I'm a free brain, baby
Feb. 23rd, 2019 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_aurafinaI'm off my meds. I am a free-range brain. It is strange and a little unsettling, like the floorboards of my mind are creaking underfoot but holding steady for the moment.
Cutting for talk of roadkill type car accident with animal harm.
Twenty years in the country and we hit a kangaroo for the first time on Tuesday. It was very fast. The roo was very dead. I was very lucky it didn't go through the window and land in my lap.
I think it's like hitting a deer in the US? I am not sure how to contextualise it for non-Australians who might feel bad about this iconic animal getting dead, but they are plentiful and stupid and jump in front of vehicles all the time. There's a bad drought further north and it's driving more kangaroos down our way, which I think is why we clocked this one at 2pm when the local roos are usually napping. IDK.
The next day, the car had gushed pinkish water all over the garage floor, which turned out to be because the radiator was mashed. We're driving a replacement car until the mechanics can replace it.
Too much adventure omg.
Brief Media Review:
Eps 1-3 of ST Discovery S2
Eeeee, it is such a relief to have slightly less grim stories. I loved S1 but the gut-wrenching was exhausting. I LOVE Captain Pike (and omg, he was Black Bolt in that Inhumans series? I actually liked Black Bolt in that weird show...) Anyway, I love Captain Pike. He has given me all kinds of feels, stepping in after Lorca. I feel like he has inherited a crew of scrappy shelter cats who were ready to shred the fuck out of him at the start of the first episode and now they all lie on him and make biscuits and purr.
When we first learned that Michael was Spock's foster sister, I was a bit wary of the way that story was going to spin out, but omg. I love what we're learning about that little family and the very complicated, very intense dynamic between each person. Aaah, I love James Frain's Sarek, I love this Amanda, I love wee scowly Spock. I love that they're a normal family, really. Lots of dramaz, lots of unacknowledged love.
I am not terrifically invested in the mysterious red signals, to be honest, but I do love it as a plot mechanic that is giving us monster of the week stories. This crew needs a few week-to-week adventures, after season one.
Tig Notaro's character is great, and I am immediately crushing on her, but I'm saying this with a slightly defiant tone because I can feel the hate radiating from *those* fans. You know the ones I mean. It somewhat offsets my enjoyment. (I haven't actually read anything negative because I stringently avoid places where I'm likely to. Maybe I'm making it up? That would be nice, but I bet I'm not.)
Tidelands S1
Which, if this didn't make it to shores outside Australia, is kind of a paranormal mystery story? IDK. This is the imdb summary:
After an ex-con returns to her fishing village, a dead body leads her to uncover the secrets of the town and its half-siren, half-human residents.
I really enjoyed this - every character felt real and well-written with their own motivations, the world-building was solid and said a lot about the fate of rural communities in a global economy, and the magical parts of the story were beautiful and weird.
I am 100% a sucker for stories about about supernatural beings living in the mundane world and the weird social ecosystems that evolve up around them. Tidelands was perfect for me. There were just enough answers about how things work to satisfy my plot-loving mind, but not so many that I feel like the whole story has been told. So much history about this little beachside town wrapped up with the sirens.
Adrielle, played by Elsa Pataky was really great - the whole Tidelander community was filled with inhumanly beautiful people. Quite a few different body types and it was nice to see those bodies presented as being inhumanly beautiful too.
There's all kinds of twisty inter-community relationships going on, between the Tidelanders and the local drug dealers, the drug dealers and the actual fishing businesses, the drug dealers and the police. It's really complicated and satisfying. There were many characters that I thought I was going to hate but ended up loving.
I kind of love that they took a story about sirens, and resolutely killed male characters only. That takes guts. Although it did make for a very violent series.
Caveats: There are some acts of violence against children, there is a little too much of the 'ladies kissing sexily for the guys' and one (terminally ill) queer character is murdered. ETA (thanks,ranalore): there's a fairly icky eye injury done to a child, for people who have eye squick.
Oh, and the soundtrack was awesome. I'm still listening to it.
Wow, I obviously have a lot of feelings about this show that I can't quite express. I'm looking forward to S2. (Though they're going to need some more men folk to kill...)
Sirens S1 Episodes 1-4
Aaaahahaha this show is cheap and obvious and cliche as fuck and I love the crap out of it. It's Splash meets schlocky environmental science. It's also what I call a donut show - all the good stuff is at the edges and the centre is a big sucking hole. I have absolutely no interest in the male lead and his ever so brave decision to live in poverty despite his family's wealth. I have all the interest in, say, the Haida sheriff, the tormented military scientist who doesn't realise he's caught by a siren song, and, of course, the mermaids.
(I also have a lot of interest in the way the male lead's girlfriend has all the physical contact with Ryn the mermaid. All the arm stroking and hair touching and snuggling. Yes please.)
Also, Rena Owens plays a woman who runs a mermaid trinket store and holds all the mermaid lore (and might be a mermaid too? Not sure yet.) She's amazing and underused and it cracks me up whenever I can hear New Zealand vowel sounds making it through the USian accent.
I am deeply unimpressed that the rich mum is a wheelchair user in a story where mermaid CSF can apparently cure paralysis.
So, yeah. This is the trashier of the two mermaid shows I've watched this summer (How awesome to be able to say that?) and it probably sounds like I don't like this one but I do.
So many mermaids this summer. It's great.
Cutting for talk of roadkill type car accident with animal harm.
Twenty years in the country and we hit a kangaroo for the first time on Tuesday. It was very fast. The roo was very dead. I was very lucky it didn't go through the window and land in my lap.
I think it's like hitting a deer in the US? I am not sure how to contextualise it for non-Australians who might feel bad about this iconic animal getting dead, but they are plentiful and stupid and jump in front of vehicles all the time. There's a bad drought further north and it's driving more kangaroos down our way, which I think is why we clocked this one at 2pm when the local roos are usually napping. IDK.
The next day, the car had gushed pinkish water all over the garage floor, which turned out to be because the radiator was mashed. We're driving a replacement car until the mechanics can replace it.
Too much adventure omg.
Brief Media Review:
Eps 1-3 of ST Discovery S2
Eeeee, it is such a relief to have slightly less grim stories. I loved S1 but the gut-wrenching was exhausting. I LOVE Captain Pike (and omg, he was Black Bolt in that Inhumans series? I actually liked Black Bolt in that weird show...) Anyway, I love Captain Pike. He has given me all kinds of feels, stepping in after Lorca. I feel like he has inherited a crew of scrappy shelter cats who were ready to shred the fuck out of him at the start of the first episode and now they all lie on him and make biscuits and purr.
When we first learned that Michael was Spock's foster sister, I was a bit wary of the way that story was going to spin out, but omg. I love what we're learning about that little family and the very complicated, very intense dynamic between each person. Aaah, I love James Frain's Sarek, I love this Amanda, I love wee scowly Spock. I love that they're a normal family, really. Lots of dramaz, lots of unacknowledged love.
I am not terrifically invested in the mysterious red signals, to be honest, but I do love it as a plot mechanic that is giving us monster of the week stories. This crew needs a few week-to-week adventures, after season one.
Tig Notaro's character is great, and I am immediately crushing on her, but I'm saying this with a slightly defiant tone because I can feel the hate radiating from *those* fans. You know the ones I mean. It somewhat offsets my enjoyment. (I haven't actually read anything negative because I stringently avoid places where I'm likely to. Maybe I'm making it up? That would be nice, but I bet I'm not.)
Tidelands S1
Which, if this didn't make it to shores outside Australia, is kind of a paranormal mystery story? IDK. This is the imdb summary:
After an ex-con returns to her fishing village, a dead body leads her to uncover the secrets of the town and its half-siren, half-human residents.
I really enjoyed this - every character felt real and well-written with their own motivations, the world-building was solid and said a lot about the fate of rural communities in a global economy, and the magical parts of the story were beautiful and weird.
I am 100% a sucker for stories about about supernatural beings living in the mundane world and the weird social ecosystems that evolve up around them. Tidelands was perfect for me. There were just enough answers about how things work to satisfy my plot-loving mind, but not so many that I feel like the whole story has been told. So much history about this little beachside town wrapped up with the sirens.
Adrielle, played by Elsa Pataky was really great - the whole Tidelander community was filled with inhumanly beautiful people. Quite a few different body types and it was nice to see those bodies presented as being inhumanly beautiful too.
There's all kinds of twisty inter-community relationships going on, between the Tidelanders and the local drug dealers, the drug dealers and the actual fishing businesses, the drug dealers and the police. It's really complicated and satisfying. There were many characters that I thought I was going to hate but ended up loving.
I kind of love that they took a story about sirens, and resolutely killed male characters only. That takes guts. Although it did make for a very violent series.
Caveats: There are some acts of violence against children, there is a little too much of the 'ladies kissing sexily for the guys' and one (terminally ill) queer character is murdered. ETA (thanks,
ranalore): there's a fairly icky eye injury done to a child, for people who have eye squick. Oh, and the soundtrack was awesome. I'm still listening to it.
Wow, I obviously have a lot of feelings about this show that I can't quite express. I'm looking forward to S2. (Though they're going to need some more men folk to kill...)
Sirens S1 Episodes 1-4
Aaaahahaha this show is cheap and obvious and cliche as fuck and I love the crap out of it. It's Splash meets schlocky environmental science. It's also what I call a donut show - all the good stuff is at the edges and the centre is a big sucking hole. I have absolutely no interest in the male lead and his ever so brave decision to live in poverty despite his family's wealth. I have all the interest in, say, the Haida sheriff, the tormented military scientist who doesn't realise he's caught by a siren song, and, of course, the mermaids.
(I also have a lot of interest in the way the male lead's girlfriend has all the physical contact with Ryn the mermaid. All the arm stroking and hair touching and snuggling. Yes please.)
Also, Rena Owens plays a woman who runs a mermaid trinket store and holds all the mermaid lore (and might be a mermaid too? Not sure yet.) She's amazing and underused and it cracks me up whenever I can hear New Zealand vowel sounds making it through the USian accent.
I am deeply unimpressed that the rich mum is a wheelchair user in a story where mermaid CSF can apparently cure paralysis.
So, yeah. This is the trashier of the two mermaid shows I've watched this summer (How awesome to be able to say that?) and it probably sounds like I don't like this one but I do.
So many mermaids this summer. It's great.
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Date: 2019-02-23 02:47 am (UTC)Sounds pretty deer-like, yep.
Sorry to hear your car is kaput. Sounds like you've been having... waaayyy too much excitement recently.
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Date: 2019-02-23 03:14 am (UTC)OMG, this is hilarious. -- I also LOVE Tig Notaro, and anyone who hates on her is cordially invited to fuck off. I just hope she stays as Discovery's grumpy engineer!
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Date: 2019-02-28 04:10 am (UTC)I'm still a few eps behind, but she just showed up again and was wonderful. I love her dynamic with Stamets.
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Date: 2019-02-23 03:46 am (UTC)Yeah, that sounds exactly like what happens with deer here. I'm sorry for both the roo and you in having to get the car fixed... there appear to be a lot of accidental rhymes in here.
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Date: 2019-02-28 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-23 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-23 06:11 am (UTC)So many feels - and yeah, you're right about Gio? Gilles? (I think he's Gilles?) and the eye injury, I'm going to go add that to my post. I did find it interesting that they didn't seem to have a perception of the children as children - they had adult responsibilities and nobody every really hugged them or treated them as anything other than smaller adults.
Cal and Adrielle were perfect - warring queens, one coming into power, one slipping out. I really liked the way Cal seemed to gather a court around her as she started figuring things out.
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Date: 2019-02-23 04:26 pm (UTC)Thanks! I just felt like, if all the shows with similar non-Siren elements can be described as modern noir, the label had to apply to this one.
I am hopeful that S2 will be as good. They're just getting into the mythology. (I want to know more about that secret sisterhood of women widowed by sirens!)
I can't wait to see what's in store for S2! I'm intrigued by that sisterhood too. Really, I'd love for the ultimate conflict to devolve on Sirens clashing with the sea widows, but the show isn't really setting things up that way, or Cal and Rosa's relationship wouldn't be so acrimonious. Still, I do think the widows will have a significant part to play in Cal's struggle to overthrow Adrielle, and whether they'll be allies is likely to rest on whether Augie survives (I personally think he and Dylan both will, since the show was not shy about showing the deaths of those it intended to die).
So many feels - and yeah, you're right about Gio? Gilles? (I think he's Gilles?)
You're right. That's what I get for guessing with hearing difficulties, rather than just checking IMDB. I had the same problem with Leandra and Violca.
I did find it interesting that they didn't seem to have a perception of the children as children
I did too, and I felt it reinforced the lore that they are all functionally orphans, communally raised, with a largely indifferent, sometimes lethally cruel mother figure. How would any of the tidelanders know to treat children differently? Though it did feel implied that Adrielle had taken a more hands-on approach to raising--grooming--Dylan, perhaps deciding she needed to foster his dependent devotion and loyalty to her after whatever events led to the loss of Lamar's eye (unless they covered what had happened there; it's now been sufficiently long enough I've forgotten some things).
Cal and Adrielle were perfect - warring queens, one coming into power, one slipping out. I really liked the way Cal seemed to gather a court around her as she started figuring things out.
What a perfect way to put it. I really liked that too, and I wonder if the tidelanders feel the pull of the Sirens who have come for Cal, to Cal, because of her. Now that she's seen them, I wonder if she will continue to reject them as she feels they have their children, or if she'll go with them, at least for a time. I wonder if Adrielle will try to wrest their attention from Cal, or if she believes she can control them by finishing the assembly of the horn. I wonder if she'll take the opportunity to try to regain influence over the tidelanders, if they don't know what's happened on the beach. So very many questions for S2 to answer!
Also, just on a shallow note, the show did such a good job with casting inhumanly pretty people as the tidelanders, and many of the humans are/were gorgeous too, but Charlotte Best and Elsa Pataky are a whole 'nother level. I've never seen Charlotte Best in anything before, but she's got those arrestingly blue eyes and cheekbones that cut, and I'm a sucker for that combination. And I swear Elsa Pataky doesn't age. Her bone structure really is like something mythic, something beyond human ken, that might watch you bleed to death with interest, but only because the color of your blood is the color of her favorite autumn kirtle, or because human pain tastes delicious, or because she is studying the equations of death that season. Yet still you might run yourself through with your own sword, just to have her eyes on you for a moment, just to have her be the last thing you saw before you died; La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
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Date: 2019-02-24 04:09 am (UTC)I love how you describe things (also colour me intrigued).
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Date: 2019-02-23 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-28 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-23 05:19 am (UTC)I am HERE for mermaids.
And yes, the Haida sheriff was great, the show could have done more with him.
And yes, Rena Owens was criminally underutilised, she acted her socks off in Once Were Warriors so she clearly has the acting range and acting power to do so much more.
And yes, as a wheelchair user, the whole arc with the rich wheelchair using Mum did NOT make me happy.
Have you read Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire?
"Science horror novella about a documentary crew who venture into the Mariana Trench in search of a mermaid hoax, only to discover that mermaids are real and very deadly."
I haven't read it yet, am wondering if it is my thing.
https://www.tor.com/2018/11/15/mira-grant-rolling-in-the-deep-adaptation-seanan-mcguire-killer-mermaids/
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Date: 2019-02-23 02:31 pm (UTC)It's a great evil goal! Just. MAKE THE AUDIENCE AWARE. I found that part bad storytelling. I don't mind the rest of it.
There's one upcoming death I'm spoiled on that I'm sad about, though, but I can totally get through it.
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Date: 2019-02-23 07:50 pm (UTC)Sorry for the roo. :/ That said, it happens. My poor soft-hearted sister hit a deer the other year in the montains of Santa Cruz. My car's license plate is still dented...
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Date: 2019-02-23 09:27 pm (UTC)I am happy to report that, overall, Jett Reno is an incredibly popular character even among Reddit bros. I've seen grumbling, but only from a very small minority, and they're usually downvoted into oblivion because no one needs that nonsense.
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Date: 2019-03-08 03:11 am (UTC)Thanks - we were shaken but not stirred, if you know what I mean.
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Date: 2019-02-24 02:37 am (UTC)(Some might also argue it is moose behavior. It is not. A deer will go "oh fuck!" And then forget how to run away.
A moose will determine you are on a collision course, lower its antlers, and time the collision with your car in order to either kill your car or kill you. It will be thrilled if it kills you. It knows it's got a damn good chance at walking away and you dont. Fuck bears, man, it's the herbivore you need to watch for.)
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Date: 2019-03-08 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-24 05:10 am (UTC)I'm glad the roo didn't hurt you, just your car. I'm also glad it was quick and the roo probably didn't suffer.
I haven't been watching Discovery, but I have been enjoying the fan-comics and chatlogs I keep seeing on Tumblr of Michael trolling Spock in classic older sister fashion, e.g. https://vassraptor.tumblr.com/post/181591534210/pencilscratchins-pencilscratchins-i-grew-up
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Date: 2019-03-08 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-26 12:59 pm (UTC)Or here, too. It's like hitting Bambi, so I think the comparison holds. :(
(They are indeed very stupid and way heavier than you'd think, so yeah, one is always lucky when they don't come crashing through the windshield.)
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Date: 2019-03-08 05:00 am (UTC)I'm so glad it didn't come through the windshield.