![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indi_timberpathI am not a big fan of winter. Especially living in a cabin on the side of a mountain where weather can be weird on the best of days. Sure would be nice if some of that weirdness worked out to nice summery days shortly after Longest Night, but that's apparently not how it goes, because what we got instead this year was an ICE STORM. Nothing so bad since then, but there's been a lot of cloudy-and-wet, and some sunny-but-way-too-cold. But this post isn't really about the winter, it's more about how I'm dealing with it.
My dad's giving me journal homework assignments again, thinking it'd be good to share more about myself, and where we live, and the thing he gave me this week is to talk about some of the books and shows I like. Which works pretty well for a season when I'm reading and watching a lot because it's harder to go out and do stuff.
So I guess mostly I watch and read a lot of science fiction stuff. A little fantasy sometimes, and honestly what I like the best is sort of in-between. One of the most fun things for me is when something takes its worldbuilding really seriously, even if it's not 'realistic', and really goes all the way working out the details of it. I love to see a world that I can really imagine myself living in, even if it's different from where I'm from, and having a lot of detail helps that out.
My favorite example of that is Galactic Odyssey, which is about an archaeological research crew who end up stranded on a huge ancient starship when it jumps halfway across the galaxy while they're investigating it. They have to keep finding out more about the ship itself, and the part of the galaxy that they're in, which turns out to be where the ship is from, so hopefully they can work out a way back home. I guess a big part of why I like it is that it's really nerdy, lots of details on future technology, and alien technology, and even things like linguistics (and of course archaeology). I like to imagine myself as someone on the ship, maybe someone who's good at figuring out weird alien computer interfaces, which is something I like to do anyway and would definitely come in handy there.
Another thing I like about the show it is how optimistic and empathetic it is. Sometimes shows like that focus a lot on conflict, either within the crew or at least with alien threats. That happens occasionally, but mostly it's about solving puzzles and making connection between people and cultures. It's also really diverse, with lots of different species and genders and even belief systems. I was surprised at first to see some folks in the show talk about the Conflux, or even about Everpack practice (a pretty rough and dramatic thing to deal with when you're stranded so far from your pack!). Usually science fiction sort of ignores that, or shows it in sorta a stereotypical way (or sometimes just be an extra-preachy show that's supposed to be shown in Circle School or something) but there's clearly lots of detail and thought put into that, as just another part of diversity.
Related to that, it's also a pretty hopeful show with lots of good progression in it. A lot of times you might have a show like that where being stranded or whatever is set up to be an ongoing problem that they never solve, but it's pretty clear that they're making progress in Odyssey. I would be surprised if they didn't make it back to home-space by the end of this season, even though I know there are more seasons coming. I bet in the other ones they'll find other places to go, continuing to explore using this ship that they know better and better. Pretty sure the ship itself is going to be an actual character too, or actually probably more than one. There's a lot of hints of that in the last several episodes.
So okay, that's a lot to say about just one show! There's also some good books I've been reading, the main one is a young-adult series called The Greenhollow Diaries, about rebuilding civilization in a fantastical world, after a big ecological disaster. The Greenhollow is one place that managed to shelter itself from floods and famines and fires, and they're now working to expand out into the world and show what's possible even though things are pretty messed up. A really cool thing about this one is that even though it's sort of a fantasy, a lot of the things they do have obvious parallels to things in the real world, and they help me learn more about how we live in harmony with our world and keep away the sort of ecological imbalance that was such a problem there.
I could write a lot more about that seriees, and other stuff too, but this has gotten pretty long and it's time for me to do some of my weekly devotions. Another things that's been going on lately, keeping me busy in winter, is I'm getting a bit more into helping Dad lead circle gatherings, and that's been really exciting too. But it means there's more Conflux study and work I have to do on my own too. So, off to do that now!
My dad's giving me journal homework assignments again, thinking it'd be good to share more about myself, and where we live, and the thing he gave me this week is to talk about some of the books and shows I like. Which works pretty well for a season when I'm reading and watching a lot because it's harder to go out and do stuff.
So I guess mostly I watch and read a lot of science fiction stuff. A little fantasy sometimes, and honestly what I like the best is sort of in-between. One of the most fun things for me is when something takes its worldbuilding really seriously, even if it's not 'realistic', and really goes all the way working out the details of it. I love to see a world that I can really imagine myself living in, even if it's different from where I'm from, and having a lot of detail helps that out.
My favorite example of that is Galactic Odyssey, which is about an archaeological research crew who end up stranded on a huge ancient starship when it jumps halfway across the galaxy while they're investigating it. They have to keep finding out more about the ship itself, and the part of the galaxy that they're in, which turns out to be where the ship is from, so hopefully they can work out a way back home. I guess a big part of why I like it is that it's really nerdy, lots of details on future technology, and alien technology, and even things like linguistics (and of course archaeology). I like to imagine myself as someone on the ship, maybe someone who's good at figuring out weird alien computer interfaces, which is something I like to do anyway and would definitely come in handy there.
Another thing I like about the show it is how optimistic and empathetic it is. Sometimes shows like that focus a lot on conflict, either within the crew or at least with alien threats. That happens occasionally, but mostly it's about solving puzzles and making connection between people and cultures. It's also really diverse, with lots of different species and genders and even belief systems. I was surprised at first to see some folks in the show talk about the Conflux, or even about Everpack practice (a pretty rough and dramatic thing to deal with when you're stranded so far from your pack!). Usually science fiction sort of ignores that, or shows it in sorta a stereotypical way (or sometimes just be an extra-preachy show that's supposed to be shown in Circle School or something) but there's clearly lots of detail and thought put into that, as just another part of diversity.
Related to that, it's also a pretty hopeful show with lots of good progression in it. A lot of times you might have a show like that where being stranded or whatever is set up to be an ongoing problem that they never solve, but it's pretty clear that they're making progress in Odyssey. I would be surprised if they didn't make it back to home-space by the end of this season, even though I know there are more seasons coming. I bet in the other ones they'll find other places to go, continuing to explore using this ship that they know better and better. Pretty sure the ship itself is going to be an actual character too, or actually probably more than one. There's a lot of hints of that in the last several episodes.
So okay, that's a lot to say about just one show! There's also some good books I've been reading, the main one is a young-adult series called The Greenhollow Diaries, about rebuilding civilization in a fantastical world, after a big ecological disaster. The Greenhollow is one place that managed to shelter itself from floods and famines and fires, and they're now working to expand out into the world and show what's possible even though things are pretty messed up. A really cool thing about this one is that even though it's sort of a fantasy, a lot of the things they do have obvious parallels to things in the real world, and they help me learn more about how we live in harmony with our world and keep away the sort of ecological imbalance that was such a problem there.
I could write a lot more about that seriees, and other stuff too, but this has gotten pretty long and it's time for me to do some of my weekly devotions. Another things that's been going on lately, keeping me busy in winter, is I'm getting a bit more into helping Dad lead circle gatherings, and that's been really exciting too. But it means there's more Conflux study and work I have to do on my own too. So, off to do that now!
no subject
Date: 2023-03-07 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-08 06:26 am (UTC)(OOC fun fact: I actually got prompts for both the show and the books by using ChatGPT, though I threw in a lot of embellishment myself; the stuff that ChatGPT put out was still pretty generic even after quite a bit of back-and-forth conversation. It's great to help with blank-page paralysis though!)