I live?

[domarzione]

 It has been a week, peeps. It's been a couple of weeks, but this week has been a week. A week of anger and frustration with the world at large and the way even in this we have to be absolutist and you must embrace everything one side or the other believes or you are The Enemy. A week of curfews and sirens and helicopters not because of righteous anger at a murder, but because of all of the opportunistic shit that comes with protest. A week my union decided to fuck me over gang-style because now is exactly the time to arbitrarily change standards and what was good enough before is no longer so and we're gonna belittle you in the process. A week I lost my volunteer position of a decade because I wouldn't sign a waiver exempting them from liability for anything (illness/injury/death) even through their own negligence. A week of emotional and physical exhaustion because it's been three months of quarantine lockdown and a week of a curfew that managed to stop no looting but did ensure that I had to cut my exercise walks short and couldn't treat myself to takeout (haven't since this started) because everyone's gotta be home by eight. A week when school started and I had to introductions and there's no way to say "I have many interests and also relevant work experience, but it's all been stripped away from me and so I go walk around the edges of cemeteries and pretend not to notice the open graves" and not sound like you're having a breakdown. A week I didn't have a single drop of alcohol because I want booze to remain a pleasure and not turn into a coping mechanism. I don't think I've been this close to the end of my cope in a while. 


I didn't get much writing done. I didn't get much work done, either, but I tried hard with both. 


I did start watching The Expanse, which has been a good distraction even if I have to avert my eyes during the protomolecule stuff. I'm somewhere in the middle of Season Two, after Eros has crashed into Venus and right after Bobbie Draper gets told to go to Earth. The worldbuilding and details and politics are fascinating to me, but the characters are so comparatively underdeveloped and I don't know if this is also true in the books. I don't know if I should stop watching and go read the books instead or if the show developed book ideas to the better. Anyone? 

(I'm kind of glad the Miller arc is resolved for now. I liked Miller as a character a lot, possibly because I share his cynical 'a pox on all houses' approach to politics but also because he was such a classic noir character in a space opera and Thomas Jane playing just slightly off-kilter is what he's best at. But I'm not a fan of the 'detective falling in love with the missing woman' trope in general and the tendency toward stripping the woman's agency. Julie herself was a fully-formed character, a girl with daddy issues who did much and endured much and in the end just wanted to go home where it was safe. Miller's Julie was a fantasy who rewarded his inexplicable love and that's the one we spent more time with. She was already objectified by her father after her infection, that is enough.) 


It's after five on a Friday, I can cocktail if I wanna... 

Comments

[sian1359]

I highly recommend that you do both. Watch the full series, but also pick up the books. Book three of the third trilogy is due out next year, I think.

There is so much more in the books, but I don't know that I would have appreciated all of it without having the imagery, and the faces for the characters first. There are also short stories to fill in even more, sometimes about secondary characters (The Butcher of Anderson Station for one). I've found that I appreciate both mediums and both stories being told. I have watched the series now twice, the first three seasons before I read the books, then all four season after I read the books the first eight books. (Spoilers don't spoil things for me, most of the time, as it enhances the anticipation.)

I've also been fascinated with the process of how they took the stories from the books to make a television show. They've been very open about how they moved timelines and characters (and plot) around for a television audience, while keeping to the spirit of the original work. Camina Drummer is probably my second or third favorite character in the show, but she's an amalgamation of a couple of characters from the books.

[domarzione]

I was going to say that I'm bad at reading the book versions of stuff I've originally seen played out, but that's actually not always true so long as there is new material in both or time has passed. Conversely, film/tv adaptations of stuff I've read bother me far less -- I cannot visualize anything on my own (or why my OCs are never described) so putting faces to names or getting a sense of what something looks like intrigues me. Although I tend to get really pissy at the content/character changes. (I might not be over Faramir and I should probably rewatch Constantine now that I'm over my outrage at what they did to Hellblazer.)

I read The Alienist last year, but was warned off watching the television adaptation because of what it did to some of the characters, so I've learned it pays to ask. Here, if the Expanse characters are fuller in the books, that would be worth the read and the body horror wouldn't matter as much because I can't visualize.

[sian1359]

I don't remember your reaction to the first X-Men movie, though I'm sure there was one and that I read it since I've been a fan of yours in part because of your comics thoughts. I felt that Singer did a very good job of condensing and distilling the decades of the comic and all of the retcons, to put out a movie that felt very much like a good X-Men story to me (despite not liking all the characterizations/actor choices). I was originally going to say The Expanse was like that, but then didn't know if that would be a good or bad thing in your mind, so I chickened out. What I mean by that is that for television they distilled down a very richly crafted universe and stayed true to the overall emotion of source material. I think the core characters of the crew are close to their book counterparts, but without some of the nuance (though I think Amos is pretty darn close, and I think Alex works out a little better in the series than the books. Bobbi's story is changed a little (more in season 4), but the character is still Bobbi, and Chrisjen Avasarala feels more prominent and realized in the series, although she was quite present in the books too - I love Shohreh Aghdashloo as an actress and she just so there when she's on screen. Holden is maybe better explained in the books, and Naomi has a lot more back story that comes out in the later books, but I'm holding out that we'll see much of it in later seasons. I guess what I'm taking a lot of words to say is that I don't think you'll be unhappy with how the characters are being portrayed, but that you might enjoy the series more by reading the books. And that I don't think it would matter if read first and then watch, or the other way around.
I never could deal with Keanu as John Constantine. I really enjoyed Matt Ryan's portrayal, although what they've done to his and Astra's story in Legends of Tomorrow is just sad. Of course, my favorite John Constantine is from Gaiman's The Books of Magic series, so ... (and I stopped reading Hellblazer/most comics in the early 2000s).

[domarzione]

I was not actually in the X-men comics fandom at the time of the movie! My first x-fic was movie-fic because I found the movieverse people first and from there OTL and the comics peeps and then reverted to type. (My origin story should be retconned.) For the movies, I never liked what they did with Scott, but I never saw him as an annoying drip in the comics and so I might be in the minority there. But holy crap Xavier and Magneto and how they are introduced and how they interact and how they were portrayed and that alone was worth everything else. Well, maybe not everything, but it's a tradeoff for casting a hunky giant as Wolverine and we'll negotiate later for what they did to the Dark Phoenix arc.

I get what you're saying because I don't think I realized how many books there are and how big the The Expanse book universe is. Distillation is necessary after a certain point and if this is what they are doing, that reframes things in a way that's not bad or good but more clear.


Comics that I really love, I cannot suffer the way Hollywood destroys them the way I can when a mismatched writer gets on the book itself. Which is why I'm desperately grateful that Captain America: the Winter Soldier is a good movie. I was not impressed when they turned Lucifer into The Mentalist 2: Samael and I've never watched an episode. But I was (am) a huge Vertigo fan and John Constantine and I couldn't even figure out which part of that movie pissed me off most, the Americanization of it or the ruining of the best arc or Keanu (bless him, I've never had a bad thought about him as a person or as an actor) or whatever else. Matt Ryan's supposed to be a lot closer to the books, so good. And I will always (always!) pick Tim Hunter over Harry Potter. I made it through all of Books of Magic: Life During Wartime and only through the first HP book.

[kerithwyn]

Keanu is great, the John Wick movies are excellent ultra-violence. But Constantine he was not. Matt Ryan is fantastic and his show just got better as it went on; I was pissed when they ended it, and delighted when they imported him to Legends.

[blackrook]

*all the hugs*

With you on the Faramir issue! I remember that first viewing in the movies, and collective WTF?! from Tolkien fans present was felt if not heard:).

[domarzione]

Thank you. :)

Movie Faramir was a case of good casting and awful characterization. Wenham had the gentleness and nobility and daddy issues of the source character, but Faramir is supposed to be Tolkien's self-reflection and how could any LotR nerd do what they did to him?

[thelostglove]

That's good to know about the series, it's been recommended a bunch, but I found the Miller/Julie stuff in the first book so off-putting I almost didn't finish it. I haven't watched the series to compare, but in the book Julie is joined by an ex-wife whose only job is to be imagined casting judgey frowns at Miller.

There were legit things I really liked about the book, but that part was, as they say, yikes.

[domarzione]

In the series, Miller is occasionally judged by an ex-girlfriend/current colleague whom he continually exasperates/takes advantage of in the style of a sitcom marriage, which makes me now suspect that Muss is a composite. But she also saves his life and he repays her by saving her soul in a way and there's mutual fondness and respect.

[musesfool]

I watched the show before I read the books (I read them while waiting for season 3) and I think they’re both worth experiencing because the books do add nuance but being able to put faces with the characters made me a lot fonder of them, if you know what I mean. And I think for once there really aren’t any changes in the adaptation to TV that I’ve disliked and some have worked much better for me, e.g., Drummer.

[domarzione]

I totally get what you mean. Especially because I lack visualization skills and can't put faces to names otherwise. Although apparently it's going to be weird to see Drummer deconstructed into her component book parts. :)

[beatrice_otter]

I'm so sorry. this all sucks.

[domarzione]

It does and I think we surprise ourselves how well we can bear the suckage, at least most of the time. This week has been one of those pile-ons. Thank you.

[alphaflyer]

I totally get your exhaustion at the current scenery (albeit without the extra personal garbage). I keep falling down rabbit holes of news readings, and come out depressed and furious. At the tail end of many weeks of near-total lockdown (I'm in Ireland right now) the cumulative burden of global stress is becoming crushing. At least here the shops are opening on Monday and we'll be allowed to travel "within our county" or up to 20km from home, whichever is more, so there's that to look forward to. Also, we'll be allowed to have dinners INSIDE with up to 6 people! Yay!

As for the Expanse, I echo all those who say "keep watching!" It keeps getting better. As an international relations geek I love the politics, and the characters get better rounded as it goes on and you learn more about them. It is so full of strong women as well, which is so enormously refreshing. My daughter gave me the first trilogy but I haven't started reading the books yet because like you, I find it difficult to get into a different version of characters - although I can switch from MCU Clint Barton to Fraction/Aja Hawkguy in a flash, so maybe I should just swallow that bullet. Wait till you meet Klaes Ashford in Season 3 - he and Drummer are amazing together. (Not together-together, just as foils for one another). David Strathairn is such a marvellous actor.

[domarzione]

I'm very much enjoying the politics. Errinwright is amazing because sometimes he's so freaking brilliant and sometimes he has very clearly lost his copy of the Evil Overlord Handbook and is so freaking stupid. He and Volovodov have been a treat so far in S3.

Bobbie is the best.

I don't think Cotyar lives much longer and I am going to miss him when he's gone.

Life is so appallingly cheap and worthless everywhere. Mars, Earth, the Belt -- life is pennies on the dollar to them all. The Belters only see their victimhood as they perpetrate the same unto others and especially themselves; the Martians are a Wehrmacht willing to slaughter their own children for a greater good; Earth just drugs them up and buys them off. J-P Mao and his people aren't actually any worse than any other faction, they're just doing it without cover of a flag. Decent people die constantly trying to do the right thing in the face of evil, which is why the crew of the Roci flirting with death isn't trope-y or repetitive. I like it. :)

I have liked Straithairn as an actor for a long time, so I look forward to his appearance. Drummer is at her best with a foil.

And on a small note, I love that the show doesn't fast-track damage repair apart from the ships. People heal slowly and so Amos should still have the bandage on from getting shot and bless the showrunners for making Strait look ugly with the ballooned and bloody nose for the episode after he got it busted by the Martian soldier. Prax Meng's got those staples in his head for half a season, it felt like. And for there to be no easy forgiveness for Naomi for her betrayal, especially not between her and Holden. The two of them talk reasonably, if not always peaceably, and that doesn't mean it's better.

[persephone_kore]

I am coming in way late but also wish to offer a hug.

[domarzione]

It's always an appreciated gesture. Thank you. :)