Fun stuff
I think what happens with lj posts is that I keep a mental list of stuff I want to talk about, and it gets longer and longer until I cave. Or it gets SO long that I despair at how many things I want to cover and run away. I'm kind of on the edge right now, so here goes. I'm going to just skip right over the rather sad beginning of 2016 and stick to the (mostly) fun stuff.
1. Have only watched about a third of the first XF reboot episode so far. I'm only here for Skinner, but from the glimpses I saw when I skipped through, he is looking fine. Oh, yes.
2. The Night Manager trailer! (Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie) I admit, I was completely underwhelmed by the title and was going to give it a miss based on that alone (yes, yes, book, cover) but having seen the trailer I am so enthused. What do you think? It's here if you haven't seen it. I haven't seen HL in anything for ages, and it's based on a le Carré book I think, so it should be solid if nothing else.
3. Also, the High-Rise trailer. This is certainly turning into the Year of the Hiddleston. I don't even care if it's crap, it looks wonderful.
4. Saw The Big Short on Monday which I really enjoyed for the most part. It was like they were so terrified of being boring that they went way over the top trying to make it entertaining - amped-up soundtrack, great visual effects, convoluted metaphors with Jenga blocks, random guest appearances, asides to camera. As I was saying elsewhere, I was fascinated by the global financial crisis and have read a few books and seen a few documentaries, but never realised some people actually MADE a great deal of money out of it, so that was a fascinating angle. I will definitely be reading the book by Michael Lewis (as well as Boomerang, which takes a broader global outlook). I always enjoy Christian Bale, and quite like Steve Carrell even though I thought he was a little oddly cast. One of the most striking things I remember about one of the documentaries I saw is when they "toured" some of the homes that people had abandoned due to not being able to meet their mortgage payments (something essentially replicated in the movie) and in one house they'd left a pile of photographs. That was particularly unsettling - all those faces, and presumably memories, just left lying on the carpet.
5. Random fic recs - These are both pretty old, but I was just casting around for something light and fun to read and found these.
The timing is actually completely coincidental, but given the above, it seems appropriate to mention Sherlock Discovers Smarter Investing® (Sherlock/John, NC-17) by buttsnax, which was so outrageous I was in tears of laughter. “Tell me how-!” he cried as Sherlock fucked him like a subsidiary corporation left holding a toxic mortgage asset during the 2008 financial crisis. This is the kind of delightful crack that is just impossible to explain to anyone outside fandom.Or even inside fandom.
Also loved Dirty Little Secret by VelvetMace, in which John suddenly discovers he's been married to Mycroft for months. Don't fight it, John.
6. Thanks again to all the people who chimed in on how they write long fic. It was so interesting to see the broad spectrum of approaches, which basically went from "plan nothing" to "plan everything" *g*. I'm struggling a bit at the moment, but persevering - at this point I've drafted roughly double what's already been posted (36,000+ vs 18,000 words), and found I was pretty okay up to around the 25,000 word mark and then it just all got too much to hold in my head. So I tried writing an outline of chapters with points I wanted to cover. Then when I started writing from that, I ended up pushing point after point to the 'next chapter'. Net result: around 3,000 words. Amount of outline covered: two sentences. This is ridiculous *facepalm*. And I already have this feeling that there'll inevitably be something I forget to put in. But hey, it's fanfic - I'll just do the best I can and see what I can learn from it. Mostly, I suspect it'll be "stick to writing short fanfic" *g*
Hope you're all doing okay :)
1. Have only watched about a third of the first XF reboot episode so far. I'm only here for Skinner, but from the glimpses I saw when I skipped through, he is looking fine. Oh, yes.
2. The Night Manager trailer! (Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie) I admit, I was completely underwhelmed by the title and was going to give it a miss based on that alone (yes, yes, book, cover) but having seen the trailer I am so enthused. What do you think? It's here if you haven't seen it. I haven't seen HL in anything for ages, and it's based on a le Carré book I think, so it should be solid if nothing else.
3. Also, the High-Rise trailer. This is certainly turning into the Year of the Hiddleston. I don't even care if it's crap, it looks wonderful.
4. Saw The Big Short on Monday which I really enjoyed for the most part. It was like they were so terrified of being boring that they went way over the top trying to make it entertaining - amped-up soundtrack, great visual effects, convoluted metaphors with Jenga blocks, random guest appearances, asides to camera. As I was saying elsewhere, I was fascinated by the global financial crisis and have read a few books and seen a few documentaries, but never realised some people actually MADE a great deal of money out of it, so that was a fascinating angle. I will definitely be reading the book by Michael Lewis (as well as Boomerang, which takes a broader global outlook). I always enjoy Christian Bale, and quite like Steve Carrell even though I thought he was a little oddly cast. One of the most striking things I remember about one of the documentaries I saw is when they "toured" some of the homes that people had abandoned due to not being able to meet their mortgage payments (something essentially replicated in the movie) and in one house they'd left a pile of photographs. That was particularly unsettling - all those faces, and presumably memories, just left lying on the carpet.
5. Random fic recs - These are both pretty old, but I was just casting around for something light and fun to read and found these.
The timing is actually completely coincidental, but given the above, it seems appropriate to mention Sherlock Discovers Smarter Investing® (Sherlock/John, NC-17) by buttsnax, which was so outrageous I was in tears of laughter. “Tell me how-!” he cried as Sherlock fucked him like a subsidiary corporation left holding a toxic mortgage asset during the 2008 financial crisis. This is the kind of delightful crack that is just impossible to explain to anyone outside fandom.Or even inside fandom.
Also loved Dirty Little Secret by VelvetMace, in which John suddenly discovers he's been married to Mycroft for months. Don't fight it, John.
6. Thanks again to all the people who chimed in on how they write long fic. It was so interesting to see the broad spectrum of approaches, which basically went from "plan nothing" to "plan everything" *g*. I'm struggling a bit at the moment, but persevering - at this point I've drafted roughly double what's already been posted (36,000+ vs 18,000 words), and found I was pretty okay up to around the 25,000 word mark and then it just all got too much to hold in my head. So I tried writing an outline of chapters with points I wanted to cover. Then when I started writing from that, I ended up pushing point after point to the 'next chapter'. Net result: around 3,000 words. Amount of outline covered: two sentences. This is ridiculous *facepalm*. And I already have this feeling that there'll inevitably be something I forget to put in. But hey, it's fanfic - I'll just do the best I can and see what I can learn from it. Mostly, I suspect it'll be "stick to writing short fanfic" *g*
Hope you're all doing okay :)