skyguy675

[skyguy675]

Entry 9: 5/12/24 - The Unrestrained Coolness and the Related Tragedy of Darth MotherFucking Maul

Darth Maul is so fucking cool. This much is obvious. For a while - and I mean a while - it was the only thing he had going. He rocked up, had like two generic vaguely sinister lines, and then Ray Parks pulled down his hood, ignited his twin-bladed lightsaber of ultimate badassery and treated us to a dazzling display of acrobatics and a combat style he more-or-less had to invent himself. Given how the majority of lightsaber fights in prior movies are just guys wacking deconstructed cameras at each other (no joke), the improved choreography in Phantom Menace (a movie that doesn’t offer a whole lot more than some boring political talk and more than a few racial caricatures) would have been enough, so it’s absolutely above the call of duty that they brought in a concept as mad and as well-done as the double-sided lightsaber (yes I know its called the saber-staff - shut up).

Then he impales a racist, has a one on one with Ewan Mcgregor so intense that the filmmakers had to slow it down in post, before being promptly cut in half.

I mean damn. What an entrance. What an exit. Maul was cool. His weapon was cool. His design was cool. His fucking music is a contender for the best in Star Wars.

Fun fact, his horns were originally going to be feathers, but they got misinterpreted when the prosthetics guys got the concept art. Also, also, Ray Parks forgot he had an earring in when he showed up on set. George Lucas said he quite liked the addition and so it was decided they’d keep it in.

Point is, I love Darth Maul, and if he’d stayed dead there I’d have been perfectly happy with what we got. It was short, sweet, uncomplicated and sometimes that’s all you need. Phantom Menace needed a lot more, of course, but man did they get Maul right. Could he have benefited from more personality? Sure, but it goes without saying that he kicks ass in every bit of the just under fifteen minutes he’s on screen for that movie, and he is ninety percent of the reason that I watch it.

But then comes along Sam Witwer. 

God damn do I love Sam Witwer. As an unabashed, lifelong fan of Star Wars (even though sometimes the fandom makes me want to pull my own eyes out) it is so nice to have him behind the scenes. For Solo, during Maul’s reveal as the movie-long veiled threat of Crimson Dawn (a shitty revelation that ultimately did nothing to improve an otherwise unnecessary movie), the film-makers made a point of wanting Ray Parks (yes they got him back, the legendary stunt and choreography dude himself, to sit in a chair) to stand (showing off his new cg robot legs to catch up any mooks who hadn’t seen Clone Wars) and ignite his double-sided lightsaber, at which point Sam Witwer gingerly raised his hand and delicately informed them that he couldn’t do that on account it being cut in half in Phantom Menace.

It’s just nice to know that there’s someone on the sets of those movies that cares about the same kind of shit as I do - even though it doesn’t really matter. I mean he remade his double-sided lightsaber anyway for season seven of Clone Wars.

So the Witwer Maul is a slight recharacterisation of Maul as we know him from episode one. Or rather, to put it another way, the Witwer Maul is a characterisation of Maul as we don’t know him from episode one. I mean what’s there to know? Step one start the music, step two kick-ass.

But the Witwer Maul has a lot more meat to his bones. First of all he’s got a wider vocabulary than I think we give him credit for, and he’s a lot more contemplative and soft spoken, though prone to not uncommon growling outbursts. You get the sense that he is a man who, having been separated from his Master, from all prior forms of authority and, crucially, direction, is finally stepping - with his new robotic chicken legs - into his own independence. And not just that, but command, for he has an apprentice - a brother - the rather stupidly named Savage Opress. 

There’s a kind of elegance to the way he carries himself, a sort of austere regality, as if the knowledge that he was once Palpatine’s chosen apprentice, privy to all his grand schemes, has rubbed off on him. He seems under no delusion that it was going to be anyone other than him who would be the heir apparent to the Sith.

And this is what I really wanted to talk about. Maul is so fucking cool, just on a basic ass level. Foundation coolsville is he - population Maul.

And what’s funny about this is that he’s, well, one of the most pathetic characters in Star Wars.

I genuinely think Darth Maul, amazingly, has become one of the best written characters in Star Wars. It’s not even something that’s focused on too much, and I think because of this he's able to be so nuanced a character. This is frankly incredible coming from a character who, upon intial inspection, may come across a tad one note; literally all of his lines, barring a choice few, are some variation on “your destruction is near… my evil plan… Ezra, don’t leave me, I’m so lonely.”

That last one’s reading between the lines a little but you get the point.

But I think, when you first meet him in Clone Wars, when he’s a big metal spider, a mad raving lunatic, that is Maul at his purist. I think that animalistic depiction of Maul, chattering and wallowing in a junk world, stays at the core of the Witwer Maul the entire time. And of course he’s brought back to something resembling sanity, but all he can do is rave endlessly about Kenobi and his hatred and his revenge. These things occupy his every thought, and no matter what he does in service of these motivators, he’s never satisfied. He exacts his vengeance against Kenobi by killing Satine before his eyes, and even then, after years of being hunted by the empire, the only thing he can bring himself to do is hunt down that same Jedi that slew him all those years ago and attempt once again to destroy him.

Ultimately, his downfall.

Maul reads to me as a character that is trapped, and maybe he doesn’t fully realise he is until about Rebels, but even then he’s still a helpless slave to his actions. There’s this really poignant moment when he is beaten by Ben Kenobi in a spaghetti western style duel over the Dunes of Tatooine, where he lies dying in his nemesis’ arms and proclaims that Luke will avenge them.

Them.

It’s almost an admission that Maul knows his actions had no great meaning to them, that it was nothing but baseless slaughter in the name of a primal rage, but that he felt helpless to do anything else because hating was all that he knew. It was all he could understand - Sidious had seen to that. Hatred was quite literally his fuel, it got him through every tribulation and he knew that as long as he could hold onto it, hold onto his mindless thirst for vengeance against someone or other, he could survive through any level of setback, brutality or degradation, be it the lost of his destiny, his legs, his brother. 

Maul is a heinously awful person, but in that awfulness there is a victimhood that shaped him to what he became - a pathetic, vile monster, demanding in every way except words to be put down. And when he is, he accepts it without hesitation, without resentment, without anger. He finally lets it go, assured that the one thing he desired most, righteous vengeance for the wrongs committed to him by the person that truly manufactured them, will come to fruition.

Yeah I’ve watched Darth Porg’s “Maul - Hatred” video before, why do you ask?

[skyguy675]

Entry 7: 13/11/24 - Money Problems and Work Experience

Friends, Romans, countrymen: tis been, as they say, a bit of a busy week.

Last week I had my work experience at the Daily Mirror. Somewhat daunting but I think I made a decent enough impression, and I’ve come away with a handful of professional pieces I can call my own and add to my portfolio (currently consisting of nothing), all so I may flog myself as useful to the corpo overlords that rule our world.

A world I’m increasingly feeling like I don’t belong in. This has been a slow realisation, propelled steadily along the dingy log-ride of my insecurity by my hanging around all my clever friends, who seem to be, if not flourishing, then at the very least well-paid in it. Never was this revelation more stark than when I visited Canary Wharf. The entire mini-peninsula (or min-insula, if you will) is dominated entirely by corporate skyscrapers and the clean, environmentally-thoughtful vibe only achievable by the garishly wealthy who consider the health of the planet less as a vocational thing or as something prudent to keep in mind for the state of the future, but because they don’t like the sight of litter on their commute. It’s this thin, elvish veneer of cleanliness-is-close-to-godliness attitude that ensures environmentalism is a rich-person’s sport, devised in part to make them look more mindful. 

Well, Souron was an elf too! And at the very least his dark evil tower had some style to it.

I just struggled to get comfortable, with the densest population of people of colour (I hate that term but I can’t think of an alternative at the moment) being the staff at the Burger King I went to for lunch, the indoor shopping centre coming with its own car dealership and a boat-load of coffee shops that seem to cater to a clientele comprised exclusively of wankers who can only take their bespoke form of latte is it’s made with chemistry-level precision and the right sort of pre-digested bean. 

But it’s where the money is and where I ought to be trying to break into. I can’t let my peers get so far ahead of me. It was fine when they were just academically superior - I never really tried, or at least I want to say that I didn’t - but just seeing their success pile, the mountainous shadow of their progress towering over my meagre pile of achievements… it’s tough. 

It also goes to show what a small, spiteful little creature that I am. I can’t even be happy for them.

Well, I am. Cerebrally I am. They’re wonderful people and deserve wonderful lives. I’m just scared it will get to a point they’ll start having them without me.

And speaking of life, I really ought to be getting back to it,

Ruairi  

[skyguy675]

Entry 6: 31/10/24 - Smeg it; the Paradigm Daleks

Yeah, fuck it why not. I was gonna do this entry on the costuming (or rather the lack of armouring) when it came to female women jedi in The Clone Wars,* but I’ve lost my motivation for that topic. Perhaps it has something to do with Niamh shooting it down as an actual problem. I dunno, it’s a complicated discussion rife with ignorance on both sides; I know more about Star Wars, she knows more about feminism (one of us is doing significantly better in life than the other - guess which).

So yeah, not feeling the Star Wars equal rights campaign, but what I am feeling is daleks. I don’t even really wanna do an entry today, but it’s been a while since my last one and I gotta keep it up for the sake of my touch-typing practice, and I can, and probably do, talk about daleks in my sleep (I’m not actually ace, as it turns out, I just say that to assuage the embarrassment of driving off all my one night stands with my incessant, nocturnal ranking of dalek variants [the winner is the dalek emperor for those wondering, followed shortly by Rusty, the Girly Dalek - otherwise known as the dalek from Dalek** - Dalek Sec and then Dalek Caan]).

And prompted by a reddit post I saw asking why the paradigm daleks weren’t received too well, I feel like… answering it.

Ah, the paradigm daleks. Moffat’s new paradigm… daleks. Conceptually cool and, in person, intimidating, towering over even the lanky Mr Matt Smith. What happened? They should have been a slam dunk.

Well, it just so happens that their reveal was orchestrated in such a way that it undermined almost literally every effect the alterations were meant to emphasise.

For a start, they were massive. They were dominating. They were scary.

In person.

On camera… not so much. 

For one, we never actually saw them next to anything other than other paradigm daleks, at least until the season finale. The Russel T Davies time war daleks present didn’t get to share so much as some gossip, let alone a shot, before being summarily EXTERMINATED, so there went the possibility of that comparison. And what certainly didn’t lend some much needed fear factor to their unwieldy bulk was the set in which they made their debut in. I mean, what happened, for god’s sake? This was meant to be a dalek ship, straight from the end of series four. What was this bleak, white industrial setting? The fucking dalek rec room? I’m fairly sure to make room for some of the sci-fi shit they had to move out a ping pong table. 

The big boss man straight, white, cis supreme dalek is millimetres away taking out a light fixture (or something, I dunno what it is - it’s a big aluminium box hanging from the ceiling, it’s like a set Red Dwarf would try and flog as a spaceship), making them feel awkward and clumsy and cramped, which is funny because that was exactly the description the operators inside them gave when asked how it was to pilot the buggers. Yeah, turns out all that extra heft made them even more uncomfortable. 

So they were heavier, fatter, hunchbacked, harder to control and this was all in service of an effect that was not only countermanded, but overpowered, by the environment they emerged into. Hey, I know the feeling; the world just ain’t built for tall people - I have to duck in my local pub or otherwise get brained by a beam.

And whilst all these issues were detractors, certainly, nothing quite dammed them like the colours. On reflection, it seems like nothing new - different colours denoting different stations in the echelon - but something about these ones… just stank. The boldness was admirable, but misguided, and nothing highlighted this blunder quite like the procession of their unveiling ceremony. 

One by one, they came sliding out, like some weird car show for peculiarly shaped dodgems. And whilst I stand by the big boss man straight, white, cis dalek looking dope and acting as a serviceable alternative to the three-bulbed supreme dalek of yester-series, the choice to have an ambassador of each colour variant lined up in such a fashion as would be appropriate for the in-box toy line, turned them from a menacing council of evil, the latest in ethnic-clensing technology, into the mighty morphin power daleks. They look like their role on Skaro was to run the dalek branch of cbeebies. 

(LOOK CHILDREN! CAN YOU SEE THE BIRD? YOU CAN?! THEN IT WILL BE EXTERMINATED!!! AND REMEMBER CHILDREN OUR LESSON FOR THE DAY: THE ONLY GOOD TIME LORD IS AN EXTERMINATED ONE.)

It’s a shame the show never got to expand on its intention to have different dedicated roles for each dalek colour, as it wasn’t initially evident that the main dalek foot solider was the red ones and that the red one present in this batch was just the show model, along with the blue strategist, the orange scientist, and the yellow eternal dalek, whatever that means (I’m almost certain even the people that came up with the yellow eternal dalek don’t know what the fuck he does). Maybe if they’d been able to emphasise the differing roles of the daleks, things could have been different. But even so, Moffat didn’t end up doing all that much with the daleks in general, so ultimately it doesn’t matter.

I’m not sure I’d really have gotten into the red drone daleks being the default foot solider. Gone was the rough, rugged, frankenstein-bolted exterior of the time war weathered bronze models, here were the daleks at gay pride. Something about the smoothness and the brightness of colour made them feel too toy-like (though the shiny chrome ones shown off in later episodes look dope as fuck - I totally think they worked better as an officer class).

But yeah, that’s about the long and short of it. It’s a comical blip in Doctor Who history, and a valiant attempt to shake things up, but I think returning to the bronze model was the right call, even if we’re definitely due an update. The tricky thing with dalek designs I feel is that they’re effective in their simplicity, so trying to make too dramatic a change could be playing with fire.

One underrated aspect I find with the daleks, particularly the classic ones, is that they age remarkably well. Even in their first ever episode back in the Hartnell years, for all the flak their basic looks garners, despite all the mocking lampoons about their ability to create stiff peaks with one hand and unclog a sink with the other, they maintain a certain kind of elegance. You look at a silurian back in the day and you laugh at the shoddy costume; a dalek back in the day just looks like a dalek, and in my mind that is the pinnacle of iconic and effective design. Good on you, Terry.

Ruairi

*In brief all the male jedi get outfit changes more reflective of the wartime era in the Clone Wars series - complete with altered battle robes and a present, if somewhat perfunctory, display of armour (usually vambraces) - whereas all the women are rocking the same gettups they were portrayed with in Attack of the Clones. I can only assume this is a case of the designers being too happy with how they looked in their base states and being unwilling to alter them to account for different environments - the sort of mentality that keeps women characters in high-heels at all times. What’s especially curious is that there’s a good mix of conservative outfits and slutty outfits, neither of which are particularly suited for a battlefield. They’re meant to be generals. And don’t get me started on Ahsoka’s first outfit.

**Niamh named her the girly dalek when it absorbed Rose Tyler’s DNA and claimed “this is not life. This is sickness” and Niamh was like “girl same”.

[skyguy675]

Entry 5: 23/10/24 - Why Bela Lugosi is the Scariest Vampire of Film

No this isn’t meant to come across as pretentious. I know the film is old as balls and as such is about as thrilling as a sock puppet opera operated by your nan (which doubles playfully as a description of the effects on display, especially if you’re watching the American one and not the Spanish).

I’m not trying to be snooty about the Draculas that followed, look down at them and proclaim myself as the most cultured dude at the Monster Mash, but Dracula 1931 I think possesses a quality that all following iterations quite lack. 

And this lacking isn’t necessarily a bad thing, they’re just different, and different is good, particularly when it comes to a character as prevalent as our Vlad. It’s why Doctor Who has survived so long. Characters like Dracula, or James Bond or the Joker that seem to transcend the original actors that portrayed them need variety or they’ll straight up wither and  die with the rest of their zeitgeist. Just look at the ragged remains of Indianna Jones: every time they stick Harrison Ford’s haggard jowls onto the poster of another modern foray into that franchise a bit of me just wants to get on my knees and beg for them to put him out of his misery (Indianna Jones, not Harrison, although there is an argument for that if his appearances on recent talk shows are anything to go by).

Moving on…

I goddamn love vampires. Always have. Every aspect, every version - even the stupid shit. From the horror shlock of the Hammer Sequels to the bedazzled luminescence of the tween vampire romance craze. 

It’s funny this, because in terms of media presence I’ve begun to consider them, if not the opposite, then as some sort of bizarro reflection of elves (I mean I defy you to watch Blade or Underworld and tell me those aren’t just alt elves). And whilst my opinion of elves has already been well logged, I find myself regarding vampires with more favour, perhaps because they make no bones about how much they’d be dicks to humanity if they actually existed. Elves would be superior around you, but pretend not to know the reason why; vamps would straight up call you an inferior worm and have you on your knees, and I find something about that oddly… appealing… 

Ahem. Moving on.

And of course, if you like vampires it stands to reason that you’d bloody love Dracula, and if that’s the case, you're spoiled for choice when it comes to varieties. I should know, me and my brother for the past couple of months having been going through as many Universal Monster movies as we could get our mitts on, and naturally that results in quite a helluva lot of Draculas, but the one that has consistently stayed with me throughout is, arguably, the first (sorry Nosferatu, you’re cool but you go out a bit like a nerd).

And the specific thing that stays with me about Dracula 1931’s performance is his inhumanity, or rather the inhumanity subtly hiding behind his delivered humanity. This may seem like an odd thing to comment upon as, given the constraints of film making at the time, he, arguably, is the Dracula version that spends most time as a human, and it seems like all future iterations want to do is emphasise how much a monstrous beast he truly is/has become (Dracula 1958, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Dracula Untold etc,) ergo 1931 has to be the most human seeming Dracula, surely? He’s just a guy, afterall.

I disagree. I think the opposite is true.

And this is a pretty typical result when a creative work is met with constraint - innovation. They couldn’t have him transform into an enormous man-bat thing and clatter a werewolf across a laboratory (Van Helsing), and they couldn’t have him fly about the place, hissing and tearing out throats (Hammer Dracula and Bram Stoker’s Dracula respectively), so what did they do? 

They made his human presence the scariest fucking thing in the world.

And no it’s not the scariest thing in terms of like shock horror, but cerebrally, it chills me to the bone. The Dracula in Dracula 1931 is an inhuman monster, put on this earth to do little more than feed on the blood of humans. He has no ulterior motive, no reincarnated love, no tragic backstory, just all the powers of the night, a preference for O negative and a one track mindset - feed.

I’m reminded of two things when I see him: Rob Zombie’s Halloween and John Carpenter’s The Thing (crazy, I know). The former comes from the little speech Dr Loomis gives when talking about Micheal Miers (the er, killer, not Shrek, unless some serious revelations come to light about the Shrek one, in which case, both) in where he says: “These eyes do not see what you and I can see. Behind these eyes, one finds only blackness, the absence of light. These are the eyes of a psychopath.”

That is the most fitting description I can come up with when it comes to Bela Lugosi’s performance. There is nothing behind those eyes. They’re not even bestial, they’re just empty. All that dialogue, all those interactions, all those little touches - fake. 

And this comes in quite beautifully with my comparison with the Thing, because the Thing is a creature of near perfect mimicry, down to the cell, down to the personality, and I just find the concept of a creature as soulless and hollow as either the Thing or Dracula being able to so effectively mimic human behaviour without possessing even a glimmer of humanity themselves so god damn unnerving. 

It’s a lure, an angler fish’s lamp, aggressive mimicry directed specifically at humans. And it makes you wonder. If whatever Dracula presents himself as is fake, what is he really like? We’re given no other possibilities, so we’re left having to just assume there’s nothing. 

I just find something so inherently terrifying about this concept, the harsh simplicity to Dracula 1931's existence. All the other Draculas have some aspect of them that's recognisable as being human, be it wrath, pride, lust, happiness and so forth. A descent into beasthood still comes from a human place, and even when they morph into some ungodly puppet or cg beast, there's still something in that we, as humans - living, breathing, thinking, sentient creatures - can understand. Contemplating the higher brain functions of Dracula 1931 is like trying to contemplate the structure of the void.

To bring in a third movie comparison: insect politics. The associated vampiric creature with our Vlad shouldn’t ever have been a bat, or a wolf - it should have been a spider.

There is no love, no compassion, no mercy, no soul, no person. Behind those eyes, there are no thoughts, save for the instincts of an ambush predator.

That is all there is: the prey, the predator, the latter’s dark, endless hunger and whatever means through which it might be able to sate it. 

Ruairi

P.S: I know Bela Lugosi wasn’t the first on screen Dracula either, but like… he’s first anyone cares about so like shut up.

[skyguy675]

Entry 4: 22/10/24 - Subject Matter is an Unknown Quantity

Ah, hello, fancy seeing you here today. Probably gonna be a short one since this entry will be the result of a desire to log a journal update without any particularly clear idea what it will be about. Oh well, let’s live dangerously.

I just came off my touch-typing course.

Correction: I just came off one smegging task/mission/worksheet of my touch-typing course after having spent, no joke, three smegging days trying to five star it. I thought I was getting pretty wizzo at the thing, but then the plying smeggers (throwing in some sci-fi swears for the fun of it btw) that devised the thing threw in all these random symbols and bits of punctuation I don’t think I’ve ever used before in my life.

“Great job at getting a measly three stars” it mocks; “Aim for 45 wpm” it cries; “You failure” calls the mocking little voice in the back, front, centre and little cubby hole of my brain. 

I’m trying, Mother!

Look I’m not gonna pretend to be a touch-typing prodigy, but I was batting that on average (more  or less) before you started chucking in all that % and ^ mumbo jumbo, most of which you can only input with the application of the smegging shift key. I mean, way to break my flow. There’s one assignment that’s basically all numbers and weirdo characters that I’ve just relented I’ll only ever have three stars on.

I know the entire point is to put things in efficiently, but how commonly exactly do they expect the ^ key to be? I’ve done God knows how many essays over the years, written dozens of short stories, several longform stories (not to brag; none but three of them turned into something of any significance – point is I’ve written heaps) and I’ve never once had the need to use ^ before being taught how to use it. I don’t even know what ^ is called - it’s just the arrow above six (God help me if I’m ever forced to read this out loud). The beautiful irony is that by having complained about ^ here, I’ll have effectively used it more times in one short period than I expect I’ll ever have to in the rest of my life. 

And the numbers, oy gevalt, do the numbers ever get on my tits. They’re bloody far away for a start, and for a follow up, relative to the wholesome home row, they’ve all been shunted to the plying left, so every time my fingers detach and go space walking in search of number 7, I have to keep this in mind and estimate where in the fecking of all reality they might be lest I press 8 instead, or, worse, two numbers, which can be really bad if you’re filling out a form of some description:

“Ah, Mr Bolton, I see we’ve got you down for 87 colonoscopies today. Someone Is certainly an eager beaver!” Doctor reaches over and buzzes in an assistant. “Candace, kindly cancel my 3 O’clock; we have a pervert in room 2.”

I understand the hypothetical above works under (ha, above and under; love it when shit like that happens) the flawed logic that that the way in which somebody gets a colonoscopy is by inputting how many they would like on some kind of online form, and ignore how the implication is that I wanted 8 colonoscopies in the first place, but still it gets across my worry.

I just, just don’t think the picking and pressing way of typing is all that inefficient when it comes to all these freak characters they’re expecting me to be rattling off in quick succession. I mean, for the love of God, I can just write seven, and who even uses %? Just write percent like a normal person.

And what doesn’t help is that the course was made by Americans, and I - if it hasn’t already been made clear by my choice in vernacular and barely lidded rage over mundane shit - am British, hence I have to forgo their instructions vis-a-vis where shit is on the keyboard on account that it couldn’t be more flaming wrong. What plying use do I have for the $ anyway? And even if I did, at the end of the day, if I did have to talk about American money, as established before I wouldn’t use the smegging $ symbol, I’d write the fucking word: dollar.

Clear!?

Ah, why bother. In a couple years, I’ll probably be better off learning how to write yuan.

Ruairi

P.S:

(I do want to emphasise that my Mother is in fact a lovely woman… on occasion).

[skyguy675]

Entry 3: 19/10/24 - God I Hate Elves

God, I fucking hate elves.

Sorry. I know that’s a hell of a thing to come out the gates with, but Jesus have they ever earned my eternal disdain, the eternal aspect being pertinent in particular. Due to the famous immortality of elves, they’ll be able to fully appreciate all its intricate nuances.

And, of course, when I say elves, what I am really saying in whispered subtext is Legolas. 

Sorry Gimli. Whilst I have a great reverence and love for you, your dumbass princeling boyfriend deserves a slandering - made no less worthy of it by him then going out with someone so much younger (perhaps he should be called LEO-las). 

I mean he arrested the guy’s Dad and then proceeded to mock his own future boyfriend’s baby pics (bet that made for an interesting couples therapy session on their honeymoon revisiting Fangorn Forest [treebeard was definitely the therapist, making for a slow session]).

All I’m saying is it looks a bit sus. In my book, Legolas belongs in the same camp as Padme and either one of the two boyfriend options in Twilight, maybe more the werewolf one because of that uncomfortable imprinting business.

It’s just the modern consensus. Every time I show somebody new the Lord of the Rings, without fail Legolas is their favourite character (me and my Mum were arguing about this the entire time) and like… I get it. He does cool shit and he looks beautiful (at least among hobbits and humans - though he’s edged out by Aragorn, [phew Daddy!], and is nothing compared to the sexual powerhouse that is Gimli, son of Gloin). 

But he’s as talkative and actually charismatic as a wet rice cake, I’m certain of this. And I’m certain that the writers of those movies knew this too, because they give all the general chatter scenes to Gimli, the better and more inspirational character. I can’t help but think to that one scene in the second film where Aragorn and Legolas reunite after Aragorn has a “little tumble off the cliff” and instead of having a deep and meaningful conversation illustrative of the full capacity of their intricate and powerful friendship, they cut to a longshot and mute the guys, presumably because the writers attempted to think of a conversation sustained by the loquacious wit of our favourite socially maladjusted wood elf before coming to the realisation that one could never exist. 

Being trapped in a lift with Legolas sounds like it’d be worse than hell.

And yeah, he goes through an arc (allegedly) but so does Gimli – the exact same one - and Gimli has the boon of actually also having a personality, so there.

It’s funny, because otherwise I don’t actually mind the elves in Lord of the Rings. In the Hobbit they’re antagonists (book continuity – always the book continuity with the Hobbit), and in Lord of the Rings they’re far removed from the central plot and act more like other worldly beings bestowing gifts and boons Athena style onto our mortal protagonists. They’re like mini-Gandalfs, who incidentally does cool stuff as well like Legolas but I’m more inclined to favour him because he has occasions where he gets his ass beat and has to regenerate Doctor Who style, and he’s just a sweet old man type dude that visits his little friends, throws cool ass parties, smokes weed and fells balrogs. He just has a more developed and wholesome vibe.

So, elves in middle-earth are implemented quite well in my opinion, but outside of that I just generally hate them and people’s obsession with them. A predominantly Aryan race, extremely self-possessed and arrogant, without hesitation or exception believing themselves to be naturally superior to every other filthier, uglier and lesser species. Gees, what’s not to like? But it’s made up for by the fact that they know how to do their hair.

Now, boys and girls, given the history (and to be honest present) of our own world, what tends to happen when you have a meeting between two groups, one of which believes them to be (and, depending on the narrative, actually is) superior to the other? That’s right. A bad thing, mostly for the group that can’t live to a billion and do backflips from the age of three.

I just don’t like people extolling mindless beauty and idolising an idealised fantasy creature that would a hundred percent bully those people in real life if they existed. Best case scenario is they’re the vegans of fantasy land, worse case is they’re the Nazis.  At least vampires just eat you, not try and give you unwanted life advice. 

And they gave us goths, to which I say: phew Mummy!

Tangent over:

Ruairi

[skyguy675]

Entry 2: 15/10/24 - My Fingers Hurt Doing This

Alright, welcome back - I’m just as surprised as you. Typically, (was going to write usually there, but was terrified I wouldn’t be able to find the letters on the keyboard with my burgeoning touch-typing powers, but avoidance is contrary to the exercise, so I suppose that means I have to make up for it: usually usually usually) anyway…

Typically, these little projects of mine don’t have all that long a future ahead of them, but this looks promising; it might have legs indeed.

I was going to leave entry 2 for tomorrow in favour of continuing to crush it at my online touch-typing course, but little did I know that we were up to learning how to do numbers. Oy vey, are they bloody far from the comfort of the home row, the nice and friendly home row; the veritable trek is absolute murder on my pinky and ring finger, and that’s not even to speak of my tendons. I dunno, maybe I’m just weak - the entire process has been an adjustment. Maybe it’s the result of my muscles having to wrestle their foundational components out of nothing more than refreshers and drumsticks, which is precisely what I’m munching on to sustain myself through this laborious typing malarky.

I got my new keyboard today. It’s very cool - mechanical, which I understand vaguely to be better, but honestly what I find myself more mesmerised by is the backlighting. It’s pretty sci-fi, not gonna lie. You can toggle between different modes, like reactive which makes individual keys glow when I tap them, or random which is self-explanatory and makes me feel like I’m in the Matrix staring at descending strands of green code. And before you ask cos I know how it may sound, but the lighting isn’t rainbow. It’s a cool, solid, professional-looking white. Rainbow RGBs are for gaming nerds, and I suspect the reason for that is because gaming nerds don’t really know what a good aesthetic is, never mind how to design one. Techno-rainbow suits their sensibilities and helps remind them how cool their futuristic purchase was - it’s aesthetics on easy mode for peeps that don’t have an inkling of taste.

I should know, it’s what I’ve got my mouse set to. For the time being anyways.

It’s another promising step in kitting out my desktop setup. Next will be the actual PC. I’m torn between any number from the Acer Aspire TP/XP series. Afterall, I just want a machine that I can boot up and do some writing with, but I also want some gumption behind it because… well because I’m a guy and such things like powerful computers make me happy, regardless as to whether or not I can actually put any of said power to good use. My justification is that the more powerful something is, the more operating system updates it’ll be able to endure, the longer it will last. That’s my paltry understanding anyway; I’ll have to ask Micheal.

Well, that about wraps it up for this session. Interesting it was sustained mainly by wittering on about computers, but I suppose I’ll just have to wait until this becomes a natural thing for me to delve deep into the asthenosphere of my psyche.

Oh well, see you next time,

Don’t touch that dial,

Ruairi

[skyguy675]

Entry 1: 10/10/24 - Another in a long list of First Gos

Alright welcome to my new journal (incidentally, hi future me. If this pans out like you’re hoping for, you’ll be revisiting this entry a lot). I don’t know how regular this is gonna turn out, but hey-ho, it’s worth a shot.

As part of my efforts to try and learn how to touch-type, I thought it might be prudent to work on something consistent and long term, and whilst my creative pieces ostensibly fit the bill to get in some practice, in reality I spend more time thinking about them than I do actually writing the blasted things. So, something more consistent and maintainable. Forward the tedious documentation of my ponderously boring lifestyle.

I suppose I’ll just document small oddities and occurrences in my life - odd and novel thoughts alike. Y’know, the “us’” (as in shortened for usual).

As for what happened today, nothing very much of interest. I woke to an alarm and had a mild panic about what it was for. I’ll suspect I won’t remember that this even happened. This makes it all the more interesting, documenting it, I mean. I’ll have to imagine it anew on subsequent future read-throughs, as if it happened to another person. I suppose this makes sense. My future self is as alien to myself as I am (or will be) to him. It’s like forgetting in two directions, very quantum.

I’m pleased to see I’m already getting into philosophical rambling - that'll be humorous to gander at later in life.

I watched the second My Hero Academia movie with Shea today. Very colourful. Not really much to comment on if you’re not a My Hero fan. Some very lovely animated bits. And later, me, Mother and Shea watched the final episode of Clone Wars season one - Cad Bane showed up, which was exciting. We’ve started only watching one episode at a time instead of two at the behest of Smother, who for all intents and purposes fully governs the rate at which we go through shows. I’m worried this means she’s losing interest, but she seemed pretty vocal during the episode, and anyway it’s only season one. Everyone knows you gotta hold through to season three.

I was meant to look into getting a job today - reach out to the careers committee thing at my university - and I had intended to assemble a list of jobs I wanted following the council of Niamh and Micheal, but my heart’s not really in it. I don’t know what I want, only what I don’t. Hopefully, when a future Ruairi looks back at this at some point in the future, he’ll have slightly more direction. As of now, the automatic conveyance belt of education has reached its end and deposited me at my stop, though I’m not all too certain it was the destination the brochure quite promised.

Oh well,

See you around, future Ruairi

Signed present, going on past, Ruairi