a vintage year for scoundrels

Batman: Gotham By Gaslight
Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: Indians in Britain 1700-1947 - Rozina Visram
*Shopgirls: The True Story of Life Behind the Counter - Pamela Cox and Annabel Hobley
*Family Secrets: Living With Shame from the Victorian Era to the Present Day - Deborah Cohen
Black Widow: The Tightly Tangled Web
Original Sin: Thor and Loki: The Tenth Realm
The Republic of Thieves - Scott Lynch
Heroes for Hire: Control
Green Arrow: The Archer's Quest
New Avengers: Breakout
Storm: Bring the Thunder
Truth: Red, White and Black
She-Hulk: Time Trials
The Last Camel Died At Noon - Elizabeth Peters
Heroes For Hire: Ahead of the Curve
*New X-Men: Academy X: Choosing Sides
*New X-Men: Academy X: Haunted
*New X-Men: Hellions
*New X-Men: Academy X: X-Posed
*New X-Men: Childhood's End, Vol 1
*New X-Men: Childhood's End, Vol 2: Crusade
The City of Silk and Steel - Mike Carey, Linda Carey and Louise Carey
*Phonogram: Rue Britannia
*Star Trek: The Crimson Shadow - Una McCormack
Posse of Princess - Sherwood Smith
She-Hulk: Laws of Attraction
The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters

(Another month of Marvel Unlimited! Though I read all the stuff I was really excited about last time I signed up, so most of this fell on a spectrum from "this was fine" to "this didn't quite annoy me enough to make me stop reading it", Truth: Red, White and Black being the honourable exception.)

( books and also comics )

Read "Bruce Wayne: The Road Home" last night! ...I don't think I was fully prepared for the reality of a book based around a recently back from the dead being lost-in-time Bruce Wayne lurking creepily around Gotham judging all his friends. D: (To quote an old children's radio play: "you've been back from the dead for five minutes and already I'm fed up with you.") But I was mostly reading it for the Batgirl bit and that was a DELIGHT, so. Quality Oracle and Steph snark! Setting up those brilliant pages from Batgirl #15 where Steph explains the Batfamily! And of course the glorious moment where Steph finds out what Bruce is up to, and slaps him in the face. YES. And then panics and runs away, but I can't really blame her for that. Especially since she then comes BACK and tells him off for how he treated her when she was Spoiler and Robin, and tells him that she's not going to let him take being Batgirl away from her. YESSSSSS. I kind of hate the bit on the next page, though, where Bruce explains that Steph being Batgirl was ~his plan all along~, ugh. I'm torn between being glad she didn't hear that, and wishing she had, so she could hit him again. And then call Cass, because their friendship is the BEST and I miss it. I've read quite a few of the Cass!Batgirl issues with Spoiler in them recently, and I love them SO MUCH. Especially when they hang out with Oracle. Babs-Cass-Steph team ups forever, please. TEAM BATGIRL.

Speaking of Steph, I am ridiculously upset about her being dropped from the Smallville comics. Not least because it's really dented my love for them. :( I was really looking forward to the Detective arc, and now I don't think I'm going to bother with it. (Not boycotting Smallville altogether! Just skipping that arc, because I don't want to spend money on stuff that will make me unhappy.)

In other comics related news, very disappointed that none of Marvel's recently announced films are about Black Widow. Or Monica Rambeau. Or any of the other Marvel women. SIGH. The worst part is, I'm not really surprised, either.

Well. This post got grumpier than I expected. Non-grumpily, ds9_rewatch have got to season four, which is where my own rewatch had got to, so I have jumped back in! I'm pretty bad at actually saying much in the chats, due to my general failings, but they're still really fun. Next up is "Little Green Men", I believe!

I have read "DS9: Warpath"! (Some time ago now, this has been my "restore from saved draft" for a while.) Here, have some feelings about it. ( spoilers )

In other spinoffery news, I read Timeless, the last EDA with Eight, Fitz and Anji. They're my favourite TARDIS team and they've had some cracking stories, but as a last hurrah, by an author who's written other things I liked, this was a bit of a disappointment. ( spoilers )

Also I watched some films! Captain America left me cold, though I am glad I have now seen all the individual films in time for (Marvel) Avengers (Assemble) (or whatever it's called now). Chake De! India, on the other hand, I loved. Apparently I really enjoy films about teams of women working together to be tough and brilliant and happy? WHO KNEW.

(Posting this from the new Dreamwidth "Create Entries" page! The tag box is BRILLIANT. LJ is down for me at the moment though so goodness knows if this will crosspost properly... hurray, it did!)

TELLY. First off, "The Happiness Patrol"!

( Happiness Will Prevail )


Also, Voyager. I have got to the episodes I've seen! Last up was "Retrospect".

( Earth's moon! I'm still dreaming! )


BOOKS. (Though also slightly TELLY.) cosmic_llin has been lending me the DS9 relaunch books and like her I liked them very much up to the end of Unity and then less so afterwards.

( spoilers for Worlds of DS9 volumes 1 and 2 )

And finally, tying together both the fandoms in this post, such_heights is running a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover fest YAY. It is in honour of the upcoming canon Doctor Who/TNG comics crossover, which I still cannot entirely believe is a real thing that is happening. TOO MUCH YAY TO BE BELIEVED.

My parents came to visit me today and asked me several times if I feel more responsible now that I am officially no longer a Youth (answer: no), but they also brought presents and daffodils and cake, so it was all good. We went to Brown's for lunch and I had a delicious bit of venison, yum yum yum. Then we came back and played Trivial Pursuits. Excellent.

This evening I watched DS9's "The Way of the Warrior". It is a cracking season opener, and for all it's full of action and drama, it's basically character led: so many of its scenes are just two people talking to each other about stuff. I loved that! More specific thoughts:

( with spoilers )

This weekend I mostly watched sci-fi. FROM A PREVIOUS MILLENNIUM.

Some of it was Deep Space Nine:
( Family Business, Facets, The Adversary )

Also there was Doctor Who.
( The Time Monster, The Three Doctors )

There was Blake's 7 and Babylon 5, but I do not feel moved to pass comment on either at this time. Off now to watch an episode of B5 that I have never seen before, exciting stuff.

Here be my answers to the five things meme! (Any more for any more?) Contains spoilers for: "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse" (The Middleman),Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Spooks, DS9 and Buffy, most of which are probably common knowledge by now but better to err on the side of caution and all that. Also contains some pictures.

Some of these were v. hard. FIVE IS NOT THAT MANY :(

persiflage_1 asked for:

( Your Top 5 Sixth Doctor stories (TV or non-TV!) )

and

( Your Top 5 Favourite Companions )

and

( Your Top 5 Favourite Big Finish audios )

biichan asked for:

( Top Five Alternate Team TARDISes (that should have happened but didn't) )

marah_sarie asked for:

( Top Five Blake's 7 episodes )

and lesbiassparrow asked for:

( Top 5 fictional couples that broke up but totally shouldn't have. )

Here be my answers to the five things meme! (Any more for any more?) Contains spoilers for: "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse" (The Middleman),Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Spooks, DS9 and Buffy, most of which are probably common knowledge by now but better to err on the side of caution and all that. Also contains some pictures.

Some of these were v. hard. FIVE IS NOT THAT MANY :(

persiflage_1 asked for:

( Your Top 5 Sixth Doctor stories (TV or non-TV!) )

and

( Your Top 5 Favourite Companions )

and

( Your Top 5 Favourite Big Finish audios )

biichan asked for:

( Top Five Alternate Team TARDISes (that should have happened but didn't) )

marah_sarie asked for:

( Top Five Blake's 7 episodes )

and lesbiassparrow asked for:

( Top 5 fictional couples that broke up but totally shouldn't have. )

1.) It's hot and stuffy at work today and I haven't been sleeping well (went out to buy new earplugs at lunchtime (it was raining. Of course it was raining), hopefully that'll help), plus it's been busier than usual at work these last few days, so generally I'm a bit irritable and grumpy. Bah. But on the plus side, I got an exciting package from Big Finish today containing Benny audios and books (and another copy of last month's Vortex, anyone want it?), so hurray for that.

2.) Finished Un Lun Dun by China Miéville (tigerpixie, this is the book that the_smut_fairy and I were talking about at last night's S'n'W) which I really loved: since it's a children's book, it's not as complex, twisty or grotesque as his other books, and the resolution is a lot more sign-posted, but it's still very satisfying. The main character is excellent and very convincingly real, and the whole book is full of inventiveness and puns, in a way that reminded me a little of Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series, which I also like. Though on the whole I think I prefer Un Lun Dun.

3.) Sadly I won't be able to go to this, because it looks like fun: flash pillow fight in Trafalgar Square!

4.) I watched DS9's 'Life Support', among other episodes, last Friday, and was really bothered by the B-plot, so much so that it's nearly a week later and I still feel moved to write about it. ( spoilers ) I also watched 'Heart of Stone', which I think suffered a little from following on right after 'Life Support': ( more spoilers )

5.) One last link: "Some 65 years after their service, the 300 surviving Women Airforce Service Pilots are being honored with the Congressional Gold Medal." Heartbreaking to read how these pilots' efforts and sacrifices were overlooked because of their gender, but wonderful that they're finally getting the recognition they deserve.

I have two episodes of DS9 to watch at home and they are caaaallllling to me. Watching DS9 on a Thursday is RIGHT and PROPER as that is the day it used to be on BBC2, unless my memory is wrong again. Buffy was on Thursdays after BBC2 stopped showing DS9, which was good too. My mum used to do the supermarket shopping on a Thursday and she always bought some cheesecake or baked goods for us to eat whilst watching. I do actually have a cheesecake at home, I made a lemon one at the weekend. It's not particularly great - the texture is wrong - but second rate cheesecake > no cheesecake. I will have to steal my mum's pineapple cheesecake recipe at some point.

Anyway. Last night I watched the other two episodes on the disc, The Search, parts 1 and 2. It was nice to watch it for the second time, knowing ( spoilers )