La Rubrique-à-Brac

 I thought that my arachnophobia had eased up over time. Why, I actually did manage to drop a book on an enormous Tegenaria without screaming for help first! (let's just ignore the fact that I still haven't picked up the book for fear of seeing the monster's remains) And I have no problem with small spiders (let's say, smaller than my pinkie nail).

But when I find a spider crawling on the walls, I still have to stare at it until it settles in a hunting spot or I snap and kill it (yes, I know I shouldn't do that, and certainly the anguish you begin to feel after fifteen minutes of wondering what it'll do next is no excuse). And despite my certitude that jumping spiders are not to be found in Île-de-France suburbs, I just can't pass in front of them. You never know what they'll do.

At least now I have a cat to sic on them, but sometimes they're too high even for him to reach. (more evidence that Nougat is the perfect cat: he loves catching spiders)

 OK, last post actually was from last year. I returned Adèle's 3DS and went back to watching films way too many times in succession. 

Honestly, I'm surprised now that I didn't pay RoboCop any attention earlier. I mean, stories about resurrection and loss of identity are my favourites. I suppose until then I thought Robo wasn't organic enough. 

Anyway, I think I looked up the first film in the midst of an Oddworld binge, because someone pointed out that Stranger's "Dead or alive, yer ass is coming with me" is a RoboCop reference. (And I'm super hyped about SoulStorm, but that's for later) And what can I say? I got hooked up. In a way, I guess it's good that I didn't watch the film earlier, because now I've accumulated enough readings (and have enough interest) in the dysfunctions of American society to enjoy the satire. The films, I should say, plus the live-action series. For some reason, some twelve years ago I had seen and remembered the first three minutes of one early episode of the series, which we must've taped somewhere on a VHS (probably by accident), but aside from that, I was going in blind. And all I remembered from that was the caption "Time: The Near Future. Location: Detroit, Michigan", three obese people robbing a store, Robo's "Veuillez descendre du véhicule s'il vous plaît", and the NoGain ad. Odd baggage, I know. 

Surprisingly, the French versions of all of these (well, save for Prime Directives... maybe, I haven't looked. Save also for RoboCop 3, mostly because, for all intents and purposes, that film does not exist) are actually decent, and with some good adaptations to boot ("Y a du métal hurlant dans l'air !"). Sure, it's damn near impossible to recognise Marc Cassot's voice coming out of Dick Jones' mouth (at least not for someone who only knew him from his acting in La Caméra explore le temps, shot more than 25 years before), they didn't dare give Clarence a nasal voice, "Come quietly or there will be... trouble" apparently defies translation and someone decided to ruin the climatic reveal of Murphy's identity by having Patrick Floersheim (I suppose) read out everything on the computer screen, but hey, these things happen, and as long as Murphy's voice is on point (which it usually is), que demande le peuple? 

... Upon reflection, I demand that translators stop turning "mills" into "moulins" when we're clearly talking about a steel mill. Moulins only process flour or paper, you idiots. 

I didn't even particularly dislike the reboot, if only because it takes Murphy's existential horror in another, equally interesting direction. That said, not only was it less funny (I'm still waiting for something as memorable as "Can you fly, Bobby?"; and I'm not even that difficult, because I consider "Bad cop, RoboCop" a funny line), it doesn't feature anything as visually stunning as Peter Weller's 3rd act makeup (and as a specialist of bare human faces on inhuman bodies, I don't have enough words for how much I love that design*). And it's kind of a shame they overcame the practical limitations that required putting a rope-thin actor in the original Robo suits, because much as I love Swedish actors out of principle, Joel Kinnaman's physique just isn't that remarkable. It's also less rewatchable if only because there are no good stories of behind the scenes, so no reason to try and notice all the tricks they used to get around what the suit could and could not do (for instance, get out of a car or climb up stairs).

Speaking of excellent lines in otherwise unremarkable to bad adaptations, Prime Directives at least gave us "I'm composed of titanium. I don't suppose you are." And, relating to my above complaint about the reboot, I'd probably be more forgiving of it if the make-up artists had actually put more effort (or any effort at all, really) into the junction between the human face and the robot's head. It was probably even more important to "stretch" Page Fletcher's face because otherwise his nose looks just way too large. Of course, there's also the even more glaring problem of his short stature, but enough people have commented upon that. Presumably that was too distracting for them to point out that godawful make-up. Once again, it's a real shame because (as was also noted multiple times) Page Fletcher makes for a decent human Murphy, and it's very interesting to think about how Murphy must be feeling after spending so long as a cyborg, especially since he must have been a great deal lonelier than in the previous series (what with Lewis being out of the picture and no one but Frost knowing about his real identity). That, and the father/son drama, and those few scenes of Murphy and RoboCable actually helping each other, just make me wish all these plot treads had been handled by a more competent team. 

*sighs* And now that there's talks of a new adaptation, I'm contractually obligated to be on the lookout for it and watch it when it comes out. 

* It certainly doesn't hurt that Peter Weller has a face somewhat similar to Thierry Lhermitte's, not in the detail, but with these clear blue eyes and sharp cheekbones.

PS: Holy Christ, is that really Marshal Ney as the Old Man? 

 Actually, I'd set out to post about how Johnny Hallyday's death is both a huge surprise and not that much of a shock. I mean, I've never been well versed in 1960s French rock, as evidenced by the fact that I can't find an appropriate reference without Googling it and misspelt his name on first try. But even without really listening to his songs, Johnny had such a huge presence in pop culture that he's one of those people I didn't think would die in my lifetime, as stupid as it sounds (or at least not before he turned 90 and had begun fading from raw memory). Yet I think I remember hearing about his health problems all the way back when I was in high school; it's not like I thought him unbreakable either. But then he started singing again, and he even had a tour planned for next year despite being treated for lung cancer (which says something about his determination, as anyone who's seen a relative wasting away can attest). Oh well. It's not a celebrity death that will make me cry the way I cried when Gotlib died last year (give or take two days), but it certainly feels weird and some must already be thinking it's the end of an era. 

Meanwhile, Jean-Marie Le Pen is still alive. I guess it's keeping in line with the saying that the best people leave first?

So I hooked myself up to Shadows of Valentia while waiting for the EHESP's results, and it might just be the worst in a long string of bad decisions since now I can't let go of it even though I'm supposed to work on finding a job, an internship or just anything to quickly rebound from my (no doubt resounding) failure. 

Even though Alice got it four months ago, it might be the first 3DS episode she hasn't played into the ground before letting me have it. Some of the old-school aspects were too disconcerting for her, I suppose. For my part, though it's been ages since I played the original, I remember it fondly enough that I was glad to see some of the early-series weirdness in the remake (Dread Fighters promoting back into Villagers, single-space inventories and the like), and I could excuse what would otherwise look like glaring flaws (the recycled maps, the AI's stupid flight mode, the Cantors' all too exploitable summons) as part of the 25-year-old charm. 

Besides, the cosmetic makeover was great: graphics are amazing (my only complaint: still not a fan of the Dread Fighter's ninja theme), almost nothing but praise for the voice acting (even though Zeke might have been the reason I played Gaiden in the first place and was so enthusiastic about the remake, Patrick Seitz's overly deep and melodramatic performance turned me off him long before his string of ten one-stat level-ups finished the job), an excellently remade soundtrack... And that's not even getting into how all those characters are characters now, not just bunches of pixels. And I'm glad they didn't try to cram an Avatar into that one. No Avatar, no inexplicable child characters? That's refreshing. Sure, there could have been some more work done on supports (or at least, more supports available without the need for DLC), but between those, the voice acting, the designs, the base convos and the fact that some of the characters actually have lines after their recruitment, that's more than enough to make a woman happy. And though that point becomes moot in Chapter 6, having two armies means we actually get to use more than 25% of the characters recruited on a regular basis, which is always an issue in games not titled Thracia 776 or Radiant Dawn. 

Though of course, having characters with truly separate designs and personalities means I'm now playing favourites and sometimes doing stupid things because of that... Actually, there are few to no characters I really can't stand in that game, the way there was in other titles. At worst, they get a "meh", like Mae and Boey (useful, but I don't really care about their banter, although I'll admit Mae has the best battle quotes), or Luthier, Delthea, Silque and Faye on Alm's route (the last two have more or less permanent slots on my team, however, because having potentially unlimited uses of Warp, Physic and Rescue is too enjoyable to ignore -- and to think I turned Faye into a Pegasus Knight the first time round!). And at the other extreme, well... there's Python with his 300 kills, and his stalwart friend Forsyth. Sure, a good chunk of Python's kills came from excessive grinding, but he did solo the Last Bastion or whatever it's called (you know the one, where you get to kill Slayder at last) and shouldered most of the work in a good chunk of the battles in Rigel. Even then, at first, I only saw him as the inevitable third man of the Deliverance trio, one I used out of necessity because someone had to kill the enemies Lukas and Forsyth brought to single-digit HP, but he's grown on me. 

Also, among things I wouldn't have picked up on if I'd somehow played the game four and a half years ago: 
1. "Fernand" is the kind of name you'd only give to an asshole character. Shockingly, though, his turning traitor had nothing to do with being in love with Mathilda or something like that. And he's a genuine noble. None of that makes him any less pathetic, and honestly I preferred Fernand de Morcerf as far as asshole Fernands go. 
2. I know it's the exact transcription for the string of characters making up his name, but why did the evil chancellor have to be named "Desaix"? I'd have been okay with keeping "Dozer", because that name doesn't fit at all. I mean, yeah, the real General Desaix actually did grow a moustache to hide the horrible scarring from a bullet to the mouth, but that's about the only parallel remotely possible between the two. And while he's not the perfect hero Napoleon made him out to be, said real Desaix was at least acknowledged by all as a decent man!
2. Then there's Massena, who does sound like an honourable person from his ten or so dialogue lines. I know, the developers probably weren't thinking in terms of accurate Napoleonic references and with names like Gazelle and Python, God knows how they picked names for the characters. But really, is it the best name for a reasonable enemy general? 

So yup, while I've gotten lazy with my "research" lately, the habit of looking for historical references in everything is unlikely to die soon. 

To end on a more interesting note, you have no idea how happy I am that mark_asphodel seems to like the Deliverance trio as much as I do. Although I wish she wouldn't put them always through horrible fates (especially Lukas, the poor dear) because on one hand I'm squeeing because omygosh it's my favourite FE author and her writing is still so great and her characterisation is spot-on and oh I'm so glad she's still writing and on the other hand... well, horrible fates. 

Hey, at least not as horrible as Fates *rimshot*

 Dreamwidth helpfully saved the title, but not the text of my first draft. Oh well. I wrote it before even finishing Season 6 anyway, so it might be for the best. 

( Spoilers, I guess? )

 Watching Everest and L'Ascension in succession is kind of funny. Same locales, different tone altogether (though I wonder where L'Ascension's summit scene was actually shot, because it doesn't really look like the summit reconstructed in Everest)

Some of Jeff's lines I could almost hear in Rob Hall's voice. Ultimately, though, L'Ascension doesn't really show that getting to the summit is really half the trip (because death in the descent isn't the point).

And I was about to call Samy "Doug Hansen with a happy ending", but Doug actually was a committed mountaineer. Though the scene just before Samy reaches the summit, where the Sherpa tries to turn him around because they're low on O and Samy basically says "I can do it. It's right here!" is eerily reminiscent of the prelude to Doug's demise. Guess I can always show that movie to the sisters, especially Adèle since I broke her heart with all of Krakauer's little tales about Doug that made his death all the more tragic...

(Likewise, the little diaporama at the end of L'Ascension is nearly the same font and format as the one in Everest, but happy once again: it's about Nadir Dendoune, real-life inspiration for Samy Diakhaté)

 I probably made history today by being the first SGDF leader to pen a grant application that got accepted by the French Erasmus Agency. And it's no partial funding either, no, they're ready to cover up to twice the camp's current cost. Wow. (Granted, some of the money is also meant for the "after" part, which we always kind of tend to neglect)

Also, for some reason I've been watching stuff about deaths at high altitude. Starting of course with accounts of the 1996 Everest disaster (although what launched me into that field was an article about the death of Alberto Zerain, which touched upon the 2008 K2 disaster). And of course, I've already watched the 2015 film too many times to count. These days, when I really like a film, I just put it on repeat like I did with several episodes of La Caméra Explore le Temps. Not the best idea, but meh. What strikes me more each time is, how come the real Scott Fischer looked more like a Hollywood star than the actual Hollywood star portraying him ? Seriously. 



Here's the real deal



And Jake Gyllenhall's interpretation

Four years, seriously? Damn, that means four years of Napoleonic obsession already! Or rather, 19th-century obsession in general, but it did all start with the four tomes of Max Gallo's Napoléon, about the only thing I read during that fateful pilgrimage to Portugal.

So yeah, that's the main new thing that happened to me since then. That, and the fact that I spent one year in Denmark and still long to come back (especially when all of France is reeling under a heat wave, as it is right now). And that I finally managed to finish a Rise from Erebus game with the Archos, once again making them into spider crusaders. At long last, Mother and Valin Phanuel have triumphed over evil! Bad news: the world is now covered in giant spiders. Oh well. That's why it's dark fantasy, after all. 

Going back to Napoléon & co (though I'm no fan of the Corsican, really, and I've seen enough people who were absolutely crazy about him to keep my distances), I'm still not sure why that particular section of history appeals to me the way it does, but even when you move away from romanticised biographies and the memoirs of those that lived through it, towards serious books, it feels like a novel. A novel where all the characters were real, where the events have contributed to shape our world. ... Granted, the same could be said about just any period, so I still don't know why that era in particular. 

Maybe it's just the clothes.

Anyway, I can't promise that I'll resume regular posting of any kind, but well, at least I'm still alive.

Even though I had spent a whole Let's Play commenting about FE4's abuse of palette-swapping, it also took me weeks to realize that FE13 was just as bad about it. And to think I had attributed FE4's portrait reutilizations to the SNES' limitations...

Just for padding, I went to the Invalides yesterday and saw Sully's armour. (sorry for the bad photo quality, that's all I could find - while being sure it was indeed Sully's and not his king's) - even though most tourists only go there to see Napoleon's tomb, and perhaps even his horse (whose skin has considerably suffered over the years) and famous gray coat, this museum is a treasure cave if you're looking for armours (none are as absurd as FE13's, but there are some... interesting pieces. And codpieces.) and uniforms. A real fetishist's dream. There are even kid-sized full plate royal armours !