You can read my thoughts (along with spoilery stuff for TLoU and Andor) in my newsletter, but to save you scrolling past a lot of spoilers for other things, I'll also pop them here.
( Here's a cut! )
Murderbot (AppleTV+ 2025)
Apr. 10th, 2025 08:33 amThe trailer for the Murderbot TV series is out, and I'll be honest: it gives me the ick. Like, I've blocklisted the word "Murderbot" on my social media, blocked Martha Wells so I don't see her promotional posts in my timelines, and I'm thinking of giving my books away.
Which is absolutely an overreaction, so I'm sitting on my hands for now, but it has powerful "we have completely captured everything you imagined, except it's white, cis, male and incredibly cheap looking".
AppleTV+ generally produces quite decent-to-good sci-fi, so I assume this will be watchable, but so far it looks generic and boring.
Semi-related, but I did wind up creating a little newsletter where I talk about the TV I've been watching, with an option for other media as the mood strikes me. I have 16 subscribers! You could be the 17th!
Which is absolutely an overreaction, so I'm sitting on my hands for now, but it has powerful "we have completely captured everything you imagined, except it's white, cis, male and incredibly cheap looking".
AppleTV+ generally produces quite decent-to-good sci-fi, so I assume this will be watchable, but so far it looks generic and boring.
Semi-related, but I did wind up creating a little newsletter where I talk about the TV I've been watching, with an option for other media as the mood strikes me. I have 16 subscribers! You could be the 17th!
Disconnected (severed?) Severance thoughts
Mar. 1st, 2025 12:15 pmWould it be weird to create a weekly newsletter covering things I'm watching and reading? I know that's what Dreamwidth is for, but I like the idea of aggressively putting it in people's inboxes. I could do both. I absolutely have time and energy to commit to a new project.
2024 reading round-up
Jan. 3rd, 2025 07:59 amRound-ups from previous years: 2021, 2022, 2023
This year I kept a media-tracking spreadsheet in Google Docs, and also a paper reading journal. Which sounds extremely wanky, because it is, but I enjoyed the tactile aspect of creating layouts, pasting print-outs of covers, and keeping track of things in handwriting. Also I got to use stickers. Here are a couple of sample pages:
I've already started a fresh journal for 2025, this time in a small ring binder to avoid certain annoying problems, ie, the build-up of thickness from pasting the covers into the same spot over and over again.
Okay, the stats.
Total books logged: 138 (the secret to my success: sprained ankle, broken ankle, covid, ongoing ankle problems and plantar fasciitis have made it more likely that I will stay in the office and read at lunch instead of taking a walk)
DNFs: I didn't keep close track, but a standout is a YA quartet I abandoned 20% into the third book
By target audience (age)
What's great about "contemporary" is that it's really a setting, not a genre -- so these 19 books encompassed everything from Māori literary fiction to two books which are arguably thrillers and now I'm wondering if I hit the wrong option in the dropdown menu.
Contemporary mystery and thriller
Science fiction
Adult SF is where I found most of my DNFs this year, as I tried and failed to read more indie SF.
Non-fiction: 35
History was the winner here in terms of numbers, but for quality, I read a bunch of books about organisational and corporate shenanigans at Boeing, NASA, Twitter and Qantas, and those were the standouts.
Author stats
Australian authors: 18% - this is much lower than in previous years, but I made up for it by reading more widely throughout the world, with more books by New Zealanders and Nigerians, and what I think must be the first YA novel I've read by an Argentinian
Authors of colour: 26% - down from last year's 29%, and doing even worse in terms of "30% feels like equality if you're not marginalised"
Women: 67%, I do NOT need to make a deliberate effort to read books by women. Also three were books by trans women, and I need a better way of tracking that than putting an asterisk in the gender box in my reading journal
Trans and non-binary authors: 4%
The really nerdy stats
Library loans: 73% - I tracked spending for the first time this year, and spent a total of $479 on books, plus US$50 for my Queens Library membership.
Ebooks: 76% of my reading was ebooks, plus I read one (1) audiobook. Which is a format I do not care for, but it was the only way to get Black Against Empire from the library. (A stranger on Bsky tried to neg me by saying it's weird that I would have preferred to skim the chapters on Marxist theory, and I'm sorry, I think finding Marxist theory boring is a pretty common position.)
TV stats
For the first time, I tracked TV watching via spreadsheet. I can't tell you down to the minute how many hours of TV I watched, but I watched 69 different series (nice), most in English and most made in the United States.
This year I kept a media-tracking spreadsheet in Google Docs, and also a paper reading journal. Which sounds extremely wanky, because it is, but I enjoyed the tactile aspect of creating layouts, pasting print-outs of covers, and keeping track of things in handwriting. Also I got to use stickers. Here are a couple of sample pages:
I've already started a fresh journal for 2025, this time in a small ring binder to avoid certain annoying problems, ie, the build-up of thickness from pasting the covers into the same spot over and over again.
Okay, the stats.
Total books logged: 138 (the secret to my success: sprained ankle, broken ankle, covid, ongoing ankle problems and plantar fasciitis have made it more likely that I will stay in the office and read at lunch instead of taking a walk)
DNFs: I didn't keep close track, but a standout is a YA quartet I abandoned 20% into the third book
By target audience (age)
- Adult - 86
- Children - 1
- Young Adult - 42
- Middle Grade - 9
- Contemporary (adult): 7
- Contemporary (YA): 10
- Contemporary (middle grade): 2
What's great about "contemporary" is that it's really a setting, not a genre -- so these 19 books encompassed everything from Māori literary fiction to two books which are arguably thrillers and now I'm wondering if I hit the wrong option in the dropdown menu.
- Fantasy: (adult): 8
- Fantasy (YA): 11
- Fantasy (middle grade): 4
Contemporary mystery and thriller
- Adult: 17
- YA: 10
Science fiction
- Adult: 6
- YA: 6
Adult SF is where I found most of my DNFs this year, as I tried and failed to read more indie SF.
Non-fiction: 35
History was the winner here in terms of numbers, but for quality, I read a bunch of books about organisational and corporate shenanigans at Boeing, NASA, Twitter and Qantas, and those were the standouts.
Author stats
Australian authors: 18% - this is much lower than in previous years, but I made up for it by reading more widely throughout the world, with more books by New Zealanders and Nigerians, and what I think must be the first YA novel I've read by an Argentinian
Authors of colour: 26% - down from last year's 29%, and doing even worse in terms of "30% feels like equality if you're not marginalised"
Women: 67%, I do NOT need to make a deliberate effort to read books by women. Also three were books by trans women, and I need a better way of tracking that than putting an asterisk in the gender box in my reading journal
Trans and non-binary authors: 4%
The really nerdy stats
Library loans: 73% - I tracked spending for the first time this year, and spent a total of $479 on books, plus US$50 for my Queens Library membership.
Ebooks: 76% of my reading was ebooks, plus I read one (1) audiobook. Which is a format I do not care for, but it was the only way to get Black Against Empire from the library. (A stranger on Bsky tried to neg me by saying it's weird that I would have preferred to skim the chapters on Marxist theory, and I'm sorry, I think finding Marxist theory boring is a pretty common position.)
TV stats
For the first time, I tracked TV watching via spreadsheet. I can't tell you down to the minute how many hours of TV I watched, but I watched 69 different series (nice), most in English and most made in the United States.
AppleTV+ recommendations
Oct. 11th, 2023 08:58 amI started doing this as a reply to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selenak, and then realised this is something I discuss a lot, and it might be beneficial to have an actual post I can update and point people to.
AppleTV+ should be the most superfluous streaming service, right? It's the perfect encapsulation of everything that's wrong with the streaming landscape: tech companies think they can make entertainment.
Unfortunately, AppleTV+ has invested a great deal of money into making a small number of very good shows.They're not all winners, but it has a much higher success-to-failure rate than the other streamers. It's frankly outrageous. They're sufficiently consistent that my household actually pays for our subscription instead of just getting a few free months here and there whenever we get a new device.
So if you find yourself with a free period, here are some recommendations:
Drama
The Morning Show is terrible. It thinks it's a prestige drama with a lot to say about the state of the media and the modern world. It has Sorkinesque aspirations.
selenak, and then realised this is something I discuss a lot, and it might be beneficial to have an actual post I can update and point people to. AppleTV+ should be the most superfluous streaming service, right? It's the perfect encapsulation of everything that's wrong with the streaming landscape: tech companies think they can make entertainment.
Unfortunately, AppleTV+ has invested a great deal of money into making a small number of very good shows.They're not all winners, but it has a much higher success-to-failure rate than the other streamers. It's frankly outrageous. They're sufficiently consistent that my household actually pays for our subscription instead of just getting a few free months here and there whenever we get a new device.
So if you find yourself with a free period, here are some recommendations:
Drama
The Morning Show is terrible. It thinks it's a prestige drama with a lot to say about the state of the media and the modern world. It has Sorkinesque aspirations.
It's actually a trashy workplace soap opera with a weirdly remarkable cast. Season 2 sees a character die by driving their car off an Italian cliff during the covid epidemic while Reese Witherspoon's character embarks on a relationship with a coworker played by Julianna Margulies. Jon Hamm plays a character best described as "sexy Elon Musk" or "fuckable Zuckerberg". Tig Notaro has two scenes as his assistant. Why? Who knows? This is not a good show, and not really a good example of the streamer's programming (it was launched as the flagship drama, and, um), but I can't stop watching.
[Content notes: the series opens with the characters facing a #MeToo scandal which escalates as sexual assaults are uncovered; a character commits suicide; the depiction of the early days of covid is all too real, and in line with its prestige pretensions, season 3 involves Reese's plucky reporter being on the ground in the Capitol on 6 Jan.]
WeCrashed is a dramatisation of the rise and fall of WeWork. This is another one that transcends mere questions of whether a show is "good" or "bad". It's thorougly entertaining and, at eight episodes, doesn't overstay its welcome.
[Content notes: Jared Leto.]
Slow Horses is an extremely unglamorous, down-to-earth British spy thriller. Gary Oldman plays an over-the-hill spy who has been pensioned off to The Place Where MI5 Stashes Its Incompetents, where he spends his time day drinking and engaging in workplace bullying, and very reluctantly occasionally rallying his crew to save the world. Or at least a small, British corner of it.
Kristen Scott Thomas and Sophie Okonedo play the top brass of MI5, and various generations of character actors appear in various roles.
[Content notes: Gary Oldman. And his character is thoroughly odious, too. Season 1 involves the abduction of a Muslim student by right wing extremists.]
Science Fiction
For All Mankind is an alternate history in which the USSR land a man on the moon before the United States, spurring a never-ending space race.
The second episode of this series is literally one of the worst things I have ever watched, with a lot of white American men being sad their destiny failed to manifest. Then in episode 3, someone goes, "Hey, maybe we can ... let women? Be astronauts?" And the next thing I knew, it was the season finale and I was utterly hooked, and now this is one of my favourite series.
Produced by Ronald D. Moore and has a bunch of ex-DS9 writers, if you're into that sort of thing. It has its flaws, but they're interesting ones, like the decision to use old age make-up instead of recasting characters, so you get to season 3 -- which is set in the '90s -- and have a lot of incredibly youthful 60 and 70 year olds running about.
[Content notes: depictions of mental illness, racism, sexism, homophobia, addiction. Season 2 features a relationship between a middle-aged woman and her friend's son, who is in his late teens or early 20s.]
Silo is an adaptation of Wool by Hugh Howey. I hadn't read the book when I watched it, and found it utterly compelling. It tells the story of a self-contained subterranean society in an apparently post-apocalyptic world. Or is it? I liked the characters, but I LOVED the worldbuilding. And after I read the book, I also loved the decision to gender-flip the heroine's mentor and cast Harriet Walter as a grumpy, agoraphobic lesbian.
[Content notes: nothing I can recall, oddly. I'm sure I've forgotten something.]
Foundation is an adaptation of the Isaac Asimov series. Where Silo is fairly faithful to its source, Foundation goes, "Okay, Isaac, you have all these bonkers ideas, but you know what you don't have? Women. People of colour. Queer people. Hey, what if a robot was a woman and she fucked? You need more clones, too."
The first season is quite messy, with a lot of ideas being thrown around while the plot unfolds verrrrrrry slowly. One reviewer compared it to a screensaver: it's gorgeous, but is anything really happening? Season 2 fixed that problem, although still involved a lot of people chasing a magic rubik's cube.
But is it really about the plot? Or is it about two characters who are close in age realising they're mother and daughter? Lee Pace playing an eternal line of clones, and also committing genocide while wearing a torn mesh top and culottes? Ben Davis playing a tortured general with an inappropriately young husband? The most delightful demisexual space cleric? Rachel House running a cult?
It's actually quite respectful of Asimov's ideas, in that it takes them very seriously while subverting expectations. The worst people in fandom hate it, which honestly is more than enough of a recommendation for me.
[Content notes: violence, death, misuse of mathematics. A sexual relationship between an adult clone and the robot who raised him from infancy.]
Severance is an SF psychological thriller whose protagonists have had their minds "severed" so that at home they have no memories of their time at work, and at work they have no memories of their time at home. (In fact, they do not even remember consenting to the severing process.)
It's a thriller -- needless to say, the company is up to no good -- but also just remarkably stylish and surreal in the way you'd expect from, say, a British surrealist spy drama of the '60s or early '70s. And also unexpectedly funny, though it's not at all a comedy. Did you need a tentative romance between John Turturro and Christopher Walken in your life? If the answer is yes, Apple is here for you.
[Content notes: I can't remember! Save that, despite being a show about workplace abuses, I remember reading that conditions on the set weren't great? I mean. Apple.]
Comedy
Ted Lasso is the tale of an American football coach who is hired to manage a premier-league soccer football team in London. He doesn't know anything about soccer, but that's okay, this is the team's new owner's ploy to destroy the one thing her ex-husband loves.
Ted Lasso has been massively hyped, and unfortunately lives up to it. I mean, some people say it doesn't hold up outside of a covid lockdown where everyone is desperate for connection (and this is very much a show about building connections), and some people hated the way the series ended (but it was exactly what I expected). It's kind of annoying that it's so good, because I am exactly the sort of grumpy contrarian who would like to hate it. But I did not.
[Content notes: boss/employee relationship; extremely heteronormative until season 3; some people were mad their OTPs didn't get together.]
Dickinson is an irreverent look at the early adult life of Emily Dickinson, her family, friends, and most of all, her romantic relationship with her best friend and sister-in-law, Sue Gilbert.
Often compared to The Great because both series are about young women and deal in intentional anachronisms, but I actually think Dickinson does a better job, not least because Emily's relationship with reality is extremely tenuous. Riding in a literal carriage with Death? Who is played by Wiz Khalifa? Sure! Travelling to the future and meeting Sylvia Plath? Absolutely! It works because the series is absolutely steeped in love and respect for Dickinson's life and work. I read a detailed bio of Dickinson between seasons, and was impressed at how much truth there was in the series.
[Content notes: got a lot of criticism, especially in season 1, for using a massive amount of Black music without including Black characters to any great extent. This was corrected to an extent in the ensuing seasons, especially with the addition of Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) to both the cast and the writing team, but still didn't quite click for some viewers.]
Mythic Quest is a workplace comedy set in a video game company. Notable for the extremely platonic relationship between the male and female leads, the fact that the female lead is an Australian woman of colour who is, frankly, really hard work and not very likeable (I love her), and its deep knowledge and affection for nerd culture.
I haven't watched the third season yet, because it's oddly loud in a way that I need to be in the right mood for, but it's a really good time if you've played video games or spent any time in the WorldCon end of the SFF community.
[Content notes: F Murray Abraham played an elderly, Hugo Award-winning novelist who was brought on to write the titular game, but actually spends most of his time being a racist, sexist jerk. Apparently art imitated life, because he was fired for harassment in the third season. This is good, but also a shame because honestly, it was an amazing satire of that guy we all know in fandom. Season 2 features a standalone episode about that character in his youth, and it's one of the best depictions of the SF community of the 1950s that I've ever seen.]
And also
Making this post, I've realised there's so much on AppleTV+ that I haven't watched yet. The Pachinko adaptation. A series about Idris Elba on a hijacked plane. Something with Tom Hiddleston as a horny priest? And they all have okay-or-better reviews. Literally the only thing on the service I've seen get actively bad reviews was Invasion, and honestly? Fair. Everything else seems to be mediocre-or-better, and as you can see, right now Apple's mediocrity is still better than a Netflix original that will be cancelled after a season. Apple seems to be using its bottomless wealth to take creative risks, and I respect that a lot.
The best things about the Heartbreak High reboot (at least the first two episodes, which is all I've seen so far) are:
Oh, and the other worst thing is the Americans trying to say that Aboriginal Australians can't be considered Bla(c)k, but fuck 'em, no Yanks on the thread.
- the "You don't seem autistic"/"Okay, Sia" exchange
- the casual queerness
- all the Aussie teens on Tumblr and TikTok realising they have never encountered contemporary Australian drama made for them before
- (this is an uncomfortable realisation, but Dance Academy ended in 2013, and I may have been the only person who watched Ready or Not)
Oh, and the other worst thing is the Americans trying to say that Aboriginal Australians can't be considered Bla(c)k, but fuck 'em, no Yanks on the thread.
An assortment of things
Feb. 25th, 2019 08:44 amI'm still putting together my thoughts on last week's Discovery, mostly because the story unfolded so differently from my expectations that I need some extra time to figure out how I felt about it. ( But I do have a crack theory... )
Reading
I'm halfway through The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, which is one of those books I enjoy reading over lunch at work, but never feel compelled to pick up at any other time.
The plot: a meteor wipes out Washington DC and a big chunk of the east coast of North America in 1952, this is going to be an extinction-level event in the long term, so the space program goes from "maybe a satellite lauch?" to "we need to colonise Luna and Mars by the end of the century".
This is feminist hard SF, and although it feels a bit heavy handed to me, as the heroine learns important lessons about racism and intersectionality, it seems to read more subtle to people who haven't been following those discussions in SF publishing for years. My main criticism is that it has some of the worst sex scenes I have ever encountered in published fiction. They're not graphic, but ... there are rocket metaphors. It's unfortunate (and unsexy). Fortunately I was warned in advance, and could brace myself.
(Also, I've seen it being recommended as a good book for people who want f/f romance in their SF? I'm over 50% through, and if there are any queer characters at all, so far they haven't come out to the heroine. I truly hate when media is recommended for inclusiveness it doesn't actually have.)
Watching
I'm into season 3 of Bron | Broen, the original Swedish/Danish version of The Bridge. A lot of Scandinoir is driven by coincidence, and this is no exception, but I think it's my favourite entry in the genre that I've seen -- mostly because Saga Noren is such a great character. But she has a temporary boss in this season, who is basically the Dolores Umbridge of police captains, and I'm spending a lot of time silently shouting STOP TRYING TO MAKE SAGA ACT LIKE A NEUROTYPICAL PERSON at the screen.
("Dear Ask A Manager,
My temporary supervisor is determined to make me reconcile with my abusive mother, and tricked me into attending my father's funeral. Is this legal?")
I also watched the first episode of Russian Doll, and hated it a lot. It wasn't bad, I just hated the main character, and also every single other character except the cat. So that was easy to drop, and hopefully one day Netflix will stop telling me to keep watching it.
(I mentioned this on Twitter, and a stranger popped up to tell me I needed to give it a few more episodes before I dropped it. There is no faster way to make me angry than by recommending something I already know I'm not into (see also: Leverage, where I was initially bored and indifferent and now I actively hate it), so that earned them a nice, fast blocking.)
Reading
I'm halfway through The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, which is one of those books I enjoy reading over lunch at work, but never feel compelled to pick up at any other time.
The plot: a meteor wipes out Washington DC and a big chunk of the east coast of North America in 1952, this is going to be an extinction-level event in the long term, so the space program goes from "maybe a satellite lauch?" to "we need to colonise Luna and Mars by the end of the century".
This is feminist hard SF, and although it feels a bit heavy handed to me, as the heroine learns important lessons about racism and intersectionality, it seems to read more subtle to people who haven't been following those discussions in SF publishing for years. My main criticism is that it has some of the worst sex scenes I have ever encountered in published fiction. They're not graphic, but ... there are rocket metaphors. It's unfortunate (and unsexy). Fortunately I was warned in advance, and could brace myself.
(Also, I've seen it being recommended as a good book for people who want f/f romance in their SF? I'm over 50% through, and if there are any queer characters at all, so far they haven't come out to the heroine. I truly hate when media is recommended for inclusiveness it doesn't actually have.)
Watching
I'm into season 3 of Bron | Broen, the original Swedish/Danish version of The Bridge. A lot of Scandinoir is driven by coincidence, and this is no exception, but I think it's my favourite entry in the genre that I've seen -- mostly because Saga Noren is such a great character. But she has a temporary boss in this season, who is basically the Dolores Umbridge of police captains, and I'm spending a lot of time silently shouting STOP TRYING TO MAKE SAGA ACT LIKE A NEUROTYPICAL PERSON at the screen.
("Dear Ask A Manager,
My temporary supervisor is determined to make me reconcile with my abusive mother, and tricked me into attending my father's funeral. Is this legal?")
I also watched the first episode of Russian Doll, and hated it a lot. It wasn't bad, I just hated the main character, and also every single other character except the cat. So that was easy to drop, and hopefully one day Netflix will stop telling me to keep watching it.
(I mentioned this on Twitter, and a stranger popped up to tell me I needed to give it a few more episodes before I dropped it. There is no faster way to make me angry than by recommending something I already know I'm not into (see also: Leverage, where I was initially bored and indifferent and now I actively hate it), so that earned them a nice, fast blocking.)
Berlin TV shenanigans
Dec. 19th, 2018 03:01 pmMy favourite non-Star Trek series of 2018 is Counterpart, the series starring JK Simmons as a mild mannered bureaucrat who comes face to face with his evil douchebag mirror universe parallel universe counterpart.
(I cannot recommend it highly enough -- the first episode has Not Enough Women, and I was really only continuing for Simmons, but then the second episode introduces ... her identity is a mild spoiler. Suffice to say, the lead female character, played by Olivia Williams, is one of the most complicated, ambiguous, ~~problematic female characters around. I plan to make DW icons at some point; in the meantime, I'm using The Americans' Elizabeth Jennings, who is not quite her spiritual sister, but they have a few things in common.)
Counterpart is set and partially filmed in Berlin, so it's often mentioned in the same breath as Berlin Station, a slightly older series -- three seasons so far -- set in the CIA's Berlin outpost. I watched the first episode last night.
It's...
Okay, asking me to feel bad about CIA agents having all their dodgiest secrets leaked is a stretch. Ending the first episode with "The leaker isn't just a traitor! He's a murderer!" as the camera pans lovingly over the bloody body of a young woman is an even bigger stretch. Expecting me to put up with both those things, and the only female characters so far are strictly in supporting roles? No thank you. Apparently Ashley Judd joins in season 2, but ... ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
On the other hand, the scenery is very pretty, and Richard Armitage is adequate. His accent's not amazing, but better than, say, David Tennant's. Maybe the show will get better?
(I cannot recommend it highly enough -- the first episode has Not Enough Women, and I was really only continuing for Simmons, but then the second episode introduces ... her identity is a mild spoiler. Suffice to say, the lead female character, played by Olivia Williams, is one of the most complicated, ambiguous, ~~problematic female characters around. I plan to make DW icons at some point; in the meantime, I'm using The Americans' Elizabeth Jennings, who is not quite her spiritual sister, but they have a few things in common.)
Counterpart is set and partially filmed in Berlin, so it's often mentioned in the same breath as Berlin Station, a slightly older series -- three seasons so far -- set in the CIA's Berlin outpost. I watched the first episode last night.
It's...
Okay, asking me to feel bad about CIA agents having all their dodgiest secrets leaked is a stretch. Ending the first episode with "The leaker isn't just a traitor! He's a murderer!" as the camera pans lovingly over the bloody body of a young woman is an even bigger stretch. Expecting me to put up with both those things, and the only female characters so far are strictly in supporting roles? No thank you. Apparently Ashley Judd joins in season 2, but ... ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
On the other hand, the scenery is very pretty, and Richard Armitage is adequate. His accent's not amazing, but better than, say, David Tennant's. Maybe the show will get better?
Culture consumed (etc)
Dec. 13th, 2018 01:34 pmWith the influx of new people, I'm seeing a lot of introductory posts on my reading page. Here's me:
( TV, movies, podcasts, books ... a couple of books. )
- Liz
- Thirty-six years old
- Apparently that makes me part of the "Oregon Trail generation", except I had never heard of that game before the 2000s
- Active in online fandom since age 17
- Oh God, that's nearly 20 years
- I got an invite to my 20 year high school reunion last month
- I'm so old
- I used to have so much mercy
- Me thinking about other people: "Thirty-six is really young!"
- Thinking about myself: "SO OLD."
( TV, movies, podcasts, books ... a couple of books. )
State of the Liz
Jul. 23rd, 2018 08:48 amReal life is very straightforward:
The sleeping is getting a bit out of hand, but I think that's related to some health issues I'm having examined next week.
I've changed it up by joining my local YMCA (*does the dance*), which has classes and a little gym, and seems to attract patrons of a wide range of ages and body types. Also the local roller derby team trains there, which is terribly cool but also makes me regret (again) that my assorted ankle and foot injuries mean that rollerskating is the very worst sport I could possibly pursue.
General TV stuff
Probably the best thing I've seen recently is Killing Eve, but I also loved season 2 of GLOW, which gave more time to the supporting characters while also flipping the dynamic of season 1 by making Debbie the less likeable of the protagonists. Downright hateable, in fact, but I could also still sympathise with her. That's a really hard line to walk, so, nice job all around, team.
I'm currently watching the four episodes of Major Crimes that guest starred Jayne Brook. It's ... well, it's the penultimate storyline of a six season procedural, but it's a procedural, so I feel like I know everything important about the regular characters already.
Mary McDonnell has had a hell of a lot of work done on her face, which is a valid choice and all, but distracting because I know what she used to look like. And it's weird when she's standing next to Brook, who is nearly ten years younger but looks much older and has a full range of movement in her forehead.
(Also, the text and subtext around gender, sex and assault are quite at odds, and feel extremely dated. Which is troubling, because it aired in late 2017 and is a not at all subtle #metoo story.)
I realised halfway through the first episode of this arc that the Major Crimes showrunner is the new guy in charge of Discovery -- which, if nothing else, maybe increases our chances of getting a McDonnell guest appearance. But that seems as good a way as any to segue into... Discovery at SDCC!
( Spoilers for season 2, I guess )
- work
- write
- watch TV and quilt
- listen to podcasts
- read
- sleep
The sleeping is getting a bit out of hand, but I think that's related to some health issues I'm having examined next week.
I've changed it up by joining my local YMCA (*does the dance*), which has classes and a little gym, and seems to attract patrons of a wide range of ages and body types. Also the local roller derby team trains there, which is terribly cool but also makes me regret (again) that my assorted ankle and foot injuries mean that rollerskating is the very worst sport I could possibly pursue.
General TV stuff
Probably the best thing I've seen recently is Killing Eve, but I also loved season 2 of GLOW, which gave more time to the supporting characters while also flipping the dynamic of season 1 by making Debbie the less likeable of the protagonists. Downright hateable, in fact, but I could also still sympathise with her. That's a really hard line to walk, so, nice job all around, team.
I'm currently watching the four episodes of Major Crimes that guest starred Jayne Brook. It's ... well, it's the penultimate storyline of a six season procedural, but it's a procedural, so I feel like I know everything important about the regular characters already.
Mary McDonnell has had a hell of a lot of work done on her face, which is a valid choice and all, but distracting because I know what she used to look like. And it's weird when she's standing next to Brook, who is nearly ten years younger but looks much older and has a full range of movement in her forehead.
(Also, the text and subtext around gender, sex and assault are quite at odds, and feel extremely dated. Which is troubling, because it aired in late 2017 and is a not at all subtle #metoo story.)
I realised halfway through the first episode of this arc that the Major Crimes showrunner is the new guy in charge of Discovery -- which, if nothing else, maybe increases our chances of getting a McDonnell guest appearance. But that seems as good a way as any to segue into... Discovery at SDCC!
( Spoilers for season 2, I guess )
Culture consumed
Aug. 6th, 2016 09:22 amWatching:
Season 6 of Game of Thrones, which benefits enormously from overtaking the books. Suddenly stalled character arcs are moving again! Dany gets to do more than be a bit out of her depth (and Emilia Clarke gets to do more than look pensive)! More Diana Rigg! The Braavosi equivalent of "The Ember Island Players"!( Significant spoilers )As a palate cleanser, I then watched the three episodes of House that featured Lin-Manuel Miranda. I moved on from that series early in season 3, but such is the nature of the series that I had no trouble at all picking it up in season 6. (Shocking spoilers: beneath his gruff exterior, House cares a lot. I know, I know, it's news to me, too.)
Season 6 opens with House in a psychiatric hospital, and LMM is his roommate, a Puerto Rican rapper with bi-polar disorder. It's full of ableist cliches and also regular cliches, but LMM is a delightful human being in any situation, and Andre Braugher plays the guy in charge, so if you squint a bit, it looks like a really odd episode of Brooklyn 99.
Next: Stranger Things, followed, I think, by a Gravity Falls rewatch.
Reading:
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child -- but you knew that. I'm still having a lot of feelings. It's a problem.(It turns out that if you post a couple of times about Draco Malfoy to Tumblr, you start being followed by ... hunk blogs? Tumblrs dedicated to male models? I feel bad for them, I am absolutely the last person they should be following.)
Then I started reading American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Harold Blum, but it wasn't enough to overcome my MASSIVE BOOK HANGOVER, so I turned to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
(There are currently no plans to bring Cursed Child to Australia, but there are pretty close ties between the producers and the Australian theatre industry -- yes, I just googled -- so I feel like I should start putting money aside to buy tickets as soon as it's announced.)
Other things, not actually culture:
I've almost finished the quilt top I've been working on for the last few months -- my very first quilt that's just for me! It's a lap blanket for the couch. At my current speed, it will probably be finished by the end of summer.I seem to have hayfever for the very first time in my life -- although it's winter, Melbourne has apparently been inundated by pollens from all over the place, and a lot of people have developed hayfever for the first time. I DON'T CARE FOR IT. I'm itchy all the time, my previously well-managed dermatitis is off the charts. I could go out and buy antihistamines, but I know there's a box around here ... somewhere. So I'm stubbornly suffering while I look for it.
(Also, I kind of overspent this fortnight, so I'm on a really tight budget until I get paid on Wednesday. I'm not regretting my Cursed Child impulse purchase, mind, but I am quite itchy, and I'm running out of tissues fast.)
Finished: season 3 of The Americans
May. 23rd, 2016 10:24 am( Spoilery thoughts. )
Next: to start my rewatch of Babylon 5 while I wait for season 4 to finish so I can binge that.
Next: to start my rewatch of Babylon 5 while I wait for season 4 to finish so I can binge that.
Culture consumed
May. 15th, 2016 10:51 amA regular feature on the Galactic Suburbia podcast is "Culture Consumed", where they outline and discuss the things they've been watching, reading and listening to of late. I really like the format, so here's what I've been consuming lately.
I don't really do podcasts much, but I love Galactic Suburbia, which ranges widely from fandom to general Australian pop culture from a local feminist perspective that works hard at intersectionality. There is also cake.
I also don't really listen to albums per se, let alone Beyoncé albums -- I usually find her work very hit and miss, most of the misses being ballads. But Lemonade really is outstanding. For one thing, there's a coherent narrative, which I don't find in many albums, and it all comes together in "Formation" at the end.
Speaking of coherent narratives: Hamilton. I didn't much like it on a first listen -- I think I got as far as "You'll Be Back" -- but I gave it a second go because I was intrigued by all the discussion. Listening to it with the Genius annotations open was great -- but it took the entrance of George Washington to make me fall in love. Turns out I just quit one song too soon on my first attempt.
I have a lot of Issues with its portrayal of women, which I think is a lot less feminist than people give it credit for, but I sure do love it a lot.
Spinning off from there, I've also been listening to a lot of the '80s and '90s hip hop that inspired Hamilton, and from there I keep falling down a TLC/Salt 'n' Pepa spiral, which inevitably leads back to Destiny's Child, Beyoncé and Lemonade.
But once again, I'm going to read as many of the finalists as I can, review them on No Award, and vote according to merit. I just finished Seveneves, and I'm struggling to come up with a coherent way to talk about it on NA. I might just do the post in three acts: one's really slow, the other is quite interesting until everything suddenly happens offscreen and we hear about it later, and the third is a review of a completely different book all together.
My reward for finishing Seveneves is Star Wars: Bloodline by Claudia Gray. It's very good, but what I'm really interested in with regard to the post-OT timeline is Ben Organa Solo and his descent into darkness. Sorry, Tumblr, but I have a serious weakness for characters who grow up in the shadow of their family legacies and either deal with that or fail spectacularly, so the only way Kylo Ren could be more awesome in my eyes is if he was Han and Leia's daughter instead of their son.
Also read lately:
nonelvis and sorryforlaughing , I've been watching The Americans. They were right: it's very, very good. It's sort of my Mad Men, in that every episode features a style of clothing or hair that I've seen on pictures of my mother.
It turns out that America is suddenly doing really good historicals set in the last few decades. Well, not "suddenly", I suppose Mad Men proved it could be done, and then it was just a matter of time until it inspired some really good shows. Between seasons of The Americans, I've watched Show Me A Hero (set in the '80s and '90s, about the court-mandated desegregation of Yonkers) and The People v OJ Simpson, which I started expecting hilarity, and ended having actual feelings about the Kardashians?
Then my MacBook's logicboard exploded, so for about ten days, I was confined to what I could watch via streaming services. Which was fine, it was just in time to binge watch season 2 of Janet King via ABC iView. I quite liked season 2 -- I thought it was better plotted than season 1, and despite the Dead Lesbian Trope that drives it, it also gives us Marta Dusseldorp dealing with trauma by wearing a lot of tank tops, and also a plot about a woman seeking justice for her murdered wife.
I was less impressed that the final episode reveals that the murderer is ( spoilers ), which doesn't really affect the plot or motivations, it's just a means to a fake-out. That could have been done differently, guys.
Stuff I watch week to week:
Elementary's season 4 was a mixed bag, and I have some issues with the finale, but it left me shipping ( spoilers )
And Orphan Black's season 4 is great so far, pulling back from the labyrinthine conspiracies of season 3, but still dealing with repercussions from last year's plotlines.
( More spoilers )
Listening
I don't really do podcasts much, but I love Galactic Suburbia, which ranges widely from fandom to general Australian pop culture from a local feminist perspective that works hard at intersectionality. There is also cake.
I also don't really listen to albums per se, let alone Beyoncé albums -- I usually find her work very hit and miss, most of the misses being ballads. But Lemonade really is outstanding. For one thing, there's a coherent narrative, which I don't find in many albums, and it all comes together in "Formation" at the end.
Speaking of coherent narratives: Hamilton. I didn't much like it on a first listen -- I think I got as far as "You'll Be Back" -- but I gave it a second go because I was intrigued by all the discussion. Listening to it with the Genius annotations open was great -- but it took the entrance of George Washington to make me fall in love. Turns out I just quit one song too soon on my first attempt.
I have a lot of Issues with its portrayal of women, which I think is a lot less feminist than people give it credit for, but I sure do love it a lot.
Spinning off from there, I've also been listening to a lot of the '80s and '90s hip hop that inspired Hamilton, and from there I keep falling down a TLC/Salt 'n' Pepa spiral, which inevitably leads back to Destiny's Child, Beyoncé and Lemonade.
Reading
It's Hugo's season, and once again, the shortlists are a clusterfuck of right wing trolls. The novels aren't so bad this time, but I may nope out of Best Related Work all together, not only because I'm a bit disappointed that Companion Piece didn't make it, but I'm absolutely heartsick that we don't get to lose to Letters to Tiptree.But once again, I'm going to read as many of the finalists as I can, review them on No Award, and vote according to merit. I just finished Seveneves, and I'm struggling to come up with a coherent way to talk about it on NA. I might just do the post in three acts: one's really slow, the other is quite interesting until everything suddenly happens offscreen and we hear about it later, and the third is a review of a completely different book all together.
My reward for finishing Seveneves is Star Wars: Bloodline by Claudia Gray. It's very good, but what I'm really interested in with regard to the post-OT timeline is Ben Organa Solo and his descent into darkness. Sorry, Tumblr, but I have a serious weakness for characters who grow up in the shadow of their family legacies and either deal with that or fail spectacularly, so the only way Kylo Ren could be more awesome in my eyes is if he was Han and Leia's daughter instead of their son.
Also read lately:
- Vol 1 of Archie 2015, the "reboot" with art by Fiona Staples. I was pretty cynical when I heard this was happening, but it's really good -- I think because it takes the whole Riverdale format seriously, and isn't setting out to be a Dark and Gritty Version. It's still a comic you could give to your kids. And the art and writing are just good, to the point where I may actually have to get the Jughead title as well. (I realised that Mark Waid has written a bunch of stuff I've enjoyed over the years, so I should pay more attention to him.)
- The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks -- another YA/Middle Grade graphic novel, set in a city that has been invaded and colonised so many times, it's original inhabitants no longer have a name for it. This wears its Avatar inspiration overtly -- not only does it have a blurb from Bryan Konietzco, but the cover uses the AtLA font -- but it's a worthy successor. For one thing, unlike a lot of AtLA-inspired works, it's not about white people.
- The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R King -- I sort of fell out of love with this series after Locked Rooms pulled its punches and then God of the Hive looked at all the foreshadowing and set-up of the previous book and went, "Nah, actually I'll ignore all of that and be disappointing and racist instead." But this was outstanding, and I really wish it had come out ten years ago, when I had the fannish drive and energy to really do something with it, fic-wise. It's a massive retcon of not just the previous Russell novels, but also the Doyle canon, and nearly everything about it delighted me. Even the flashbacks to 19th century Australia were great, and I usually find gaping errors in that sort of thing.
Watching
On the insistence ofnonelvis and sorryforlaughing , I've been watching The Americans. They were right: it's very, very good. It's sort of my Mad Men, in that every episode features a style of clothing or hair that I've seen on pictures of my mother.It turns out that America is suddenly doing really good historicals set in the last few decades. Well, not "suddenly", I suppose Mad Men proved it could be done, and then it was just a matter of time until it inspired some really good shows. Between seasons of The Americans, I've watched Show Me A Hero (set in the '80s and '90s, about the court-mandated desegregation of Yonkers) and The People v OJ Simpson, which I started expecting hilarity, and ended having actual feelings about the Kardashians?
Then my MacBook's logicboard exploded, so for about ten days, I was confined to what I could watch via streaming services. Which was fine, it was just in time to binge watch season 2 of Janet King via ABC iView. I quite liked season 2 -- I thought it was better plotted than season 1, and despite the Dead Lesbian Trope that drives it, it also gives us Marta Dusseldorp dealing with trauma by wearing a lot of tank tops, and also a plot about a woman seeking justice for her murdered wife.
I was less impressed that the final episode reveals that the murderer is ( spoilers ), which doesn't really affect the plot or motivations, it's just a means to a fake-out. That could have been done differently, guys.
Stuff I watch week to week:
Elementary's season 4 was a mixed bag, and I have some issues with the finale, but it left me shipping ( spoilers )
And Orphan Black's season 4 is great so far, pulling back from the labyrinthine conspiracies of season 3, but still dealing with repercussions from last year's plotlines.
( More spoilers )
Work: returned yesterday. I was assigned a job labelled as "assault/affray/serious bodily harm", which I took to mean that my run of sex offences was over. NOPE! It was mislabelled. I'm not sorry I have Wednesdays off.
Arm: healing! I mean, that's how I interpret the nagging itch. Most of the redness has gone, too.
Ankle: sore! I think I overdid it yesterday. For one thing, we control our audio with foot pedals, and it turns out I'm strongly right-footed. And, yes, it's the right ankle that's sprained. Even so, it's not unbearable.
Ovaries: HAH! I HAVEN'T COMPLAINED ABOUT THESE YET! I've had nagging pains in my right side since before Christmas, which at first I put down to some kind of phantom gallbladder syndrome, but I finally went to the doctor last week, and he poked and I yelped, and apparently it's probably something in the ovary department. His money's on a cyst. At least, unlike a surprising number of my friends, I made it through my US trip without an ovary literally exploding.
White Lotus fic: remember how I was crowing that my prompt was exactly what I wanted to write? Yeah, not so much. I have 1014 words, none of which relate to the specific prompt except in terms of the pairing, but I'm sure I can fix that before it's due on, um, this weekend.
TV: Parks & Recreation is so amazing, you guys. Well, not the first season. I had a dream last night that I went back to watch the first season, and it was brilliant. Then I woke up and remembered how terrible the pilot was. But seasons 2-5 of Parks & Rec are so amazing, you guys. The Carrie Diaries is less amazing, what with the post-pilot episodes so far being a bit generic, but I think it has the capacity to improve. If not, at least it's a chance to admire Freema Agyeman in a series of improbable and terrible outfits. Finally, Breaking Bad is quite brilliant, although I'm quite mystified by all the people who say Walt crosses the line in season 4 or 5. Were they not paying attention to the attempted marital rape in the season 2 premiere? Anyway, I'm convinced that, however the timeline works out, Walter White is actually the son of Pete Campbell and Peggy Olsen that was given up for adoption. Turns out that Pete's sense of white, male, middle class American entitlement with a seething underscore of potential violence is genetic.
Books: Are pretty great. I just finished For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund, a retelling of Persuasion set in a dystopian (or, more accurately, post-dystopian) New Zealand. With steampunk elements. It was quite excellent, and well worth the trouble I went to in order to get a copy. (For some reason, I could buy a prequel novella from the Kindle store, but not the actual novel. In the end, I had to buy a hardback edition from The Strand in New York.) Now, naturally, I'm reading Persuasion again. Turns out I own three copies. This seems reasonable.
Arm: healing! I mean, that's how I interpret the nagging itch. Most of the redness has gone, too.
Ankle: sore! I think I overdid it yesterday. For one thing, we control our audio with foot pedals, and it turns out I'm strongly right-footed. And, yes, it's the right ankle that's sprained. Even so, it's not unbearable.
Ovaries: HAH! I HAVEN'T COMPLAINED ABOUT THESE YET! I've had nagging pains in my right side since before Christmas, which at first I put down to some kind of phantom gallbladder syndrome, but I finally went to the doctor last week, and he poked and I yelped, and apparently it's probably something in the ovary department. His money's on a cyst. At least, unlike a surprising number of my friends, I made it through my US trip without an ovary literally exploding.
White Lotus fic: remember how I was crowing that my prompt was exactly what I wanted to write? Yeah, not so much. I have 1014 words, none of which relate to the specific prompt except in terms of the pairing, but I'm sure I can fix that before it's due on, um, this weekend.
TV: Parks & Recreation is so amazing, you guys. Well, not the first season. I had a dream last night that I went back to watch the first season, and it was brilliant. Then I woke up and remembered how terrible the pilot was. But seasons 2-5 of Parks & Rec are so amazing, you guys. The Carrie Diaries is less amazing, what with the post-pilot episodes so far being a bit generic, but I think it has the capacity to improve. If not, at least it's a chance to admire Freema Agyeman in a series of improbable and terrible outfits. Finally, Breaking Bad is quite brilliant, although I'm quite mystified by all the people who say Walt crosses the line in season 4 or 5. Were they not paying attention to the attempted marital rape in the season 2 premiere? Anyway, I'm convinced that, however the timeline works out, Walter White is actually the son of Pete Campbell and Peggy Olsen that was given up for adoption. Turns out that Pete's sense of white, male, middle class American entitlement with a seething underscore of potential violence is genetic.
Books: Are pretty great. I just finished For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund, a retelling of Persuasion set in a dystopian (or, more accurately, post-dystopian) New Zealand. With steampunk elements. It was quite excellent, and well worth the trouble I went to in order to get a copy. (For some reason, I could buy a prequel novella from the Kindle store, but not the actual novel. In the end, I had to buy a hardback edition from The Strand in New York.) Now, naturally, I'm reading Persuasion again. Turns out I own three copies. This seems reasonable.
Media consumed
Jan. 16th, 2013 02:08 pmLosers in Space by John Barnes: YA SF. In the interests of having more content on my blog, I posted my fairly substantial response there.
The Carrie Diaries: CW TV series. I was originally planning to skip all the bits that didn't have Freema Agyeman, but I got sucked into the story and wound up being unexpectedly charmed. I've never watched more than a few minutes of Sex in the City, but this has the makings of a clever little show that stands on its own. At the pilot stage it has some terrible lines (although Carrie's tedious voiceovers are more forgivable coming from a 16 year old than a grown woman), but also a lot of heart, and a solid cast. (I was amused to see that Carrie's 14 year old sister, whom I'd dismissed as too mature and tall for the role, is in fact played by a 15 year old actress.) Apparently the CW is hoping it will fill the void left by Gossip Girl, but so far it's way too nice for that. And, I note, has a more diverse cast than Sex in the City and Girls combined.
And yes, Freema was lovely. I don't think she's ever played a character as flighty and flirty as this before, but she does it well. Although there are a few shots where her faint crows feet are visible, which made me cheer a little, because it's not often you get to see that kind of thing at all, but it seemed a bit odd in a character who declares that people are old when they turn 25. But hey, it's set in 1984, a generation before Botox, and I can easily see Larissa as a person who latches onto very young, impressionable people and uses them to distract the world from her age.
Elementary: I can't believe how this show has crept up on me. It's gone from "Is Elementary on this week?" to "WHEN IS IT ON? I NEED TO KNOW. I CAN'T WAIT TWO WEEKS FOR THE NEXT EPISODE, CBS!" So that's nice. Unexpected for a procedural, but then, the emotional story of Sherlock and Joan coming to respect and like each other is serialised, and now that we have the characters established, the plots are getting a little bit meatier. Sometimes they even verge on making sense! Well done, team!
I have to say, though, with Watson established as a baseball fan, and all the soccer stuff last week, I really hope there's an episode where all investigations come to a halt because Holmes has to watch The Ashes.
The Carrie Diaries: CW TV series. I was originally planning to skip all the bits that didn't have Freema Agyeman, but I got sucked into the story and wound up being unexpectedly charmed. I've never watched more than a few minutes of Sex in the City, but this has the makings of a clever little show that stands on its own. At the pilot stage it has some terrible lines (although Carrie's tedious voiceovers are more forgivable coming from a 16 year old than a grown woman), but also a lot of heart, and a solid cast. (I was amused to see that Carrie's 14 year old sister, whom I'd dismissed as too mature and tall for the role, is in fact played by a 15 year old actress.) Apparently the CW is hoping it will fill the void left by Gossip Girl, but so far it's way too nice for that. And, I note, has a more diverse cast than Sex in the City and Girls combined.
And yes, Freema was lovely. I don't think she's ever played a character as flighty and flirty as this before, but she does it well. Although there are a few shots where her faint crows feet are visible, which made me cheer a little, because it's not often you get to see that kind of thing at all, but it seemed a bit odd in a character who declares that people are old when they turn 25. But hey, it's set in 1984, a generation before Botox, and I can easily see Larissa as a person who latches onto very young, impressionable people and uses them to distract the world from her age.
Elementary: I can't believe how this show has crept up on me. It's gone from "Is Elementary on this week?" to "WHEN IS IT ON? I NEED TO KNOW. I CAN'T WAIT TWO WEEKS FOR THE NEXT EPISODE, CBS!" So that's nice. Unexpected for a procedural, but then, the emotional story of Sherlock and Joan coming to respect and like each other is serialised, and now that we have the characters established, the plots are getting a little bit meatier. Sometimes they even verge on making sense! Well done, team!
I have to say, though, with Watson established as a baseball fan, and all the soccer stuff last week, I really hope there's an episode where all investigations come to a halt because Holmes has to watch The Ashes.
Cannot unsee
Jan. 12th, 2013 09:33 pmThis week, at the behest of suburbannoir, I started watching Breaking Bad. (We have a thing where I watch one of her favourite shows, she watches one of mine, etc. Last year I watched The Wire for her, and she watched Babylon 5 for me. SHUT UP, THEY ARE TOTALLY COMPARABLE.)
Anyway, I'm only four episodes in, but it's the internet, I've seen pictures from future seasons and whatnot, and I already know that Skyler is the very worst character in the history of storytelling (on account of how she's a woman, and has opinions, and expects to be treated with respect, as far as I can tell), and according to The Guardian, the whole show shamefully appropriates the drug culture of people of colour (and only PoC) and turns it into a white middle class fantasy, and worse, isn't even an accurate depiction of the meth industry!
(Which I can vouch for. I've transcribed cases involving meth cooks and users, and either way, the transcript tends to come out looking like this:
SUSPECT: ...(INAUDIBLE)... fuckin' ...(INAUDIBLE)... cuntin' ...(INAUDIBLE)... fuck - - -
And let me tell you, I am SHOCKED and APPALLED that television, of all media, would enhance the truth.)
The actual point, however, of this post is this:
Yep. Good luck getting that one out of your head! And don't do meth. It's legit nasty.
suburbannoir, I started watching Breaking Bad. (We have a thing where I watch one of her favourite shows, she watches one of mine, etc. Last year I watched The Wire for her, and she watched Babylon 5 for me. SHUT UP, THEY ARE TOTALLY COMPARABLE.)Anyway, I'm only four episodes in, but it's the internet, I've seen pictures from future seasons and whatnot, and I already know that Skyler is the very worst character in the history of storytelling (on account of how she's a woman, and has opinions, and expects to be treated with respect, as far as I can tell), and according to The Guardian, the whole show shamefully appropriates the drug culture of people of colour (and only PoC) and turns it into a white middle class fantasy, and worse, isn't even an accurate depiction of the meth industry!
(Which I can vouch for. I've transcribed cases involving meth cooks and users, and either way, the transcript tends to come out looking like this:
SUSPECT: ...(INAUDIBLE)... fuckin' ...(INAUDIBLE)... cuntin' ...(INAUDIBLE)... fuck - - -
And let me tell you, I am SHOCKED and APPALLED that television, of all media, would enhance the truth.)
The actual point, however, of this post is this:
Yep. Good luck getting that one out of your head! And don't do meth. It's legit nasty.
Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeema!
Dec. 23rd, 2012 08:17 amI'm a bit embarrassed to find myself looking forward to The Carrie Diaries, especially since it has a projected lifespan of about three episodes and I've never seen Sex in the City, but YA/coming of age + Freema is a pretty winning combination for me.
Also, just based on this, I have a feeling there's going to be some age-inappropriate Larisa/Carrie shipping, and I'm down with that.
In other news, every single year I forget that in hot weather, my desktop makes a noise like a helicopter. It's the fan. It's a problem. Like, when you can't hear a song or video over the sound of your computer fan? Annoying and probably bad for the machine as a whole!
Also, just based on this, I have a feeling there's going to be some age-inappropriate Larisa/Carrie shipping, and I'm down with that.
In other news, every single year I forget that in hot weather, my desktop makes a noise like a helicopter. It's the fan. It's a problem. Like, when you can't hear a song or video over the sound of your computer fan? Annoying and probably bad for the machine as a whole!
