(no subject)

The laptop's screen is suddenly much darker than it's supposed to be.  Even the whites are more like a pale grey.  I can read black-on-white easily, but graphics and such are way too dark.

Any ideas what's going on?

ETA:  NEVER MIND! Figured it out.  It's power supply is connected to the TV's, which I forgot about when I disconnected the TV last night to let it rest because it was acting up again, so the battery was low.  *crawls into hole*  Move along.  Move along.

another MI-5 question

( spoiler for season 1, episode 2 )

Also, is Zoe played by Keeley Hawes?  I'm too lazy to check and have only seen Hawes in period dramas before.  Also, when does the woman who I'm told can kill people with pens show up?

manga: Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning Vol 3-5

It looks like I’ve reached the point where the anime started to rewrite things from the manga version. This is good, as I think I’ll have more to say about the manga then. It’s not that I’m not interested in the manga. I’ve just talked to various people about the anime so much over the years that I don’t feel like I have anything left to say!

( spoilers )

Still pretty good, though I’m still largely comparing the anime and manga. I’m ready for it to reach the point where I haven’t watched an altered version of it multiple times, and I find it a bit odd how all the characters look even younger. Hiyono, of course, still uses a taser to dictate the terms of your own kidnapping.

The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold by Francesca Lia Block

This very short book (229 pages with text only covering half of each page, and title pages for each story) is a retelling of nine fairy tales, most of which are moved to a darker modern setting, often dealing with abuse. I think I would have liked this more if I hadn’t recently read Emma Donohue’s amazing Kissing the Witch. As it is, I didn’t dislike it, but it didn’t really grab me, either.

It’s an interesting approach to fairy tales, but I wasn’t big on the feeling of victimization I got from many of the stories, though many of the heroines in question did manage to put a stop to that. Given the overall themes, though, I don’t think that would have bothered me if I’d been able to latch on to the stories and characters themselves. But I found the prose awkward, and it often felt like Block was almost reaching a certain point where it’d really click with me, but then I lost whatever it was that I almost grabbed.

Not a bad book, but I’ve read better fairy tale retellings.

Dollhouse 1.1

I wasn't going to watch this until it made it to DVD, as is usual for me, but prozacpark  told me we were watching it together.  She puts these things forward as "do you want to..." but there is never any doubt as to the outcome.

Relatively in brief:  Skeevy premise.  Interesting premise.  More-meta-than-it-probably-meant-to-be scene involving a fridge.

There's no getting around the fact that this series is treading thin water in certain regards from the ground up, as it's based on women having their personalities constantly rewritten by an organization that then "sells" them (not sexually, as far as we know[ETA:  *cough*  forgot about the implications of the beginning due to the "wtf is with that dress?" *cough*]) to clients once they've been imprinted with personalities and skill sets that suit their client's needs.  And apparently, the women in question agree to this upfront.  As a result, our main character doesn't appear to have any set personality.

I've been looking at the general reactions to the series on the f-list, and I've noticed (ignoring everything but whether or not people like it) that most of the people who like it seem to be anime and manga fans.  This doesn't surprise me.  The pacing makes me thinkvery strongly of manga, as does the over all approach.  The "creepy" scenes and "wiped" dolls especially put me in that frame of mind.

And...well, honestly.  Amnesia.  Secret mercenary organizations.  Scarred doctor.  Sympathetic handlers overly interested in subject.  "This person is important and has secrets/goals" hints dropped with the subtlety of a hammer.  Rewritten personalities.  Scifi organization in apparent modern world.  Weird and questionable gender politics with a seeming "fist of the patriarchy" origin used to create an apparently female agent centric series.  It's like someone took Gunslinger Girls, Rose Hip Rose and a bit of Claymore, put them in a blender, and downloaded the results into Joss Whedon's brain.

It really could go either way in terms of being good or sending me into spasms of rage, but for now I'm curious.

Random bits:

( spoilers? )