beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Today I listened to a Big Finish Sarah Jane Smith adventure (very early and not Sarah Jane Adventures related at all, not terrible but not very good yet)

and watched three episodes of Legends of Tomorrow.

I had forgotten how much I hate Crisis on Earth X.
I stopped it after the first few minutes and tried to persuade myself to skip it but I am not a skipping episodes person so I went back after food and had another go.
The compare contrast on all the wedding stuff with all the Nazi AU stuff must have seemed like a good idea at the time but I do not see how.

There are good fun moments in the wedding stuff, like Alex and Sara, or Mick sort of in general.
There is the usual overstuffed irrelevance feeling of a crossover.
And then there's the garbage tier idea.

So. Not liking that.

And I've only watched the first episode of the Legends bit of the crossover, so I know there is worse to go.

Ugh.

I like the episodes that aren't the garbage crossover.

But I have moved on a bit in which characters I can stay focused on so a lot of me is waiting for Constantine to show up. And I like the others, I like Mick a lot, but I'm just a bit overly focused at the moment.

... I have three more comics omnibus editions to read and I want to reread Justice League Dark just the good bits version and I want to rewatch Constantine 2014 and mostly I want the version in my head to have any canon at all, but obviously I'd have to actually type that one, and I know that version is basically a new trenchcoat, just not quite new enough to even pretend the serial numbers never belonged.

Ah well, might turn into writing eventually.



In other news I tried a new food today but it tasted like tomato cardboard so I don't think I'll bother again. Vegetable lasagne but to get a vegan version it also has no gluten. The vegetables it used were not ideal.

Exciting life I lead.


Is pretty okay.

I have finished reading 1600 pages of Justice League Dark omnibus
and it is possible all the bits I really *like*
are in New 52 Constantine #12.

There's other bits that are good, but for a book that makes a big deal of John and Zatanna's grand tragic doomed love, they barely spend any time on page together, they're just motivated by losing each other a lot.

Nick Necro remains a shiny bit of twisted interesting in a magic soulmates story
that I want to take away from this New 52 nonsense and run away with to keep.

I read 1600 pages, at least 300 of them were annoying rubbish, quite a lot of the rest was fine until you expect it to pay anything off and instead it drops everything to do another story, and all of it is annoying because New 52.

I can only give it 3.5 stars as a whole, but, I am glad to have read all of it, even if the end result is knowing which characters I'd like to see story about.

... this omnibus gives me very little story about anyone, it's so full of Doing Things instead.
It's nice when the art gets an excuse to go all trippy and cosmic and remind you there's no FX budget limit here, but, it keeps on being frustrating storytelling to me.

Like I was liking it when the story built up to John covered in blood having taken the knowledge of all magic into his head declaring he would take over the world
but then the story zigged sideways and just plonked a new ending in out of nowhere
and I still want to see where actual John would go with that, or what Zatanna would have to say about any world he'd build.


And a perpetually frustrating bit is the suspicion it could make more sense if even more individual comics were all lined up for reading with this lot, but 1600 pages bringing together Justice League Dark, some select Constantine, and I don't know how many crossover Events comics, is already rather a lot.


... I am a bit tempted to go buy more Constantine though. I'm sure it would be frustrating too but there would be interesting bits.


I am still unconvinced this particular version of John Constantine should share the name though.

I'm taking Nick Necro and running back to the pool of Good Bits instead.

I think I'm up to page 1200 in this Justice League Dark omnibus
and the religion stuff is... a lot, but interesting enough.

I am glad to be reading though
because Nick Necro is back
and it is deliciously fucked up shippy again.
( Read more... )

I bought a Justice League Dark omnibus because I found a lot of fanfic very interested in Nick Necro
and I have read up to page 435
which has included a lot of Nick Necro.

I was puzzled reading the bits on the internet at how Nick thinks Z and John betrayed him
but reading it all in a row I realised
despite John *saying* threesome
the book thinks Nick is straight.

Well that's a lot more boring as a story.

Like yes betraying a friend and mentor is a story, but, *waves at John Constantine's everything*
they absolutely were shagging.

I'm not convinced this comic is well acquainted with John's everything though.
I mean they're actively remaking it, but I am frequently not impressed with what they're attaching to the name here.

And Zatanna is pretty much reduced to Daddy Issues in a bustier.

Also I am not getting along with superhero comics pacing anymore again. Everything happens so much, on any given page, and yet by page 435 it sure doesn't take many paragraphs to sum it up. People come and go so often it's not always worth memorising the names, yet the book seems to exist to intro them and tell us how the world works in the then new configuration. Crossovers dance across the pages in a splash and then go away to books not covered here. There's no through line, it's too choppy. And the summaries provided by the characters already contradict what I actually read.

Which is occasionally interesting because you learn for sure you can't trust a word out of Nick Necro's mouth and he may well be fooling himself as well, but that is not the only impression it gives.

It's doing a lot with Constantine and Zatanna so I'm glad I'm reading it, but it's mostly making me want to mine it for parts, which is my usual comics reading experience.
( Read more... )


I think this comics team that wanders in and out of crossovers is a reading experience pretty much opposite to the focused one to a handful of characters stories I've been liking most lately.
Like these people are interesting, but only enough to make me want a story about them. Not thus far to feel like I've read one.

Comics require different reading muscles.

... as does this 1622 page book...


ETA several days later: I was either mistaken in my impression or the story realised what bits were interesting. Excellent improvement follows. Several hundred pages later.

On the plus side the music playing Real Loud outside right now is recogniseable to me
but on the minus side that means whoever is playing it is probably around my age
and should know better.



I think open windows season has arrived.

... I always end up wanting to throw headphones in them...

Today I spent all day sitting in the living room
waiting on a delivery
which turned out to arrive tidily in the predicted time slot
but once Waiting Mode is activated it does not go away easily.

I have many Books now :-D

But in preparation for one of the many books I started rereading Wayward Children from the beginning, so I will be a couple more days before I get to the new one...


the reading is why it has been a quiet week here
lots of rereading, no pressing need to re review, so I was quiet.


I still want to start doing an output sort of a thing, a story or something, but still pondering that.

... I keep getting stuck on practicalities, like, there is a Mysterious Castle and a team of people from half a dozen canons are now Shut In The Castle...
... how much Mysterious Loo Roll do they need and how can we get it in the Castle without the mist eating it...

and there is a time and a place for that but I feel it is just turning a plot bunny into a shopping list
which really gets in the way of the porn.


bunnies will return eventually.

... *sigh* ...


👋🖖🌞

Going for a walk and seeing the ducks (tiny!) is very good
but then I have to have a lie down and there goes the rest of the day.

Ducks are good and flowers are good and trees are good too though.

Today I did the April Paperwork, which is the maximum paperwork and requires someone to double check it all, so mum helped and got biscuits. Getting it finished is pleasing but having to do it is less than fun. Feeling pretty good and accomplished right now though.


Except this morning I had one of those dreams that's really simple but kind of trips you up all day when you think about it. Like oh, still sad.

I dreamed I met someone from television and they'd got old and expanded and had bonus bought hair on, but it was still so good to see them and they gave good hugs.
And I woke up and remembered they are never going to get that old.

still sad.



Annual paperwork and the years still turning.

Give good hugs while the gettings good.

I finished rereading Ancillary Mercy this morning and when I went to check my catalog I gave some of the three books about half a star higher than I had before, except the one I rated 5 already. And I think I like them better this time because I read Translation State. Translaters aren't just quirky weird now, they're, well, really difficult to translate, and having the same problem reading everyone in the story. Knowing the new stuff it is just a Very Different experience, reading them again.

So that is cool.



Also today I tried to put my hands on a piece of paper I was sure I'd put right under the TV but I couldn't find it so I went through All The Paper. All.
Then I gave up and sat down
and found it immediately
right where I would see it from the chair.

Well done earlier me, I was not to know I would not be lazy sitting this once.

April is annoying the way all the numbers change, I have several number change things to do this week, but at least I have rediscovered the paperwork for it.

I said I should do something other than read a book, then I went and read a book.

Translation State, by Ann Leckie
Very good, and deeply weird. Kind of disturbing but partly because it makes the uncomfortable bits seem really ordinary for one of the more alien points of view. And just when you start thinking that yeah they're basically human things go full weird and they're really really really distinctive.
Good story.

Read it all in a row and now have to notice I have a tiny headache and possibly should have ate a food or something in there.
Shall go chug a ribena now...

I finished rereading The Black Unicorn by Terry Brooks.
It took a while because it mostly isn't very interesting. The point of view guy has to realise the power was always within him and tada all sorted. It's the same as the previous book. I've read five in a row now and the later written books have marginally more reread value but they all depend on a twist revelation at the end that seems incredibly obvious by now and the characters aren't deeply drawn enough in these ones to make interesting company.

Also, he has a weird idea of who the hero of the story is. Willow is the one who gets a quest, figures it out, accomplishes it, and save her world. But we are following around the guy who thinks of her as the love interest. She's the one the story is actually happening to while all the men are squabbling. So why aren't we with her? Weird.

Old book. Does not tempt me to read the next one. Does tempt me to get the shelf space back next time I run out.

I bought a bunch of these audios based on the book New Adventures because I liked the first one I heard with these companions. But they feel a bit sideways of what I'm used to in Doctor Who.

This one was written by a much younger Russell T Davies, and it indeed sounds like it is written by a much younger RTD. Sort of concentrate of RTD, like later it gets smoothed out.

... okay now I'm staring at the posting form it turns out that's all I've got to say about it.

It's not quite to my tastes and it is very much itself.

I am rereading (slowly) some fantasy books I haven't read in a while (decade or two?)
and what it just made me think about is
how many of them invent
TREE
but better.

Like, there is a Tree, and it can feed you!
and yes, that is indeed one thing a tree can do.
so what is the But Better?
well if it was simply not being seasonal that is a handy one, food but all year, everyone likes that.
but then it's like
tree but more supermarket.
what if fantasy landscape had a corner store, and no human needed to tend it.
let us just make labor even more invisible, and have Tree available to any and everyone just by walking past and grabbing a bit, that is obviously But Better, apparently.
And don't get me wrong, a lunch pail tree is obviously pretty cool, it makes you think about lunch pails and the way they do not in fact just grow that way and draws attention to the whole work goes in aspect of it, but
Tree But Better, These Guys Never Went Camping Edition,
is just
you can eat the tree!

And they do indeed eat every part of the tree.
you don't even need to know which part.
you eat all the tree and can live on it.

they never connect this up to the trees being ill
even though they have to avoid several ill trees to find a well one to eat.

they never get into the ecology of it all.

why are Trees But Better just sitting around for humans to eat?
why do they not have epic numbers of herbivores eating all the things?
why are they tree shaped if it doesn't get the edible bits away from the eaters?
every bit of the tree is edible.
that thing has no roots in logic land, something ate them already.

But nope, because it is Fantasy Land, so everything exists only for human adventurers.
Specifically ones that have no Survival skills, don't feel the need to Learn Plants, and just want to shove a food in their mouth.

And these miraculous items are somehow not part of the agricultural economy?
poor people might eat them if they wanted to badly.
otherwise they just sit there being trees
while people do farming
of unnamed crops
for nebulous reasons.

You know what does not happen when plentiful trees are literally a complete surviveable food?
the exact kind of feudal farming with thralls that is designed to grow you enough plant and animal to live on.
because you can already live on the sodding trees
which are everywhere
and nobody needs to tend them
and if you in fact don't have enough of them to feed all the humans
you would
Grow Trees On Purpose
because that is a complete meal
and a sheep is not.



But that isn't the point of the story so the whole world is vaguely medieval
because that's how it works.



Same thing with
Tree But Better:
You Can Shelter Under It.

And to be fair there are entire woodland societies that do indeed grow Trees But Better to live in.

It's just once that is simple, effective, and available everywhere you can walk to
you have to wonder why anyone else *isn't* doing it
or why every time they look for somewhere to shelter
there is a convenient
unoccupied
tree
with no beasties in it whatsoever.



Tree But Better exists solely so the narrative can stop thinking about survival and ecology and labour and make it so you don't need an inn to survive overnight in the middle of sodding nowhere.



It's like this character who went hiking in his running shoes to go find a portal, and the narrative has him still wearing them a year later after all the adventures, and that never turns out to be a bad idea.

You know how many times you have shopped for shoes?

You know how you have to check really carefully to get the right shoes for the job or you end up squelching around in foot ruining agony?

Terry Pratchett certainly thought about boots, and where they come from, and the socio economic implications of different sorts of them, and what boots dragon riders would wear,
but I can't think of a second example.

It's not even that they wouldn't make story mileage. Of such things is civilisation made.

But not if you're doing ye olde fantasy novel apparently.

Fantasy and magic makes everything But Better, so you can just ignore where things come from and who might be making them and the vague possibility that people might need other people even for basic goods and services and that that maybe might be why civilisation in all its varieties occurs
and just get on with the hard job of intimidating the natives with your clearly superior inherent worth
etc.


Today it is irritating me.