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Dec. 17th, 2022 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lucymonsterFannish update: I am not doing Chocolate Box this year after all, because Chocolate Box mods are taking a (by the sound of it, badly needed) year off. Instead I'm doing candyheartsex! It's a one-off replacement exchange running on exactly the same schedule and I'm super excited for it.
I admit I'm also a little anxious about taking part in a gift exchange again, after having a go at writing the little ficlet I was talking about. It went really really badly. I'm so rusty: my prose felt sloppy, but worse than that, my thinking was all clouded. I couldn't seem to get the characters to do what I wanted, or even answer 'what the hell is this story about' to a satisfying extent, even though it felt so clear until I started trying to put it in words. Just, a mess. Fucking baby's first fanfic all over again. I don't want to ruin anyone's Valentine's Day by accidentally gifting them legolas by lucy, so I have to sort my shit out before signups, but right now I kind of feel like deleting gdocs and never looking at it again. Gah.
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Bret Devereaux, of in-depth military historian's analysis of LotR fame, is back again with a deeply satisfying breakdown of what made the worldbuilding in Rings of Power so broken. I have complicated feelings about RoP: it gave me a shiny new blorbo who I love to pieces (Adar, bby <33333) and I'm defensive of it thanks to all the ridiculous right-wing outrage about Black elves and female leads, but it was also just really bad, and not even in a fun trashy way, but in a borderline unwatchable way. I never put much thought into exactly what made it bad - the extent of my critical engagement was nodding along angrily with Erik Kain's coverage and ranting to my sister about how bugfuck crazy it was that Amazon put two guys with zero IMDB credits in charge of such a massive production - so I really enjoyed seeing all my vague 'something's off here' feelings laid out in Devereaux's trademark pedantic detail.
But I'm not just linking the article for RoP hatewatch reasons. It has interesting things to say about writing craft and the 'rules' of worldbuilding in general, and also some very interesting facts about volcanoes.
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Some great new metal finds this week!
All That Was Promised by Hath got recommended in a 2022 best-of that Bandcamp emailed me, and was good enough to make me forgive the fact that I've opted out of Bandcamp promo emails multiple times now so shouldn't have received it in the first place. It's blistering, richly emotive death metal with strong blackened and melodic elements. My days of being hopelessly weak for harsh vocals seasoned with just a tiny pinch of cleans are clearly coming to a middle.
Freedom of Fear win massive bonus points for being 1) Aussie and 2) female-fronted, but they honestly don't need the help. Per AMG: "influences including 90’s symphonic black metal, traces of the classic Gothenburg sound, and a heavy dose of blistering tech death". I hope they tour near me soon. I already know I won't go, but it would be nice to entertain the fantasy that I might.
Just Before Dawn fill a hole in my collection of bleak war-themed death metal that I didn't even know was there. Seriously, it feels like I should have been listening to these guys for years. They remind me a lot of Hail of Bullets, minus the really distinctive vocals but no weaker for it. Link goes to one of their newer songs about the Vietnam War. I've got WWI, WWII and plenty of War Not Otherwise Specified in rotation, but I don't think I've ever listened to metal about Vietnam.
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Edit, I almost forgot: new trailer for Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to Fallen Order! IT LOOKS AMAZING OMG.
candyheartsex! It's a one-off replacement exchange running on exactly the same schedule and I'm super excited for it.I admit I'm also a little anxious about taking part in a gift exchange again, after having a go at writing the little ficlet I was talking about. It went really really badly. I'm so rusty: my prose felt sloppy, but worse than that, my thinking was all clouded. I couldn't seem to get the characters to do what I wanted, or even answer 'what the hell is this story about' to a satisfying extent, even though it felt so clear until I started trying to put it in words. Just, a mess. Fucking baby's first fanfic all over again. I don't want to ruin anyone's Valentine's Day by accidentally gifting them legolas by lucy, so I have to sort my shit out before signups, but right now I kind of feel like deleting gdocs and never looking at it again. Gah.
-
Bret Devereaux, of in-depth military historian's analysis of LotR fame, is back again with a deeply satisfying breakdown of what made the worldbuilding in Rings of Power so broken. I have complicated feelings about RoP: it gave me a shiny new blorbo who I love to pieces (Adar, bby <33333) and I'm defensive of it thanks to all the ridiculous right-wing outrage about Black elves and female leads, but it was also just really bad, and not even in a fun trashy way, but in a borderline unwatchable way. I never put much thought into exactly what made it bad - the extent of my critical engagement was nodding along angrily with Erik Kain's coverage and ranting to my sister about how bugfuck crazy it was that Amazon put two guys with zero IMDB credits in charge of such a massive production - so I really enjoyed seeing all my vague 'something's off here' feelings laid out in Devereaux's trademark pedantic detail.
But I'm not just linking the article for RoP hatewatch reasons. It has interesting things to say about writing craft and the 'rules' of worldbuilding in general, and also some very interesting facts about volcanoes.
-
Some great new metal finds this week!
All That Was Promised by Hath got recommended in a 2022 best-of that Bandcamp emailed me, and was good enough to make me forgive the fact that I've opted out of Bandcamp promo emails multiple times now so shouldn't have received it in the first place. It's blistering, richly emotive death metal with strong blackened and melodic elements. My days of being hopelessly weak for harsh vocals seasoned with just a tiny pinch of cleans are clearly coming to a middle.
Freedom of Fear win massive bonus points for being 1) Aussie and 2) female-fronted, but they honestly don't need the help. Per AMG: "influences including 90’s symphonic black metal, traces of the classic Gothenburg sound, and a heavy dose of blistering tech death". I hope they tour near me soon. I already know I won't go, but it would be nice to entertain the fantasy that I might.
Just Before Dawn fill a hole in my collection of bleak war-themed death metal that I didn't even know was there. Seriously, it feels like I should have been listening to these guys for years. They remind me a lot of Hail of Bullets, minus the really distinctive vocals but no weaker for it. Link goes to one of their newer songs about the Vietnam War. I've got WWI, WWII and plenty of War Not Otherwise Specified in rotation, but I don't think I've ever listened to metal about Vietnam.
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Edit, I almost forgot: new trailer for Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to Fallen Order! IT LOOKS AMAZING OMG.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-17 07:13 pm (UTC)Freedom of Fear is definitely a lot techier than I usually go for, but the melodic elements make up for it. I’m sure I’ve missed lots of important clever things about their song structure, lol.
I probably should try something like that for my writing. I’ve always tended to edit as I go, which works well for me when I’m on form but - I’m learning - really stifles any kind of progress when I’m not.