On a totally unrelated subject... are you watching Game of Thrones by chance? It seems as if everyone is crazy for it, and I have neither read the books nor seen a single episode. I did get curious enough at one point to have found and read plot summaries online but was not sufficiently drawn to it. A big part of it is that I have a mental block on magic; the moment I stumble on dragons and witches my brain shuts off. But also it seemed too violent and kind of too shades-of-grey, both in terms of the characters' pervasive moral ambiguity and in the EL James gratuitous smut sense. Not sure if I am missing out on something good... what is your take on it?
And continuing the unrelated subject theme... have you ever tried making sense of Tumblr? If yes, any success? or any wiki-type place you might know of that could explain to a newbie how the thing is organised? I tried looking it up about 5 years ago while in my UK politics craze phase, was totally confused, and now I heard that the most active Black Sails community is based there and am curious to check it out but unsure if I will end up as baffled as I was back then...
Sorry for dropping off; I picked up a rather nasty case of flu in early May, and had to deal with the consequences for two weeks more or less until this past weekend.
You have intrigued me with Game of Thrones; it is one thing observing what seems to be a mass-infatuation fan following from a distance and another having a first-hand stamp of approval that is as sound and thoughtful as yours. It was obvious that it is a cut above the likes of Harry Potter or Twilight or Hunger Games, where the following is largely teenage-driven, but I continued obstinately avoiding it: first it was the fantasy element that put me off, then the fact that the characters keep getting killed off - I am ridiculously tenacious / cautious in that respect and do not feel like falling for characters that may kick the bucket at any moment. But between your thumbs-up and my increasing awareness of the injustice of judging something without having either read or watched it, I suppose I will, at some point, at least watch some of season 1 (that, apart from being a logical starting point, has an added incentive in the shape of Sean Bean) for a more informed impression… not sure when, but I’ll get to it eventually. At the very least, I ought to see if any of the characters catch my fancy; with the show in its sixth season I should then at least have a good idea of how long a character I may like (other than Bean who, I know, buys it at the end of s1) has managed to hang around ;)
As for Tumblr, now that I got into the habit of occasionally scrolling through a dozen or so satirical / political Twitter feeds (without subscribing to Twitter), taking a second look at Tumblr just now has been somewhat less confusing - but also explained and, unfortunately, confirmed my initial aversion: Tumblr is a sort of hybrid / halfway option between LJ-type platforms and Twitter, and it was the Twitterishness that I hated at first glance back then, with the content posted in lots of small, shallow, graphics-heavy, minimal-creativity tidbits that encourage an immediate reaction or reblogging but are not suited to more substantial posts and meaningful discussion, and worst of all, seem to push users towards constantly watching the feeds, making it harder for a lurker to occasionally poke in. I took a very quick look now and although I saw a few blog names that seemed interesting, I gave up within ten minutes: 99% of the content seems to consist of screengrabs and gifs, and discussion seems non-existent. Maybe if I subscribed and followed a few blogs, I’d come across interesting stuff; but it reminds me too much of the law of diminishing returns, having to dig though mountains of screencaps for a few lines of teenage roleplay ficlets. So I suspect I’ll stay out :(
And continuing the unrelated subject theme... have you ever tried making sense of Tumblr? If yes, any success? or any wiki-type place you might know of that could explain to a newbie how the thing is organised? I tried looking it up about 5 years ago while in my UK politics craze phase, was totally confused, and now I heard that the most active Black Sails community is based there and am curious to check it out but unsure if I will end up as baffled as I was back then...
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You have intrigued me with Game of Thrones; it is one thing observing what seems to be a mass-infatuation fan following from a distance and another having a first-hand stamp of approval that is as sound and thoughtful as yours. It was obvious that it is a cut above the likes of Harry Potter or Twilight or Hunger Games, where the following is largely teenage-driven, but I continued obstinately avoiding it: first it was the fantasy element that put me off, then the fact that the characters keep getting killed off - I am ridiculously tenacious / cautious in that respect and do not feel like falling for characters that may kick the bucket at any moment. But between your thumbs-up and my increasing awareness of the injustice of judging something without having either read or watched it, I suppose I will, at some point, at least watch some of season 1 (that, apart from being a logical starting point, has an added incentive in the shape of Sean Bean) for a more informed impression… not sure when, but I’ll get to it eventually. At the very least, I ought to see if any of the characters catch my fancy; with the show in its sixth season I should then at least have a good idea of how long a character I may like (other than Bean who, I know, buys it at the end of s1) has managed to hang around ;)
As for Tumblr, now that I got into the habit of occasionally scrolling through a dozen or so satirical / political Twitter feeds (without subscribing to Twitter), taking a second look at Tumblr just now has been somewhat less confusing - but also explained and, unfortunately, confirmed my initial aversion: Tumblr is a sort of hybrid / halfway option between LJ-type platforms and Twitter, and it was the Twitterishness that I hated at first glance back then, with the content posted in lots of small, shallow, graphics-heavy, minimal-creativity tidbits that encourage an immediate reaction or reblogging but are not suited to more substantial posts and meaningful discussion, and worst of all, seem to push users towards constantly watching the feeds, making it harder for a lurker to occasionally poke in. I took a very quick look now and although I saw a few blog names that seemed interesting, I gave up within ten minutes: 99% of the content seems to consist of screengrabs and gifs, and discussion seems non-existent. Maybe if I subscribed and followed a few blogs, I’d come across interesting stuff; but it reminds me too much of the law of diminishing returns, having to dig though mountains of screencaps for a few lines of teenage roleplay ficlets. So I suspect I’ll stay out :(
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