some kind of forcefield

ryanpanos: 3 metre hand-built diorama of hanoi apartment block...

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:25:22 +1000

3 metre hand-built diorama of hanoi apartment block by nguyen manh hung

‘I was born and raised in an apartment block in the capital hanoi. with over 20 years experiences of living in it, I found it does not take much of urban life but rather is a complex area ‘village’ stacked on top of each other. it is self-improvement of living space, farming, growing vegetables and upgrade living conditions in the prevailing promiscuous. there are people share everything and not much about privacy, confidentiality. I question myself: ‘do angels could live together in a paradise?’

I love this, I saw it at GOMA a few months ago. Seeing it embedded in a wall at the end of a room is a really cool experience.

Doctor Who what are you doing

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:45:42 +1000

This is a post I wrote mostly for myself to try and figure out what has actually been going on in Doctor Who. Then it ended with complaining.

Series 5:

The doctor is followed by the phrase “The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall” as well as mysterious cracks in time that erase anything that enters them. Characters throughout the series indicate they have had to flee their planets as they have been destroyed somehow by ‘the silence,’ implicitly, they have been erased by the cracks. It is revealed the cracks are caused by the TARDIS exploding.

Ultimately the Pandorica is opened. This event is accompanied by the actual TARDIS explosion which causes all of existence to be swallowed up by the cracks, leaving only earth. The day is saved, the cracks are removed from the universe.

But the question remains who blew up the TARDIS?

Series 6:

It is revealed that the Silence is not the concept of silence but a species of humanoid aliens that have been on earth for millennia, and have influenced humans to develop a space program in a convoluted plot to get the Doctor killed.

It is subsequently revealed that “Silents” are a species but *the* Silence is an organisation, some of the members of which are Silents. It is revealed that the Silence want to kill the Doctor because of the prophecy that “The question will be asked, and silence will fall.” Specifically - “On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered.” The question is revealed to be “Doctor Who?”

We are left with questions - why would answering that question cause the organisation ‘the Silence’ to fall in some way? How does this relate back to “The Pandorica will open, silence will fall?” Are these just two entirely unrelated statements that were just coincidentally said together? Were the Silence conquering planets in the previous season, and it wasn’t the cracks making things vanish? Still, who blew up the TARDIS?

Series 7

The Doctor goes about his adventuring with not a Silent in sight. Eventually the question ‘Doctor Who’ is asked and answered on Trenzalore as the Silence feared but everything gets sorted out and Silence doesn’t seem to fall - the Silence aren’t even mentioned. Though various worlds and people are erased temporarily - is this ‘silence falling?’

However, the condition of the prophecy “when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer” isn’t met so it’s not clear if this is what the Silence anticipated. It is also isn’t the ‘fall of the eleventh’ though maybe it kind of is?

Who blew up the TARDIS? What does the Silence falling mean? How does this relate to ‘The Pandorica will open, silence will fall?’ Has silence fallen? Has it not? Does it matter? Is ‘silence falling’ sometimes a reference to the organisation and sometimes a reference to things being wiped out due to time shenanigans? Will any of this ever be resolved in a satisfying way?

And so

It has been two entire seasons since the mystery of ‘who or what blew up the TARDIS’ was introduced, and it hasn’t been addressed even once - even the characters don’t seem to care that there is a mysterious force that can seize control of the TARDIS at will.

This makes me less than confident that the nature of the ‘silence falling’ or the seemingly implied relationship between the Pandorica and the Silence will ever be addressed. River’s mystery has been wrapped up, Clara’s mystery has been wrapped up, why can’t we wrap up the rest of this tedious line of questions and move on to something else? Or does Moffat think he has wrapped them up?

It’s not clear whether Moffat has intentionally left these questions open and ignored them with the intent of addressing them later or if he has simply forgotten about them. Whatever the authorial intent, the result is an infuriating, inconsistent mess.

I still like Doctor Who generally, since it is largely based on episodic adventures. But the overarching story elements Steven Moffat has been setting up and subsequently failing to pay off at all just make me groan and roll my eyes whenever they are mentioned. Steven Moffat’s strengths seem to lie in writing standalone stories (like the Empty Child, which I love) but he is not very good at developing story arcs. It seems he likes to set up mysteries and then forget about them.

Here is a thing he actually said:

“There’s been a weird backlash among, I presume, fairly stupid people about the fact the shows [Doctor Who and Sherlock] are complicated and clever, but they’re both huge international hits.”

There is nothing clever about what has been happening in Doctor Who. It is ‘complicated’ in the shallowest possible way. I will be excited when a new showrunner takes over. I don’t dislike Steven Moffat as a writer but I dislike him as a head writer for Doctor Who.

“‘We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” by Kameron Hurley â A Dribble of Ink

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:11:06 +1000

“‘We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” by Kameron Hurley â A Dribble of Ink:

coelasquid:

Iâm going to tell you a story about llamas. It will be like every other story youâve ever heard about llamas: how they are covered in fine scales; how they

This kind of reminds me of a thing I talked about on a character design panel I did once, separating what you think you know from what you know you know.

typette: octopusinspace: If you’re not excited for Pacific Rim...

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:39:10 +1000

typette:

octopusinspace:

If you’re not excited for Pacific Rim get away from me.

oh my gooooooooood the first pic omg

I’m going to find all these posters and plaster my bedroom walls with them eek

I’m actually really excited that the Australian robot is called Striker Eureka. It’s an Australian reference, it sounds really cool, and it could very easily have been something dumb like Mecha Dundee or Boxing Kangaroo.

I’m actually surprised the writers bothered to do enough research to identify ‘Eureka’ as a word even related to Australia.

hexington: hoplophilia: Dragon’s Breath is a very gorgeous type...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:05:51 +1000

hexington:

hoplophilia:

Dragon’s Breath is a very gorgeous type of opal made into many types of jewelry.

They look like gateways to other dimensions… :O

OK I didn’t think this stone was real - I thought it was manufactured. Now I must obtain this precious jewel. o.O

Aw I googled this and it turns out they’re not opals, they are glass. Still, they look really awesome.

I couldn’t completely tell what was going on with...

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:12:02 +1000

I couldn’t completely tell what was going on with Vastra’s outfit but it seemed spangly and I was a fan.

Photo

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:39:01 +1000

(❁´◡`❁): michaonthemoon: yaoibutts: I love how potato in French is pomme de...

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:30:36 +1000

(❁´◡`❁): michaonthemoon: yaoibutts: I love how potato in French is pomme de...:

michaonthemoon:

yaoibutts:

I love how potato in French is pomme de terre, which pretty much means “earth apple.”

like what stupid frenchman saw this:

and said “zis petite légume looks like a, how you say, APPLE! hmmm… but it grows in ze earth… HON HON HON! MAIS OUI! C’EST UNE POMME DE TERRE!”

j’adore comment ananas se dit pineapple en anglais, ce qui veut littéralement dire “pomme de pin”, genre quel type anglais a vu ça:

et s’est dit : “ow cette étrange big fruit ressemble à une, how do you say, POMME! hmmm… mais plutôt une pomme qui pousse dans les pins… HU HU HU! OH YES, IT’S A PINEAPPLE!”

(z’avez vu, on peut le faire aussi… hon hon hon!)

ahuttoftea: sparklyanimetears: I went on Google to look up...

Mon, 20 May 2013 01:24:33 +1000

ahuttoftea:

sparklyanimetears:

I went on Google to look up more about this Yahoo buying Tumblr nonsense, and one of the comments on the article said this.

What kind of annoys me is that Tumblr actually is very mainstream and popular… Considering all the people I’ve had to tell to get off it at school…

Tumblr is mainstream as hell. People don’t seem to realise that the particular fandom gif echo chamber of a social network they have personally built on tumblr is not necessarily all of tumblr. They also fail to realise that gifs of celebrities, funny posts, and the lure of microblogging your life actually are all things that are cool and hip with the young people.

richardarmitge: she was a girl he was a boy can i make it any more convoluted and unnecessarily...

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:35:45 +1000

richardarmitge:

she was a girl

he was a boy

can i make it any more convoluted and unnecessarily complicated

viivus: Robert and Rosalind Lutece in Professor Layton-y style...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:07:39 +1000

viivus:

Robert and Rosalind Lutece in Professor Layton-y style - now with actual puzzles!

(answers over here)

Personal note - the only puzzle of these three I actually solved without getting the answer spoiled was the last one, and it took me half an hour. So. don’t feel bad about not getting it.

Trying to make simplified hands for a thing but I keep making...

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:11:13 +1000

Trying to make simplified hands for a thing but I keep making them more complicated every time I redo them.

How do I abstraction

adamusprime: i can navigate around a mac pretty well but the one thing i can’t get...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:26:00 +1000

adamusprime:

i can navigate around a mac pretty well but the one thing i can’t get over

why

cant

you

maximize

windows

Everyone should install Better Touch Tool because it gives you Windows 7-like window snapping and maximising behaviour AND lets you create custom touch gesture shortcuts.

I made some earrings out of the little heart containers that...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:49:48 +1000

I made some earrings out of the little heart containers that came with a Tetra gashapon I managed to get twice.

iPod quality photos woop

pkmnathon: Grumpy bird

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:38:21 +1000

pkmnathon:

Grumpy bird

~Everything changes, changes,Things are changing constantlyAnd...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:36:43 +1000

~Everything changes, changes,
Things are changing constantly
And everything changes, changes
Its evoluntionary~

ahuttoftea: professorbel: HQ art from the english site I just...

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:37:34 +1000

ahuttoftea:

professorbel:

HQ art from the english site

I just noticed the wristbands. I wonder what they’re about.

Wow, looking at that first image, I wouldn’t have believed it was pokémon artwork, but no, there it is on the official site. I mean everything is clearly a bit stylised and off model, but even the official character art is so different from what it used to be.

These things creep up unnoticed and then suddenly hit you when you realise a piece of official Pokémon artwork looks like it could be out of the Professor Layton franchise.

mcgheeeee: Guillaume Singelin

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:34:56 +1000

mcgheeeee:

Guillaume Singelin

rimonish: Last one for today — Cassie! What a cutie. I love Cassie’s sense of style. Ahh!...

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:51:28 +1000

rimonish:

Last one for today — Cassie! What a cutie. I love Cassie’s sense of style.

Ahh! It’s so cuuute! I love my cute little pixel face!

cardart: Art by: Mitsuhiro Arita One of my favourite cards.

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:11:00 +1000

cardart:

Art by: Mitsuhiro Arita

One of my favourite cards.