A Book of Tongues: THUD

[handful_ofdust]

Words added: 1,042.
Where you at?: Chapter Two, section two...still. I hope to get through this conversation my characters are having sometime before the end of the week.
Words overall: 14,261.
Victories: I don't think I'm going to need to do much more research to get to the end of this sequence, which is a form of ecstasy in itself.
Challenges: Given all the discussion of cultural appropriation going on recently, I have to admit that much of what I just wrote will seem horribly racist at first glance--not in terms of content, hopefully, but definitely in terms of how my characters are behaving. Unfortunately, it's also historically accurate, and I don't know how to get around that except to keep doing what I've been doing: Making the non-white characters hopefully just as awesome and threatening, and trying to soothe the sting with small jokes like having one guy insist on speaking pidgin Cantonese to people who obviously only speak Mandarin.

Also: 500 more words on "Strange Weight", which takes me almost past the reef of action this chapter keeps snagging on. Can I hook this up before Friday? Stay tuned.

P.S.: I was also maybe thinking of doing that first lines of open files thing, cf. cristalia. Anyone interested?

P.P.S.: Hey, you know what else really reeks, in Hot New TV? The Mentalist. Oh my good God: I could sort of take the pilot, especially since Jane was revealed to have already been bitch-slapped at least once for his heinous behavior--not that I'm in favor of wives and kids dying, of course--but the hilarious part is, it doesn't really seem to have changed him much beyond making him harass a completely different set of people for purposes of justice as opposed to purposes of making lots of dough. Then I was watching last night's episode and realized that it hit two particular notes kelpqueen had recently pointed out to me as being completely unbearable: Its main character consistently acts in a way no other human being would ever let him get away with for long, and whenever he comes onscreen, the soundtrack suddenly turns into a herky-jerky mishmash of ooh, oh HEY! something FUNNY! something FUNNY GONNA HAPPEN! any fuckin' time now, NO DON'T GO, FUUUUNNNNYYYY!...

Yeah, not so much. Eat a dick, Mentalist.

Comments

Mentalist

[kelpqueen.livejournal.com]

See, there's something about The Mentalist that I really love, but I think it's just Simon Baker in the role. He IS terribly annoying, but it's like the rest of the show just disappears around him. Which, actually, isn't good. The ensemble cast needs to step it up. I know Baker's the focus, but still. I just love the premise so much--maybe it's because I would LOVE to be able to read people so easily. Maybe that's why it enthralls me. And yeah, I'm totally the one who gets annoyed with all that "ooh something funny's gonna happen" bullshit music, and stupid behaviour from characters that would get them slapped in real life. And I want Robin whatshernose (the lieutenant or whatever rank she is) to stop just being a fawning wide-eyed sycophant at the feet of Patrick Jane and actually BE A FUCKING COP. Argh. And some of the plots are asinine--I want there to be mysteries that are difficult to solve. And for them to deal with the moral implications of Jane's constant manipulations of people. And unfortunately, to me the most interesting thing is of course Jane's wackadoo connection/ relationship with Red John the serial killer. Now THAT'S the interesting part of the show. And it's unfortunate how little they deal with it, making almost every episode self-contained, when it would be much more interesting to have it crop up in every episode, if only in small ways. Has the success of almost every single fucking HBO serialized show not taught network TV anything? Christ on a cracker! But I'm still (shamefully) mesmerized for some reason...maybe the mentalist is hypnotizing me? Really looking forward to Tim Roth in Lie to Me, which has almost exactly the same premise, and has its season premiere tonight.

Re: Mentalist

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I kind of think he MUST be hypnotizing you, because you've just named ten other reasons I hate the show. In a row!;) And yet this is, apparently, the only breakout hit of last season. I blame God.