I finally had some time to play D3 today, and when I tried to get online, it just hung at the “retrieving hero list” screen. It appears to be a serious issue affecting thousands of players.
This is what Blizzard currently has up in their forum about the issue.
So I’m adding this to the growing list of reasons it’s annoying and harmful to players for Blizzard to require server authentication for a single-player game.
Harry Potter in 99 Seconds.
This is fucking amazing.
Oh.My.God.
Missed the part of Deathy Hollows that contained an hour plus of awkward sexual tension, that finally ends with Harry masturbating in the forest off camera.
(Source: surferdude182)
I want some so bad, but I can’t see myself paying $13 a bottle.My dad busted this out today. I tried some and it’s surprisingly tasty. Almost like a cup of liquid bacon. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t love bacon?
I was looking at the ingredients and there is actually applewood-smoked bacon in this beer.
(via fishyinspiration)
Vibranium is mined in Africa mostly.BECAUSE IT WAS MADE OUT OF FREEDOM AND THE DREAMS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Or, y’know, vibranium.
Vibranium is made out of American Soil
Thorgi
(via wilwheaton)
I think fanfiction is a waste of good creative effort.
I understand some of the (arguably) legitimate reasons behind why people create it, but I just can’t see it as entirely healthy writing practice.
That’s just me, though. I’m not making judgments!
I’m making…
As per usual, Travis says things best.
In saying I’m not making judgments, I mostly meant to cover my own ass from the “creation of different boundaries spurring creativity” argument. Yeah, when you try and write from a new POV or with limits that are unusual for yourself as a writer… you’re participating in a completely valid exercise. I left that “not making judgments” grey area, thinking that “fanfiction” could maybe exist as a form of that exercise. I probably should have taken the time and stated things a little more clearly on my part.
Paul Levitt’s Chin Music and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea are both novels that draw upon existing material (Chin Music from The Great Gatsby and Wide Sargasso Sea from Jane Eyre). Both use the preexisting material to expand and comment on the same themes that the originating novels did. Wide Sargasso Sea addresses certain things that Jane Eyre sort of white washed. Both Chin Music and Wide Sargasso Sea have a lot of literary merit, and I can’t say I’m certain they can or can’t be called “fanfiction”. If they are, then I’d say a certain kind of fanfiction is worth its weight.(This is stupid, but I’m suddenly reminded of that episode of Hey Arnold! when Dino Spumoni fakes his own death and then that impersonator comes along. ANYWAY…)
Pure impersonation/emulation and expansion inhabit somewhat different zones, certainly. But I guess I can’t really say something conclusively without a conclusive border that defines “fanfiction”.tl;dr: What the fuck is fanfiction anyway? If the term only counts for shippy, derivative, or pointless stuff that mostly exists on the internet, it’s a waste of creative effort. If the definition of fanfiction is broader than that… then things are a little different.
Think that’s fair, Traviebear?
I had to think hard about this. I love super hero comics, and based on some of the qualifiers I used earlier, they could be considered fanfiction. I would have to say that fanfiction, by popular use without getting pedantic and trying to use word parts, is amateur works working within the qualifiers I stated earlier, but the crucial point is that they’re all wish fulfillment. They’re not written for creative reasons. They’re written to fulfill a desire that the writer has to see those characters in a situation that the creator(s) haven’t put them in. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when an amateur writes something with the sole purpose of fulfilling inner desires, they write lazy fiction.
They present a plot, with character interaction, and no character development. Nothing is examined between the lines. There’s nothing but the story presented. This is something that’s hard to pull off effectively, even for those few genius writers throughout history, because most times it leaves the reader without feelings of closure or satisfaction that one gains from having read and processed something of importance.
I’m sure after having read Wide Sargasso Sea, people felt as if they had accomplished something. I have yet to feel like I’ve accomplished something from reading any fanfiction. While it is important for writers to please themselves when they write, their most important duty is to The Reader. The Reader is the most important person, as without The Reader your words have no purpose. The Reader must be considered in all things literary, and when The Reader is forgotten for the wish fulfillment of the writer, damage is caused to the overall soul of the pursuit.
I sound super pretentious with this, but that’s okay. I value writing and those who can write well above most things, because being able to captivate an audience with words alone is a daunting task, becoming ever more so as our society’s forms preferential of entertainment change away from this ancient form of expression.
I think fanfiction is a waste of good creative effort.
I understand some of the (arguably) legitimate reasons behind why people create it, but I just can’t see it as entirely healthy writing practice.
That’s just me, though. I’m not making judgments!
I’m making judgements. Writing fanfiction causes atrophy. It’s like doing push-ups so that you can have a six pack. You use a pre-generated world, with pre-generated characters, interacting in pre-generated ways, based on previous character development done by someone else. This is why there’s no movie sequels to books: it doesn’t work. For fanfiction to be a true creative exercise, you would have to throw out parts of what makes the characters interesting in the first place.
Some could argue that by having to work within boundaries outlined by others, you have to be more creative. I agree wholeheartedly. The problem is that with fanfiction, for it to be true fanfiction, you’re not just working within boundaries outlined by others, but you are fully emulating others.
It’s important to note that I do not count sexual fanfiction as real fanfiction, unless those characters were already in a romantic entanglement. At that point it uses characters and has them act out of character, and isn’t a real tribute to the series in question, so I could not call it FANfiction, as a real fan would not do that to a character.
If fanfiction interpreted previous works into new scenarios, instead of emulated, it would be worth the creative effort. Even then, I believe it would stunt the growth of the novice writer.
Moe Moe American Super Heroes.
An actual series of toys by Kotobukiya. Part of their “bishoujo” series of comic related figures and statuettes.
Look at that. A pauldron on one shoulder. That thing is going to save her limb so many times.
Not really. I understand that people like The Beatles, and I understand why they like them. I just never particularly enjoyed their music. I can’t say that their music is bad: that would be a lie; it’s just that listening to their music is not something I would do for enjoyment.
Even worse, the movie looks too much like an acid-fest.
