media round-up

[sideways]

• I did a swan dive (ha ha) into the collective Duckverse, mostly by accident. It started out with alternating between rewatching favourite Darkwing Duck episodes and watching bits of the old Mighty Ducks cartoon - the former for easy brainfood, the latter mostly for the sake of slapping my knee and cackling over the basic premise. I then realised the new DuckTales reboot had Darkwing Duck episodes, watched those and was extremely charmed, and from there spent a long weekend watching the better part of said DuckTales reboot. Wasn't as fond of the series as a whole, but it was still an enjoyable ride. And it had the CUTEST end credits.

• On recommendation from killyhawk I've finally made it through The Owl House. I found the tone a bit wobbly, but it was still sweet and fun, and it's always a pleasure to see how far media has come in presenting a realistic range of lifestyles and experiences.

• The new Elvis movie was one of my plane picks. I feel like it was maybe weighted a little too heavily in Presley's favour, though I don't know enough about the man to say for sure, and it was definitely a little too long. Flashy and full of slammin' jams though, and I appreciated they went to a distinct effort to acknowledge the Black community's influence on his music style.

• Dog Day Afternoon was another plane movie. Cripes. Great acting. So many terrible choices.

• Holiday media with friends: made it through the effective first book of The Expanse TV series with weirderwest (aka played it in the background while we discussed the series in general); a season and a bit of Gargoyles (Greg Weisman your Shakespeare obsession is showing); and co-played some of Control with syntheid (TOGETHER, WE WERE... COMPETENT!!)

• Absolutely cannot seem to stick with a video game lately otherwise, and it's driving me a little crazy. I need to get my butt back to Spiritfarer at minimum.

• Kate Ashwin, author of the Widdershins comic, has confirmed the next chapter will be the last. I am very sad! Webcomic time means there is probably at least one last good year or two to be had with the gang, and I'll be keen to see whatever Ashwin does next, but still. Hard to face the final goodbye.

• Some recent earworm recs: Still Though We Should Dance for the peppy string chorus, Hold the Girl for the 80s ballad vocals, and Woman in Red for being an unexpectedly catchy answer to 'what is this character's singing voice like?'

• I've been binging House lately. Mixed feelings, shall we say.

Comments

[sideways]

It's funny how AMVs sometimes seem to go through song clusters - I can only assume because someone watches one and gets a lightbulb moment for their own fandoms.

If the zombie apocalypse House AU isn't called Patient Zero, what are they even doing.

Yes, the awareness is key. There's still a fair amount of House stanning that sometimes seems unreasonable ("he saves people!" also seems to give a LOT of their families lifelong emotional trauma, just sayin') but people are allowed to pushback, and he has those moments of guilt and regret when his actions go truly wrong.

See, it's funny, because when I was reading the actual Sherlock Holmes stories I don't remember walking away with the impression he was an asshole. So it's funny it's become such an accepted staple.

LOL, your poor doctor friend. Are there any medical series she can stand?

[atamascolily]

If the zombie apocalypse House AU isn't called Patient Zero, what are they even doing.

IDK, Residency Evil is also pretty great. :)

I wish I could find the tumblr post written by someone with a longtime chronic illness about how frustrating it was to deal with doctors, and how they would put up with so much of House's shit in exchange for an actual diagnosis--it was extremely thought-provoking! There are a lot of problems with the medical system, and one thing I liked about House as a show was that it was in an excellent position to point that out, even if they didn't do as much with it as they could have.

But House is also frequently punished by the narrative for his poor choices, which is refreshing after watching so many TV shows letting the writer's pet character get away with everything while experiencing no negative consequences whatsoever.

So it's funny it's become such an accepted staple.

I think it's because the media adaptations are better known, and so people just sort of accept the fanon as canon. Sort of like how every adaptation of Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and Dracula (to name just three others off the top of my head) are WILDLY different from the source material.

Are there any medical series she can stand?

NOPE. It's so hilariously funny. I did convince her to put some photos of Scully from The X-Files doing an autopsy into a Powerpoint presentation, though.

[sideways]

...Okay, touché, Residency Evil is pretty good XD

I think I saw that Tumblr post! And it does make a good point, and to House's slender credit he's well aware he's not a people person and usually operates through kinder proxies. But I did find it a little interesting that they argued House's attitude was preferable when he is in fact much akin to the kind of doctors in the real world who are guilty of overlooking things - assumes patients are lying as a default, dismisses their opinions and even their rights as people, is inclined to quickly brush them off in the 'humorous' clinic scenes even as they're telling him his diagnosis can't be right (and are sometimes correct!). The only difference is he LIKES a medical challenge so sticks with the curly cases. So while I get where they're coming from I don't think it would ever work in practice, lol.

Agree that the narrative generally skews away from being unbearably Writer's Pet though.