HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EMA. I have a can of tootsie rolls. Do you want them? Because those things make me break out. In vomit. (Also, I was going to write you a fic, but I don't think it's physically possible for me to write anything more coherent than an LJ entry right now.)

And a happy New Year's eve to everyone else. Holy hell, I'm ready for 2009 to be over.

FICTIONAL WOMAN YOU LIKE: Yuffie Kisaragi
THEIR AGE: 16
THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS: Helps save the world. Travels all over the world with a group of eight other people. Backstabs them and has a sexy adventure with the same man who molested the group's leader, but it all turns out okay.
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES YOU HAVE TRAVELLED OUTSIDE YOUR OWN LANDMASS: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES YOU HAVE HAD EIGHT REAL-LIFE FRIENDS: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES YOU'VE BEEN TIED UP BY SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF WEAPONS YOU OWN WHICH CAN BE USED TO BYPASS THE DAMAGE RESTRICTION ON 'MORPH': 0


FICTIONAL WOMAN YOU LIKE: Yuna
THEIR AGE: 17
THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS: Goes on suicide march to save the world. Known all over the world as someone beautiful and strong and pure. People in the street stop her to give her gifts to help her on her way. Takes down an outmoded theocratic regime, assassinates their god, and doesn't die doing it.
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES YOU HAVE BEEN STOPPED IN THE STREET BY A STRANGER GIVING YOU A GIFT WHO ISN'T A PROMOTIONAL PERSON FOR PRET A MANGER: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF GODS YOU HAVE KILLED: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF GODS YOU HAVE SUMMONED: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES YOU'VE MADE EVERYONE CRY AT THE END BY SAYING 'I LOVE YOU': 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES YOU'VE BEEN ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH WEARING A BLACK BRA UNDER WHITE CLOTHES: 0


FICTIONAL WOMAN YOU LIKE: Meryl Silverburgh (MGS)
THEIR AGE: 18
THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS: Despite being inexperienced and getting mind-controlled and tortured, helps save the world from another guy's evil twin. Presumably has a lot of sex with a clone of the most attractive man in the whole world.
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES YOUR ASS HAS BEEN CONSIDERED IRRESISTIBLE: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF GORGEOUS OLDER MEN WITH DEEP INNER TORMENT YOU HAVE CURED WITH THE POWER OF LOVE: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES SOMEONE HAS BEEN TORTURED RATHER THAN LET YOU DIE: 0
AT 19, NUMBER OF TIMES YOU HAVE COME BACK FOR THE SEQUEL, MORE BADASS AND HOTTER, AND FOUND TRUE LOVE WITH A PANTSHITTING BUT INCREDIBLY HOT SIDE CHARACTER: 0





....er, happy birthday to me.

⌈ Secret Post #1090 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

101.

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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

I've decided I'm going to split up the marathon. I can't hold it until January, anyway. So I'm thinking -

PER UN PUGNO DI DOLLARI - 7PM GMT, FRIDAY 8TH JAN
PER QUALCHE DOLLARO IN PIÚ - 7PM GMT, SATURDAY 9TH JAN
IL BUONO IL BRUTO IL CATTIVO - 6PM GMT, SUNDAY 10TH JAN

Any objections?

The one I'm worried about is GBU. It's so obnoxiously long my instinct is to split that one up into two hour-and-a-half chunks and watch it episodically - it was originally intended to have an intermission after the 'I'll feel safer knowing my friend is by my side to protect me' scene, so that's where I'd split it (and that's where the movie changes plot threads from 'the adventures of a douchey cowboy and his creepy stalker' into 'TREASURE HUNT + WAR HAS CHANGED'). But with this current schedule it'd end up with a week between them. Unless I play the two Dollars movies on Saturday and Sunday, and then GBU over the next weekend. (Either way, I'm still going to call an Intermission so everyone can have a toilet break. I'M MERCIFUL.) What would you prefer?



BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, JACK

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT DAY TOMORROW IS

I'M SORRY GUYS I'VE BEEN INACTIVE DUE TO BEING ON HOLIDAY

but I have been playing a little game. And that little game is Merry Gear Solid 2. And that little game has singlehandedly restored my faith in MGS, Christmas, fanfic, MGS4, Father Christmas and -

- look, just play it, now, before the season is over. Here's a list of reasons why:

• It's the perfect sequel. Merry Gear Solid 1 was fun and diverting, but 2 just takes everything good about it and capitalises on it. It is fantastic. Getting rid of Santa as the main character and making it Old Snake and Otacon is to the game's infinite benefit, because it makes the game feel more familiar. The kid sprite from the first game is back, but he's voiced by what sound like actual children this time, and is therefore IMMEDIATELY ADORABLE.
  
  
• It's technically stunning. The level designs are great - maybe the game as a whole is a bit too linear and there's a double backtrack, but that's nitpicking considering what the canon Metal Gears are like. The graphics are gorgeous. And there is an awesome fourth-wall puzzle at the end which will make your brain skip around with glee.
  
  
• It's a damn good parody and funny as hell. Lots of parodies just use the trappings of someone else's work and then launch themselves off into their own stylistic stratosphere, and many others imitate the other work without commenting on it. But Merry Gear Solid 2 gets it perfect. There's maybe one point where a character repeats a joke that was in the canon almost ad verbatim, but it's really not big enough to be annoying and the reference becomes important later on in the game. The rest of the jokes are new. Most of them fit in with the MGS-style humour - innocent and slow-paced, cute rather than hilarious. The rest are some of the most excruciating puns you will ever hear in your life.
  
  The more explicit parody elements are astute and genuinely funny. I don't want to spoil too much, but at a certain point Snake gets stripped naked and the game turns into MGS2 (and MGS4) in a way that's creative and absolutely hysterical, rather than a few obvious 'wtf who is this naked woman i'm playing as THIS GAME MAKES NO SEEEENSE~' gags.
  
  
• It works as probably the most extreme crackfic in the fandom, really. Snake and Otacon really never break character - they're just a tiny bit more aware of the fourth wall than they are in canon, but that's about it. Some of the more subtle humour is character-based and comes from their interactions, like Otacon acting awkward around Snake when he puts on a reindeer mask because he thinks Snake is into furdom; or overly describing completely random weaponry.
  
  While it's vicious, there's too much love and care taken to make it a straight skewering. There's jokes about some really obscure bits of canon, including a reference to Ghost Babel (not a funny reference, but a reference nonetheless). I still haven't figured out if the 'all your Christmases must have been soul-crushingly terrible' joke really is a reference to Metal Gear 2, but it doesn't matter because there's enough mentions of that game in there already including a puzzle lifted basically straight from it and the fact that the 'little girl' is obviously modelled after the female Zanzibar orphan. And most people forget about those games. And it makes me happy that they were put into a silly parody game. Because it's nice knowing there's someone else out there as pathetic as me. (UNRELATED - I decided recently that Metal Gear 2 is actually my favourite Metal Gear in terms of what it brought to the table. It's terribly flawed, but it's easily the only most original game.)
  
  
• The identity of Who. Oh my god. Best plot twist ever. Shat brix.
  
  
• EASTER EGGS. There's several rooms which only exist for jokes. The creator made up an entire fictional game so he could make an MGS1 visual parody in one of the optional menus. Some of the kids have little setpieces - my favourite is the Australian kid in the restaurant.
  
  
• The music. I wish there was a way I could describe to you what my face was doing around the time I realised that the music in Galuade Gardens was a remix of Jingle Bells in the style of the Caution music from MGS3, but I couldn't see so you'll just have to imagine it. Some of the remixes are really, really subtle, and I didn't notice the 'Merry Christmas (War Is Over)' mix until I saw it in the credits and listened to the song again.
  
  
• Voice acting. Not only are the impersonations really, really careful, but the actors don't concentrate on impersonation at the expense of, you know, acting. I want to cuddle the guy playing Otacon. He was amazing.

SO YES, GO AND PLAY IT, but if you haven't played the original Merry Gear Solid play that one first. It's not a squillionth as good but it does kind of set up the story. Oh yeah, and I promise that even if you think MGS4 is the most excruciating sadfest ever you will not be depressed by the presence of Old Snake in this game, at all.

I love this vid. Oh, Gus. Can't wait for Psych (and House, and Heroes, and Supernatural) to air again in January.

Also, hearing a fan-spliced Star Trek audiobook where Zachary Quinto (\o/♥!!) narrates graphic (ogod so graphic but so hilarious fjdkasl) Spock/Kirk porn made my fucking day. I know next to nothing about Star Trek aside from there being a dude with pointy ears and freaky-ass eyebrows, but this. This. I LOVE YOU FANDOM, FOREVER AND ALWAYS.

⌈ Secret Post #1089 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

101.

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Notes:

RE: Imageshack:
"5. Be sure to include all warnings that apply to your secret-image along with the comment. Also, you are responsible for knowing where the link to your image goes; we will not take the blame for broken links or any wank created by someone else discovering who submitted a certain secret."

If you want your secret to not be broken, don't use it. Easy enough.

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 157 secrets from Secret Submission Post #156.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

I /gquit Pride of Victory (my WoW guild) tonight. The details are fairly tied down, I kind of said I wouldn't make it public. That was mostly regarding that I wouldn't say, in Guild Chat, what I said in Officer Chat - if you care enough to ask, I'll tell my side of it, and try not to spin it like it's all the tale.

I mention this because, in retrospect, it seems like the second most momentous decision I've made this year.

The first being deciding to push back my graduation from Winter 2009 to Spring 2010, which I spent a month or more agonizing over.

This was a long time - months - in coming, but lately it really felt like things were turning around. Except they didn't, at all. I had grown to like a lot of the people, and I was used to their presence in my life and talking to 'em a bunch.

...

... I did get out a cool sort of final line, though.

Me: "So. This is hard to say..."
Harbinger: "It's another woman, isn't it?"
Me: "I WISH it was another woman. Then at least I'd be getting pussy out of this."

Hah.


Sigh.


Lok'tar Ogar. Good hunting, and fair winds be at your back.

The rest of the year, while eventful, has done little to disrupt my patterns in life, except for the mounting frustration with these patterns - but it seems I am not one for rash decisions. Maybe those will change, too.

⌈ Secret Post #1088 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

101.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 09 pages, 212 secrets from Secret Submission Post #156.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

⌈ Secret Post #1087 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

101.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 11 pages, 266 secrets from Secret Submission Post #156.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Poll #1503806 just because i wank to ennio morricone
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17

If I decided to host a Dollars Trilogy marathon on livestream, would you be interested? (note - livestream is a streaming site which has a chat function so we could all comment on the movies)

Considering the marathon will be about six and a half hours long, do you have any suggestions for a good time/date if I do it?

Oooiooioooooooo~!

EDIT: Just for reference -

A Fistful Of Dollars (Yojimbo With Cowboys) - an hour and a half long
For A Few Dollars More ("AFTER THIS MISSION I'M RETIRING COLONEL") - two hours long
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (The Good-Looking Backstabbing Asshole, The Sympathetic Backstabbing Asshole And The Asshole Backstabbing Asshole) - three hours

WARNINGS/TRIGGER INFO:

• All are pretty violent. In the UK, FoD is a 15 certificate and FaFDM and GBU are 18 certificates, but by today's standards they're really tame. Think about Metal Gear level - violent, but not extensively so and not gornographic. More specifically for each movie:
  
  
  • A Fistful of Dollars is the tamest. There's some torture (beating) and someone getting blasted with a shotgun.
    
    
  • For a Few Dollars More has a fairly graphic rape scene and a suicide, and is therefore the most brutal of them, in my opinion. It also has some non-graphic torture (beating) and drug use (either cannabis or opium).
    
    
  • The Good, The Bad and The Ugly has a pretty graphic torture scene (beating, strangling and a non-graphic eye gouge), and an extended and very tense scene where a character's airway is slowly being cut off. There's a very quick and descriptionless mention of one of the sympathetic main characters being a rapist (which is pretty easy to write out of your mental headcanon), a character is forced to walk in the desert and ends up with severe blisters, and one character is killed by having their head bashed repeatedly against a sharp rock.

⌈ Secret Post #1086 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

101.

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Secrets Left to Post: 14 pages, 335 secrets from Secret Submission Post #156.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Happy holidays, everyone!

I'm currently at a hotel somewhere in Georgia, and we just got back from Chinatown, where I learned that there is absolutely nothing more hilarious than a Chinese scene kid.

psst, those six of you who understand my brief and embarrassing fascination with the film. I wrote a little Tuco/Blondie-type thing over here in flashslash.

⌈ Secret Post #1085 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

101.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #155.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Dear RTD:


Thanks to the most recent episode of DW, I'm now counting down the days until you leave. ♥

( spoilery rambling )

FORTUNATELY this is an RTD episode so we know all he has to do is make The Doctor push the Magic Button and save the day.



This, and a PM I recieved which I won't expound on here, was not what I needed on Christmas.

Merry Christmas! I'm sneaking on before Christmas dinner.

We went to church, which is usually a very awkwaaaaard turtle experience anyway since both my father and I are athiests and my brother is slowly bending that way, but it was bearable. My brother got given a pipe for Christmas. A real pipe. He loves it. My parents are useless.

My father has just buried a bottle of Coke in the remains of mine and cockpuppet's snowman because there's no more room in the fridge.

I leave you with the worst lyrics in any carol, ever -

E'en so here below, below,
Let steeple bells be swungen,
And "Io, io, io!"
By priest and people sungen.

Between the strange Rorschach noises, the random suffixes and the binary solo, this is easily my least favourite Christmas song.

[21:06] fireholly99: i hate it when you are so desperate for fic you have finished searching LJ
[21:06] fireholly99: you have finished searching other archives
[21:06] fireholly99: you have finished searching FF.net
[21:07] fireholly99: and you are now searching google
[21:07] fireholly99: and the first ten pages are false hits because it just so happens that people like to use the title of the movie to describe things they're going to wank about
[21:07] fireholly99: and the eleventh page is a link to your own LJ
[21:07] fireholly99: does this ever happen to you?
[21:07] explodingdinos: not that I remember, no
[21:08] fireholly99: ....oh



[21:12] fireholly99: OKAY SERIOUSLY I AM LOSING PATIENCE WITH THE INTERNET
[21:12] fireholly99: IT'S A MOVIE ABOUT THREE GUYS CONSTANTLY BACKSTABBING EACH OTHER AND YET I'M NOW FINDING SOMEONE'S ~ANN COULTER~ FANFIC
[21:12] fireholly99: ANN
[21:12] fireholly99: COULTER
[21:12] fireholly99: WHAT
[21:13] fireholly99: WHY IS THAT EVEN SHOWING UP ON A GOOGLE SEARCH WHEN I AM GOOGLING FOR FIC ABOUT A MOVIE ABOUT -THREE GUYS CONSTANTLY BACKSTABBING EACH OTHER-
[21:13] fireholly99: i have to laugh
[21:13] fireholly99: i have to laugh or i'll cry
[21:13] fireholly99: it contains the phrase 'But Ann Coulter is the only celebrity I’ve ever spotted at Farmer’s Market that I wound up fucking in the ass, hard.'
[21:14] fireholly99: there's an F!S if there ever was one



[21:17] fireholly99: alright
[21:17] fireholly99: i have found VIDDING META
[21:18] fireholly99: for SPN
[21:18] fireholly99: which has fallen under this banner
[21:18] fireholly99: i am contemplating murdering the internet
[21:18] explodingdinos: why not search for the character's names
[21:18] explodingdinos: instead of the title
[21:18] fireholly99: ....it's a movie about THE MAN WITH NO NAME
[21:18] fireholly99: you tell me why not



[21:19] fireholly99: OH WHAT THE FLYING BALLS
[21:19] fireholly99: I JUST FOUND athena_crikey'S PERSONAL WEBSITE
[21:19] fireholly99: WHICH LISTS HER SNAKE/OTACON FANFIC
[21:20] fireholly99: I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW THE HELL THAT HAPPENED
[21:20] fireholly99: small world