you roll the dice and you deal with it
Lifted directly from ignipes
Give me topics for that Top Five meme-thing where you tell me to list my Top Five Fandom Things, any fannish topic, favorites or non-favorites or whatever, I don't know how it's worded but you know what I mean:
Give me topics for Top Five lists and I will list them.
I haven't talked about it much lately but I am very gleeful that Generation Kill is still alive and kicking as a fandom. It's been playing on HBO Canada lately and I have rediscovered my love through big, shiny HD prettiness. I have a post somewhere on the net for *cough* and every couple of days there's new people who find it and tell me they're trying out the series, which makes me very happy indeed. :D
I have a feeling that a lot of it has to do with Alexander Skarsgard and how he suddenly seems to have been chosen as the next "it boy" in fandom. Which, by the way: good choice, fandom! And trust me when I say that while Eric is proving to be one of the best things about True Blood, he doesn't hold a candle to Brad Colbert or the rest of Recon in Generation Kill.
The main community generation_kill has been hosting a porn skirmish this summer, and the community has been hopping with fic entries and I really need to find time to sit down and read through some of them. I wanted to contribute too but the whole quasi-RPS stuff weirdness is still around for me. *hands* I don't know. I also see there is some minor character genfic which is at the top of my list to read next. I shall post recs soon!
In the meantime have a picspam and quote post of one of my favourite minor characters in Generation Kill: Cpl Walt Hasser
The real guy he's based on seems like a decent sort too:
Walter Hasser, who shot the man in the blue car, is one of the most
well-liked Marines in the platoon. He’s twenty-three years old, six feet two
inches tall and knows the lyrics to just about every hit country song
recorded between 1960 and 1974.Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash are
his heroes. He has a beautiful country singing voice, and in his case Colbert
makes a special exemption to his “no country music” rule. Following
the ZSU AAA gun attack south of Al Hayy during which Hasser had
climbed into the turret under fire and had taken out the enemy gun position,
the team had seized the bridge north of the town to the accompaniment
of his singing Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
Raised in a rented farmhouse in Louden County, Virginia, by a single
mom who, he says, “didn’t have no college,” Hasser grew up working on
farms and hunting. He seems like your basic country good old boy, but
what he enjoys most about the Marine Corps is both the brotherhood and
the diversity. “Back home you pal around with your own kind,” he says.
“I never thought my best friends would be Mexicans. Here, we’re brothers,
and we all look out for each other. That’s the best part of being in a war.
We all get to be together.”
Earlier in the morning, when everyone had been complaining about the
sorry state of MREs, Hasser had explained his basic philosophy of life.
“Every chance you have, you should try to hook people up. People in the
MRE factory don’t understand that. Hell, if I worked there I’d be sneaking
in extra pound cakes, jalapeño cheese packs,Tootsie Rolls.You gotta throw
things to people when you can.”
Now, driving out of Al Muwaffaqiyah, with the sound of that dying
man’s gasping still fresh in everyone’s mind, Hasser stares out the window
into a blazing sunset. The SAW is loose on his lap. His wrists are draped
across the top of the weapon, but his fingers aren’t touching it, almost like
he’s ignoring it.
“How are you doing?” I ask him.
“Just taking it all in,” he says.
The objective tonight on April 2 is to reach the outskirts of Al Kut,
the Marine Corps’ goal in central Iraq. It’s about thirty kilometers north
of Al Muwaffaqiyah. Before the Marines set out from Al Muwaffaqiyah,
several old men on the road stopped Second Platoon, offering detailed information
about ambushes ahead. Fick, Meesh and I talked to them for several
minutes. One of the old men caught my eye. He pointed up the road
and dragged his finger across his neck, making a throat-slashing gesture
to indicate danger ahead.
Now, as we drive up the route in convoy with the battalion, Colbert
picks up reports of sporadic gunfire from the radio. “We’re expecting
enemy contact at the intersection two clicks up the road,” he says. “Person,
get your NVGs out. This could go past dark.”
“One thing about the Marines,” Person says.“We always know how to
wrap up a day.”
“Small-arms fire to the rear,” Colbert says.
“Yeah. Game on!” Trombley says excitedly from the turret. It’s his
first time on the Mark-19, and he’s eager for the chance to blow stuff up
with it.
“Stay frosty,Walt,” Colbert says.
“Yeah,” Hasser says.
I look over at him next to me. He’s still not touching the SAW. He’s just
listlessly staring out the window. I’m glad of his humanity. The fact that
he’s clearly so broken up by his shooting of that civilian just confirms
what a decent guy he is. But I wish he wasn’t showing it right now.
In other, er... entertainment media based on the Iraq War, I saw The Hurt Locker last night with a friend.
Definitely one of the best movies I've seen this summer. I think it worked because it kept defying your expectations in guessing how it would play out. I think it's hard to keep up a note of dread and tension throughout a whole movie, but that's pretty much how it happened here. You thought you knew where they were going with it (because we've all seen that scene from that war movie before...) and then they start there and then go off in a new direction and it never feels like a cop out, probably because that's how things tend to go in RL.
The characters defy the usual war movie conventions as well (and here's where I found myself flashing back to Generation Kill) in that they're real, complicated people presented without the hero varnish, and their actions and emotions sometimes remain opaque to the audience. For example: James is an asshole, there's no denying that. But he also saves a lot of lives. But he does so partly because he's an adrenaline junkie and usually by putting his team's lives in danger. But he clearly thinks the work he does is important, and thinks about the impact it has on lives around him, see: the soccer boy. And ultimately - is he doing it more for the adrenaline rush it gives him? And if he is, is that wrong, if he's saving lives in the process?
Mmmm, meaty character interaction! I also loved his exchanges with Sanford, especially in what tended to remain unsaid between them.
And on a shallow note: holy hell was it slashy. The undertones in the fight between Sanford and James in the middle of the movie... *whistles* Their relationship is complex and very fucked up in the movie, and I do wonder how it could be played out in fic.
And ignoring all the stuff I said above: It works very well as an action/suspense movie, way better than most Hollywood Blockbusters. I don't think I've heard such nervous laughter and sharp winces when the tension ratchets up in a movie theatre for a long time.
Quick Picspam of the trailer 'cause I can:
The bomb defusing, adrenaline junkie himself, James
Disarming the massive car bomb outside the UN headquarters
The cautious, CIA-trained Sanborn, who doesn't know if he wants to kiss or punch James half the time.
And Specialist Eldridge, who just wants to get through this tour of duty without his commanding officer getting him killed. *hugs him*
Give me topics for that Top Five meme-thing where you tell me to list my Top Five Fandom Things, any fannish topic, favorites or non-favorites or whatever, I don't know how it's worded but you know what I mean:
Give me topics for Top Five lists and I will list them.
I haven't talked about it much lately but I am very gleeful that Generation Kill is still alive and kicking as a fandom. It's been playing on HBO Canada lately and I have rediscovered my love through big, shiny HD prettiness. I have a post somewhere on the net for *cough* and every couple of days there's new people who find it and tell me they're trying out the series, which makes me very happy indeed. :D
I have a feeling that a lot of it has to do with Alexander Skarsgard and how he suddenly seems to have been chosen as the next "it boy" in fandom. Which, by the way: good choice, fandom! And trust me when I say that while Eric is proving to be one of the best things about True Blood, he doesn't hold a candle to Brad Colbert or the rest of Recon in Generation Kill.
The main community generation_kill has been hosting a porn skirmish this summer, and the community has been hopping with fic entries and I really need to find time to sit down and read through some of them. I wanted to contribute too but the whole quasi-RPS stuff weirdness is still around for me. *hands* I don't know. I also see there is some minor character genfic which is at the top of my list to read next. I shall post recs soon!
In the meantime have a picspam and quote post of one of my favourite minor characters in Generation Kill: Cpl Walt Hasser
The real guy he's based on seems like a decent sort too:
Walter Hasser, who shot the man in the blue car, is one of the most
well-liked Marines in the platoon. He’s twenty-three years old, six feet two
inches tall and knows the lyrics to just about every hit country song
recorded between 1960 and 1974.Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash are
his heroes. He has a beautiful country singing voice, and in his case Colbert
makes a special exemption to his “no country music” rule. Following
the ZSU AAA gun attack south of Al Hayy during which Hasser had
climbed into the turret under fire and had taken out the enemy gun position,
the team had seized the bridge north of the town to the accompaniment
of his singing Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
Raised in a rented farmhouse in Louden County, Virginia, by a single
mom who, he says, “didn’t have no college,” Hasser grew up working on
farms and hunting. He seems like your basic country good old boy, but
what he enjoys most about the Marine Corps is both the brotherhood and
the diversity. “Back home you pal around with your own kind,” he says.
“I never thought my best friends would be Mexicans. Here, we’re brothers,
and we all look out for each other. That’s the best part of being in a war.
We all get to be together.”
Earlier in the morning, when everyone had been complaining about the
sorry state of MREs, Hasser had explained his basic philosophy of life.
“Every chance you have, you should try to hook people up. People in the
MRE factory don’t understand that. Hell, if I worked there I’d be sneaking
in extra pound cakes, jalapeño cheese packs,Tootsie Rolls.You gotta throw
things to people when you can.”
Now, driving out of Al Muwaffaqiyah, with the sound of that dying
man’s gasping still fresh in everyone’s mind, Hasser stares out the window
into a blazing sunset. The SAW is loose on his lap. His wrists are draped
across the top of the weapon, but his fingers aren’t touching it, almost like
he’s ignoring it.
“How are you doing?” I ask him.
“Just taking it all in,” he says.
The objective tonight on April 2 is to reach the outskirts of Al Kut,
the Marine Corps’ goal in central Iraq. It’s about thirty kilometers north
of Al Muwaffaqiyah. Before the Marines set out from Al Muwaffaqiyah,
several old men on the road stopped Second Platoon, offering detailed information
about ambushes ahead. Fick, Meesh and I talked to them for several
minutes. One of the old men caught my eye. He pointed up the road
and dragged his finger across his neck, making a throat-slashing gesture
to indicate danger ahead.
Now, as we drive up the route in convoy with the battalion, Colbert
picks up reports of sporadic gunfire from the radio. “We’re expecting
enemy contact at the intersection two clicks up the road,” he says. “Person,
get your NVGs out. This could go past dark.”
“One thing about the Marines,” Person says.“We always know how to
wrap up a day.”
“Small-arms fire to the rear,” Colbert says.
“Yeah. Game on!” Trombley says excitedly from the turret. It’s his
first time on the Mark-19, and he’s eager for the chance to blow stuff up
with it.
“Stay frosty,Walt,” Colbert says.
“Yeah,” Hasser says.
I look over at him next to me. He’s still not touching the SAW. He’s just
listlessly staring out the window. I’m glad of his humanity. The fact that
he’s clearly so broken up by his shooting of that civilian just confirms
what a decent guy he is. But I wish he wasn’t showing it right now.
In other, er... entertainment media based on the Iraq War, I saw The Hurt Locker last night with a friend.
Definitely one of the best movies I've seen this summer. I think it worked because it kept defying your expectations in guessing how it would play out. I think it's hard to keep up a note of dread and tension throughout a whole movie, but that's pretty much how it happened here. You thought you knew where they were going with it (because we've all seen that scene from that war movie before...) and then they start there and then go off in a new direction and it never feels like a cop out, probably because that's how things tend to go in RL.
The characters defy the usual war movie conventions as well (and here's where I found myself flashing back to Generation Kill) in that they're real, complicated people presented without the hero varnish, and their actions and emotions sometimes remain opaque to the audience. For example: James is an asshole, there's no denying that. But he also saves a lot of lives. But he does so partly because he's an adrenaline junkie and usually by putting his team's lives in danger. But he clearly thinks the work he does is important, and thinks about the impact it has on lives around him, see: the soccer boy. And ultimately - is he doing it more for the adrenaline rush it gives him? And if he is, is that wrong, if he's saving lives in the process?
Mmmm, meaty character interaction! I also loved his exchanges with Sanford, especially in what tended to remain unsaid between them.
And on a shallow note: holy hell was it slashy. The undertones in the fight between Sanford and James in the middle of the movie... *whistles* Their relationship is complex and very fucked up in the movie, and I do wonder how it could be played out in fic.
And ignoring all the stuff I said above: It works very well as an action/suspense movie, way better than most Hollywood Blockbusters. I don't think I've heard such nervous laughter and sharp winces when the tension ratchets up in a movie theatre for a long time.
Quick Picspam of the trailer 'cause I can:
The bomb defusing, adrenaline junkie himself, James
Disarming the massive car bomb outside the UN headquarters
The cautious, CIA-trained Sanborn, who doesn't know if he wants to kiss or punch James half the time.
And Specialist Eldridge, who just wants to get through this tour of duty without his commanding officer getting him killed. *hugs him*