Raithe

Amiri, seriously, what in the Nine Hells is this crappy looking thing you are wielding? Because if that's a sword, then I'm dumping you and your weapon the minute I see you. Wannabe anime features are worse than karate-kid-monks in fantasy settings. Obviously the image comes from the iconic anime style... But the backstory is that as a Barbarian she gets those boosts to strength, and her native tribe has a fair bit of conflict with Frost Giants from the nearby mountains. So she has this a sword she claimed from the first Giant foe she killed that she's able to use whenever she goes into barbarian rage/frenzy. If I recall correctly.

Also, since there are those political celebrations happening on the other side of the Atlantic today, to our American friends I have to say, enjoy yourselves and..

As they say in the honest trailers, it makes a great teenage drama film right up until the point the fighting breaks out in the last 20 minutes of the film. The first half did give me a very Breakfast Club vibe.

Also, Buzz Aldrin speaking for so many people...

Justice Departments corporate crime watchdog resigns saying Trump makes it impossible to do the job

It normally happens between 20-40 pages. Depending on just how busy things get and how vitriolic the posts are being.

There's barely any dark and broody teenager angst in Wonder Woman. There's semi-angst that fits in naturally because of the whole WW1 element and the nature of war, but no deep, broody, dark-grim teenage angst for the sake of angst that so fills up the previous DC films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YibDgSd02Xk

Seriously, compared to the Batman or Superman films, there was barely any dark and broody angst.

Wonder Woman. Entertaining with minimal dark and broody angst and plenty of heart. Interesting take that the whole film is basically a flashback from the modern day Wonder Woman looking at a photograph sent to her by Wayne. Although curse my apparently highly refined trope spotting abilities, I somehow guessed the Ares reveal twist way before it happened.

On the somewhat literature related element: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/black-tide-rising-film#/ - A licensed proof of concept film bringing author John Ringo's "Black Tide Rising" universe to life.

Gah. Somehow climbed and jumped over a cliff I guess I wasn't meant to in Far Cry Primal. This led to achieving a story objective prior to getting there in the storyline, and now the storyline breaks so I can't actually finish the game. Hm, and the way it works, the previous save I have was already autoupdated , and hm, the next previous save is 4 hours of gameplay earlier. Joy. Now I have to find the appropriate time to stir up enthusiasm to replay 4 hours to get back there.

I always favour Lewis' Screwtape Letters to his Narnia chronicles.

The Black Company starts off quite well, if you like your Fantasy with a certain Vietnam War element. Although when you get down to it, it should technically be considered more a linked set of shorter series. The Books of the North (a trilogy), The Books of the South (a duology), and the Books of the Glittering Stone (a quartet) plus a spin off stand-alone story. The whole thing covers about 30-40 years of the mercenary company. The Books of the Norh start off as the viewpoint of a group of mercenaries who end up working for the Dark Lord. But the good guys are pretty crappily "bad" good guys as well, there's that vein of black humour that crops up in seasoned soldiers stuck in the trenches as it were. The Books of the South follow the company as they try to re-trace the origins of where they came from, and the Books of Glittering Stone turn more.. hm, philosophical in some sense about who they are as they head on to their glorious destiny. In regards to the Wheel of Time - Personally, I really loved the majority of t he series. As has been mentioned the middle few books start to stretch and slow down some. Part of it is the abundance of characters and sub-plots and how it shows the ripple effects of actions taken. Which, your mileage may vary. Most fantasy stories seem to treat the main party as if they're in a bubble. They act, but the world only changes in specific manner to their actions, they move on and the world goes back to what it was. The Wheel of Time expands on so much of the consequences of the initial actions, and pretty much compounds it as the story goes on. So by the last few books there is a LOT going on and a lot of characters reacting and acting to various events. To me, it felt like a much more living, breathing world than most other series I've read. Thomas Covenant... eh, it's one of those that can impress me on a certain literary level, but storywise it left me fairly repulsed. Cosmere - Again this is an odd one. Basically Sanderson has said all of his various series are set in this fictional universe. They don't really cross-over, each series is stand-alone to read. So it's better to take Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker etc on their individual series merits rather than go through them en-masse.

Detachment. The story of a substitute teacher and the three weeks he spends at an inner city American school. Full of quite serious names, Adrien Brody, James Caan, Christina Hendricks, Lucy Liu, William Petersen, Bryan Cranston.... Good acting, great writing about the flaws of humanity and dealing with each other while trying to connect and find relevance with life, but oh so incredibly depressing.

Did the trundle into the university to handle some of the basic admin, then query the course leaders about prep work before the September term starts. Got a few more details about the optional units and what they entail, then got given the advice that a lot of people on the course do some form of website creation as part of their year long project/research thesis but that those who do never get good marks or win any of the awards. Was told the best approach is to pick three optional units on an Easy / Medium / Hard approach. Pick one unit you know you can handle in your sleep, one that's a bit of a reach and one that's interesting but you'll have to work your ass off. And to make sure they'll all have some relevance to whatever I pick and that I should focus on one of four areas : Data - Analysis and Presentation, Security, Connectivity - Networking / Internet, and Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality. I'll have to sit down and put some thought into this. Also, how best to do the "creepy mature student" :

Dabbling around with GalCiv 3. They've made a few more changes over the years.