Attack the Block: very good scifi/thriller/comedy/horror/social commentary about a London street gang encountering an alien invasion. Just about at my limit of scariness though, I had to read a plot summary and stop every ten minutes or so to keep my anxiety under control enough to make it through. I still really enjoyed it, I was glued to the screen for much of it and while the scifi is minimal with cheap special effects it makes as much sense as it needs to. The characters are nuanced and engaging, and by the end of the film I had exactly the sort of cathartic happy/relieved feeling you want at the end of thriller/comedy/horror.

Fringe: I recently finished disk 4. I adore the main character, Olivia, she's the sort of emotionally restrained competent woobie cop main character who never gets to be female, and unlike Scully from Xfiles she's not constantly being proven wrong(*). The scifi is unselfconsciously ridiculous, and much of the show is cheesy, but I manage to suspend my disbelief. Not QUITE too scary for me, but not watched at night.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: Too much teen angst, not enough scifi, got bored and read a synopsis, didn't like the sound of it so didn't finish the movie. Other people like it so YMMV!

I went through a bunch of recs for Happy Same Sex Relationship Stories:

Wilby Wonderful: Slow, somewhat dour Canadian drama about a small island community. Some nice moments, and ends happily enough, but wasn't enough fun on the way to justify the journey.

Itty Bitty Titty Committee: I got a very little way into this before I was too irritated to continue. A conventionally attractive skinny young white girl sprays graffiti over a plastic surgery clinic and smugly frames the latina who works there as "backup", then she and her smug conventionally attractive skinny young white friends (Clits In Action, cis women plus one trans man, played by a cis woman) smugly opine about how they're fighting sexism by lecturing other women about how they're living their life wrong. HOORAY FOR QUEER CINEMA.

Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith: Did I review this already? Anyway, good, understated, slightly arty novel which loosely retells the myth of Iphis as a lesbian love story in Scotland, sort of. Intelligent and interesting and happy making, though don't expect a a Romance romance.

Thy Neighbour's Wife by Georgia Beers: Unobjectionable and incredibly dull lesbian romance novel. Flipped to the end, barely made it through the final chapter it was so dull.

(*)This isn't a criticism of Scully, I adore Scully. But watching what the show did to her was frustrating. The "scientists are wrong about everything" message got annoying too. In Fringe the scientists are right, they're just all mad scientists.

Omg! Finally finished! Sure, he asked for a romance with a living city, and I gave a sort-of-romance-mostly-friendship with an AI, but CLOSE ENOUGH.

Title: The Heart of the City
Wordcount: 4800
Rating: G
Genre: Science Fiction/Romance
Notes: For the the_s_guy's prompt: A being of unremarkable size for their species becomes romantically entangled with a living city. (I realise AIs aren't actually alive, but this is where my muse took me)

Summary: Maya never forgot that CC was a computer. But sometimes she forgot that ze wasn't a person.
( Read more... )

I was discussing recent-ish tv shows that are worth watching with lilysea and said I'd try and think of some recs later when I was less sleepy. And then I thought I might as well make it a post, that way other people can suggest things/get suggestions.

Recently finished shows I enjoyed: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (anime), Wandering Son (anime)

I am currently into: Parks and Recreation, Community, Castle, Doctor Who, Sherlock (sort of)

I couldn't really get into: Glee, Once upon a Time, Game of Thrones, Pushing Daisies, Weeds, Sanctuary, Sarah Jane Adventures, Merlin, Nikita, Suits, New Girl, Person of Interest, No Ordinary family, Breakout Kings, Skins, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Dexter, Grey's Anatomy, Eureka, The Good Wife, Mad Men, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, 30 Rock

Shows I was into then went off: Downton Abbey, Lost Girl, Warehouse 13, Supernatural, Covert Affairs, Legend of the Seeker, Burn Notice, Psych, Bones, Smallville, Chuck, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Leverage, Being Human (UK), Lie to Me, Torchwood

Other people's recs that I intend to check out: Pretty Little Liars, Fringe, Breaking Bad, Switched at Birth, Sons of Anarchy, Boardwalk Empire, various DC Superhero related cartoons, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, various Korean dramas if I can figure out how to watch them, Jellyfish Princess (anime), Gintama (anime which I just realised is streaming free on Crunchyroll, woo!)

Shows I have heard mixed reviews about and don't intend to watch: Alphas, Misfits, The Borgias, Revenge, Hawaii 5-0, Homeland, Make it or Break it, Necessary Roughness, The Defenders, Terra Nova, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Gossip Girl, Rizzoli & Isles, Grimm, Being Human (US), The Hour, Camelot

A couple of older shows in there just because I encountered them late :) Also, a lot of the shows I went off didn't get particularly worse over time, it's just that the novelty value of the formula wore off for me.

So, what are you watching and enjoying right now? What really obvious shows that are currently popular with geeks have I forgotten? (I wrote this at 5am, so I'm sure there are some)

EDIT: Watched the first episode of Gintama, it is REALLY SILLY. Also JUST started Capital Scandal.

Under the cut: various tv and books and stuff. Because apparently I am too sleepy and dizzy to surf the internet or play glitch, but am awake enough to type a post?
( Read more... )

Overall I thought it was ok.

( Some spoilers, nothing very specific )

Here's an official River Timeline I came across, I may try fitting it together with the timeline I created at the end of last season, though all the rewriting of history makes it tricky.

I've been in a really fantastic mood recently, I feel really optimistic and comfortable in my skin. It is VERY STRANGE.

emma_in_dream came over with her kids today which was great, I was a bit too sleepy to be very good conversation but there was much discussion of My Little Pony and eating of cherries and it was very nice.

Yesterday I decided to take a break from "Twelve Kingdoms: Skies of Dawn". She's deconstructing typical fantasy heroine by having a couple of female characters who are convinced that they are oppressed special snowflakes who Deserve To Be Saved From All This and slowly learn responsibility and perspective. Their journey can be painful to watch, especially since Fuyumi Ono is sometimes heavy handed with both the oppression they experience and the "Stop feeling sorry for yourself" rhetoric.

Random internet clicking led me to Demon Princess. And it sounds very silly and way too porny for me, but...cross dressing lesbians! Morally ambiguous demon women who Learn to Care! Sacrifice for the greater good!

So to distract myself I read The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer, a lesbian retelling of Hades and Persephone that I'd heard was good.

...and in this Persephone really is an oppressed special snowflake who Deserves To Be Saved From All This. She's nice enough, but spends the middle portion of the book being incredibly passive and dull with absolutely no life goals beyond pining after Hades (she is slightly more interesting by the end) It's the sort of romance where everything revolves around the two main characters and their feelings for each other, (eg the mortals are oppressed, but they're stupid helpless ingrates who just show how nice Hades is for helping them anyway) that's not my sort of thing but it's ok for the genre. The deconstruction of mythology was ok and certainly fit what I know of Greek myth, you don't have to deconstruct very much for Zeus to be a bad guy. Be warned the story includes both rape and attempted incest.

Although the basic plot seems to be the same, it is moderately different from the anime. I've heard some of the choices the anime made criticised, the one that's even more obvious reading the book is the bizarre choice to keep the plot point that Yoko's appearance changes, but not actually change her appearance. Here she is with "dark red-brown hair" and here she is with vividly bright red hair and completely different features (if you can't see the pictures: she has the same face and dark-ish red hair in both :))

But this really is a clunky translation. I'll see if I can dig up some of the better fan translations for the other books since they're not in the library system regardless.

I just finished all ten disks of the anime, and I really liked it (Thanks to everyone who recced it, and to bunny_m for lending me it). Parts of it dragged and certain aspects of the storytelling bugged me, but overall it was a really good fantasy story, with an engaging plot, detailed worldbuilding and compelling characters with complex relationships and genuine character growth.

There's no romantic plots apart from two unrequited things that are done with early on, but the platonic relationships between people are strong enough that I didn't miss it (I love when platonic relationships involving women are taken seriously ^_^) Speaking of which, there's a LOT of female characters, the show isn't perfect on gender but they're definitely central and taken seriously.
( No spoilers, just some more description )

Non spoilery comments: I liked it, though I didn't LOVE it like some people. Still, definitely worth playing. I recommend Varric, Anders, and if you can swing it one of your siblings, though there's cute banter for everyone. There's a lot of stuff about magic and demons etc (yeah, I know, when isn't there), so a character who cares about that stuff adds extra depth. I used a Templar type who was rivalmancing Anders and it was pretty great. I think if I play it again I'll bring my blood mage for contrast :D

As far as I can tell playing from a save after the end of the game can mess things up, the dialogue certainly doesn't seem to take it into account.

( Spoilers! )