Category: Stuff Found Online

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You are winner

14 Game of Thrones Actors on Who Should Sit on the Iron Throne

Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth)

“Dude! I’m with Team Stannis! It’s got to be Stan the Man, doesn’t it? He’s the right man for the job! And I work for him. But if you go any lower, it should be Davos. That’s what we’re aiming for.”

Mostly I’m perturbed at the image of Davos saying “dude”. Although Pod’s choice is exactly what my answer would be if I were him:

Daniel Portman (Podrick Payne)

“Brienne of Tarth, ’cause I work for her, and I need a job at the end of the day.”

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Stranger in a strange land

Damn it, I have something in my eye.

Anthropology Professor Jack Weatherford Honored in Mongolia

Q: You and your wife, Walker Weatherford, spend your summers in Mongolia. What makes Mongolia so special to you both?

A: Walker and I are now legal residents of Mongolia and spend five months a year in our home there. I have learned more from seeing how the Mongolians deal with Walker, who has multiple sclerosis, than from all the books I’ve read. She is in a wheelchair, mostly paralyzed, and barely able to speak. Of course, in Mongolia there are no special facilities for disabled people; the streets and sidewalks are a jumble of broken cement and open holes. Yet when we step out of our building, hands always appear. No one says, “May I help you?” They simply do it and disappear, expecting no thanks. I never have to ask for help. Every week a few musicians come by to play the horse-head fiddle and sing for Walker, in the belief that music is the best medicine. Pop singers and hip-hop groups have come for the same purpose, saying that it will keep our home warm. One singer who spoke no English learned to sing “Only You” by The Platters because it’s a song Walker loves. People from all over the countryside send us dairy products. Our kitchen is usually full of yoghurt, hard cream, curds, mare’s milk, mutton, horse ribs, and wild berries. Lamas, shamans, and healers come by to offer prayers, incense, herbal teas, chants, massage, and other forms of traditional treatments. Even strangers send camel wool or cashmere blankets, shawls, and socks to keep Walker warm. Mongolia has welcomed us with a care and warmth I can scarcely comprehend. The greatest honor for the two of us is not any official recognition but these daily acts of concern, along with the young parents who have asked us to name their newborn children. Their request illustrates how much they want to keep the connection with their past and pass it on to their children. I feel that through these children whom we have named, Walker and I will be a part of Mongolia for another generation, long after we are gone.

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The end of the world and what happens after

Archive of Our Own recently discussed something that I’ve never given much thought: what happens to our online presence after we die.

Okay, say you get run over by a bus. Hard luck, but death is that greatest of levellers which brings low the mighty and the weak. But there’s that Facebook account, the Gmail address, the blog, that thing of yours on Tumblr, the YouTube Let’s Play videos you’ve uploaded, and all the rest of the digital works that you leave behind as an online reminder that the world once contained you. What happens to all of that when you’re gone?

Nothing consistent, that’s what. Different sites have different policies, and it is likely that they won’t match exactly what you would want to be done after your death.

Well and good. This is the 21st century, after all, so why not write a social media will? Your executor will need to do all sorts of things that you’ve instructed them, after all, so why not include a few lines about your Facebook account on your will?

But there’s the rather sensitive sticking point of fanfiction. Maybe your executor isn’t someone you want reading your embarrassing works, which you were only comfortable sharing with anonymous people online instead of the aunt who knew you when you were in diapers. Even if you’re not leery of having the person responsible for selling your possessions handle your Transformers fics, they won’t necessarily be a fan of the same things you were and won’t understand exactly what to do with your stuff.

Enter the fannish next of kin. They’ll understand which fics you wanted deleted and which fics you were okay with leaving for future generations to peruse (and maybe laugh at). It’s a nice idea, and it’s one I’m glad Archive of Our Own came up with.

For myself, as someone who’s studied history I say preserve my fics until the heat death of the universe. I admit that they aren’t great literature, but there’s something to be learned even from the most unassuming of writings – linguistic quirks, the zeitgeist of a specific era, how ideas are propagated, and many more things I am unable to imagine.

Enjoy my fics, future people. I poured my heart and soul into them, once upon a time.

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Woe, you sons of Israel

Terrible news, everyone! I’ve just come across rumours that a second season of The Devil is a Part-Timer will not be produced. Apparently publishers of light novel series, like the one this anime is based on, often fund the development of an anime solely to drum up interest in the original books. With their mission accomplished, they often do not bother producing more seasons. It’s cheaper to publish books than to make an entire anime, after all.

I’m hoping this is nothing but baseless speculation, but by spring it’ll be almost two years since the first season was broadcast. I’m starting to get antsy and may eventually cave and buy the books or the manga, playing right into the publisher’s hands. At least the story will continue somewhere, but I will still hope with all my heart that an animated adaptation is still coming sometime.

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Anime: the year that was

Okay, this video of basically every anime TV series that came out in 2014 is quite impressive in its breadth and its aesthetic unity. Props go to its obsessive creator. I think I only recognized maybe 2% of the shows that were featured.

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There and back again

Ever watch the movie Primer, about a couple of engineers inventing and exploiting a time machine in their garage? Ever wonder what it would be like to see that seemingly-realistic depiction of science at work in an anime setting?

Because Steins;Gate has you covered. I like this series, which is actually an adaptation of a visual novel game – in essence, a Choose Your Own Adventure story with added pictures. And guess what? The translated version is available for digital purchase straight from the comfort of your couch.

The game is $30, though, so it seems that the Japanese haven’t gotten the hang of this digital pricing thing yet. Were it $5 I would seriously be tempted to get it. But hey, maybe there’ll be a deal there someday.

My thanks go out to Hanako Games for alerting me to this opportunity. I’m afraid I’m not going to buy Long Live the Queen as many reviews say that it’s too short, but I’ll keep an eye out for other games from this studio.

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The superhero from apartment 23

Everyone, meet your new Jessica Jones: Krysten Ritter, the bitch from Apartment 23! And Michael Colter is the frontrunner for playing Luke Cage. I’m not familiar with him, but I lurve Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23. Possibly Ritter may need to bulk up a bit to play our washed out superhero, but she’s certainly got the comedic timing for the funny bits, and her turn as Jesse Pinkman’s drug addict girlfriend in Breaking Bad shows that she’s pretty good at this drama thing too.

It’s interesting to look back on my posts about the TV adaptation of Alias. The earliest rumblings of such a thing were back in 2010, meaning that it took at least five years, and probably a bit more, to get this show from being a vague idea to something that shows up on your TV screen. I wonder, is that the normal development timeframe?

Anyway, I’m cautiously optimistic. I wonder who will play Daredevil and Iron Fist? Here’s hoping for more casting news soon.

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The return of the king

A new version of King’s Quest is coming in 2015 . . . for the PS3 and PS4? What the hell?

My thoughts, in the order they came to me: First, the game studio Sierra has been resurrected and is making games again? Second, this adventure game franchise has been dead for like 15 years now. There are avid gamers of voting age who have never heard of these games. Third, all previous game are indelibly linked to the PC and it would be odd to play them with a controller. Fourth, I’m getting the awful impression from the trailer that this new game will be full of Quick Time Events – i.e., flashing prompts will show up on screen telling you to press up, press down, press R2, and do the hokey pokey, and god help you if you screw up because you’ll have to start all over again.

Boy, I’m just full of positive energy, aren’t I? I’ll allow that this might turn out to be a fun game, but unless it gets near-universally good word of mouth then I’ll probably never play it.

What particularly sucks for me is that apparently Telltale Entertainment, makers of The Walking Dead game, were in the midst of developing their own take on King’s Quest when they had to drop it and make way for this one. Ah, what might have been.

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Behind the scenes

I just came across this Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussion run by Hiroaki Yura, the producer of Under the Dog. Basically, Reddit users ask questions and the person running the discussion answers. Obviously the person being asked is not obligated to answer all questions, but quite a lot of juicy dirt still manages to come out.
 
In this case, Yura doesn’t reveal much about the anime production process that should be too surprising for people familiar with how sausages get made in the entertainment industry at large. His description of the committee process for securing funding and approval for creative decisions, for example, sounds rather like the way studios send movies for endless rewrites and focus group testings and recasting. If you think about it, it’s bizarre that a bunch of beancounters should be the arbiters of expression, as if having lots of money is the most important criterion for creating art.

But that criticism of the present system of production is neither here nor there. It’s depressing, but the fact that the rich use their money to perpetuate their biases is not a revelatory observation.

What I did find interesting is the point that under the current production regime, anime with negative or tragic stories tend not to get produced. I hadn’t thought about it, but I haven’t seen a tearjerker anime show in a while. It’s all been happy and fun and affirming, and any sadness experienced are merely temporary setbacks or obstacles that the protagonist overcomes on the road to self-actualization.

Anyway, I’m still not convinced that Under the Dog will be all that, but it’s interesting to see that an insider to the anime industry is also sick of all the shows pandering to otaku.

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Uhh . . .

This is seriously one of the most batshit synopses I’ve ever read:

Akikaze Cosmos is a regular elementary student who also helps take care of the hostel that her mom operates in the town of Hanami. She is incredibly responsible for her age and seems much more mature than the other older residents of the hostel, like the high school girl Soyokaze, the college drunk Sonoko, and the pervert Raita. Everything about this hostel and the town of Hanami seems normal except that everything outside of the town is a nuclear desert where no one is allowed to enter. But when Cosmos unwillingly wanders into the lifeless desert, she is somehow transformed into a magical angel.