gdp's Comments

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 19:25:01 +0000

And here's the video of her speech: [youtube 8lFybhRxoVM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lFybhRxoVM youtube]

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 19:22:04 +0000

Other cool historic things that happened this year (not to take away from Jemisin at all, I think it's fucking awesome, it's just that some other winners came out of this year's ceremony that I reckoned were kind of significant and cool): - Rebecca Roanhorse in winning both the John W. Campbell Award and Best Short Story is apparently only the second person to get the Campbell and a main fiction prize in the one year - Monstress won Best Graphic Story, and it's the only work ever to win more than once, never mind consecutively, since that odd time when the award started up and Girl Genius won the first three years in a row - And Sana Takeda picked up Best Professional Artist too! - The Good Place picked up Best Dramatic Presentation - Short Form for "The Trolley Problem", which I think is the first half-hour show to ever win it, but honestly I'm really only mentioning it because it's fucking awesome that it happened and it's the kind of thing I hoped would happen but hardly dared to assume it. Though it makes me even more grumpy that basically no-one at work has still ever really been able to get into it :/ - On a(nother) more selfish note, the Irish nominees didn't do *too* badly this year. Liz Bourke came fifth in Best Related Work (can't believe a single vote less would've had AO3 in the final instead of her, smh), Journey Planet came fourth in Best Fanzine, and In Other Lands came third in Best YA Book Award beating out Frances Hardinge, Sam J. Miller and Philip Pullman!

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 19:06:06 +0000

Yeah, when they brought in the big rule change for last year's awards it mostly neutered the Puppies' ability to affect the final ballot so they went with only suggesting one entry per category instead of an entire full ballot like they did the two years before that. They didn't really get anywhere apart from stuff that would've already done well without them, and women and POC took most of the awards like they did this year too. So this year they basically completely gave up on the Hugos and turned their attention to the Dragon Awards it sounds like. Of course the Dumpster Fire Who Walks Like a Man is claiming he won anyway, because of course he is, but who gives a fuck about him anyway?

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Mon, 30 Jul 2018 20:22:53 +0000

So I've been watching 3% and fucking hell I didn't expect it to be as consistently twisty and downright brutal as it is. No wonder it got all the Patreon commissions. Yvxr vg'f abg yvxr gur erfg bs gur fubj vf fybhpuvat rvgure, ohg Rmrdhvry'f orra trggvat yvxr guerr gb svir Purffznfgre zbzragf rirel fvatyr rcvfbqr abj, naq vg'f yrnivat zr va n xvaq bs njr. Plus it's been really nice to see that the show got a budget bump between seasons, it's not fair I know but that had been visibly holding the show back for me a bit in S1. That and maybe the lighting, though not as much as the budget'd been.

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Sun, 22 Jul 2018 22:47:20 +0000

Seconding this; I picked up Monstress recently on the back of its Hugo win and in preparation for Volume 3 and it is aces. Took me a while to roll with the odd sheen the art team uses, but once I did nearly every single one of Takeda's panels is a dream. And while it's not the most easily understandable story, and arguably never quite lives up to the barnstorming promise of its bumper first issue, it all seems to fit together in an intuitive sense, and it still plays with a bunch of really neat ideas and concepts with an astonishing power and confidence. Fair warning though - it gets very grim and bloody sometimes. I've seen it described as a gender- and framework-flipped Berserk, which I've never read, but I can see where the comparison is coming from.

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Sat, 26 May 2018 21:17:19 +0000

[CW: abortion] In happier and more international news, Ireland * voted to repeal the 8th amendment to its constitution this weekend. The best way I've got to put this in context is that this is essentially our Roe vs. Wade. Yesterday, 35 years after two thirds of the country voted to make abortion illegal except where the mother's life was at risk, # another two thirds banded together across age, gender, party and regional lines to stare the status quo in the face and in no uncertain terms reject it. As a result the government can now bring legislation in to regulate for abortion here - the vote wasn't on what shape the laws will take, just on whether laws could be brought in or not. That being said, the consensus that's been agreed is that the proposed laws will be very similar to those in other European countries, and I can't see them not passing. It likely won't be until the end of the year, but either way the 8th is no more. It's been a pretty great day. * The Republic that is. Northern Ireland will still have restrictions in place for the foreseeable future, thanks for nothing DUfuckingP. # Although some years later we did vote for the right to allow people to find about and travel abroad for abortions. Some consolation I suppose. Abortion is fine now, but just not here. Then again we've always been good at looking the other way in Ireland.

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:13:32 +0000

So I've been feeling weird about Infinity War. Admittedly I've been feeling weird and vaguely unfulfilled about the MCU since about GotG (not coincidentally the last one I saw in theatres until Black Panther, which is The Best). And admittedly I'm not a filmmaker, and I don't say that to sound disingenuous. I'm not. And it's not like I want the film to be bad either, I want to go and have a good time like we all do. Heck, the marketing's gotten to me to the extent I might want to see it in IMAX 3D, and definitely on opening weekend. (nearly €20 tho) But still. See, I've been surface gazing at the hype, everybody talking about all these characters and all this death and Thanos is the main character and it's the most ambitious crossover event in history (lol), and I'm just sitting here thinking... Jesus are they really going to be able to pull this off? Like: 1) For all that this has been built as the culmination of the entire 10 year MCU journey give or take Avengers 4 next year (don't mention the TV shows though ;)), I honestly feel like while Marvel's been pretty great about providing standalone stories that lead their individual characters nicely into the next film, they haven't been that great about doing an actual metaplot. I'll happily admit to being out of the loop, but we've barely seen Thanos since The Avengers, and it's great we'll see so much of him now, but he's just going to be rocking up and collecting all these McGuffins and we'll have a hard shift to metaplot and... I just don't know. I've come around to this more now, but at the same time it could all just be too much too late. 2) There are so many characters and we don't even have the whole cast list yet. Someone's gonna get short shrifted in this. I don't see them being able to juggle all these characters without at least some falling through the cracks, and it could easily just be a huge mess. 3) The death. Sure, death's good to increase the stakes, show us things are serious. And if we get through this film without at least one big character being killed off I'll still be disappointed. But death is cheap. Death is easy. Especially in Marvel ;) (though tbf when it happens first it's gonna be a huge deal) I still can't see it being that impactful though. It'll be the ones we all expect or the ones that are big enough to shock, but not big enough to be all that big of a deal in the end. So yeah. I don't know. Basically I get the sense Infinity War's set itself up to do so much, some of which it hasn't really earned yet, that it's got a good chance as ending up a mess. A perfunctory mess, an exclusionary continuity-heavy mess, a clusterfuck of characters and stuff that's gonna happen that means actual character stuff falls out of the picture entirely. Some kind of mess anyway. But I hope not.

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Mon, 19 Feb 2018 22:43:48 +0000

I'm back... and I liked it! It's not a patch on Brotherhood of course, starts out better than it ends, and it's absolutely the case that being a fan helps and that there's some bias in play, but honestly I'm properly happy with it. Sure, I wish it could've been better (in some respects a lot better; I might go into more detail tomorrow if people want), but while I can only speak for myself I really think if you go into it with an open mind it should hopefully not turn out to be a trainwreck at all. :) (Though at the same time, looking at it less charitably it's a film that manages to avoid being a trainwreck because the parts that aren't as good aren't interesting/spectacular enough to make it count as one. Or something like that.)

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Mon, 19 Feb 2018 19:51:28 +0000

Sitting down to watch this right now, and I never watch films on weeknights! Heck, I'm so excited I even finally watched Sacred Star of Milos on Friday

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Mon, 19 Feb 2018 15:22:26 +0000

It sure does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQUKaqrGOz0 (Not embedding because the bastards made one of those scenes the preview image! It's like they knew what you/we wanted)

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 20:35:39 +0000

I see your Drake meme and raise you a Miyamoto meme! <img src="https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/aoNzrv2_460s.jpg" width="400" height="300"> ^_^ EDIT: I didn't make this btw: https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/953765569639133184

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 19:14:42 +0000

[youtube Yam5uK6e-bQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yam5uK6e-bQ youtube] Rest in peace, Dolores.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Person of Interest': S05E13 - Return 0

Fri, 5 Jan 2018 23:18:47 +0000

As to where to go next? I had been planning on watching it already, and doing so so soon after Person of Interest was just a coincidence, but there's a decent bit of chatter on how similar it is to Mr. Robot, and it definitely felt like that show was picking up some of the balls that POI set down and playing around with them. Honestly I still think that, even if Mr. Robot fairly quickly started going in a different kind of direction. Another interesting thing might be Mac Rogers' podcast drama LifeAfter. Tbh its AI stuff is... not as good as POI's, but there's still a lot to like about it. It's like if Person of Interest and Black Mirror (specifically "Be Right Back") had a baby that wasn't "Shut Up and Dance", and thankfully wasn't as horrifying as that sounds. :) http://podbay.fm/show/1045990056

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Person of Interest': S05E13 - Return 0

Fri, 5 Jan 2018 23:07:16 +0000

Season 5 isn't my favourite. Sure, I liked it a lot more than a lot of people here seemed to, mostly for its stubborn refusal to be anything other than itself after it absorbed the Power of the PlayStation and pretended to be Dollhouse for a minute. But it never moved like a final season should *, and you can make a fair argument that overthrowing Samaritan took too long. This finale though... this finale basically makes up for it all. Sure the ending is a bit jarringly neat, with the Machine taking on impossible odds, winning because There's No Way We Can Lose, and coming back fine, and it kind of betrays a bunch of ideas the show had been setting up before this. But truth be told it's hard to care. John going out with a smile to that music, Grace and Harold reuniting, the other music (sorry Fagen Thygia, but the final piece never did that much for me), monologues about ordinary people that matter, John's final piece of backstory, a few more jokes for the road, maybe you never really die and maybe it's not the end at all, but either way the numbers never stop coming. Holy hell. This episode broke me into pieces and made me cry every time, all the more for its being so unexpected. I wouldn't call this a *perfect* ending. Not sure why. But it feels like a perfect ending for Person of Interest. Arbitrary_greay has come up with so many good ideas I'd never have thought of, never have thought to thought of. But this still feels like a perfect ending. Person of Interest could go on for years and simultaneously (haha ;) ) never needs to have another episode. POI looking back comes across as a show that did everything that it wanted it to do, and if it didn't do everything that *we* wanted it to do, then again it seems hard to complain. It's our story now. There are shows that have warped my mind (this is a good thing btw) for reasons I'm not entirely sure I understand. They've managed to stay with me, in other words. More than most shows have. The list is small, ill-defined, and forever incomplete. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is hopefully still one. Revolutionary Girl Utena is probably one too, but I need to think about it more. Doctor Who took a long time and outside help to become one. Twin Peaks: The Return was one from the end of Part 2. Orphan Black is one for some reason, though that final episode helped a lot. And Person of Interest is one of those too. It's not the best one on that list, or the one I like most, but that doesn't matter. It's there, and I'll be forever grateful for it. And I will remember. * In fairness to S5 (and this isn't to criticise anyone, it's just that it's something I haven't seen anyone else mention but I'm open to correction!) after its first week CBS aired new episodes on both Mondays *and* Tuesdays, and didn't stop until it hit "The Day the World Went Away". They even aired "QSO" and "Reassortment" on the same night. While I'd heard about this beforehand I forgot when it came to watching the actual episodes, so at the time it felt like a 13-episode season that was being paced like a 22-episode season. In real time the bulk of the season was moving twice as fast as normal, and though looking back there's still a fair argument to be made that S5 coasts a fair bit, watching it one episode a night (as I did) didn't provide a reasonable sense of how it played out on first run. #JusticeForDominic

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Person of Interest': S05E13 - Return 0

Fri, 5 Jan 2018 22:32:00 +0000

Firstly before I do anything else, as it looks like we're not getting a Q&A for this show, the fabulous Abigail Nussbaum on the stealth futurism of Person of Interest.

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 23:31:51 +0000

Honestly sometimes it feels like it's been in the making as long as I've been alive, even if it clearly hasn't (not that far off though...). Remember when Robert de Niro was meant to be producing it way back when? Say what you want about the technology (though I wouldn't mind seeing Haven be more practical for some reason), what I've always figured is that they've taken so long that they've ended up missing the boat. Then again the next thing I've nearly always thought after that is that they could just reissue the books again, so I guess the boat will be wherever they need it to be!

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 23:16:56 +0000

It's a tiny bit funny actually, because when I looked this up on Variety they were saying about the actor they got for Arty that it'd be "her feature debut" and I got really excited. Then I read more into it and got a bit deflated, but hearing Judi Dench was cast made me go Oh! again. Gonna be really interesting to see what she's like, especially since when I reread the books a few years back I realised Root was basically your standard stereotypical precinct chief. Which, great as she is, is... not the kind of role I associate with her. Though this means they could be going for something different, and I'm happy to wait and see how it turns out! But yeah, if Root's going to be female now that's definitely going to shake up the dynamic a bit. (Could still play it as Holly trying to prove Root wasn't a fluke with Root going harder on her than she normally would... which on the one hand might not make the most sense but on the other hand is essentially Protector of the Small, so it could still work! Would definitely give her arc more resonance too) I remember hearing this film is actually going to be the first two books taken together though, so it could be they've decided they can afford to let that go, which I'm not sure is the best idea they've had. Nonso Anozie as Butler though? That's all of the awesome.

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 20:46:38 +0000

Oshit what (not directed at you btw, at casting being announced at all - I knew it had started up again for real but this is something I'm only going to believe exists when it comes out and regular people can go and see it)

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Person of Interest': S04E07 - Honor Among Thieves

Wed, 29 Nov 2017 16:14:11 +0000

Klemminguk seems to have missed this one, so for the sake of completeness: Music of Interest The xx - "Infinity" [youtube c0dzHw4tyh http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0dzHw4tyh youtube] Not a bad song, but honestly I prefer it when Chris Isaak sings it.

http://markspoils.blogspot.com/ : Weekly Shenanigans

Sun, 26 Nov 2017 21:38:59 +0000

Sounds great! Don't remember when I saw this (it was pretty late though), but it feels like it gets better the further away I am from it, and it'd be nice to go back to it and see if that's actually true. Was thinking and all recently too that the IRC channel could do with a revival! (I voted for the 5pm times because they're the only ones I'd be able to make, but I'm fine with missing out if the other times are more popular with people. :))