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

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.)