newnumber6

I'll start with TV. SCC was pretty good this week. I'm going to miss the series when it's gone, as I'm feeling is likely (but not officially confirmed yet, so I hope I'm wrong), despite the big, sudden events in this ep. Dollhouse has also been getting better. It's still nowhere near as good as any of Whedon's other shows, but I find myself watching it as opposed to leaving it on in the background while I do something else.

And found another episode of Prisoners of Gravity. I know none of you care but I do, helps me if I want to find a particular interview later.

This one's on Children in SF & Fantasy.

Part 1: General introduction, John Clute on stories about children and adolescents in general in SF and the SF as 'right of passage' (and the actual book by that title). Kristine-Kathryn Rusch on why SF has so few child characters compared to fantasy, the host lists some examples of kids in SF.
Part 2: (mostly) Kids in Fantasy. Mercedes Lackey on how much she draws on her own childhood to write kids, and the life of kids in medieval times. Robert Holdstock (the Bone Forest) on why he likes writing from the child's perspective, Jane Yolen on the difference between writing about children vs writing for children, and rules for writing for kids. Nancy Kress back on the topic of the lack of children in SF.
Part 3: Nancy Kress again on how having kids affected her view of the world. Other SF writers on how kids have affected their writing careers (Gwyneth Jones, Esther Friesner, Pat Cadigan). More general interview with Monica Hughes (of the Isis Trilogy): how she started writing SF for children, inspiration for the Isis Trilogy, and whether she feels she's competing with the more commercialized entertainment for children.

Speaking of children in SF/Fantasy, writing update. Really, it's mostly been slogging it again. I haven't felt particularly inspired about anything recently. However, while I was exhausted of writing one of the things I was writing on last, I still had words to write for the week and went to an old story, one of my longer unfinished novel-like works. ( Read more... )

Anyay, I think the reason I still have the lack of writing-excitedness is I'm still in my winter depression, despite the fact that it's spring. I don't really feel much like _anything_ except the occasional fancy that strikes me. You're supposed to go away now, thanks! Oh well, at least I seem to have shaken that cold (or series of colds) that've been dogging me for months.

And since this post is going to be using the canadiana tag anyway, just for an idle bit of fun. A number of my friends have mentioned the Law and Order: UK series. So, as is my wont, I began to think about Law and Order: Canada. So a Canadiana Challenge for any Canadians on my flist who want to participate (either in comments or your own journal). Cast a Law and Order Canada. The rules:
( Read more... )

Finally, I think I'll talk about the biggest of my recent timesinks lately. As you may remember, I got a new new computer recently. Now, my old new computer was rather old, and so I couldn't really play much in the way of games on it (I still have my old old computer, but it's pretty much just for web browsing my favorite sites, writing, and e-mail). I think the newest (non flash or simple puzzle) game I played on it was Planescape Torment. Or maybe Black and White. Whichever was newest. But now I can actually play new games. And, as it turned out, my brother had a copy of Fallout 3. So, I've been playing that. It's a post apocalyptic semi-RPG, semi-shooter. And it's reasonably fun. I think I'm about halfway through the main quest, but there are so many side quests I keep getting distracted with. I'm playing Good, because, well, I find it hard to play evil. I even started a new character to play evil for a while and whenever I tried to choose the evil conversation options I thought, "I don't want to say that, that's mean!". Not to mention things like blowing up a whole town.
Anyway, the game is fun but there are some annoyances, like characters who you just finished talking to a few seconds ago, asking you if you're back from the assignment they _just_ sent you on. And unrealistic things like where you see something happening, go away, do something else for a few days of game time, come back, and the people you left are all pretty much doing the exact same thing, as though no time had passed for them. Which got me thinking. What if you made a game that made use of that failing as a game mechanic, much like Planescape: Torment did with dying and respawning. And continued thinking and came up with a general plot sketch:
( Read more... ) In conclusion, I should totally write for video games!! Anyway, given that games play with time a lot, and how little I'm 'plugged in' to gaming news, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody already did something much like that. But it amused me anyway.

In comics, Marvel's announced Dark X-Men with a lineup of mostly people not usually in X-books, and continuing Marvel beating the adjective Dark into the ground. Personally, I'm waiting for Dark Runaways, with a returned Alex leading Topher (brought back to life for Dracula's war effort), Excavator, Penance/Hollow, and an alternate universe Squirrel Girl where she's a master thief who stole Doctor Doom's universe-travelling gear, her killer giant mutant squirrel Monkey Joe, and Mordred the Magician who's astrally inhabiting the body of Lotus, who accidentally summoned him. Or not. Anyway, although the lineup (of Dark X-Men) is kinda-sorta interesting in parts, I'm not bothering and can't wait until Marvel unDarks everything.

I think that's it for today. I do have a few memes saved up I need to get to but this is getting a bit long so I'll save them for a bit later.

Edit: Weird, while I was looking up the link to my review of Planescape: Torment, I stumbled on this post, from 2006, where (among other things), I relate a dream, that seems to be the general concept of (the most recent) New Warriors, combined with the title of Young X-Men. Marvel, are you reading my journal and stealing my ideas and making them crappier? Or reading my dreams?

Well, I finally finished Planescape Torment. Pretty good game overall. A little too linear at times and I would have liked to have explore more. Tiny bit buggy and annoying too. But overall good.

Specific thoughts:
( Read more... )

Some rambling thoughts about the Planescape setting itself and where thoughts like it takes me...:( Read more... )

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, back when I was... I dunno, youngish (probably around 15?), I was running a Planescape RPG for my brother and a couple other people. It wasn't great but I did come up with what I thought was a great adventure, involving the PCs suddenly finding themselves on a Baatezu (demon) mobile fortress, on a suicide mission in the middle of the Blood War. I found the file, and since I was in the spirit of the setting, decided to clean it up a little and put it online. It's called The Charge of the Dark Brigade. Still a little rough and sketchy in parts, and there are a couple winceworthy things like names and bits of dialog, but still I think the main plot holds up remarkably well.