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2 hours ago, Jondesu said:

Only issue is she's too old now.

Edit: How about Camren Bicondova (Selena Kyle from Gotham)? She might grow up too much before it happens too, but I could definitely see her as Vin.

She could possibly be a good Vin. She would have to play the character with a lot less spunk than she plays Selena, but she could work. She's probably the perfect age Right Now, which is unfortunate since cameras probably won't be rolling for idk, two years? More?

40 minutes ago, Ammanas said:

I feel the same way about Gene Wolfe so while I disagree I do understand how that feels.

Oh man, I've tried Gene Wolfe too. I made it through the Shadow of the Torturer, but I hated it. 

10 hours ago, Ammanas said:

If you want a really good short story collections I have a couple of suggestions:

My favorite is The Stories of Ray Bradbury. Its about 1,000 pgs and published by everyman's library. Bradbury shows a lot of range moving from comedic, horror and science fiction really well.

Another really good one is Galactic Empires edited by Neal Clarke. It came out earlier this year and each story is set in a galactic empire of some sort. It even has the Brandon Sanderson story Firstborn (it was a fun story that was a kind of subversion of Ender's game).

I actually hate reading Bradbury. I've tried....three or four of his books, gotten at least fifty to seventy pages in to all of them, and then had to quit because I couldn't understand the writing. i wish I could read his books because they are so highly respected, but I find the writing incomprehensible. It's really kind of sad, because I can read Milton, Cervantes,and Dante fine, slowly but fine, but I struggle with a more modern American author. 
 

Welp...I managed to binge a season and a half of That 70's Show since Wednesday. It kicks the crap out of Frasier. The show is gold. It walked on soooo many fine threads between cliche blegh and too awkward to be funny, and it's managed to nail it every time so far. Considering the challenges of having really a very large cast, just 24 minute episodes, and being a comedy, it's managed to build extremely strong and reletable characters. I think what's even more impressive is that it created such good characters in two generations. Red and Kitty in no way play second fiddle to Eric and pals. There's soooo many things about the show that I could rave about, it's really kinda crazy. 

31 minutes ago, Orlion On a Cob said:

Let me calm your mind on that point: Lovecraft is a terrible writer. They should have named purple prose after him! 

What was the story,  anyway? 

The beast in the cave. I got a collection of 7 lovecraft stories and it was the first one in the collection. 

50 minutes ago, Ammanas said:

Have you read many H.P lovecraft stories? I have read several of them...he reminds me a little of Sir Walter Scott; they have great ideas , but use way too many words to get them across. Call of Cthulhu is lovecrafts most popular story if you want a stronger one.

I've never read anything of Lovecraft before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I did notice far too many descriptions in the story, but had hoped that it might just be the fault of the individual story and not the author in general. 

7 hours ago, maxal said:

While racial diversity certainly is a very good idea for WoT, I disagree with changing the Aiel's outlooks. The fact they are tall, very white, red headed desert dwellers is such a strong part of the WoT imagery, I feel it would ruin it completely to cast them as anything else just for the shake of diversity.

There are however other possibilities for diversity. The Emond Fielders could be cast with actors, actresses having a distinct ethnic origin: the only thing of import is they are to be coherent as they are a small village closed onto the world. Most readers love to picture Lan as Asian and Faile as either Asian or Arabic. The Borderlanders countries can easily be cast with whichever of these ethnicity works best with casting. Once they reach the White Tower, then they can implement a lot of diversity as people came from everywhere in Randland to be Aes Sedai, the casting should reflect this reality. Tuon, Semirhage and Ravhin are black just as a significant proportion of the Seachan are. The casting could easily decide all of Seachan is portrayed by black actors/actresses.

There is a lot of racial diversity within WoT already: changing one of the core groups who's representation is crucial to the world into something else just to avoid casting white actors/actresses really isn't a good idea. Also, I am completely against dying the hair of a bunch of Indian actors just to pretend the show is more diverse. I am against it for SA, I am against it here and I will always be against it. 

When it comes to adapting stories for the big or the small screen, there always is some flexibility to casting, but physical characteristics which are important/crucial for any given character should be retained and cast accordingly. For instance, Rand is a red head: this is important. The actor they chose has to portray it and not wear some wigs nor silly dye just to attempt at making viewers believe he is actually a red head. They won't buy it. It will look fake and if it looks fake, then you will lose viewers. On the other hand, Moraine's hair color however isn't really important, nor is her skin tone, but they can't go with a black actress because there aren't any black people onto Randland prior to the Seachan coming. They were all into this faraway city I forgot the name, right across the Aiel waste.

The Tearans are dark skinned actually. I don't think they necessarily were intensely black, but still black. 

On the drive down to Florida for a much needed vacation I listened to the autobiography of Geronimo, as well as a HP lovecraft story. The autobiography was awesome, but the Lovecraft was...exceedingly meh. It was just a short story though, so perhaps a longer one would be better. 

19 hours ago, maxal said:

Heard about it. Is it good?

I liked it. I didn't live through the 80's, but I'm really into that era. The book is fun, the references are cool, Steven Spielberg is working on adapting it to a movie, and it's a pretty quick read. It's not literature, and after reading Armada I realized that Cline isn't actually a very good writer, but Ready Player One is pretty fun. I think that it's worth your time to at least try it, and maybe you'll like it and maybe you won't. I reckon you're more likely to enjoy it than not. 

52 minutes ago, The Honor Spren said:

When older folks assume that all teenagers sound like idiots in their messages.

For example, this was used to compare different kinds of diction in my English course:

  Reveal hidden contents

Do they really not realize that the only people who type like that are adults who are trying way too hard to sound cool? I mean, there are abbreviations and emojis used, but not to that extent.

Also it annoys me when teenagers are called millennials. Millennials are people in their mid-twenty's to mid-thirty's. Teenagers as of now are part of generation Z.

See, I've always figured that the cut off date for a millennial was 2000. I mean, why put millennial in the name if it doesn't actually bump against the thousand year mark? In which case, since I was born in 1999, I should still count as one of the youngest millennials and not a Z. There isn't really a consistent definition for the age range, so I tend to stick with my definition. I've seen some put the cut off as early as '94 and one as late as 2004, so I'm happy with mine. 

4 hours ago, Quiver said:

@Left

Not Scooby-Doo, but the Arrowverse DOES have the Vixen CW Seed animated series. I haven't seen it -I don't think it's acccessible outside the US?- but that might be worth a look. They're also doing one for the Ray this year, I think, and there's been rumors of them possibly making a Constantine one to carry on from his cancelled show 

 

Yeah I don't know if the CW Seed is available outside the US. I tried watching Vixen, but the episodes aren't very long at all and I didn't see the point in watching so many ads for so little entertainment. I think the Constantine show has been confirmed already?....

3 hours ago, Alfa said:

Please tell you're not reading Ayn Rand. Please. 

Ayn Rand has her place. Just like reading Marx is important. I don't agree with her on a lot, her vision of capitalism was far too idealized and unbalanced, but I think that if you read Fountain Head or Atlas Shrugged in conjunction with liberal books or shows than you'll be far better off than if you Just read one or the other. Why limit yourself to only one point of view? 

Maybe the earthquake was the result of a country figuring out how to use the Dor for the first time, which caused a huge disruption in the power which manifested itself on Sel through the Elantrian earthquake? 

I've been holding off on reviewing any more episodes since no one else is commenting, but HOLY CREM. The ending of the last episode of Arrow had me like part of a Sanderlanche. 

But first, let's go through the surprise ending (except was it a surprise? Like, on the one hand I'm surprised but on the other hand we've known for months that this was Supposed to happen) .

Alright, and here's Arrow

8 minutes ago, Kaymyth said:

They...they just announced that next season, Supernatural is going to have an animated Scooby Doo episode.

I do not know how to feel about this.

Maybe I'm going to have to listen to literally almost all of my friends and marathon Supernatural this summer. I would adore a Scooby Doo episode. The Arrowverse should do one....

I got my braces off this morning!!!!!!!!!

DOBBY IS A FREE ELF! After over 18 months I'm finally free of those sharp wires

1 hour ago, Chaos said:

Ooo, thanks for letting me know this exists. I'm always out of the loop coming to new music.

I also liked the punk rock Paramore. I don't mind poppy stuff, but I will say I super do not care about lyrics. I have a very difficult time listening to lyrics, so that aspect is mostly irrelevant. I'm not sure if I will like this album because of it. But again, I don't mind pop in general. 

No problem Lord Ruler, five upvotes please JK

I've spent most of my life being waaaaaaay behind on music. I'm starting to at least be able to keep track of the bands/artists that I like since I've started using spotify, but I feel ya man. I'm still generally very out of the loop with new music. 
I'd forgotten about your struggles with lyrics....Yeah, you may not like this album very much. There's a couple songs that you may still like, but most of the paramore punk is only present in the lyrics, the songs themselves have a very new sound. 

10 minutes ago, Silverblade5 said:

So, I need to write a 1800 word research paper that presents an argument. Any ideas on good topics?

Why Somaliland should be recognized as an independent state from Somalia. Why Teddy Roosevelt the Musical would make an awesome sequel to Hamilton. Why Netflix, Amazon Prime, and HBO Now will take over from traditional Cable TV unless significant changes in the market appear. Why becoming a plumber may be a much smarter career move than becoming a lawyer right now. The need for movie theaters to get much nicer or significantly lower their prices if they want to stay in business. Why recent stem cell research that suggests that fertilized eggs are able to develop further than previously thought independent of a mother should or should not matter to Roe V Wade. Why anime may be more appealing to teenagers because a teenagers ability to recognize human facial expression subtlety is not developed but anime's exaggerations help teens understand the emotions expressed. 

1 hour ago, Lord Bookworm said:

Can I just say... movies of books are usually worse than the books themselves, and usually the plot is (very) different. Take for example Percy Jackson. Kronos isn't supposed to even appear until the fourth book, and they mist (bad pun) some of the most epic scenes in the series, including: Ares vs. Percy on the beach; Nico using his powers to DESTROY the Spartus(es?); the Battle for Olympus; the Great Prophecy; and a ton of other stuff. If you aren't convinced that the books are (much) better than the films, look at Eragon for an example. The whole magic system (the Ancient Language) is gone, and it misses a ton of good scenes and stuff that has to be included for the other books to even make sense!   So, they're probably going to have to make the whole thing again, but ANYWAY as I was saying, the movies are usually complete trash compared to the books, so I, for one, am completely AGAINST the notion of making Mistborn (or any other BS book, for that matter) into a film/movie, purely because I don't want to see one of the GREATEST BOOKS OF ALL TIME turned into something that is complete trash, completely messes up the magic system (which I'm sure you'll agree is FREAKING AWESOME) and probably won't make it past the first movie or so. IN CONCLUSION I don't think Mistborn should become a movie because it'll be really bad compared to the books, and I don't want to see one of my favourite books made into a cheap imitation of the grand original. Thank you for your understanding.

I don't know if you know this or not, but Cosmere movies are almost certainly going to happen. The rights have been bought, writers and adapters have agreed to the work, and a lot of money has been invested into making it work.

I think that the problem with the adaptions you mention is that the people behind the films didn't respect or care about the books. They really were just trying to make some quick bucks or further their careers by gaining more experience in writing and directing.
The company that's investing in the CCU (Cosmere Cinematic Universe) LOVES the cosmere. You can do the research for yourself if you want to read interviews and stuff, but they really care about the Cosmere.

I think Mistborn, as a large but malleable trilogy, could be absolutely fantastic in film. It's similar in a way to Lord of the Rings. Very large, very epic, very good books, being adapted by kind of new and less experienced people who Really care about the stories.

We haven't seen Millie Bobby Brown do a lot of action yet, but I do think she has the potential to be a perfect Vin when the time comes around. Heck, one of the boys might even make a good Elend.

I'm curious, does anyone else think that Daniel Radcliff could make a good Lord Ruler?
 

6 hours ago, Orlion On a Cob said:

Honestly, I have not seen anybody go into real detail or examine the foundations of their beliefs on this site. I am actually under the impression that such critical analysis of belief is actively discouraged. 

Essentially,  it seems that one could state their beliefs simply, someone else says "Oh!" And then a third person comments on how civilized the theological discourse is on this forum... as if any such discourse has taken place! 

Rinse,  wash, repeat and you got this topic with only some minor digressions in this routine... like this post!

To a large extent I think I could agree with you. Very few of us have gotten into the deepest parts of our doctrines or the very personal reasons we believe and follow them. But the Shard is still part of the internet, so it is very difficult to decide to open up such personal parts of yourself and your beliefs to a potentially limitless audience. That's certainly part of why I've refrained from getting too personal on here. 
And again, no there hasn't been any in-depth analysis and comparisons between religions, but compared to the rest of the internet we aren't doing too bad hahahaha. 
 

So Paramore just released their first album in years today. Any other fans? Anyone got an opinion on the album yet? 

Lyrically I'm very impressed with it, but I'm having trouble adjusting to the new sound. I really like Paramore's punk rock songs, and most of their past pop like songs have bored me. This album has very few songs that could be called rock. They are faster than many of the older pop songs though, and very deep and dark lyrically. I haven't listened enough to pick out some favorites yet, but I do like the album mostly. I miss the guitars and drums though, all the synth just sound kinda inhuman. 

1 hour ago, The Flash said:

I just finished reading the complete Dune series. It was very thought provoking. 

I just finished Sandworms last week. (See posts above). Highlights and worst parts of the series in your opinion?

I can vouch for Temeraire as well. Starts as an excellent series, has some hiccups in the late middle, but finishes strongly. If you like alternative history, dragons on earth, or the effects of fantasy elements on cultures than it's an excellent series to start. 

I finished my final AP exam this afternoon, AP Statistics. 
It was my 11th, and final exam. I'm feeling pretty confident about my exams this year, with the exception of Calc BC. I might still be able to get credit for AB Calc at least if I'm lucky. 
I'm so glad to be done with ap exams for good, they are legit the worst. 

Yay!!!!! Maybe we can finally get Shard family movie night to become a thing now!

Congrats!