alias_sqbr

Since I have made so many of these reaction posts without meaning to I thought it would be good to write an introduction I can link to at the top. (How did this take me all day it was supposed to make my life easier...)

Introduction
About the games
Characters
My reaction posts, and brief reviews of each route
Notes

Introduction:

So! Hakuoki (or Hakuouki) is a Japanese series of games and anime set in the 1860s about the real 19th century Japanese samurai group The Shinsengumi, but with added supernatural elements. It covers the period of history during which it became clear that samurai weren't really going to be a thing any more. This post is primarily about the visual novel/dating sim contained in the games "Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds" and "Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms".

The protagonist of these games, Yukimura Chizuru, is a doctor's daughter in her late teens looking for her missing dad. She gets tangled up with the Shinsengumi and ends up living with them and becoming part of their lives during this bittersweet time, eventually falling in love with one of twelve men involved in the story (or not), depending on what choices the player makes.

It starts out kind of slow, with a heavy emphasis on the politics and real battles of the period, and then becomes INTENSE AND TROPEY AND AMAZING. I started out writing these summaries to share my reaction to some of the more bizarre plot twists but am now MADLY IN LOVE WITH ALL OF IT.

Ok, most of it, it's pretty heteronormative and ableist and the plot twists continue to be a little silly sometimes.
( Cut for length, no major spoilers )

Pondering ideas for panels for swancon since I have yet to make it to a programming meeting (they're all at night!) and as yet there's no other venue for public discussion or airing of ideas. I probably don't want to be on any of these except the first one, though if someone else wants to run one I might be willing to volunteer in a "I might well be sick on the day" way. I intend to send the link to this page to the program coordinator after a bit.

Any thoughts? Any panels you guys would like to see?
( Read more... )

Having been thinking about the Hugos it occurred to me that video games aren't eligible. After discussing it with Cam we agreed that while the odd game might be worthy of one there isn't generally enough of them in any given year to justify a whole category.

Still, it was fun trying to list games (from all time, not just this year) we felt were worthy of at least being nominated. Cam was initially only allowing games he felt had a plot as good as a Hugo award winning novel, but I pointed out that tv, movies, and art all have their own categories, so imo a winning game should be a combination of good sff ideas, plot, art, feel etc as well as, of course, a good game. (Here's the recent long-form drama winners which I think is the closest category)
( And the winner is.. )

ataxi pointed me towards The Coolness Index, listing the top 10 songs Last FM users are ashamed to admit they like, and I was amused by the fact that I had JUST watched two vids with songs from the top 5, and another earlier in the day. And thinking about it, catchy but uncool songs are perfect for vids which want to tell a story straight and get under your skin, and poke fun of themselves at the same time, which is one of my favourite types of vid.

So, a list of cool vids with horribly uncool music :D

• Lady Gaga Poker Face by talitha78. Star Trek XI, great Spock-centric Kirk/Spock
  
• Britney Spears, Womanizer by ImaginarySanity. Star Trek:TOS. Kirk is a womanizer. Not glorious but pretty good.
  
• Katy Perry, I kissed a girl by bop-radar. Smallville "Clark experiments with heterosexuality". Hilarious.
  
• Lady Gaga, Just Dance by Shoopdancer, multifandom. Just dancing :)
  
• Britney Spears, Circus by butterfly. Star Trek XI, Kirk's a "put on a show" kind of girl.
  
• Britney Spears, Piece of Me by obsessive24. "The life and times of Britney Spears", remarkably effective.
  
• Rihanna, Disturbia by xCraZy18gurlx. Final Fantasy XII, Balthier/Fran. Ok, this is a total cheesey guilty pleasure but enjoyable for what it is :)
  
• Lady Gaga, Paparazzi
  
• Lady Gaga, Lovegame
  

Anyone got vids recs for the other songs? EDIT: See comments for some more alternatives.

I'm pretty sure I've seen a "Womanizer" vid for a fandom I'm not in at some point. EDIT: Found it:Akanishi Jin fanvid. Don't really like it that much, though the syncing of one pop star's dances to another's song was fairly well done.

Researching for Wedding is Desiny I came across Letters to a Young Lady on a Variety of Useful and Interesting Subjects which basically consists entirely of book recommendations. Since both of my characters read a fair bit, and I start each chapter with a quote, this is a useful resource and I went through and wrote them all down and then added links where (a) I could find something and (b) could be bothered (ie not for the bible). I skipped the Biography, Art, and guides to other countries sections because I just don't care.

Yes, making lists is like a sickness with me.
( Cut because I'm sure noone but me will find this remotely interesting )

EDIT: Brief notes from the panel.

So I was thinking about the scifi that doesn't get the love it deserves, and had an idea for a con panel: Hard science fiction for subjects other than physics, maths, and computer science.

Where here by "hard" I mean "Fairly scientifically realistic (given one or two "what-if"s etc), someone with a degree in that field would think it was cool rather than painfully innaccurate". Normal (ie mathsy) examples in this field are people like Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter ("Raft" had me doing 3d intergration to figure out the gravity field of his space ship :)), some Asimov etc.

The problem is: I have a degree in maths and computer science, so what the hell do I know about these other subjects :D On the other hand, nico_wolfwood (who has volunteered to co-panelise it) has the right sort of degree but couldn't think of many examples :)

So, for those of you with a background in one of these other sciences what books do you feel make a genuine effort to explore the ideas of your field in an informed and inventive way? Any objections to our current suggestions?
( What we can think of )
Right. Now both my panel ideas are out there I feel much better. They're both doing ok in the panel voting and I at least feel semi-prepared for it if they do get taken up. And if I'm sick on the day nico_wolfwood etc have my notes to work from, should they feel the need :)

EDIT: More discussion here.

Latest set of movies from Quickflix, most of which were pretty good.
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Ten Truly Underrated Sci-Fi Movies via linkmachinego. Don't forget the follow up post at the bottom.

Those I've seen, all worth watching if you like sf:
Primer: Best movie time travel ever
Tron: Absolutely classic, also has amusing-in-retrospect Sheridan & Londo scene :)
Existenz: Kind of crap, imo, but still really interesting
Gattacca: Awesome, like Primer actually takes it's material seriously
Dark City: Really interesting and effective style, even if it didn't make sense in parts. Borderline fantasy.
Cypher: I found this a bit shallow under it's cleverness, and very much reminiscent of a book I read in primary school (I won't say which for spoiler reasons)
The Quiet Earth: Saw this at Swancon, very strange and slow but unique and interesting. Are there any other NZ sf films?

I've read the story of "A boy and his dog" and it was effectively creepy, don't think I'd like the film.

Added to Quickflix queue: "Enemy Mine", "Silent Running" and "Strange days".

You HAVE to watch the trailer for "Enemy Mine". I can see why it's considered one of the slashiest canons ever "Hatred..turns to love tolerance. Tolerance..turns to love friendship. Friendship..turns to love."

Also, I don't care what they say, it may be cheesy and shallow but I liked Equilibrium :P

As some of you may recall I helped run a panel on the use of "race" as a metaphor in sff at Swancon. Preparing for and doing that panel has made me really aware of just how often this is done, and done badly, and since I'm having a slowish day at work, I've been inspired to organise it all into two lists.

I talk about "aliens" here but it applies just as well to any other non human group. Similarly, I'm mainly thinking about race/ethnicity, but stuff like religion etc works too.

Anything in bold is in both lists and an automatic fail.
( Signs your aliens are probably humans in disguise )( Things you just can't say about human groups )