media consumption friday (well, thursday)
It's so strange seeing everyone's Wednesday Reading posts on Wednesday now. (Last year, bc of the time zone thing, they would usually show up sometime on Thursday, and I would go 'oh, too late to do that tonight, take care of it tomorrow'. But I wasn't reading a lot of books at the time, so I switched to general media consumption.)
I'm re-reading The Serpentine Subterfuge, the sequel to The Pureblood Pretense, which is billed as 'an Alanna the Lioness take on Harry Potter.' Both are a) brilliant, and b) wonderfully long. The second one is not yet finished, but just re-reading it is giving me so many FEELINGS I just have to talk about it.
I love everything so much! Rigel and all her friends and Snape and Sirius and Mr Krait and everyone. Eee. I LOVE YOU ALL.
I do wish we got to see more of Archie and Harry together. The structure of the fic doesn't really allow it, but I really loved seeing them working together on the mysterious attacks over winter break, and I do so enjoy watching the pair of them double-team their entire family. And the scene post-Polyjuice where they stood next to each other and everyone marveled at their similar appearances hit me in an unexpected way. I would love to see fanart of them doing one of those back-to-back poses. --and I know this is probably not following canon, but I really want the polyjuice to sort of shape their actual growth, so someday they'll just be walking down the street together and everyone else will go 'gosh, what a good-looking pair of twins.'
I sympathize with Archie a lot, actually. And I can get why he would find it much more difficult to pretend to be Harry than Harry finds being him, because while my basic personality is nothing like either of theirs, I can sort of 'turn on' my charisma and outgoing side, but unless I'm really feeling unsocial it's difficult for me to go be a quietly sarcastic academic.
One of the things I really like about these fics is that the kids feel their actual age -- Draco and Pansy especially, but even Rigel and Blaise are pretty believable eleven- and twelve-year-olds. Just, you know, the sort who make you as an adult feel really inferior. And you get a pretty good sense of everyone's personalities too, even Millicent and Theo.
The author also manages to make Leo not just an expy of George. I really want to see more scenes with him and Harry, too . . .
I'm so divided on my opinions on romance in this series. On the one hand, this author makes me really want to see how they'd write romance between Rigel and various characters! On the other, Draco and Leo are 100% right that Rigel needs to start enforcing her boundaries more strongly, and I'm pretty sure Rigel is interested in a) potions and b) friendship. I like Aldon as a character, and I find their relationship interesting, but he seriously needs to back the fuck off because she is NOT COMFORTABLE with him trying to get that close and she doesn't have experience with extracting herself from those situations. (It's okay to say 'I want to go over there now, thanks' or 'stop staring at me like that', Rigel! You are not being rude for wanting to say those things!) On the other other hand, I really would love to see a Rigel/Ginny romance, or some sort of thing where she and Pansy have to get married and they then spend all their time flirting more and more outrageously until their friends come down with bystanders' trauma.
As for someone finding out her and Archie's secret . . . well, Snape is going to figure it out eventually unless she avoids him for her entire adult life -- he recognized her occlumency shields from across the yard, remember? And I do think he would probably be in the best position to help with everything, while also not being the sort of person to turn them in. Blaise is probably too clever to figure it out -- he considers all the possibilities, and there are like eighty more likely ones than the one that's actually going on. No one else is going to figure it out without a truly extraordinary amount of luck, with the possible exception of Hermione. Though I do sort of want Rigel to have a reason to use Leo's get-out-of-bad-situation-free card, just because all their interactions so far have been wonderful and I want to see how that one would go.
They're both great fics with wonderful characterization (for everyone) and a very good plot. I like them more than either Song of the Lioness or Harry Potter, and you should absolutely go read them. No, please. I'll wait.
After going sour on White Collar, I went back and watched some episodes of Leverage. What an amazing show! I love all the team moments, and the little tidbits of backstory, and the 'weeeee just got away with muuuurdeeeerrr' success music. I think my main problem with White Collar is that it just doesn't have that sort of structure; it's such a plot-driven show. Case of the week/Kate/music box/other piece of overarching plot. Whereas Leverage is really a show about the team (and how they will BREAK YOUR HEART, I'm looking at you Eliot and Parker and Hardison) and . . . well, it's like Parker said: sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get.
If you think about it, the Leverage team aren't exactly good people; they've lost a lot of people their jobs, they've probably accidentally killed a bunch of people, and in the past they used to be even worse. But if you go to them as a last resort, there's no one who will go to bat for you harder.
Since my dad's boss is letting us use her Netflix, I started watching Protect the Boss! It's a kdrama, pretty good, but I have such mixed feelings on it. I mean, the heroine can beat up a bunch of mobsters or strangle-tie a sexual harasser to a sink with his own tie . . . but also, she works for a boss who is super tsundere and also refuses to admit he has agoraphobia/social anxiety. (I mean, it's adorable when he's out in the dark and something scares him and he's like "Aaaaa! No Eun-Seol! No Eun-Seol! Where are you?" but that doesn't make him a good person.) And her work environment is like the worst. Everyone thinks she pulled strings to get a job she's not qualified for, and maybe that she's sleeping with her boss, and his ex-girlfriend hates her, and . . .
I hate shows like that, where it's just like YOU WANT SOME MICRO-AGRESSIONS? HERE, WE BROUGHT EXTRA! I mean, yeah, accurate depictions of sexism in the workplace, sure, but also I don't wanna deal with that shit on television any more than I wanna deal with it IRL. If No Eun Seol doesn't get to punch every one of those jerks in the face, what's the point?
Could somebody rec me some lady-heavy j-dramas or Chinese/Taiwanese dramas? I need to practice my language skills, and I want to practice my 'liking television shows' skills.
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I'm re-reading The Serpentine Subterfuge, the sequel to The Pureblood Pretense, which is billed as 'an Alanna the Lioness take on Harry Potter.' Both are a) brilliant, and b) wonderfully long. The second one is not yet finished, but just re-reading it is giving me so many FEELINGS I just have to talk about it.
I love everything so much! Rigel and all her friends and Snape and Sirius and Mr Krait and everyone. Eee. I LOVE YOU ALL.
I do wish we got to see more of Archie and Harry together. The structure of the fic doesn't really allow it, but I really loved seeing them working together on the mysterious attacks over winter break, and I do so enjoy watching the pair of them double-team their entire family. And the scene post-Polyjuice where they stood next to each other and everyone marveled at their similar appearances hit me in an unexpected way. I would love to see fanart of them doing one of those back-to-back poses. --and I know this is probably not following canon, but I really want the polyjuice to sort of shape their actual growth, so someday they'll just be walking down the street together and everyone else will go 'gosh, what a good-looking pair of twins.'
I sympathize with Archie a lot, actually. And I can get why he would find it much more difficult to pretend to be Harry than Harry finds being him, because while my basic personality is nothing like either of theirs, I can sort of 'turn on' my charisma and outgoing side, but unless I'm really feeling unsocial it's difficult for me to go be a quietly sarcastic academic.
One of the things I really like about these fics is that the kids feel their actual age -- Draco and Pansy especially, but even Rigel and Blaise are pretty believable eleven- and twelve-year-olds. Just, you know, the sort who make you as an adult feel really inferior. And you get a pretty good sense of everyone's personalities too, even Millicent and Theo.
The author also manages to make Leo not just an expy of George. I really want to see more scenes with him and Harry, too . . .
I'm so divided on my opinions on romance in this series. On the one hand, this author makes me really want to see how they'd write romance between Rigel and various characters! On the other, Draco and Leo are 100% right that Rigel needs to start enforcing her boundaries more strongly, and I'm pretty sure Rigel is interested in a) potions and b) friendship. I like Aldon as a character, and I find their relationship interesting, but he seriously needs to back the fuck off because she is NOT COMFORTABLE with him trying to get that close and she doesn't have experience with extracting herself from those situations. (It's okay to say 'I want to go over there now, thanks' or 'stop staring at me like that', Rigel! You are not being rude for wanting to say those things!) On the other other hand, I really would love to see a Rigel/Ginny romance, or some sort of thing where she and Pansy have to get married and they then spend all their time flirting more and more outrageously until their friends come down with bystanders' trauma.
As for someone finding out her and Archie's secret . . . well, Snape is going to figure it out eventually unless she avoids him for her entire adult life -- he recognized her occlumency shields from across the yard, remember? And I do think he would probably be in the best position to help with everything, while also not being the sort of person to turn them in. Blaise is probably too clever to figure it out -- he considers all the possibilities, and there are like eighty more likely ones than the one that's actually going on. No one else is going to figure it out without a truly extraordinary amount of luck, with the possible exception of Hermione. Though I do sort of want Rigel to have a reason to use Leo's get-out-of-bad-situation-free card, just because all their interactions so far have been wonderful and I want to see how that one would go.
They're both great fics with wonderful characterization (for everyone) and a very good plot. I like them more than either Song of the Lioness or Harry Potter, and you should absolutely go read them. No, please. I'll wait.
After going sour on White Collar, I went back and watched some episodes of Leverage. What an amazing show! I love all the team moments, and the little tidbits of backstory, and the 'weeeee just got away with muuuurdeeeerrr' success music. I think my main problem with White Collar is that it just doesn't have that sort of structure; it's such a plot-driven show. Case of the week/Kate/music box/other piece of overarching plot. Whereas Leverage is really a show about the team (and how they will BREAK YOUR HEART, I'm looking at you Eliot and Parker and Hardison) and . . . well, it's like Parker said: sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get.
If you think about it, the Leverage team aren't exactly good people; they've lost a lot of people their jobs, they've probably accidentally killed a bunch of people, and in the past they used to be even worse. But if you go to them as a last resort, there's no one who will go to bat for you harder.
Since my dad's boss is letting us use her Netflix, I started watching Protect the Boss! It's a kdrama, pretty good, but I have such mixed feelings on it. I mean, the heroine can beat up a bunch of mobsters or strangle-tie a sexual harasser to a sink with his own tie . . . but also, she works for a boss who is super tsundere and also refuses to admit he has agoraphobia/social anxiety. (I mean, it's adorable when he's out in the dark and something scares him and he's like "Aaaaa! No Eun-Seol! No Eun-Seol! Where are you?" but that doesn't make him a good person.) And her work environment is like the worst. Everyone thinks she pulled strings to get a job she's not qualified for, and maybe that she's sleeping with her boss, and his ex-girlfriend hates her, and . . .
I hate shows like that, where it's just like YOU WANT SOME MICRO-AGRESSIONS? HERE, WE BROUGHT EXTRA! I mean, yeah, accurate depictions of sexism in the workplace, sure, but also I don't wanna deal with that shit on television any more than I wanna deal with it IRL. If No Eun Seol doesn't get to punch every one of those jerks in the face, what's the point?
Could somebody rec me some lady-heavy j-dramas or Chinese/Taiwanese dramas? I need to practice my language skills, and I want to practice my 'liking television shows' skills.
http://esmenet.dreamwidth.org/122844.html |
comments | Feel free to comment at Dreamwidth