Fanart, Fanfiction and Fangirling

So, I gave in to my curiosity and watched Sherlock in Italian. To sum it up in 2 words: "bloody" and "awful". At one point I actually said "There are no words to express my disgust", I really did.

I only watched part of the first episode, there is just so much I can take. Let me point out a few things:

- I already knew the actor they chose for Sherlock has a completely different voice, but I also know it must be difficult to find someone who can talk as fast as Benedict, so I decided to give him a chance. Sadly, his performance was disappointing and his voice sounded totally wrong.

- For John they chose the same actor who dubs David Tennant in Doctor Who. And that was very weird. I mean, he's a good actor, but I was expecting the TARDIS to appear any minute.

- Lestrade and Mycroft's voices were surprisingly decent. And Mrs Hudson's was spot on. I supposed there's just so much you can mess up, something must be acceptable. For statistical reasons, at least.

- The translation. Oh, man, the translation. I know I'm a perfectionist and I've known from the start that the opening scene of "The Great Game" would be impossible to translate (I watched those 5 minutes out of curiosity and they did mess it up), but it was even worse than I feared. English dialogues tend to be shorter than Italian ones, so sometimes you just have to cut a few bits to keep the voices in sync, but entire parts got cut off for no reason! Not very important parts, but it was still annoying. For example, at the end of "Study in pink", when Lestrade tells Sherlock to meet him the next day and then says "Off you go". It's said very quickly and it's not essential to the plot, but there was still time to add a quick "Vai" ("Go") at the end. But they completely skipped it, so you can see Lestrade nodding and moving his lips and not saying anything. (EDIT: All right, I watched that bit again and it's not so badly done. Could've been better, though.) And the "Try not to start a war" line, they completely cut off the "You know what it does to the traffic" part! That way the sarcasm gets completely lost! *curses*

- The courtesy form. All right, it's always a bit of a problem, because there isn't such a thing in English and people doing the translation have to decide when 2 people stop using it. But, for heaven's sake, they kept using it throughout the whole episode. They're two 30-something men, they become flatmates and the story is set in today's London. When John goes to see the flat and Sherlock tells him "Oh, don't call me Mr. Holmes, just Sherlock", well, I was expecting that would be it, they're on a first name basis now, you can drop the bloody courtesy form, thank you very much. But they didn't. It was so irritating. Thank God they switched to the normal form in episode 2 (I only watched a couple of minutes of it to check).

- Some sentences sounded positively ancient. We're not in the 19th century anymore, for fuck's sake.

- They fucked up Moriarty's name. Let me try to explain. A lot of English names aren't pronounced correctly in Italian and I can understand that. We don't pronounce the H in Holmes, for instance, and that's OK, really, it's not a problem, I do it as well. I was half-expecting them to change the accent in "Anthea" because, for an Italian, it would be natural to put the accent on the E, not the first A. But no, they kept the correct pronunciation. Only to change the one for Moriarty. If an Italian saw the word "Moriarty" and had to read it, it would probably put the accent on the A, which, by pure luck, is close enough to the original pronunciation. So why the fuck did they have to change it? *curses some more*

All right, this was long and ranty and utterly useless, but man, I needed to vent.

First of all: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NICOLE! I wish you tons of happiness, you sure deserve it. *hugs*

And then.

I'm quite pissed off. As you probably know, I'm helping a certain party with the local electoral campaign (somewhere along the way I became a candidate too, but that's not important). The elections are getting closer, and the people in charge decided to invite a very famous politician for Sunday. Someone thought it would be a cool idea to have a band play as well, so I told them some friends of mine play in a band and sent them the link to their MySpace page. And that pretty much started the list of things that are currently pissing me off.

1) No one replied, not to the email about the band, nor to another one in which I'd asked something about the campaign. So much for internal communication being important.

2) I met the guy who was supposed to choose the band and he told me they can't let my friends play because of their name. They're called "Deluded by Lesbians", the name probably disturbs the Catholic part of the party (which, unfortunately, is quite strong, I've noticed). All right, you don't want them? Just fucking tell me so I'll inform them, they can't sit around all week not knowing whether or not they're gonna play on Sunday.

3) No one had thought of informing the head of the party about the concert. One of the councillors was there and she was quite pissed off when she found out.

4) No one had thought you need to actually organise things, a concert won't just pop out from nowhere. One of the guys told me some time ago he was very happy I decided to help them, because he wouldn't know where to start if the had to organise an event. Yet, I was told nothing about this big event. I thought that maybe they had asked a pro to take care of things, what with the big politician coming to our town, but no, it's quite the opposite. You want to know just how disorganised they are? This is the state of things as of last night:

- The event should take place in a park and no one thought of asking a licence to play a concert on public ground. They just took it for granted they'll be allowed to, because the councillor is one of us. Needless to say, the councillor was not amused when she found out.

- No one thought of asking a permit to use electricity. Hello? How do you think all that stuff is going to work in the middle of a park?

- No one thought about getting an amplifying system. But if they didn't think of electricity, how could they have thought about amps?

- They didn't think of getting a STAGE! But this is something the head of the party should have taken care of. What the fuck, an important politician is coming over and you don't even have a small stage and a mic? They are going to have a stage somewhere else on Friday, but they can't pull it down and put it back up in the park on Saturday, because they have no technicians in the weekend. Well, why didn't you organise the two events in the same location?! That would've saved you a lot of troubles!

I don't know, maybe I'm too fussy, maybe these are details I only noticed because I want to work in that field, but things like these really piss me off. I mean, putting up a concert isn't so difficult, the only difficult part is finding the money. As for the rest, you just need to sit down and make a list of the things you need. Hell, I'm not a pro and I've never organised a concert from scratch, but I've been to enough gigs and studied event management after all, if they had just asked me, I could've explained them all the things they needed to do. Most of the work consists of getting licences and permits, anyway.

Also, I find it quite disheartening that one of these people is a young environment engineer and he had no idea you need to contact the electric company to use electricity in the park. What the fuck do they teach in university these days?

What do you mean the DÄ concert in Linz is AUSVERKAUFT? What the fuck, I can't make such long-term plans - and more than 2 months in the future is extremely long-term for me right now. I know that, if I really wanted to go, I could find a way: on the fanclub forum there are always people who sell their ticket because they can't go, but it's still annoying not being able to plan one's life in the slightest. Like, I'd really, really love to visit Japan, but I would have to book things with at least six months advance to get cheaper flights and accomodation. And I can't do that right now. Also, I was hoping on a Bela B y Los Helmstedt tour next year, but someone had to go and have a baby, so now who knows when he'll be on tour. IF he's going to tour at all. *frustrated*

Man, I really hope that, even if I can't find a new job, I will at least be sent somewhere else in January, things are starting to become unbearable here. Today we're 12 in this fucking office with no windows and cables everywhere, yesterday we were 13, all sitting at the same table.

Another thing that annoys the crap out of me is the attitude of some of the people here. Like, two different people (men, of course), in two different occasions, said "Well, women have it easier, they always find someone to shag, even if they are ugly." Do you assume we go around asking random guys "Hey, wanna shag?" Jeez. Also, that implies that, if you still don't shag, you must be "worse than ugly". And what could possibly be worse than a tragedy like that? Being invisible? Being a complete and utter loser? No wait, I got it: it's being an arsehole like you, fucker.

Thank God I'm going to see Farin in 3 days.



I must iconify this pic.

Found @ http://www.mainpost.de/_/tools/diaview.html?_CMTREE=16172&_CMBILD=1047335#1047335

If you're still wondering why I sometimes feel ashamed of being Italian and why I've been thinking of moving abroad:

Something rotten in state of Italy

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk

And the post I wrote on the subject in my Italian blog: Osteria Italia.

In short: yesterday Prodi (the current-almost-former Prime Minister) lost the vote of confidence at the Senate and all hell broke loose: a senator fainted, some were insulting each others and some were even drinking champagne to celebrate the fall of the Government.

Why can't Italy be a normal country? We've got so much potential, with tourism and art and fashion and design, why do our politicians have to ruin everything?

I'm totally without voice. Last night I went to Ste's place and V's boyfriend asked me "Did you inhale some helium or something?" HAHA. =/

I lost my voice on Friday night at some point around 11 PM. Did I mention I had to stay at the office until HALF PAST MIDNIGHT? Bastards. There was a program that needed to be done before Saturday, we had been working on it for days, doing and redoing it, with no written documentation that explained us what the fuck the program was supposed to do and whenever we fixed a problem a new one popped up and of course on Friday they found a million problems and bugs no one had noticed before. Typical. Plus my boss isn't answering phone calls and I don't even know where I'll be working next week. Yes, I'm only there because I need the money and only until I find something better, but fuck, things are getting unbearable.

On the positive side I'm almost done writing my final paper for the master's and last night my friends and I finally exchanged Christmas presents. I got a Lenore Cooties comic, a Betty Boop playing guitar earring and 6 Nightmare Before Christmas guitar picks. They're a bit too thin and soft for bass playing, but they're really cool, with holograms from the film on them, or whatever you call those images that change when you move them (please tell me you understood what I'm talking about), I'll try them out but probably won't use them too much for fear of ruining them.

And I really liked what I was wearing last night: a black long-sleeved turtleneck under a deep red short-sleeved shirt, jeans, my new shoes (nothing fancy, but they're really comfortable and warm AND they were a present), one of those long plastic pearl necklaces (black, of course) that are pretty much everywhere these days, a studded belt and a studded bracelet I got for only 90 cents. I felt very retro-rocker and was even complimented on my outfit, which is always nice.

I think I'd better turn off the PC now, my eyes are starting to burn and I feel like I'm getting a temperature. Damn.

I apparently have a new weird kink I wasn't aware of: hair. I saw this picture earlier:



and I had the insane urge to run my fingers through Rod's shiny dark hair. The explanation is quite simple: I WANT STRAIGHT HAIR DAMNIT. Curly hair may be nice to look at, but it's a pain in the arse to manage. There are about 2 millions hairdos I'd like to try out, but they all require straight hair. Or at least 30 minutes of my precious sleep-time every morning to tame the beast living on my head + a ton gel/hairspray and lots of swearing in case of rain or humidity. And since Milan is the most humid city in Italy, it's not really worth it. *sigh*

On to more interesting things. You know the nose piercing Farin got back in 1994/95? I've always found it bloody adorable, but a little bit of out character. Hence this drabble. I'm quite sure at least 2 people on my flist will like it. ^_^


Title: Gold
Fandom: Die Ärzte
Characters: Bela B, Farin Urlaub
Prompt: 099 - Writer's choice
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Contains mild slash

Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. The people portrayed in this story are real, but I use their "public personas" as if they were fictional characters. No libel or copyright infringement intended.


Bela enters the bathroom and smiles. Farin is still standing in front of the mirror, looking at his reflection with a frown.

"It looks nice."

Farin goes on studying the brand new golden ring adorning his nose, his brow creasing further. "Does it?"

"Yes." Bela walks up to him and hugs him. He presses a kiss to his shoulder and smiles. "It matches your hair."

"It's weird."

"It's sexy."

Farin rolls his eyes. "You always say that when you're trying to talk me into something. Especially something extremely foolish."

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" He grins. "Now, about your nipples..."


>>> Table of prompts for drabbles100

YES! I pwnd the office proxy! I can check LJ! (Uhm, I hope I won't get in trouble because of this?)

Anyway, onto more serious things.

As I've mentioned a few times before, I'm not particularly proud of being Italian. There are a lot of things I don't like about Italian society and Italian attitude, but I like even less all the prejudices foreigners have against us.

The latest one: an Italian immigrant currently living in Hannover raped and tortured his girlfriend and the German judge accorded him a reduction of sentence because of his "cultural background". Apparently the judge thinks that in Sardinia, where the man was born (in 1978, not in 1878 might I add) it's normal for men to beat and torture women out of jealousy. The first thing I thought when I heard this was "Had he just finished reading Lombroso's theories or what?"

Here's a link to the piece of news, in Italian because I didn't find anything in English (or German):

http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Esteri/?id=1.0.1413994893

Is this the image people abroad have of us Italians? I know we have a lot of flaws, most of the time I say we don't even deserve to be in the European Union at all, but seeing that there are still people who think we're all primitive and violent makes me so very sad. It's like saying all Germans are Nazis. So, so sad.

Someone kill me and put me out of my misery, please. Work is driving me crazy, thank God the week is almost over, I really can't take it anymore.

Last night I FINALLY saw Brokeback Mountain. And of course I had to write a ficlet about it. *shakes head* It's in Italian, I'll post it at slash_it in a day or two. I wanted to write a Bela/Farin drabble for drabbles100 too, but I neither have the time nor the energy at the moment. Damn job.

Also, a couple of days ago there was a story in the news about an Italian who had been beaten up by a group of skinheads in Berlin. Well, it turned out he wasn't beaten up at all, he was just totally drunk and tripped in the U-Bahn station of Alexanderplatz, as proved by the security cameras. The world is full of idiots.

And the new Government doesn't convince me at all. The only positive thing so far is that the Environment Minister comes from the Green Party, as for the rest... There are 25 Ministers. What the fuck, we don't need so many! They are just trying to give a slice of power to everyone, so they won't protest too much once things get going. And of those 25 Ministers, only 6 are women. In Chile there are 20 Ministers, 10 men and 10 women. And the Prime Minister is a woman. Why do we have to be SO behind? It's a wonder we're even in the EU, I'm afraid one day they'll just kick us out.

*sigh*

But hey, there's some good news too! I ordered Bingo at Amazon.de! With a discount of 1 euro! X) Now I just have to wait, it should arrive in the last week of May. Mmh, Bela...

I wanted to write about my weekend. I wanted to post pictures. I wanted to rave about how scorchinlgy HOT Bela looks in the "Mein Teddy" video.

But I won't. I won't because I'm just so angry right now. I really shouldn't watch the news while I'm having breakfast, it always ruins my day. Dear foreign people on my flist (that is, 90% of my flist), if you're thinking of coming to Italy on holiday, go ahead and do it, we've got beautiful towns, the weather's usually nice (the stress being on usually, so don't expect eternal summer or something), the food is good. But if you're thinking of moving to Italy to live here, let me tell you just one little thing: don't. Please. For your own good.

Italy is fine for a holiday, but it's hell to live here. We've always been behind compared to the rest of Europe, it was a common condition among Southern European countries, but while countries like Spain have evolved in the last decade, we stayed where we were. And the current government only made it worse. I've never been so ashamed of being Italian. Sure, I've never been particularly proud of my country, but things are ridiculous now.

We're the joke of Europe. And not a funny one. Our Prime Minister is a corrupted thief who collaborates with the mafia, owns 3 private TV channels, dozens on magazines and "indirectly" controls public TV. Cardinals and bishops have more power than politicians. Rents in cities like Milan are ridiculously high. When my friend A. from Berlin came to visit us last month he went to greet the guys with whom he shared a flat when he lived in Milan and told us that now they pay 490€ each for the rent. I don't remember if 3 or 4 people live there, but even if there were only 3, that would make a total of 1470€ a month.

What. The. Fuck. And it's even close to the Politecnico (technical university), so there are a lot of students in the area, students who have to pay almost 500€ a month for a room. My friend told us that he pays less than 490€ a month for a whole flat in Berlin. Sure, it may not be in the centre, but it's 10 minutes from the S-Bahn in the B-zone, just like his flat in Milan wasn't in the centre but was 10 minutes from the underground. And people wonder why so few students go to university.

I know that every country has its problems, but we're a desperate case. We're going to end up like Argentina, we'll wake up one day and have nothing left. I've always said that I want to go away, but recently my parents said they're scared of living in Italy too. I just hope that with the elections next year something will change. But Italians are so stupid that they may even vote Berlusconi again. If that happens, I'll seriously start thinking of leaving the country.

*sigh*

There. I needed to vent. See you tomorrow for the usual carefree, fangirly post.