Honestly, I think describing camera shots goes against the whole "only transcripts of stupid dialogue" thing that Facepalm Studios does all the time with the trailers, but this one didn't work with just dialogue.
(1 Rozpoint to anyone who gets the references with the "allies").
The other one is All Summer In A Day by Ray Bradbury.
Those three stories ("Time Enough At Last", All Summer in A Day, and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas) were brain-hurtingly sad stories that I couldn't deal with, wrecking me in Elementary, Middle, and High School respectively.
So, of course, I gave them all the chance for a happy, if self-indulgent ending, because I can write and that MAKES ME LIKE UNTO A GOD.
Time for facts about Iguanodon bernissartensis, and the genus Iguanodon in general, which may or may not consist of only I. bernissartensis and its subspecies. You can remember bernissartensis by remembering that it was discovered in the bernissart mines of Belgium. I didn't know that until I read a book today. Learning is fun and YOU WILL LEARN.
Iguanodon was the second dinosaur genus formally named, after Megalosaurus and before everything else. People originally thought it walked on all four legs and had an awesome spike on its nose, but it turns out it had two awesome spikes where thumbs ought to be and none on its nose. It's generally accepted now that it could walk on its hind legs or on all fours, but it's still argued how much it did one as opposed to the other. Speaking of opposing things, Iguanodon had a totally mind-boggling opposable thumb where the pinky ought to be. It's other three fingers ended in stumpy hoof-type-looking bones for walking on, like as the ancestors of the horse did, with the pinky presumably out so as to be fancy because Iguanodon is just classy like that.
So yeah, it can graze ground-level plants, grab leaves from trees, and stab predators with its thumb-spikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_CP4SuoTU&t=113s An 80s-style Star Wars anime short film with loads of "crazy detail and shading", with a kind of techno-y soundtrack (please note that the actual animation was done by one dude with way too much time on his hands).
Fifteen years and two days after KOTOR II was released, I have finally beaten it.
Thus ends he story. All hail the mighty Jedi Consular/Jedi Watchman Girias Gase in the green bathrobe he claims is a Matukai Apprentice Robe, he of the sweet beard and silver lightsabers.
140 hours, 907 savestates over all the years and all the characters I've made.
Girias Gase (a randomly generated name that I liked because it was alliterative and reminded me of "curious case") was created on Nov 28, 2019, and with him I beat the game today, Dec 27, 2019.
My Revan in my steam game of KOTOR I was a lightside female named Crin Cora (a randomly generated name that I liked because it was alliterative).
You're reminding me of just how proud I was to beat the Elite 4 and Gary with a team of underleveled Pokémon in gen 1.
Incidentally, I acquired Pokémon Crystal sometime around 2001-2002. In recent years I discovered hacks of it that made it possible to catch all 251 pokémon in one game, which finally solved the problem I had wherein I'd need to trade between multiple copies of the game in different versions just to catch 'em all. I have yet to play a Pokémon game beyond gen 2, or finish a Pokémon game beyond gen 1, and it's basically waited all these years for my attention, all this time since the first time I've fallen off the Pokémon train when the TV episodes became too much to follow and the I couldn't get around to finishing the game.
I still haven't done it yet. I started a little while ago but then never finished because I lost my save file.
One day I'll finish this. One day I'll fulfill this promise to myself.
Denethor, in the LOTR books, is a man who would do well in the A Song of Ice and Fire books. His flaw is that he sees enemies where there are only friends, that he gives up hope when things seem hopeless, that after so long fighting against evil without the assistance of Gandalf or the Elves or any of the other major players on the side of Good that he thinks they aren't on his side. It is difficult to fool him, and dangerous to try. He is brilliant, but is fundamentally ignorant of the truth. When he is right, it is almost impossible to convince him to be wrong. When he is wrong, it is almost impossible to convince him to be right. It's tragic, and frustrating, and his perseverance and eventual despair is so relate-able to me that it hurts. And so much is lost because he is so aware of the threat that he can't see anything else.
Eddard Stark, in the A Song of Ice and Fire books, would do well in Middle-Earth, as some noble vassal of a good king. His flaw is that, in a very few key instances, he saw friends when there were only enemies, that he doesn't bail from a bad situation when he really ought to. He tries to be better than the world he lives in, he tries to remake the world in a better image, he doesn't try to win at Crusader Kings but rather to make a world where the people in charge aren't playing Crusader Kings anymore. And he can't. The world won't let him. The author won't let him. And he dies before he can get around to investigating the existential threat to humanity that he was right about to look into before the plot happened. And so much hope is lost because he never became fully aware of the threat.
The biggest flaw in the A Song of Ice and Fire books was that the author fell so much in love with the political dramas and games of corruption and betrayal that it went beyond believable into grimdark.
One Grima Wormtongue (and his evil buddies) manipulating the king with magic and lies, so that the people being massacred have no access to their king, lord, and protector? Upsetting and unsettling to me, even as an adult. An entire high court full of those guys, with multiple royal families full of those guys, with traditions of treachery going back generations? Entirely too stupid to believe (and, of course, Eddard Stark cannot believe it).
The fact that the common audience perception of Denethor and Eddard Stark is as stupid dingbats bothers me. They're brilliant as rulers and are competent enough to be in the "if I have to be a fictional peasant, but I get to choose a fictional ruler to be a peasant of, I'd probably choose this guy" pile. They're just wrong for the worlds and the stories that they're in.
I feel I ought to say something. Something meaningful. Something that would put this decade in context, from discovering Tv Tropes, to making friends, to here. The years where my brother was a missionary. The years where my sister was a missionary. The marriage of my brother. The marriages of my cousins. The death of my grandfathers and grandmother. But I can't. I don't have the words.
I was too hard on this year. I was too hard on this decade. I forgive it, perhaps too late.
There there, it's okay. You weren't such a bad decade after all. A lot was lost, yes, irrevocably, but survival is a win. A blue sky is a success. It's not a new sun, just new warmth and new light.
Well, I'm not going to do the "start Star Wars at the exact time so that the Death Star will explode at midnight" thing, which would be at the time this post is posted, as far as I can tell from internet memes. I've seen the Death Star explode enough times.
So, it has come to this. One of my textbooks for this semester exists only as an Ebook. I had to spend 63 dollars on an electronic book. If I had had a better GPA last semester, the assistance would have paid all of it. Had I not passed all my classes last semester, I'd have had to pay full price for it.
This is a first, and I hate it. I was hoping to get through life without doing this.
So, it has come to this. One of my textbooks for this semester exists only as an Ebook. I had to spend 63 dollars on an electronic book. If I had had a better GPA last semester, the assistance would have paid all of it. Had I not passed all my classes last semester, I'd have had to pay full price for it.
This is a first, and I hate it. I was hoping to get through life without doing this.
Oh, you insufferable wretch. Self-flagellation doesn't excuse breaking the promises you make to yourself, it only makes you a self-pitying hypocrite. It's not endearing, it's not amusing, and it doesn't get you any sympathy.
Also, getting yelled at by your insufferably naÏve younger self for betraying your values is MY thing.
We're reaching levels of meta-criticism that shouldn't be possible.
Go enjoy your idyllic existences thinking that everything is falling apart, but not realizing how much you'll miss the years you're in when you get to the years that are actual garbage. Meanwhile, the True Self over here has ACTUAL STUFF to be bothered about, and is trying to appreciate the current year despite that, so bleh.
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Incidentally, I acquired Pokémon Crystal sometime around 2001-2002. In recent years I discovered hacks of it that made it possible to catch all 251 pokémon in one game, which finally solved the problem I had wherein I'd need to trade between multiple copies of the game in different versions just to catch 'em all. I have yet to play a Pokémon game beyond gen 2, or finish a Pokémon game beyond gen 1, and it's basically waited all these years for my attention, all this time since the first time I've fallen off the Pokémon train when the TV episodes became too much to follow and the I couldn't get around to finishing the game.
I still haven't done it yet. I started a little while ago but then never finished because I lost my save file.
One day I'll finish this. One day I'll fulfill this promise to myself.