go off and contact the team by journey book to give them missions, so it'd be like Zedd's Angels, only with Richard as Bosley. Really, I just want Bridget Regan to do one of those Farrah Fewcett posters. I told you about the lack of sleep, right?). I think it'd be fun to have her constantly twisting the team around and hitting on Richard while Kahlan and Cara are just like "is this bitch for real?" Plus, with Cara, there's always that wondrous chance of canon hatesex.
Speaking of Home is the place where it feels right to walk around without Agiels (sleep, what's that?), you know you've captured the zeitgeist when someone says the series isn't as good as it used to be, when Cara and Kahlan were married (if you're reading this, don't worry, I'm just playin'). I may have to write a proper Cara/Kahlan matrimony fic just for everyone who's stuck it out this long. Do you think one of them might get pregnant? What an unexpected plot twist that would be? (Note: Just kidding, fpreg writers, don't comment with nasty cat macros, I couldn't stand to see cat macros turned against me.)
I'm not saying it's going to end bad (I like to think Cara gets a hero's reward), but you could consider it a cliffhanger, and the next part is shaping up to be really long, so I don't want to be writing a Pam/Jessica PWP (because did you watch last night's episode? Pam is like "Come on, Jessica, let's go to the ladies room to look at ourselves in the mirror" and Jessica has this look like "Mind if I just look at you?" You know how it is when you're a new vampire, away from your family for the first time, testing boundaries, experimenting, not going out in the sunlight. You meet up with someone older and more experienced by a few hundred years, they teach you how to drink blood, you have a little crush, your inhibitions are a little lowered, things happen. Sometimes three or four times a night. It's perfectly natural. Then the sun comes up and you're like "Hey, can we cuddle in the coffin, it would be so romantic!" and Pam gives you a look like "is this bitch for real?" and you're so embarrassed and avoid each other for a few weeks until you show off your new girlfriend to her, but then you and she break up and Pam shows up at your door with Japanese schoolgirl blood, how did she even get that? So you hook up and keep things casual, because you're a little older and a little wiser and that's all you're looking for right now, but they call you a vampire slut, even though you've only had sex with two people and it's not like you cheated on anybody, ever, unlike some people you know who'll suck just anybody's blood, cough Sookie! cough).
So anyway, I don't want to be writing some fic and have people going "excuse me, what are you doing about Cara being captured by Lord Rahl just when Kahlan had something very important to tell her?" (just for instance), so maybe I should write a fic where they get married, just to tide people over. Also, because I'd love to hear Richard's best man speech.
So, like, I had this idea of writing a third-season-of-LotS novel, but not a serial-number-file-off, just something inspired by the show, like Alan Moore is by old comics, only with less sexual perversity. And beard.
It'd work because the show is so archetypal and the books are so cliched. Although for the full effect, every third sentence would have to be "Not!Kahlan's hair is amazing. Plus, cleavage." That's how I write now, but my betas usually insist that I replace it with, like, dialogue and stuff.
But yeah, it's basically Dark Action Girl and Staff Chick and the Strider (I'm pretty sure Terry Goodkind at first just called him "Stryder" before he realized the name was already taken by an 80s hair metal band) and Dumbledore fighting evil, so it'd be easy enough for readers to get onboard if they had a little familiarity with the genre, enough so the subversions (spell check doesn't think subversions is a word?) would make sense. Like, Richard (just mentally place a "Not!" in front of everyone's names) is crowned king, then some peasants are all "Oh, because a Rahl on the throne worked out so well last time. And what experience does he have? Fuck it, let's invent Communism." I think Che Guerva vs. Aragorn could be a juicy conflict, since there's room for El Che to have a point while still kicking the dog enough to be the villain.
And Kahlan has to go through a portal and Cara, having the mother of all crushes/unrequited loves, goes with her because hey, being there while Richard is in another dimension gets her foot in the door. And they end up either in the real world (metafiction optional) or going from their high fantasy world to some grim and gritty no-magic George R.R. Martin wankfest. That'd be fun.
Any character: I have sex with my sister, as did many real-life members of royalty.
Cara: Ewwww! And this is coming from the girl who got a wettie discussing sacrificing myself so my kinda girlfriend could live.
Plus, although I love Cara like I would some hypothetical version of God of War 3 where you're playing Hel from Bitch Slap and the sex mini-game is the trailer scene with Trixie (Camaro can watch) and the end is just a Desecrated-style wrestling match ("Admit you love me!" *slap*) and then they get married and Camaro's driving the limo they leave in. Although I love Cara like that, perhaps her character could be a bounty hunter or an assassin and not something that sounds like a string of porny Google-bait. "HOT BISEXUAL DOMINATRIX LESBIAN ORGY TURKISH BATHS TIGHT-FITTING LEATHER EXPOSED CLEAVAGE DILDO HORSE." What, she rides a horse.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 08:33 pm (UTC)It's like you know if they do an Anime version of LotS it'll have a title like "SUPER SEXYTIME TORTURE MAIDENS CORSET TEAM GO!"
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 09:24 pm (UTC)Also, heh, your inspired-by-LotS novel sounds intriguing. Especially changing Cara's occupation, even though I sort of love that she does sound like Google-bait. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 05:53 am (UTC)And I don't know why Zedd is so flat, since he worked in the books. Is it that his big backstory is helping Panis Rahl knock up his wife? Is it that mentors are supposed to die, not stick around cockblocking people into the second season? Is it just that Ian McKellan was so much better at playing Gandalf that we don't need to see the community theater version? The world may never know.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 01:52 am (UTC)Must...not...write...slashfic...!