Recbox for GlassesOfJustice

[beyondthealgorithm_mod]

Username: GlassesOfJustice | glassesofjustice | glassesofjustice

I'm so excited for this and looking forward to finding a new thing-of-my-heart (no pressure).

Preferred Genres: Drama, Documentary; Crime; KDrama; Non-Fiction; Magical Realism; Sci-fi

DNW Genres: High Fantasy Novels; Horror

Preferred Media Types: Audiobooks; Books; Comics (TPB only); Film; Live-Action TV, Podcasts

DNW Media Types: Anime/Manga; Cnovels; Cartoons

General Likes: Banter; characters of color; complicated bio families; ensemble casts; found family; poly (potential); infidelity; the nineties; queer subtext; rainy/moody cinematography (e.g. Carol, Dark, The Killing); post-apocalypse; slow pacing; strong female characters (bonus if they’re over 45);

General DNWs: Camp; media that doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test; religion focus; sexual or violent trauma where the repercussions for the victim are never dealt with; soley male protagonists.

Fandom Preferences: As a perpetual rare pair shipper, I don't have strong feelings on this, but something popular in exchanges is a good place to start.

Requests for Content Warnings: Sexual/violent trauma to a main character (including a later revealed backstory).

Media enjoyed in 2020: The 100 (TV 2014-2020); Broadchurch (UK TV 2013-2017); Big Little Lies (TV 2017-2019); Dark (TV 2017-2020); Disclosure (2020); Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (2020); HTGAWM (TV 2014-2020); Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019); Search:WWW (TV 2019-); Star Trek: Discovery (TV 2018-); The Old Guard (2020); This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone; UnREAL (TV 2015-2018)

Examples of Media Enjoyed: About sentient AI/androids: Alex + Ada (Comic), Dark Matter, Humans (UK TV), Person of Interest; about the human condition: Life as a House, Mrs. Fletcher (TV)/Anything by Tom Perrota, Stumptown, Succession; Alpennia series by Heather Rose Jones; crime/heist/law/spy: Atomic Blonde, The Blacklist; Bone Collector, Departed, The Fall, Fast and Furious series, The Good Wife, James Bond, Law and Order: SVU, Lou Norton series by Rachel Howzell Hall, Luthor, Ocean's franchise, Reef Break, Terminator series, Tommy, Widows, The Wire; IN SPACE!: Wars and Trek; superpowered: MCU, DCEU

If you want to check out my Letterboxd it has various film lists I've made.

Examples of Media to Avoid: Haunting Hill House/Bly Manor; Mr. Robot; The Great

Already on my To Be Watched/Read lists: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Arrival; Arrowverse; BoJack Horseman; Dead to Me; Doctor Who; Expanse; Halt and Catch Fire; Killjoys; The Locked Tomb series; Lovecraft Country; Olivia Waite’s Feminine Pursuits series; Sense 8; Sharp Objects; Watchman; Westworld

Streaming Services I Can Access: Amazon Prime, CBS All Access, HBOMax, Hulu, Netflix, Kanopy

Languages I'm Comfortable With: English or anything with English Subtitles (Do Not Want english audio dub only).

Comments

[donutsweeper]

Have you tried the podcast 'The Strange Case of Starship Iris'? S1 was 10 episodes (and a full adventure, although S2 has been announced and should be airing in 2021) whose main character is Violet Liu, the most junior biologist aboard the Iris when everything starts going wrong and she's trying to figure out what to do when instead of the AI suddenly there's a woman's voice coming from the computer saying she's on her way to save her. (Lots, lots more happens but I don't want to give any of the twists and turns away).

It has lots of banter, found family, characters of color, a trans character (voiced by a trans actor), lots of strong female characters, aliens, intrigue and adventure. It's not post-apocalypse, but it is set right after a war against extraterrestrials that the earth barely won and is still feeling the effects of.

[glassesofjustice]

Thank you! I'm so happy you rec'ed me this and even though I've listened to it, I love knowing we have a shared fandom! ♥ - Plus it's 3000 something I enjoyed and so the rec process works!

[hogwartstoalexandria]

Hey dear!

I have two recs for you that would fit a number of the likes you have outlined! Both are books with TV show adaptations. I have consumed both TV shows and neither of the books but fully intend on picking them up. It was too good haha.

The first show I'm reccing is Truth Be Told, only accessible on Apple TV.
Reccing because:
- Features Octavia Spencer as the lead.
- Centers around a crime story featuring a VERY complicated bio family.
- Is not a podcast but features our MC Poppy Parnell (Octavia) as a crime journalist and podcaster!!
- Poppy's family is also very complicated and is peopled by other awesome POC actors such as: Ron Cephas Jones, Tracie Thoms, Michael Beach and I loved the whole cast really with Aaron Paul doing a really good job as well.
- Touches upon issues of: guilt; seeking truth in the past, in lies and in manipulation; racism; mental illness and estranged families.

The official synopsis goes as follows: True crime podcaster Poppy Parnell is called to investigate the case of convicted killer Warren Cave, a man she painted as the murderer of the father of identical twins. Soon, Parnell must decide where the lines between guilt and innocence lie when Cave claims that he was framed for the crime.

The first season is 8 episodes long and a second was announced to be produced in March.

The book was actually entitled: Are You Sleeping and was written by Kathleen Barber, and renamed after the show but, just checked, follows another character's perspective entirely! Which sounds pretty awesome to me and makes me want to pick the book even more so hopefully we can chat about that too, whenever and if this appeals to you!

Second rec!

Little Fires Everywhere! As I said before, is both a book and a miniseries of 8 episodes, this time available on Hulu (according to Google, we don'tget Hulu here so I'm pretty sure we watched in on Amazon).
Features:
- Reese Whiterspoon as Elena Richardson, the perfect (ha, actually maybe not) white, rich and successful mother of 3 perfect, white, rich and successful kids (ha, actually maybe not either!) who somehow decides to "help" a single mom out of the goodness of her heart HMMM and rent her her secondary house for not much money.
- Kerry Washington as Mia Warren, a black artist, single mom of Pearl (played by Lexi Underwood who is amazing) who moves around a lot, until she decides on this city, where she'll meet Elena and everyone's lives will change forever.

The story revolves a lot around motherhood and what it means to be a mother and more than that, a good one, with, evidently, two very different conceptions of it, so I know that may not be your ballpark generally speaking but I thought I'd still rec it in case the cast is an argument, and the complexity of the characters and the ideas of family that are depicted in it really pulled me in. Also features themes of class issues, conformism/belonging, art, infidelity and grief and a lonely queer kid.

The official pitch goes as follows:
Little Fires Everywhere follows "the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and an enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. The story explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger in believing that following the rules can avert disaster."

I hope these appeal to you, I had a great time watching them with a frankly amazing trio of lead actresses.

Love,
Marie 💙

[glassesofjustice]

Marie! Thanks friendo.

I had Little Fires Everywhere on my osmosed “this will be good” list, but reading this pitch, I actually had no idea it what it was about. Still on the list, just a bit higher now and with more context.

Octavia Spencer is 3000 a reason to rec something to me. I would literally watch her in anything. I watched SWAT recently and she plays a neighbor in an alley and it’s maybe a 30 second scene and you just instantly know it’s her. The podcast angle is interesting too.

I’m looking forward to both of these...eventually! Probably Octavia first because who knows how long I’ll have Apple TV.

Thanks again ♥

[glassesofjustice]

I forget if I ever told you but I finally watched LFE and really loved it. Now I am looking for an opportune time to request Izzy%Mia.

Rec: Tales from the Borderlands

[nowrunalong]

Hi GlassesOfJustice!

I got pretty excited reading your post because I think that Tales from the Borderlands falls into a lot of categories you seem to enjoy! I am not a video game person myself (so I may not use correct video game terminology xD), but I got super into this story via a rec from a friend (even going so far as to play it through multiple times!), and I’d love to tell you about it.

Tales from the Borderlands is an episodic game by Telltale, set in the same universe as the Borderlands games by Gearbox - no knowledge of those games is necessary to enjoy Tales. Unlike the first-person shooter games it shares a canon with, Tales comprises 5 episodes that are largely character- and dialogue-driven. To an extent, choices you make influence the final outcome of the story (although the essential plot remains the same). The game took me about 10-12 hours to play in entirety (averaging a little over 2 hours per episode, thereabouts). A quick search shows me that full playthroughs exist on YouTube that clock in at just over 9 hours.

Tales is set on the planet Pandora, which isn’t a post-apocalyptic setting per se, but it is a wasteland, comparable to Jakku in the Star Wars universe. The story revolves around a cast of characters attempting to locate & use a Vault Key; Vaults are famed to be valuable caches of alien technology.

I love this game because I think that the characters are fantastic. POV-wise, the game alternates between two main characters - Rhys and Fiona. Rhys works for Hyperion, a powerful corporation, aboard its enormous space station, and has committed his life to climbing the corporate ladder. He has a cybernetic eye and a cybernetic arm that increase his efficiency at his job. Fiona is a con-artist living on Pandora with her sister and their adoptive father figure. She is highly competent, clever, and very mistrusting of Rhys due to his connections to Hyperion. (I love her so MUCH.)

It’s an ensemble cast! Rhys and Fiona each bring a supporting character with them - Vaughn (left) is Rhys’s nerdy BFF, and Sasha is Fiona’s sister who plays the honey trap in their cons. The four of them are thrust together because of… I don’t want to spoil too much, but… mutual scheming stuff! :D And! Fiona and Sasha are ready to leave Rhys and Vaughn for dead, but they end up forming an unlikely team. Athena, a prodigious vault hunter with a murder-y past, also joins them for a little dysfunctional family road trip. Oh! And Gortys and Loader Bot, some very good robot friends (art by herrengels on twitter), also come along for the ride / become part of the fam. There are some complicated bio fam feels with Fiona and Sasha! (They love each other more than anything but their lives kinda suck!) There is so much bantering between Fiona and Rhys! (They're so good. I would liken their relationship to... Ellie and Alex in Broadchurch, maybe, or Beatrice and Benedick, in terms of Delightful Levels of Snark. Except that here, you can choose exactly how mean they are to each other. xD)

Another main character is Handsome Jack, Hyperion’s deceased head honcho who installs himself into Rhys’s cybernetics in AI form. Jack and Rhys’s dynamic is fairly entertaining - it’s manipulative and fucked-up in the way of… sharing headspace with an AI version of an evil dude who wants you dead, haha. I don’t personally ship them, but they’re the juggernaut ship of the fandom.

Regarding other shipping potential - romance is not a big part of the canon, but Rhys/Sasha is a possible outcome, and they’re pretty cute! (Although even they don’t actually get together on-screen.) I thiiiink that if you veer hard enough away from Rhys/Sasha, there is some implied Fiona/Rhys dialogue that is possible as well. Athena is canonically in a relationship with Janey. I am personally all over Fiona/Athena in my rare pair corner (Fiona is very easy to interpret as queer), and I recall reading a very enjoyable Fiona/Athena/Janey fic. Rhys’s coworker and friend-but-it’s-complicated, Yvette, is also compelling to ship with Fiona, for me! Honestly, most pairs that aren’t Rhys/Jack are basically rare pairs in Tales fandom, it’s good fun. xD (…I say, wishing for more femslash featuring Fiona.)

For women over 45... not much in that category, sadly, but Vallory 'the Queenpin' is one of the two primary villains. She is, quoting from the Tales wiki, “a rich and sarcastic gang lord”. She’s very ruthless! Really not very nice! I do find her to be somewhat interesting, but ultimately we know very little about her - she is not as developed as Jack, the other main antagonist, is. (Boo! Here is a great Vallory fanart from hydrae on Tumblr, though!)

You asked to be warned about violent trauma to a main character, so I will mention that the canon is kinda gory/violent (which is usually not something I can handle, but the animation style here makes it tolerable for me), and there is a scene in Chapter 5 which I would qualify as violent trauma to Rhys. He survives and is fine, but it's very in-your-face. I'm happy to elaborate further if you have questions. Other than that, there is a minor torturing-for-the-truth scene that happens to either Sasha or Vaughn, but it's not as graphic as the scene with Rhys. Again, very happy to elaborate on anything here!

For a story that has SPAAACE and AI and robots and heists and badass lady protagonists and ensemble-cast-that-becomes-found-family and ALSO there are canon queer women, and ALSO it’s not a huge time commitment, I recommend Tales from the Borderlands!!

Re: Rec: Tales from the Borderlands

[glassesofjustice]

Sorry for the slow reply. Your recommendation was so thoughtful and thorough. I’m a visual person, so I really appreciate the linked images of the characters. Also, ladies in suits is always an A+ aesthetic.

Took a bit of tracking down, but I was able to order a used copy for my PS4 today, so I’ll circle back when I have a chance to play. I’m terrible at actually playing video games, but I’m very intrigued by this story, so I’m committed now. Thanks again for taking the time to pitch me this so thoroughly. I highly enjoyed reading this.

Re: Rec: Tales from the Borderlands

[nowrunalong]

AGREED, I always need more ladies in suits. Fiona gets some fantastic outfits in this game.

You got a copy! This is exciting! I'm so glad you enjoyed this pitch - I hope you'll enjoy the story if/when you get a chance to play through it! (Side note: I'm awful at playing video games because I have no sense of timing/coordination/accuracy, but there were thankfully only a couple instances where that type of skill was required. xD Selecting a dialogue option is much more my speed.)